A Journey Through The Old Testament - Elmer Towns

transferred by God from the priestly function at the fall of Jerusalem and the collapse of the
levitical offerings. But after God’s people returned from captivity, the high-priestly office gained
prominence in Israel until the coming of Jesus Christ. Ezekiel’s call came in his thirtieth year
(1:1), in the fifth year and on the fifth day of the fourth month of King Jehoiachin’s captivity (v.
2). He got the prophetic gift (3:lff) and continued in ministry for twenty-seven years from 593 to
571 B. C. (29:17). The fact that Ezekiel began his ministry at age thirty is not surprising. Both
Jesus and John the Baptist began their ministries at age thirty. At this age the priest began his
ministry (Num. 4:23, 30, 33).
Tradition suggests he was a student of Jeremiah; however, it is not found in the context of
his writings. Should it be true, he would have followed the example of Jeremiah, who was also
both a priest and prophet and perhaps influenced by the godly revival under Jeremiah’s father.
Ezekiel was taken as a captive to Babylon after the second siege of Jerusalem in 597 B.C.
He and his wife settled in a colony on the banks of the Chebar River near Babylon. He probably
spent the rest of his life in ministry there. In his own evaluation of the content and emphasis of
his ministry, Ezekiel simply states, “The heavens were opened and I saw visions of God” (Ezek.
1:1).
As a captive he was not in prison. He lived by the River Chebar, which was a Euphrates
canal (probably dug by man) near Nippur (v. 3; 3:15). An American expedition found records in
the city from a business house named “Murashu and Sons,” with a number of accounts with
Jewish names. The Jewish “captives” lived in their own houses Ger. 29:5). Ezekiel probably
owned his home (Ezek. 3:24). The Jews retained the rule of elders (8:1; 14:1; 20:1). So their life
was not cruel; owing to the fact many did not want to return at the end of the seventy years of
Captivity, their life must have been pleasant.
The Jews were “prisoners of fate” in that they lost their country, their capital city, their
temple, their worship, and their independence as a nation.
Ezekiel was happily married in Babylon and perhaps had settled into reconstructed life.
God revealed to him his wife, “the desire of his eyes,” would die suddenly through sickness
(24:15ff), but he was commanded not to weep for her. This was a sign that Jerusalem, “the desire
of Israel’s eyes,” would be destroyed but the Jews were not to weep for the city because God was
judging sin. As with other prophets, God used a symbolic action to communicate a message. The
next day Ezekiel’s wife died.
Ezekiel’s ministry was unique in that he was the first of the prophets to use an
apocalyptic style so extensively in his writing and preaching. He saw visions and communicated
them descriptively with colors, movement, and imagery. None of the Old Testament prophets
used as much symbolic imagery as did Ezekiel. Like Jeremiah, he would at times resort to the
use of object lessons to illustrate his messages from God. But unlike Jeremiah, the real focus of
his ministry was not what God would do immediately so much as what God intended to do in the
distant future. When Ezekiel saw visions in the Holy Land of Jerusalem, the commentators are
not sure if God took him there physically to actually see what he described, or if he saw it in
visions or dreams.
Some have suggested Ezekiel was an epileptic because he lay speechless and motionless
without power of speech, a form of catalepsy (3:24ff). But that is probably not the case because
he remained motionless in obedience to a direct command of God as a symbolic action. Also,
Ezekiel never describes it as a disease.
Ezekiel’s message was not well received by the Jews in Captivity. He describes them as
being stubborn (v. 26); they had a mind harder than a rock (v. 9). The Jews perceived Ezekiel as