Background of Ezekiel

The prophet Ezekiel was raised in a priestly family in Jerusalem and educated to become a priestA priest is a person who has the authority to perform religious rites. In New Testament times priests were responsible for daily offerings and sacrifices in the temple. himself. This was not to be. He was taken with other high-ranking Judeans at the first siege of Jerusalem (597 B.C.E.) by NebuchadnezzarBabylonian king who conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and exiled the people II (ruler of Babylon, 605-562 B.C.E.). Ezekiel went into the servile oppression of exile, working in a small village (Tel-abib, near Nippur) by the river Chebar (3:15). There, in his thirtieth year (593 B.C.E.), he received a powerful vision from the Lord and a call to be a prophet. Between this first exile and the final fall of Jerusalem (in 586 B.C.E.) many Israelites hoped to throw off the yoke of Babylon, often looking to Egypt for help. Ezekiel’s prophecies against Jerusalem and some other nations take place in this context. In the end, Jerusalem falls completely to Babylonian forces. Some of the other prophecies against the nations and the visions or prophecies of future restoration of the land and the templeThe Jerusalem temple, unlike the tabernacle, was a permanent structure, although (like the tabernacle) it was a place of worship and religious activity. On one occasion Jesus felt such activity was unacceptable and, as reported in all four Gospels, drove from the temple those engaged... date from after the fallThe fall refers specifically to the disobedience of Adam and Eve when they listened to Satan rather than adhering to God's command not to eat the fruit from the tree. When people act contrary to God's will, they are said to fall from from grace... of Jerusalem. The background to the book is exilic, taking place before the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Persian rule (starting 538 B.C.E.). The book may have been edited and put to writing during the later, postexilic period.