Ezekiel (Hebrew for “may God strengthen”) is the third of the major prophets of the Old Testament. Unlike his older contemporary, Jeremiah, who provides the fullest personal information of  all the prophets, Ezekiel provides the least.  He does not indicate the date of his birth, nor do his disciples pin-point the date of his death. Ezekiel was a priest, the son of Buzi, a priest of Jerusalem. He lived by the bank of the river Chebar in Babylon (1:3), near its principal settlement, Tel Abib. He was married and the death of his wife is narrated in Chapter 24, verse 16ff, the only passage in the book in which Ezekiel expresses any personal feeling. His first prophecy is dated 593 B.C. and his last 571 B.C. Thus his prophetic ministry extended over twenty-two years.

  As an Israelite prophet, Ezekiel is unique in many ways. He was, as far as is known, the only prophet to receive his call to prophecy not in Palestine but in a foreign land to exiles (1:3). Unlike the prophets who preceeded him, he exhibits an intense interest in cultic and ritual matters. Other prophets had been priests (Jeremiah, for example), but Ezekiel was the first to prophecy in strictly priestly terms. Besides the strong priestly cast of Chapters 40-48, the prophetic sermons (e.g. 18:5-23) often read like a priestly torah (law). Nevertheless, Ezekiel was a prophet before he was a priest. In his use of the characteristic symbolic phrase e.g. 6:11; 21:19; 33:20), he excels all other pophets.

  Yet, Ezekiel is primarily a visionary The book attributed to him contains four formal visions which occupy a substantial part of it; Chapters 1-3,8-11, 37 and 40-48. These visions reveal to the reader a fantastic and often unintelligible world: the four living creatures of Yahweh’s chariot, which from the beginning of Christian art have symbolized the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; the monstrous performance  of worship in the Temple with swarms of beasts and idols; the dry bones that come to life; the blueprint of the future temple from which an imaginary river flows through a geographic utopia. This vivid imagination Ezekiel applies also to his allegories Oholah and Oholibah, Chapter 23; the Shipwreck of Tyre, Chapter 27; Pharaoh and the Crocodile, Chapters 29 and 32; the Giant Tree, Chapter 31; the Descent into Sheol (hell), Chapter 32.

  In contrast with this gift of a most extraordinary imagination, and possibly at the price of it, Ezekiel’s style is dull and colorless. Compared to the simplicity and soaring splendor of Isaiah and the infectuous  ardor of Jeremiah, his book is frigid and feckless. However, he excels in evoking awe before the mysteries of God, and his complicated visions prepare the reader for those detailed in the Book of Daniel. Although the Book of Ezekiel is the least cited or alluded to of the prophetic books of the New Testament, it is not surprising to find his visions influencing St. John the Evangelist in the Book of Revelation.

  Biblical commentators differ in numbering the divisions of this book. Most simply, it can be divided into two parts. The central point of the work is the fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.), what goes before (Chapters 1-32) being prophetic of doom, and what follows (Chapters 33-48) inspired by the hope of restoration and ending with a vision of the ideal temple. Like other prophets, Ezekiel combined both judgment and consolation in his message. He protested against the rebellion against Babylonian rule, jointly plotted by patriots in Jerusalem and the exiles, interpreting Judah’s subjugation as a discipline of God, a consequence of the people’s idolatry and other vices. It is almost impossible to imagine what the sacking of Jerusalem meant to the faithful Jew who believed that God’s designs in history were bound up with his nation, with the Davidic dynasty, with Zion and its Temple. What of God’s designs and Israel’s destiny now?

  Once this disaster and desolation foretold by Ezekiel occurred, he exudes hope and confidence in a future return of the exiles. Unlike his predecessors, he had made no appeal to the past history of his people. Despite his priesthood and affection for the sanctuary, Ezekiel breaks with tradition, asking is God inseparable from the Temple. Ritual remains, but to him derives its value from the disposition of the participants. His entire teaching centers on inner conversion. Men must achieve “a new heart and a new spirit” (18:31). Rather God will Himself bestow “another” heart and infuse a “new” spirit (11:19;36:26).

    Thus the new heart is at the core of Ezekiel’s consoling communication of hope and confidence in God. In the Old Testament, wisdom, discernment, knowledge and will included in the Semitic conception of heart. In the Old Testament, as among Western people, heart is the key word to connote the deepest part of man’s being and activity.

  Ezekiel is the first prophet to emphasize that this transformation to a new heart could only come about by repentance following the free gift of God’s grace. Furthermore, he stresses individual rather than collective responsibility (Chapter 18). He believes that Yahweh will vindicate His holiness before the whole world by the restoration of Israel. The prophet is acutely aware of the nothingness of man in comparison with God. Eighty-seven times he employs the expression “son of man” meaning that man is mortal.

  Ezekiel begins a tradition of unworldly spirituality persisting throughout Judaism and emerging in the New Testament, especially in the theologies of St. Paul and St. John. He also mentions the Messiah. To Ezekiel, there will be a new David, not a glorious king but a “shepherd” of his people (34:23). The compassion expressed in Chapter 34 (as well as the awesome rebuke) must rank among the most compelling passages in the Old Testament. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, offers the same comfort (and warning) in similar parables, some of which, with Ezekiel 34:11-16, are used in Masses in honor of the Sacred Heart. Jesus, then, is the founder of the worship “in spirit” that Ezekiel had prophesied. By raising all the facets of the Israelite faith to a lofty spiritual level, Ezekiel makes his most important contribution.

  Any Holy Year’s call to renewal and reconciliation echoes Ezekiel’s doctrine of “a new heart and a new spirit.” The inner conversion has ecumenical overtones for Jews, Moslems, and all Christians. Jews still recite in the synagogue on the Sabbath, during Passover and on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) prayers and hymns drawn from the Book of Ezekiel. The current rallying cry, “Black is beautiful,” finds further substance in Negro spirituals such as “Ezekiel Saw the Wheels” (1:16) and “Dry Bones” (37:7). The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius stresses this change of heart as the first step in becoming a true witness to Christ.