Book of Ezekiel

[16] While the book exhibits considerable unity and probably reflects much of the historic Ezekiel, it is the product of a long and complex history and does not necessarily preserve the very words of the prophet.

[2] According to the book that bears his name, Ezekiel ben-Buzi was born into a priestly family of Jerusalem c.623 BC, during the reign of the reforming king Josiah.

Prior to this time, Judah had been a vassal of the Assyrian empire, but the rapid decline of Assyria after c. 630 led Josiah to assert his independence and institute a religious reform stressing loyalty to Yahweh, the God of Israel.

A further deportation of Jews from Jerusalem to Babylon occurred in 586 when a second unsuccessful rebellion resulted in the destruction of the city and its Temple and the exile of the remaining elements of the royal court, including the last scribes and priests.

[citation needed] The pendulum swung back in the post-war period, with an increasing acceptance of the book's essential unity and historical placement in the Exile.

He isolates the oracles and speeches behind the present text, and traces Ezekiel's interaction with a mass of mythological, legendary and literary material as he developed his insights into Yahweh's purposes during the period of destruction and exile.

[22] Ezekiel depicts the destruction of Jerusalem as a purificatory sacrifice upon the altar, made necessary by the abominations in the Temple (the presence of idols and the worship of the god Tammuz) described in chapter 8.

[27] Ezekiel's imagery provided much of the basis for the Second Temple mystical tradition in which the visionary ascended through the Seven Heavens in order to experience the presence of God and understand His actions and intentions.

[28] There was apparently some question concerning the inclusion of Ezekiel in the canon of scripture, since it is frequently at odds with the Torah (the five "Books of Moses" which are foundational to Judaism).

[29] To take just two well-known passages, the famous Gog and Magog prophecy in Revelation 20:8 refers back to Ezekiel 38–39,[30] and in Revelation 21–22, as in the closing visions of Ezekiel, the prophet is transported to a high mountain where a heavenly messenger measures the symmetrical new Jerusalem, complete with high walls and twelve gates, the dwelling-place of God where His people will enjoy a state of perfect well-being.

• A heavily modified version of one passage of the book appears in the Sonny Chiba movie Karate Kiba (The Bodyguard; 1976), where it is both shown as a scrolling text and read by an offscreen narrator and claimed to be Ezekiel 25:17.

A mid-12th-century Flemish piece of copperwork depicting Ezekiel's Vision of the Sign "Tau" from Ezekiel IX:2–7. The item is held by the Walters Museum .
Scroll of the prophet Ezekiel
Manuscript in Hebrew and Latin from England , early 13th century, showing part of Ezekiel 30
Monument to Holocaust survivors at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem ; the quote is Ezekiel 37:14.