“I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.”Read the surrounding chapter
Time, place, and setting
- Time
- Ezekiel speaks among the deportees of Jehoiachin’s captivity during Babylon’s domination of Judah. The book dates visions and oracles relative to that exile, includes news of Jerusalem’s fall and ends with a vision dated fourteen years after the city’s destruction. Ezekiel 1:1 to 3; 24:1 to 2; 29:17; 33:21; 40:1. 1
- Place
- The river Chebar in the land of the Chaldeans anchors the opening. Visions take the prophet to Jerusalem; oracles address neighbouring peoples, Tyre and Egypt. The restoration vision describes Israel’s land, a sanctuary, a city and water flowing eastward. Ezekiel 1:1 to 3; 8:1 to 4; 25 to 32; 40 to 48. 1
- Setting
- A priest is commissioned as a prophet to a displaced community. Vision reports, sign acts, allegories, laments and spoken judgments lead into restoration promises. God’s glory, responsibility, cleansing, renewed leadership and divine presence connect the book’s major movements. Ezekiel 1 to 48. 1
Breath, wind or spirit, according to the sentence. The lexicon lists these senses and cites Ezekiel’s vision of the bones. 2
Ezekiel 37:9 speaks of the four winds and the breath entering the slain. Verse 14 promises God’s own Spirit, life and return to the land. These related uses enrich the vision through their context. The word alone does not settle the meaning of every occurrence. Ezekiel 37:1 to 14. 1
Ezekiel 1 to 3: Glory and a commissioned speaker
The opening moves through likenesses toward a throne and the appearance of the LORD’s glory. The priest falls on his face before being told to stand and listen. The introductory dating remains partly unresolved. 3 The Spirit enables the prophet to stand for this address. 13 His message is then given through a scroll containing lamentation, mourning and woe. The sweet taste does not remove its difficult content or guarantee an eager audience. Vision, reception of the word and responsibility belong together. Ezekiel 1:1 to 3:15. 1
The watchman passage describes warning as an entrusted responsibility. The prophet must speak the word he receives, while the person warned remains accountable for responding. A subsequent restriction on speech complicates the commission and returns at later turning points. 18 The reader should retain both features: warning is urgent, and Ezekiel’s speech is bound to God’s direction. Chapter 33 revisits that responsibility after the city’s destruction, giving the earlier commission renewed force in changed circumstances. Ezekiel 3:16 to 27; 33:1 to 22. 1
Ezekiel 8 to 11: Exposure, departure and sanctuary in exile
The temple vision moves through scenes of worship directed elsewhere while violence fills the land. The prophet sees glory moving outward and asks whether the remnant will be wholly destroyed. The reply promises divine sanctuary for the deportees. 5 The inhabitants’ assertion that the land belongs to them is therefore challenged by God’s concern for those scattered abroad. A promised heart and renewed allegiance appear before the vision ends. Ezekiel 8:1 to 11:25. 1
The outward movement of glory makes the coming loss of Jerusalem’s sanctuary painfully concrete. One later reading connects the detailed tour with communal grief. 6 It also helps explain why a reader should stay with the entire sequence rather than extracting only the departure. The final promise of sanctuary does not make the exposed violence trivial; it gives displaced people a future relationship with the Lord beyond the arrangements in which others were placing their confidence. Ezekiel 9:8 to 11:25. 1
Ezekiel 16, 18, 22 and 23: Allegory and accountable conduct
Chapter 16’s rescued child becomes an adorned covenant partner, while chapter 23 begins with two sisters identified as Samaria and Jerusalem. Their separate stories accuse the cities through graphic sexual and violent imagery. The allegories’ different narrative emphases matter for interpretation. 12 Chapter 16 also describes Sodom’s pride, abundance and failure to strengthen the poor. The accusation concerns civic conduct and worship within the stated symbolic history. It should be explained without turning the personified cities into a degrading account of actual women. Ezekiel 16; 23. 1
Chapter 18 gives three generations concrete moral histories. A child’s conduct is not predetermined by either a parent’s righteousness or wickedness. Bread, clothing, pledged goods, violence and extortion supply the examples. Chapter 22 widens responsibility across princes, priests, prophets and people. Prophetic imagery addresses those public realities. 8 The appeal to turn and live asks for changed conduct, while the whole book also depicts innocent bloodshed and vulnerable people harmed by others. Its different accusations and victims should retain their particular settings. Ezekiel 18; 22. 1
Ezekiel 28 and 32: Human rulers brought down
The ruler of Tyre says that he is a god, but the oracle answers that he is a man. The following lament places a splendid figure in Eden before pride and violence lead to expulsion and destruction. Adamic imagery is one proposed reading of the king’s fall. 10 The text’s stated address to Tyre remains the starting point, even when later readers give the poem a wider spiritual reception. Its immediate contrast is between a ruler’s claimed status and his exposed mortality. Ezekiel 28:1 to 19. 1
Chapter 32’s lament brings Egypt down beside powers that formerly spread terror. A spatial reading sees ordered humiliation in the underworld scene. 7 The poem makes former strength powerless in death. It prepares the reader for restored life in chapter 37, where the house of Israel’s despair is answered by God. Later resurrection interpretations extend the bones imagery beyond its immediate setting. 21 Those readings can be discussed as reception while the prophet’s explicit explanation continues to govern the primary passage. Ezekiel 32:17 to 32; 37:1 to 14. 1
Ezekiel 34 and 36: Care, cleansing and a new heart
God indicts shepherds who consume the flock’s resources while failing to strengthen, heal, bind or seek. Strong sheep also push weaker ones and foul their food and water. Christian shepherd care emphasises responsibility toward those entrusted to leaders. 20 The Lord’s promised seeking and feeding culminate in one Davidic shepherd and a covenant of peace. Promised peace follows judgment upon false reassurance and failed care. 16 The passage joins authority with the actual wellbeing of the flock. Ezekiel 13:10 to 16; 34:1 to 31. 1
Chapter 36 addresses Israel’s defilement, scattering and the profaning of God’s name among the nations. Cleansing water, a new heart and God’s Spirit enable renewed obedience. The promise answers a shattered communal identity. 9 Christian readers hear related themes in John’s water and Spirit discourse and Paul’s life through the Spirit. Matthew’s salvation from sins also has an argued Ezekiel allusion. 19 These connections should be stated through the Christian texts’ own words and audiences while preserving Israel’s land and name context. Ezekiel 36:16 to 38; John 3:1 to 21; Romans 8:1 to 27; Matthew 1:18 to 25. 1
Ezekiel 37 to 39: Lost hope and restored life
The valley contains very many, very dry bones. Bodies form, but the scene pauses over the absence of breath. Sound and sight carry the reader through this sequence. 14 When breath comes, the figures stand; God then identifies the bones as the whole house of Israel. 4 Divine action reverses the people’s stated loss of hope. 15 Graves opening and return to the land belong to that explanation. Joined sticks make the promised reunion equally explicit, naming Judah and Joseph. Ezekiel 37:1 to 28. 1
The next vision of invasion shows a restored people threatened by Gog’s forces. Earlier national portraits contribute to the figure’s literary construction. 17 The Lord’s victory, cleansing of the land and promised Spirit conclude the oracles. Revelation later uses Gog and Magog for deceived nations gathered from the earth’s four quarters. That explicit reception supplies a Christian context distinct from matching ancient names with today’s states. The enduring theological movement is toward the defeat of hostile power and God’s vindicated presence among his people. Ezekiel 38 to 39; Revelation 20:1 to 15. 1
Ezekiel 40 to 48: Glory returns and life flows outward
The guided vision distinguishes holy spaces, worship roles and land portions. Its prince worships, provides offerings and must avoid oppression. Later sanctuary plans adapt these arrangements in different ways. 22 The vision’s own justice provisions deserve close attention: honest measures, protected inheritance and limits on rulers’ acquisition of property. Resident foreigners receive land among the tribes. 11 Restoration includes both the returned glory and the ordering of ordinary communal life around that presence. Ezekiel 40 to 46; 47:13 to 48:35. 1
The river issues from the sanctuary and becomes too deep to cross. Its waters bring abundant life, with fruit and medicinal leaves on the banks. Revelation receives this imagery through a river proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb, and leaves for the healing of the nations. Pentecostal hope may respond in worship and prayer while keeping the visions’ promised fullness before the church. The final names and images direct attention toward God dwelling with his people. Ezekiel 47:1 to 12; 48:35; Revelation 21 to 22; James 5:13 to 18. 1
Sources
Numbered references support the material above. Scripture quotations use the KJV.
- The Holy Bible, King James VersionKJV translators · 1611
Ezekiel 1 to 48; 2 Kings 24 and 25; Jeremiah 29; John 3:1 to 21 and 10:1 to 18; Romans 8:1 to 27; 2 Corinthians 3; Acts 2; 1 Corinthians 12; Hebrews 9; Revelation 20 to 22; James 5:13 to 18; Matthew 1:18 to 25; Hebrew Ezekiel 37:1 to 23
View the source - A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old TestamentFrancis Brown, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs · 1906
Entry ruach, breath, wind, moral character and spirit of God
View the source - The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Cambridge Bible for Schools and CollegesA. B. Davidson · 1893
Ezekiel 1:1 to 3 notes and inaugural structure
View the source - Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: EzekielC. F. Keil
Ezekiel 37:5 to 14 commentary
View the source - The Presence of YHWH in Exile According to the Book of Ezekiel, With Special Reference to the Meaning of the Expression Miqdash Meat in Ezekiel 11:16Pieter de Vries · 2018
Old Testament Essays 31.1, pages 265 to 272
View the source - Grief in Exile and the City of God: Reading Ezekiel With AugustineKathleen Rochester · 2019
Stellenbosch Theological Journal 5.1, pages 349 to 353 and 357 to 359
View the source - Gradations of Degradation: Ezekiel’s Underworld as a Temple of DoomSara Wells and Christopher B. Hays · 2020
Sections C, D and E, sacred space and Ezekiel 32
View the source - Communicating Amidst Reality: Ezekiel’s Communication as a Response to His RealityJohan Serfontein and Wilhelm J. Wessels · 2014
Verbum et Ecclesia 35.1, pages 3 to 6
View the source - Ideology as a Factor for the Eschatological Outlook Hidden in a Text: A Study Between Ezekiel 37 and 4Q386 Fragment 1iJana Coetzee · 2016
HTS Theological Studies 72.4, pages 1 and 4 to 5
View the source - Rhetoric of Honour and Shame in Understanding the Fate of the King of Tyre in Ezekiel 28:1 to 19Bin Kang · 2021
Introduction and Adamic comparison of the king in Ezekiel 28
View the source - The Ger Immigrant in Postexilic Prophetic Eschatology: The Perspectives of Ezekiel 47:22 to 23 and Malachi 3:5Bob Wielenga · 2020
In die Skriflig 54.1, pages 5 to 6
View the source - Trauma and Post Trauma in the Book of EzekielRefael Furman · 2020
Developed psychological debate and separate discussions of Ezekiel 16 and 23
View the source - Ezekiel, Prophet of the Spirit: Ruach in the Book of EzekielLeonard P. Maré · 2018
Old Testament Essays 31.3, pages 559 to 561 and 565 to 567
View the source - Sights and Sounds of Death Valley: A Close Reading of Ezekiel 37:1 to 14Amelia Rebecca Basdeo Hill · 2018
Old Testament Essays 31.3, pages 541 to 542 and 544 to 547
View the source - The Restoration of the Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37:1 to 14: An Exegetical and Theological AnalysisJoel Kamsen Tihitshak Biwul · 2019
Scriptura 118.1, pages 4 to 7
View the source - Peace in the Book of EzekielHerculaas F. van Rooy · 2015
Vrede in die boek van Esegiël, false peace and covenant of peace sections
View the source - The Enemies Within: Gog of Magog in Ezekiel 38 to 39Lydia Lee · 2017
Developed literary allusions and literary position sections
View the source - God’s Hidden CompassionLena Sofia Tiemeyer · 2006
Tyndale Bulletin 57.2, pages 200 to 202 and 206 to 210
View the source - I Will Save My People From Their Sins: The Influence of Ezekiel 36:28b to 29a and 37:23b on Matthew 1:21Nicholas G. Piotrowski · 2013
Tyndale Bulletin 64.1, pages 37 to 38, 43 to 44 and 49 to 52
View the source - Leadership for the Church: The Shepherd ModelK. Thomas Resane · 2014
HTS Theological Studies 70.1, pages 1 to 3
View the source - To What Extent Is Ezekiel the Source of Resurrection of the Dead in 4Q385 Pseudo Ezekiel and Targum Ezekiel?Annette Evans · 2015
Sections C and E to F, sequence and later reception
View the source - Sanctuary Schematics and Temple Ideology in the Hebrew Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls: The Import of NumbersJoshua J. Spoelstra · 2022
Synchronic assessment and diachronic development sections
View the source