Ezekiel

Ezekiel

Category: Major Prophets

Written: c. 593 BC - 571 BC

By: Ezekiel

Topic: Prophecy and Warning

Location: Babylon

Purpose: To confront people about their sin, give them one last chance to repent, and offer hope.

Outline (chapter)​

• Ezekiel (1-3)

• Call of the Prophet (1:1–3:27)

• Judgment of Judah (4-24)

• Before the Siege of Jerusalem (4:1–24:27)

• Judgment of the Nations (25-32)

• Prophecies Against Foreign Nations (25:1–32:32)

• The End of the Age (33-39)

• Hope for the Future (33:1–39:29)

• Restoration of Temple (40-48)

• The New Israel (40:1–48:35)

Theological Significance

• Ezekiel focuses uniquely on Israel as the holy people of the holy temple, the holy city and the holy land

• The unfolding of God's saving purposes in the history of the world

• from the time in which he must withdraw from the defilement of his covenant people

• to the culmination of his grand design of redemption

• Ultimately eschatological

• Anticipates, even demands, God's future works in history proclaimed by the New Testament.

Prophesies (chapter)

• Prophecies against Judah and Jerusalem (1–24)

• Prophecies against the foreign nations (25–32)

• Prophecies of hope and salvation ( 33–48)

The Temple (chapter)

• Desecrated temple fit for destruction (8-11)

• Restored and purified temple (40-48)

Symmetry

• Vision of the desecrated temple fit for destruction (chapters 8-11)

• Vision of the restored and purified temple (chapters 40-48)

• God in agitated wrath (chapter 1)

• God of comfort (48:35)

• Ezekiel's call to be a watchman announcing divine judgment (chapter 3)

• Ezekiel's call to be a watchman announcing the new age to follow (chapter 33)

• Mountains of Israel receive a prophetic rebuke (chapter 6)

• Mountains of Israel are consoled (chapter 36)

Major visions (chapter)

• Throne (1-3)

• Temple (8-16)

• Valley of Dry Bones (37:1-14)

• Temple (40-48)

12 symbolic acts

• 3:22-26; 4:1-3; 4:4-8; 4:9-11; 4:12-14; 5:1-3; 12:1-16; 12:17-20; 21:6-7; 21:18-24; 24:15-24; 37:15-28

Five messages in the form of parables

• chapters 15-17; 19; 23

Revelation of God (chapter)

• God will be revealed in the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple (1-24)

• The nations will know God through his judgments (25-32)

• Promise that God will be known through the restoration and spiritual renewal of Israel (33-48)

Key Verse: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

Prophet: ​

• Ezekiel

• Prophesied to Exiles in Babylon (First prophet called by God outside Israel during Babylonian Captivity; Foresaw the Fall of Jerusalem (S. Kingdom) to Babylon in 586 BC; Foresaw the Restoration of Israel and the Temple)

• 620 BC - 570 BC

• Home/Location: Babylon (During Divided Kingdom, 930 BC - 586 BC; After fall of N. Kingdom (Israel) to Assyrians in 722 BC; During Exile, 585 BC - 514 BC; Born in the Land of Israel to his father Buzi; Deported to Babylon by the river Chebar in 597 BC)

Categories: Bible, Old Testament, Major Prophets