EZERIEL (meaning "God will strengthen," or "strength of God "), one of the Hebrew prophets, was the son of the priest Buzi, and along with Jelloiachin, king of Judah, was carried captive, when still a young man, to Mesopotamia, by order of Nebu chadnezzar, about,598 B. c. He was a member of the Jewish community which settled on the banks of the river Chebar, and first appeared as a prophet about the year 594 B. C. His prophetic career extended over a period of 22 years. The date of his death is not recorded.—The book of Ezekiel consists of three parts: the first (chaps. i.-xxiv.), com posed before the final conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, announces the com plete overthrow of the kingdom of Judah, on account of its increasing unfaithfulness to God; the second (chaps. xxv.-xxxii.) threatens the surrounding nations, which were exult ing maliciously over the ruin of Judah, with divine punishment; and the third (chaps. xx xiii.-xlviii.) prophesies the future deliverance of the.Hebrew nation.; and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. This last portion is generally believed several Messianic predic tions, three of which are considered specially remarkable (chaps. xxxvi.-xxxvii., xxxviii. xxxix., and xl.-xlviii.); and it is beyond all that only under a world-wide dis pensation like the Christian, can the glorious visions of the prophet receive a historical realization. The book is full of magnificent but artificial symbolism, and of allegories diffi
cult to understand; whence Jerome calls it "a labyrinth of the mysteries of God ;" but here and there, as in chapters 1st and 2d, it contains visions that indicate the possession on the part of E. of a most vivid and sublime imagination. B.'s authorship of the book has been questioned. The Talmud says, it was written by the great synagogue, of which E. was not a member; and Ewald, believing that traces of later elaboration are quite obvious, suggests that the collection and combination of the various prophecies into a book may not have been the prophet's own doing. The opinion of most Critics, however, is, that a prophet who was so much of a literary artist as E., was more likely to have completed the book himself than to have left such a work to others. The text is far from being in a perfect condition. It is partly corrupted by glosses, has partly been retouched by later hands, and may often be amended by the Septuagint version. The best commentaries on the book of Ezekiel are those of Hitvernick (Erlangen, 1843) and Hitzig (Leip. 1847).