Ezekiel the Scribe Priest - Quick Facts

 Ezekiel, son of Buzi, was a Hebrew scribe, prophet and priest who lived during the turn of the century, in the 600s and 500s BCE. He is best known as the writer and protagonist of his book, the Book of Ezekiel, written in Babylonia.

Ezekiel began writing in 592 BCE and continued until aound 571 BCE. He was born in Judah but was taken captive by the Babylonians in 597 BCE, as part of the deal between the Judean court and Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon. 

Ezekiel was taken to Babylonia with King Yehoiachin (Jeconiah) and other elite members of Judah. He lived in a community of exiles by the Kebar River, in the Babylonian town of Tel Aviv, or Tel Abib.

The events that shaped Ezekiel's entire life were war, destruction, displacement and captivity at the hands of the greatest enemy the Hebrews had ever known, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

In Babylonia, Ezekiel claims to have met the Hebrew God in the desert, when Yahweh appeared to him on a sapphire stone and gave him a mission: to get the Hebrews to worship Yahweh in captivity. But Ezekiel had a speech impediment and the Hebrews would not listen. There were no credible threats for Yahweh to make to the Hebrews, not they were out of his land.

Ezekiel added a lot of magical and fantasy elements to his texts, with scenes that would be full of CGI if adapted to the screen. He repeatedly spoke of fire consuming things, staffs, pots of meat, Yahweh's anger towards the people, the people's hostility to Yahweh, and life in captivity, and then he turned all of these into stories, literature. And these stories are today in Exodus and Numbers. Most of what scholars call the J source in these books.

Ezekiel failed as a prophet and priest but excelled as a writer, and his stories became iconic for his community, and later iconic for the entire world.