What the book is
Ezekiel was a priest taken to Babylon with the first group of exiles in 597 BC. Beside the Chebar canal, he sees a vision of God’s glory: living creatures with four faces, wheels within wheels, and above them a throne, and on it a figure like a human being, surrounded by brightness “like a rainbow in the clouds on a day of rain” (1:28). God calls him “son of man”, a mortal standing before God, and sends him to a rebellious people.
Before Jerusalem falls in 587 BC, Ezekiel’s message is judgment: in a vision he sees the glory of the LORD leave the temple. After the city falls, his message turns to hope. God will give his people a new heart:
I will give you a new heart, and I will place a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your bodies and give you a heart of flesh.
In a valley of dry bones, the breath of God brings a whole army to life, and the book ends with a vision of a new temple and a city whose name is “The LORD Is There” (48:35).
Who wrote it, and when
The book is written mostly in Ezekiel’s own voice, and many of its oracles are dated, from 593 to 571 BC. Most readers, scholars among them, hold that it comes largely from Ezekiel himself and from those who preserved his words among the exiles, though some think parts were expanded later, especially the closing vision of the temple.
How the book is laid out
- Ezekiel’s call (1–3): the vision of God’s glory and the scroll he is told to eat.
- Judgment on Jerusalem (4–24): sign-acts, the glory leaving the temple (8–11), parables of the vine and the unfaithful wife, and each person’s responsibility for their own sin (18).
- Oracles against the nations (25–32): Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre and Egypt.
- Restoration (33–39): the watchman, the good shepherd, a new heart and a new spirit, the valley of dry bones, and Gog of Magog.
- The new temple and the new land (40–48): its measurements, its worship, the river flowing from it, and the tribes’ portions.
How Open Word Bible translates Ezekiel
Son of man (2:1). God addresses Ezekiel as “son of man” more than ninety times. The phrase means a human being, a mortal standing before God, and the draft keeps it at every level, with no gender setting, so that readers can see the link with Daniel 7 and with Jesus’s name for himself. See “Son of Man”: Daniel 7, Ezekiel and the words of Jesus.
The vision of the chariot (1). The creatures, wheels and throne are described with rare and uncertain words, such as the gleaming substance at the centre of the fire. The draft translates them as Ezekiel describes them, marks the hard words uncertain, and footnotes the readings.
Each one responsible (18). “The person who sins is the one who will die” (18:4). God takes no pleasure in anyone’s death: “So turn back and live!” (18:32).
The dry bones (37). The Hebrew word for breath, wind and spirit is the same, and the chapter plays on all three: the prophet calls on the breath, the four winds, and God’s Spirit. The draft follows the sense of each verse, and the decisions explain the play. See Wind, breath and Spirit.
The king of Tyre (28:12–19). The lament over the king of Tyre speaks of Eden, a cherub and a fall from the holy mountain, and has often been read of Satan’s fall. The decisions keep it as a lament over the king, mark the hard lines uncertain, and footnote the other readings, among them whether the king “was a cherub” or was placed “with the cherub”.
Gog (38:2). God speaks against “Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal”. The word translated “chief” has also been taken as a place name, Rosh; the decision explains why the draft reads it as a title.
The divine name. Ezekiel’s most frequent refrain is “then you will know that I am the LORD”, and he often calls God “the Lord GOD”, where small capitals stand for God’s personal name. A reader setting shows “Yahweh” instead. See the divine name.