Ezekiel: the glory departs and returns

Ezekiel is the book of the visions and messages of a priest taken captive to Babylon. God's glory leaves a temple defiled by sin, but God promises a new heart and a new spirit, raises dry bones to life, and at last returns in glory.

A prophet above a valley of dry bones

About the book

The name Ezekiel means ‘God strengthens’. Ezekiel, a priest, the son of Buzi (Ezekiel 1:3), was taken to Babylon in 597 BC with King Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24:15). In the fifth year of that exile, 593, by the River Kebar, he writes, "the heavens opened and I saw visions of God" (Ezekiel 1:1). Many of his messages are dated, the latest to about 571 (Ezekiel 29:17). Before Jerusalem fell he rebuked the exiles' false hopes; after a fugitive brought the news, "The city has been taken!" (Ezekiel 33:21), he brought them hope. The map under the Jesus tab places the book in the exile (586–539 BC).

God calls him again and again "Son of man" (Ezekiel 2:3): a mortal, a frail human being before God. The book speaks throughout in Ezekiel's own voice, with its dates and a style that holds steady from start to finish. Jews and Christians have received it as his, and most scholars today also see Ezekiel as its source, though they differ over how far his disciples gathered and shaped it. Many scholars, among them evangelicals, who stress the authority of Scripture and the telling of the gospel, hold that Ezekiel left the book much as we have it.

How it unfolds

A plan of a temple in which an inner court and sanctuary sit within a square outer court ringed by rows of columns and chambers, with Latin notes along the edges. — Juan Bautista Villalpando, Plan of the Temple of Jerusalem, from In Ezechielem explanationes, 1604 · Source

Chapters	What happens
1–24	Judgement on Jerusalem: the call, acted signs, the glory leaves the temple (10–11)
25–32	Words to the nations: Ammon, Tyre, Egypt
33–39	Restoration: the watchman, the true shepherd (34), a new heart (36), dry bones (37)
40–48	A new temple: the glory returns (43), the river flowing from the temple (47)

Key passages

The book opens with a vision of God enthroned: "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD" (Ezekiel 1:28). God was not bound to a temple soon to fall: he came to the exiles by the Kebar. But in chapters 8–11 Ezekiel sees idols worshipped in the temple itself, until "the glory of the LORD rose up from within the city and stood over the mountain east of the city" (Ezekiel 11:23). Still God pleads, "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live" (Ezekiel 33:11).

The promise of restoration begins in the heart:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.
Ezekiel 36:26-27

Matthew Henry writes, "Renewing grace works as great a change in the soul, as the turning a dead stone into living flesh" Matthew Henry. In the valley of chapter 37 the people are dry bones, saying, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished" (Ezekiel 37:11). God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to them:

Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Lord GOD says to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you will come to life.
Ezekiel 37:4-5

In chapters 40–48 Ezekiel sees a new temple, and "the glory of the LORD filled the temple" (Ezekiel 43:5). Water flows from under its threshold and becomes a river: "wherever the river flows, everything will flourish" (Ezekiel 47:9). The city's name is "THE LORD IS THERE" (Ezekiel 48:35).

This temple vision is read in more than one way. Many interpreters since the church fathers read it as a picture of God dwelling again among his people, fulfilled in Christ and the church and at last in the new heavens and new earth. Dispensational premillennialists, who see God dealing with Israel and the church distinctly, take its measurements and laws as they stand, of a temple to be built when Christ reigns on earth. Many scholars read it as a plan of right worship for the community returning from exile, noting that Ezekiel is to describe the temple "so that they may be ashamed of their iniquities" (Ezekiel 43:10). Matthew Henry calls the vision "one of the most difficult portions in all the book of God", and bids us thank God "that our salvation does not depend upon it" Matthew Henry. Christ’s return and the millennium, in the doctrine course, sets out the readings behind these views.

The book and Christ

Clear water runs out from under the threshold of a great plain stone temple gateway and flows east down a barren valley, widening into a deep river lined on both banks with leafy fruit trees. — Water flowing out from under a temple threshold and becoming a river

In chapter 34 God rebukes the false shepherds and says, "I Myself will search for My flock and seek them out" (Ezekiel 34:11); he will set over them "one shepherd, My servant David" (Ezekiel 34:23). Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep" (John 10:11).

When Jesus told Nicodemus that "no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit" (John 3:5), and asked how Israel's teacher did not understand, many interpreters hear the promise of chapter 36: clean water, and a new spirit within. New birth and the indwelling Spirit, in the doctrine course, says more. Jesus promised that "Streams of living water will flow from within him" who believes (John 7:38), and John saw "a river of the water of life" flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Revelation 22:1). In that city he saw no temple, "because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple" (Revelation 21:22). The glory that departed returns in Christ, to dwell with his people for ever.

Reading it

Two chapters a day takes twenty-four days; begin with Ezekiel 1. Read the visions of chapter 1 and chapters 40–48 for their picture; you need not work out every measurement. Notice the dates heading chapters: they show the story's course.

Read chapters 34–37 slowly. Then go on to Daniel.

Practice

Practice 1 of 6
Where did Ezekiel first see visions of God and receive his call?
Practice 2 of 6
What happens to the glory of the LORD in Ezekiel 8–11?
Practice 3 of 6
What does God promise his people in Ezekiel 36?
Practice 4 of 6
In Ezekiel 37, who does God say the dry bones are?
Practice 5 of 6
In Ezekiel 34, who says he will search for the scattered sheep?
Practice 6 of 6
Which reading of the temple vision of Ezekiel 40–48 is paired with those who hold it?

Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.