Ezekiel 8:1-25

§ 3. A Vision of Jerusalem’s Sin and Doom (Ezekiel 8-11)

Date, August-September, 591 b.c.

A year and two months after his call to be a prophet, Ezekiel was visited in his house by the elders of the Jewish colony at Tel-abib, and in their presence he fell into a trance, during which he was transported in spirit to Jerusalem, and witnessed, as in a dream, a remarkable drama being enacted there. The glory of God was present during this vision in the same symbolic form, and accompanied by the same living chariot, as in Ezekiel 1, but with this difference, that it sometimes left the chariot and took up its position elsewhere. Ezekiel witnessed first the idolatries practised in the Temple (Ezekiel 8), then the slaughter of all the idolaters in Jerusalem (Ezekiel 9), and next the destruction of the city by the fire of God’s holiness (Ezekiel 10). He then heard a parable of judgment pronounced against the leaders of Jerusalem’s wicked policy, and a message of comfort addressed to the exiles who were despised by their countrymen at home. Finally he saw the glory of God departing from the Temple, and having come back in spirit to Babylonia he awoke from his trance and recounted his vision to the exiles there (Ezekiel 11). There is no reason to doubt that Ezekiel here describes an actual experience. He was not, of course, literally transported to Jerusalem, but only seemed to be taken thither, as one might in a dream. The idolatries he saw were those which he knew to be carried on in Jerusalem, and the persons mentioned in the vision were doubtless also known to him as prominent leaders in the sin of the city. Yet in his trance these persons and practices, and the whole scene, stood out before his mind’s eye with a vividness and reality which enabled him to describe them as actually seen. The truths presented in the symbols, and expressed in the messages, of judgment were really communicated to him by God.