What was ezekiels mission

Like many priests of Israel, Ezekiel was married. Ezekiel lived among the Jewish exiles in Babylon at a settlement along the river Chebar called Tel-abib Ezekiel , less than one hundred miles south of Babylon. The invading Babylonians brought about ten thousand Jews to the village in BC, including Ezekiel and the last king of Judah, Jehoiachin 2 Kings — However, like all the prophets, he also provided his people, now without a land of their own, some hope for the future — The book of Ezekiel pronounces judgment on both Israel and surrounding nations, but it also provides a vision of the future millennial kingdom that complements and adds to the vision of other Old and New Testament texts.

They had lived for so long in sin and rebellion, confident in their own strength and that of the neighboring nations, that they needed God to remind them of His holy nature and their humble identity in a most dramatic way. Every resource on our site was made possible through the financial support of people like you. Revised Nov. Image by Used under license from Veer. Based on a work at www.

Reverend David Bast reflecting on Ezekiel Ch. God has the power to renew us and those dry bones that we have can be revived with His everlasting love. However, there is still Hope for all nations! God said this during the exile and these words still resonate today. At the beginning of the exile, the Israelites were hopeful that they would be able to return to their homes in a short period of time.

Still, it took the destruction of the temple for the people to fully understand the extent of their sins. Ezekiel was then taken to a valley of dry bones in a vision. While the book of Ezekiel is a book rich with metaphors and symbolism, the vision of the dry bones is very memorable.

In the valley, Ezekiel was told by the Lord to prophesy that the skin and spirit would be returned to the bones. This symbolized that the Israelites would be forgiven, symbolizing a new hope for the people in exile. Hope is necessary in times of despair. For the Israelites, things were in despair. According to Ezekiel, men and women were rejecting the word of the Lord and instead were turning to kings who were leading the people astray.

In Ezekiel , God stepped in and became the shepherd of the people. Thus, the God in Ezekiel is an active God who will step in to shepherd his people.

Davis who is the writer of Swallowing the Scroll, explains that the entire book of Ezekiel was written from the perspective of first person. Ezekiel was the first prophet to put a major part of his message immediately into writing. Ezekiel has a very powerful vision in Ch.

Ezekiel sees four living creatures that appear form the center of a storm. They exemplify angels in other Old Testament visions as well as the creatures described in Revelation 4. We start at a river, an ordinary river in a pagan land. We end with the vision of a river. This is a holy river whose source is the very presence of God in the temple.

But what's amazing about this river is not just its source, but what happens all along its banks. The leaves of these trees will never turn brown and fall, and there will always be fruit on their branches. There will be a new crop every month, for they are watered by the river flowing from the Temple. The fruit will be for food and the leaves for healing. It's a profound word that anchors every vision within the book of Ezekiel , and a lot of them are difficult in a modern Western world.

But when we keep this vision of God's healing river front-and-center in our reading of Ezekiel, we don't forget God's big dream for the world. The promise to Abraham of blessing and blessing to the whole world is captured in this picture. And if that weren't enough, the very final statement in the book ties together one of the biggest themes through the whole Bible: "And from that day the name of the city will be 'YHWH Is There.

God is with us. This is the work of our outer lives. The book of Ezekiel is one significant place in Scripture that funds our imagination about what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do in our liminal spaces.

From what we read in Ezekiel, we know that when we find ourselves in a "messy middle," God is right there present with us. Cart 0. Reading Ezekiel for God's Mission. The story of God in Ezekiel Our story is the story of the Church. Ezekiel and contemplative spirituality Ezekiel is a book about finding God in the most unexpected places. But then God shows up. Ezekiel and God's mission Beginnings and endings are really important when we're trying to make sense within individual books of the Bible.