Exile

Ezekiel

A priest turned prophet who received some of Scripture’s most extraordinary visions while in Babylonian exile. Ezekiel’s opening vision of God’s throne—with its living creatures and spinning wheels—is among the most vivid in the Bible. He acted out dramatic prophecies, lying on his side for 390 days and cooking over dung to symbolize Israel’s punishment. His vision of the valley of dry bones—where God breathes life into dead skeletons—became one of the Bible’s most powerful images of resurrection and national restoration.

Era
Exile
When
~622-570 BC
Tribe
Levi

The verse that names Ezekiel

And He said to me, “Prophesy concerning these bones and tell them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!Ezekiel 37:4 · Berean Standard Bible

Where to read about Ezekiel

Ezekiel 1:1-3

In the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles by the River Kebar, the heavens opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth day of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin— the word of the LORD came directly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the River Kebar. And there the LORD’s hand was upon him.

A priest in Babylon sees the heavens open. What follows is one of the most strange, vivid, and ultimately hopeful books in the Bible.

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by His Spirit and set me down in the middle of the valley, and it was full of bones. He led me all around among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, and indeed, they were very dry. Then He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones come to life?” And He said to me, “Prophesy concerning these bones and tell them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Lord GOD…

A valley of bones. Can they live? God breathes, and the impossible happens. The deadest things God's prophet has ever seen come back to life.

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