EZEKIEL, the Prophet, was partially contemporaneous with Jere miah, and is one of the prophets called The Greater,' a distinction which relates to the comparative magnitude and importance of their books. He was a priest, the son of Buzi (1. 3), and, according to the account of his life, ascribed (erroneously) to Epiphanius, he was born at s place called Sareaa. In the first Babylonian captivity he was carried away by Nebuchadnezzar into Mesopotamia, with the kings Jeconiah and Jehoiachim, and all the principal inhabitants of Jerusa lem, who were stationed at Tel-abib (iii. 15) and at other places on the river Chebar (L 1, 3), the Chaboras of Ptolemmus, which flows into the east side of the Euphrates at Carchemish, about 300 miles north west from Babylon. He is stated to have commenced his prophesying in the fifth year of his captivity (L 2), about 598, and to have continued it during more than twenty-two years, that is, until the fourteenth year after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. The pseudo-Epiphanius Bays that Ezekiel, on account of his aversion to adopt the Chaldman idolatry, was put to death by the Jewish prince or commander of the captives. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela states that his tomb is between the Euphrates and the Chebar, in a vault built by King Jehoiachim, and that within it the Jews keep a lamp perpetually burning. The same writer asserts, with equal appearance of tra ditional falsehood, that the Jews possess tho book of Ezekiel in the original autograph, which they read every year on the great day of expiation. Greatly inconsistent with such veneration is the fact related by Calmet, that the Jews speak of this prophet very contemptuously as having been Jeremiah's servant-boy, and the object of popular ridi cule and raillery, whence his name 'son of Buzi' baz, contempt). Josephus speaks of two books of Ezekiel, but commentators under stand him to mean the present book, divided at the end of chap. xxxix., for the nine remaining chapters are distinctly different with regard both to subject and style.
Tho book of Ezekiel is a canonical book of the Old Testament, divided in our English version into forty-eight chapters, and placed next after Jeremiah's Book of Lamentations, and before the book of Daniel The first thirty-nine chapters are occupied with the prophet's highly poetic and impassioned announcement of God's wrath and vengeance against the rebellious idolatry, perverseness, and sensuality of the Jews, as well as against their enemies, the surrounding nations. All this portion is repleto with dreadful pictures of the calamities of war—of ruin, desolation, death, and destruction—slaughter, pestilence, famine, and every imaginable state of misery ; but in the nine chapters of the latter portion the prophet describes, in a more prosaic style, his visions of the new temple and city of Jerusalem. In visionary presence ho walks about the holy metropolis of Judma as raised from its ruins in which it was left by the Chaldrean conqueror, and restored to the splendour which it displayed in the reign of Solomon. He measures and observes minutely all the dimensions of the Temple and city ; gives directions for the celebration of sacrificial rites, feasts, and cere monicts ; partitions the country among the several tribes ; and enume rates the duties of priests, king, and people. Dr. A. Clarke, in his
edition of the Bible, gives a plate of the Temple, according to izekiers description, and a map of Judwa as allotted by this prophet to the different tribes. A full and particular analysis of the contents of the whole forty-eight chapters is given in Mr. Horne's'Introdnction to the Bible.' The following is a brief and general survey :—Chapters to iii. (and see chapter x.) describe the vision of the wheels and cheru bim, called 'Jehovah's Chariot,' and the prophet's reception of the divine instructions and commission. Chapters iv. to xxiv. reiterate reproaches and denunciations against the Israelites and their prophets, announcing, in various visions and parables, the numerous calamities about to come upon them as a punishment of their rebellious idolatry and depravity. The species of idolatry adopted by the Jews in prefer ence to the religious system of Moses appears, by the declarations of Ezekiel and tho other prophets, to have been Sabism, or the worship of the sun on high places planted with trees. (See chapters viii., xiv., xvii, xx., xxviii, &c.) The 390 years signified by the prophet's lying as many days (vv. 4, 5) on his right side, are said by biblical chronologists to be the period from n.o. 970 to 580; and the forty years signified by his lying forty days on his right side (v. 6) is the period from B.C. 590 to 540. Chapters xxiv. to xxxii. declare the dreadful judgments of God against tho enemies of the Jews, namely, the surrounding nations of Ammonites, Moabitcs, Edomites, and Philistines ; against the cities of Tyre and Zidon ; and against all the laud of Egypt. Chapters xxxiii. to xxxvii. aro occupied with declara tions of the justice and forgiveness of God to the repentant—the fall of Jerusalem—a severe rebuke (chapter xxxiv.) of the avarice, idleness, and cruelty of the shepherds or priests of Israel—and consolatory promises of the people's restoration and return to Palestine. Chapters xxxviii. and xxxix. contain the prophecy of Gog and Magog; and the nine concluding chapters, as already stated, contain the prophet's visions of the temple and city of Jerusalem—their dimensions, struc ture, embellishments, dte.—the ceremonial arrangements of the hierar• chy, and the allotment of the land of Judaea among the several tribes on their return from captivity. The subject-matter of Ezekiel is, for the most part, identical with that of his contemporary Jeremiah, and much similarity is observable in their declarations. The conquests and devastations of Nebuchadnezzar form the principal theme of each ; but Ezekiel views them chiefly as affecting Israel, while Jere miah describes them with especial reference to Judah. Both declaim with vehement indignation against the depravity of the priests, and against the ' lying divinations' of the prophets who sought to induce the people to shake off their Babylonian slavery. (Compare Jeremiah, chapters xxiii., xxvii, xxviii., axis. with Ezekiel, chapters xiii., xxxiv.) Parts of the book of Revelations may be compared with some portions of Ezekiel : Rev. iv. with Ezek. i. and x., respecting tho cherubim with wings full of eyes ; and Rev. xi, xxi., xxii. with Ezek. xl. to xliii., describing the New Jerusalem.