The Book of Ezekiel is one of Scripture’s most challenging and visionary texts, a work that has captivated, bewildered, and inspired readers for nearly twenty-five centuries. If you are coming to it for the first time, you should know that Ezekiel is not a comfortable book. It features surreal imagery, hard judgments, and a prophet who enacts bizarre symbolic gestures in public. Yet it is also a book of profound hope, theological depth, and stunning artistry. Understanding its major themes will help you navigate its strange terrain.

The Historical Setting

Ezekiel prophesied during one of the darkest moments in Judah’s history. He was a priest taken into exile by the Babylonians in 597 BCE, living among the deportees by the River Chebar in Mesopotamia. While the temple still stood in Jerusalem, it would fall in 587 BCE, and the nation would be shattered. Ezekiel’s task was to help a displaced, traumatized people understand what had happened and why God had allowed it. This context shapes everything in the book.

Central Themes

The Holiness and Justice of God

Ezekiel’s fundamental concern is God’s character, particularly God’s holiness and the seriousness of covenant violation. The book opens with Ezekiel’s overwhelming throne vision, where he encounters God’s glory (kabod) as a blazing, mobile manifestation that transcends the Jerusalem temple. For Ezekiel, God is not confined to one place or one people. This vision establishes that the exile is not the end of God’s presence or power; rather, God’s holiness demands judgment for idolatry and injustice. The repeated refrain “then they will know that I am the LORD” (it appears more than 60 times throughout the book), underscores that God’s actions, both punishing and restoring, serve to demonstrate divine character to the nations.

Accountability and Corporate Responsibility

Ezekiel challenges the notion that individuals bear no responsibility for their community’s sins. He critiques the proverb “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (18:2), arguing instead for personal accountability before God. Yet he also speaks to the nation collectively, using the metaphor of Jerusalem as an unfaithful wife and Israel as a vine that has failed to bear fruit. This tension between individual and corporate responsibility remains one of the book’s enduring insights.

Restoration and New Beginning

Though Ezekiel is remembered as a prophet of doom, and chapters 1–24 are indeed saturated with judgment oracles, the book pivots dramatically. From chapter 33 onward, Ezekiel announces restoration. The famous vision of the valley of dry bones (chapter 37) portrays Israel’s resurrection: scattered, dead, and hopeless, yet capable of being revived by God’s breath (ruach). This is not naive optimism; it is grounded in God’s character. God will restore the people not because they deserve it, but because God’s own name and honor are at stake. The book concludes with a vision of a restored temple and a healed land, offering exiled readers a genuine future.

The Presence and Absence of God

A subtle but crucial theme runs throughout Ezekiel: the movement of God’s glory. In the opening chapters, Ezekiel witnesses God’s glory departing from the temple, moving toward the east, toward exile. This is devastating: God is leaving. Yet the paradox is that Ezekiel encounters God’s presence most vividly in exile, by the River Chebar, far from Jerusalem. By the book’s end, God’s glory returns to the restored temple. This arc suggests that God’s presence cannot be contained by geography or politics; exile is not abandonment.

Literary Features

Ezekiel employs vivid symbolic actions, cosmic imagery, and apocalyptic visions to communicate his message. He lies on his side for 390 days, builds a siege model of Jerusalem, and shaves his beard (Chapter 4). These are not mere performance art, but embodied prophecy meant to shock listeners into attention. The book’s imagery influenced later apocalyptic literature and artistic traditions throughout history.

Why Read Ezekiel Today?

Ezekiel speaks to anyone who has experienced displacement, loss of identity, or the collapse of cherished institutions. It insists that God’s purposes transcend political catastrophe and that hope grounded in God’s character is more reliable than hope grounded in circumstances. It challenges readers to grapple with difficult theological questions: How do we understand God’s justice? What does it mean to live faithfully when everything seems lost? Can genuine restoration follow genuine judgment?

The book requires patience and attention, but it rewards careful reading with some of Scripture’s most profound insights on divine holiness, human accountability, and the potential for transformation.

Years ago, I served as a curriculum writer for the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, where I developed Spanish-language lessons to help adult Sunday School teachers prepare their classes. One series focused on the book of Ezekiel. I have since translated these lessons into English, updated the content, and reformatted them as essays. The complete series of Ezekiel studies are listed below.

Studies on the Book of Ezekiel

The Renovation of Ezekiel’s Tomb

The Messianic Promise of the Old Testament

The Nameless Prophetesses in the Book of Ezekiel

Living Among Scorpions

Translating the Bible: The Shekel and the Mina

The Death of Ezekiel’s Wife – Prophetic Acts

The Death of Ezekiel’s Wife – Ezekiel’s Wife

The Death of Ezekiel’s Wife – The Message to Israel

The Death of Ezekiel’s Wife – God’s Supposed Cruelty – Part 1

The Death of Ezekiel’s Wife – God’s Supposed Cruelty – Part 2

The Death of Ezekiel’s Wife – Ezekiel and the Prophetic Office

Sunday School Lessons

Ezekiel’s Prophetic Commission (Forthcoming)

The Nature of the Prophetic Mission (Forthcoming)

Personal Responsibility in Crisis: Ezekiel 18 (Forthcoming)

The Just Man: Responsibility in Right Action (Forthcoming)

The Evil Son: Responsibility in Transgression (Forthcoming)

The Good Son: Redemption Through Choice (Forthcoming)

Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

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