The prophet Ezekiel was raised in a priestly family in Jerusalem and educated to become a priest himself. However, before he was able to perform his priestly duties at 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... More, he was taken with other high-ranking Judahites during the first siege of Jerusalem (597 B.C.E.) by Nebuchadnezzar 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 30th year (593 B.C.E.), he received a powerful vision and a call to be a prophet. Between this first exile and the final fall of Jerusalem (in 587 B.C.E.) many Judahites hoped to throw off the yoke of Babylon, often looking to Egypt for help. But Judah was a vassal to Nebuchadnezzar. Ezekiel’s prophecies against Jerusalem and other nations take place in this chaotic context.
In the end, Jerusalem falls completely to Babylonian forces. The Davidic king no longer sits enthroned in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the HolyHoly is a term that originally meant set apart for the worship or service of God. While the term may refer to people, objects, time, or places, holiness in Judaism and Christianity primarily denotes the realm of the divine More City, is destroyed. The Temple is also destroyed. Some of the other prophecies against the nations and the visions or prophecies of future restoration of the land and the Temple date from after the fall 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.
