Ezekiel 1:1

I. PART I; PROPHECIES OF DOOM PRIOR TO THE FALL OF JERUSALEM (Ezekiel 1-24)

EZEKIEL'S VISION OF THE GLORY OF GOD

The great significance of this call of Ezekiel and its remarkable vision of God's glory lies in the fact that it came in Babylon, the land of Israel's captivity, far from the honored precincts of the Holy Land, and at a time when the fortunes of the Chosen People were at a low ebb indeed.

Ezekiel himself was a captive, having been removed to Babylon in the second wave of captives about eight years following the group of captives that included Daniel and his companions. Daniel's captivity had begun about 606 B.C., and Ezekiel's began in 597 B.C.

The final destruction of Jerusalem was destined to occur soon, as Jeremiah had foretold; and even the holy temple would be destroyed. In the eventuality of such events, it must have appeared to the great mass of the Babylonian captives that Israel was indeed finished and forever terminated. This wonderful prophet brought hope to the fallen people, convincing them that God was indeed not through with them, and that wonderful things were yet planned for Israel, even their restoration to Palestine!

This great vision of God's glory dramatically demonstrated that God was in no manner whatever limited to Palestine, that he was the God, not merely of the so-called "Holy Land," but of all the world; and that his presence was just as real in Babylon as it had ever been, even in the Holy Temple itself. The great meaning of the marvelous vision was that God was just as much the God of the captives as he had been in the days of their glory, and that God was just as able to bless or punish Israel in Babylon, as he was in Judea.

Ezekiel 1:1-3

"Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity, the word of Jehovah came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar, and the hand of Jehovah was there upon him."

"In the thirtieth year ..." (Ezekiel 1:1). It is not known what this means. We agree with McFadyen that it is the same as the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity. The sacred writers often gave several points of reference for the dates cited. For example, the evangelist Luke dated the emergence of John the Baptist as occurring in the "fifteenth year of Tiberius," at the time when Pontius Pilate was Procurator of Judea, and when Herod was the tetrarch of Galilee, etc. (Luke 3:1).

The obscurity of what is meant by this "thirtieth year" poses exactly the kind of problem that many commentators love to"solve" with all kinds of speculations, none of the "solutions" having any merit at all! Pearson has provided a list of alleged "meanings." "It applies to the thirtieth year following the reforms of Josiah; it is a reference to the thirtieth year of the current jubilee period; it points to the thirtieth year of the neo-Babylonian empire; it was the thirtieth year of Manasseh's evil reign; it is the thirtieth year of Artaxerxes III."[1]

By far the most acceptable understanding of what is meant by this "thirtieth year" goes back to the times of Origen (185-254 A.D.) who considered it a reference to the thirtieth year of Ezekiel's life, that being the age when Jewish priests began their ministry (Numbers 4:3-4).[2]

"I was among the captives by the river Chebar ..." (Ezekiel 1:1). The Chebar was the name given to the great irrigation canal which formed a loop southeast along the Euphrates river, making a loop around Babylon via Nippur and back into the main river near Uruk.[3] Tel Abib was on this canal and is thought to be the place where the vision came to Ezekiel.

"The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God ..." (Ezekiel 1:1). Of all the Old Testament prophets, only to Ezekiel were the heavens said to have opened.[4] The heavens were opened unto Jesus (Matthew 3:16), to Stephen (Acts 7:56), and to John the Apostle (Revelation 4:1).

"The fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity ..." (Ezekiel 1:2) This is without doubt the same as the "thirtieth year" already mentioned; and this one is easily identified as July, 592 B.C. or 593 B.C.,[5] or 594 B.C. The student should be aware that a great deal of uncertainty exists regarding the exactness of any assigned dates during this entire period of ancient history. Able scholars may be cited as receiving any of the three dates given above.

"The word of Jehovah came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest ..." (Ezekiel 1:3). Note the change of persons from the first to the third. We believe that Eichrodt was wrong in finding in this change evidence of a change of writers. Throughout all of the Biblical books which we have studied, a change of persons usually means nothing at all. Jonah used both the first and third persons in two lines of his prayer from the fish's belly; and the use of the third person is so frequent as to arouse suspicion when it is not used. The same goes for the frequent changes from feminine to masculine suffixes (as in Ezekiel 1:10).

As noted in the Introduction, above, "We may approach Ezekiel in the confidence that it is what it purports to be: the record of Ezekiel's 27-year ministry in Babylon to his fellow exiles."[6]

"And the hand of Jehovah was upon him ..." (Ezekiel 1:3) Note how many expressions there are in this passage stressing the fact of God's speaking through Ezekiel: (1) the heavens were opened unto him; (2) the hand of God was upon him; (3) he saw visions of God; and (4) the word of Jehovah came expressly unto Ezekiel. The meaning of these expressions is that the words of Ezekiel are expressly the words of God Himself. They are not the hallucinations of Ezekiel, the subjective feelings or impressions of the prophet, nor the projections of his subconscious mind, nor any kind of deductions that the prophet might have himself derived from his own information or observations. They are the words of God.