Ezekiel was a priest and a prophet during Judah’s darkest days, (the 70 year Babylonian captivity). His name means “Strengthened by God” and fits him as he wrote these words while in captivity to his fellow countrymen as God shared through him three specific things:
•That what they needed now was a fresh glimpse of God’s glory and goodness.
•That the reason for their captivity was rebellion and a move away from their relationship with their God
•That God will judge the nations that have destroyed them and will restore their relationship with Him.
A French philosopher once wrote that, “Every man carries within himself the history of the world”. In other words that which is recorded in mankind’s history in the world is also written in our own personal life.
Paul said in 1 Cor. 10:11 that, “all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” Then he further said in 1 Cor. 10:13 that “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
Ezekiel was the first of two prophets that God used during the captivity as he wrote during the first 25 years and the 2nd was Daniel who wrote primarily over the final 50 years. The time frame of Ezekiel’s prophecy was after the 2nd dispersion but prior to the third. In 605 BC Nebuchadnezzar destroyed part of Jerusalem and took off the first captives among this group would have been Daniel and his friends. Eight years latter in 597 BC because of the rebellion of the two kings Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, Nebuchadnezzar further ransacked Jerusalem and took 10,000 more captives including the king along with Ezekiel.
Eleven years after this (during this time Ezekiel writes a good portion of his prophecies) in 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar completely destroyed the city. Ezekiel was around the same age as Daniel but wrote to the captives that they weren’t going to be going back home any time soon and most likely finished the book when he was around 57 and died at the age of 62.
So to this priest without a temple to serve God speaks about what the people need and not to be brought back to where they once were but instead to a fresh glimpse of God’s glory as it is Him that we worship not where we worship that matters.
Oh how much this is like us? Far too often we cry out to God to change our surroundings, to bring us back those things that we lost and instead we should be crying out not for God to restore what we lost but rather to deliver us from us and to bring us a fresh encounter with His character and nature.