Why This Matters
What happens to our faith when the visible signs of God’s presence seem to disappear? What do we believe when the city falls, the temple burns, our former security is gone, and we find ourselves living somewhere we never expected to be?
These were not theoretical questions for the people who first heard Ezekiel. Many had been carried away from Judah into Babylon. Jerusalem and its temple still stood when Ezekiel received his first vision, but more judgment was coming. Before long, the city would fall, the temple would be destroyed, and the people would wonder whether their story with God had ended.
Then, beside a canal in a foreign land, Ezekiel saw the glory of the LORD. He saw a throne above living creatures and wheels that could move in every direction. He saw fire, brightness, and something like a rainbow in the clouds. The vision was difficult to describe because human language could only reach toward what Ezekiel had seen.
But one truth was unmistakable: God was there. The LORD had not been defeated by Babylon or imprisoned in Jerusalem. His throne had not been buried beneath the ruins of the temple. His people had been displaced, but nothing had moved beyond His control.
The throne was never vacant.
Ezekiel reveals that the LORD’s glory cannot be confined, defeated, or presumed upon. He judges the rebellion that defiled His dwelling, reigns among His people in exile, calls them to turn and live, gives them a new heart and Spirit, raises their dead hope, defeats every enemy, and returns to dwell among them. Again and again, the book explains why God acts: His people and the nations shall know that He is the LORD.
What We Are Reading
Ezekiel is a prophetic book filled with visions, messages, symbolic actions, warnings, laments, promises, and carefully dated revelations. Ezekiel was the son of Buzi and a priest. He belonged to the community of Judean exiles living in Babylon after King Jehoiachin and many of Jerusalem’s leaders, craftsmen, soldiers, and prominent citizens were taken away in 597 BC.
Ezekiel lived among the exiles at Tel-abib beside the Chebar Canal. His first dated vision came in 593 BC, during the fifth year of Jehoiachin’s exile. His dated messages extend to approximately 571 BC, giving us a ministry that spans about twenty-two years.
The book is written largely in the first person. Ezekiel tells us what he saw, heard, did, and endured. God repeatedly addresses him as “son of man,” reminding us of the distance between the frail human messenger and the overwhelming glory of the One who sends him.
Ezekiel is appointed as a watchman. A watchman could not control how people responded to a warning, but he was responsible for sounding it. In the same way, Ezekiel had to speak God’s word whether the people listened or refused.
His calling demanded more than public sermons. God told him to eat a scroll filled with lamentation, mourning, and woe. He lay on his side for extended periods, rationed food and water, shaved his head, packed his belongings as though leaving for exile, and acted out Jerusalem’s coming siege. Even the death of his wife became part of a painful sign connected with the loss of the temple.
This was not a comfortable ministry. Ezekiel was called to speak difficult truth to people who often had no intention of hearing it.
Where It Fits in the Story
Ezekiel belongs to the final years of Judah and the beginning of the Babylonian exile. The northern kingdom of Israel had fallen to Assyria more than a century earlier. Judah remained, with Jerusalem as its capital, the temple as the center of worship, and a descendant of David still sitting on the throne.
But Judah had repeatedly broken covenant with God. Idolatry, violence, injustice, false worship, and political unfaithfulness had corrupted the nation. The people continued looking toward the temple as evidence that Jerusalem could never be destroyed, but they had separated God’s presence from God’s holiness. They treated the temple as protection while defiling the worship and way of life it represented.
When Babylon carried away a major group of exiles in 597 BC, Zedekiah remained as king in Jerusalem. Many people hoped the exile would end quickly. False prophets promised peace and restoration while dismissing the warnings of judgment.
Jeremiah spoke in Jerusalem during this crisis, while Ezekiel spoke from Babylon to the exiled community. Though separated by hundreds of miles, both prophets announced that Jerusalem’s destruction was coming because the people had persistently refused to turn.
When Jerusalem fell in 587 or 586 BC, the event became the great turning point in Ezekiel. Before the news arrived, his message concentrated heavily on why judgment was necessary and why Jerusalem would not escape. After the city fell, the emphasis moved toward what God would do beyond the ruins.
The people had lost their land, king, city, and temple, but exile was not the end of God’s purpose. He promised to gather, cleanse, renew, shepherd, reunite, and dwell among them again. Their restoration would require more than returning to familiar ground. They needed transformed hearts, the life-giving Spirit, a faithful Shepherd, and the presence of God.
Ezekiel carries the story of faith from the collapse of Judah toward the hope of a renewed people under one King, living by the Spirit in the presence of their God.
What Happens in This Book
The first three chapters introduce Ezekiel’s vision and calling. Beside the Chebar Canal, the heavens open. Ezekiel sees four living creatures, each accompanied by a wheel. Above them is something like an expanse, and above the expanse is the likeness of a throne. Upon the throne is a humanlike figure surrounded by fire, brightness, and rainbow-colored radiance.
Ezekiel carefully uses expressions such as “the likeness of” and “the appearance of.” He is not claiming to describe God completely. He is reaching for language capable of communicating what overwhelmed him. When he sees the likeness of the glory of the LORD, he falls upon his face.
The wheels beneath the throne show that God’s presence and authority are not confined to Jerusalem. His glory can appear in Babylon as surely as in Jerusalem. The God of Israel is not a regional deity confined to one city or building. He reigns over the whole earth and remains present with His people in exile.
God then commissions Ezekiel to speak to a rebellious house. Ezekiel eats the scroll, receives the word, and becomes Israel’s watchman. His responsibility is to deliver the warning faithfully. The people remain responsible for whether they hear or refuse.
Chapters 4 through 24 announce and explain Jerusalem’s coming judgment. Ezekiel performs signs portraying siege, scarcity, exile, and death. He exposes false confidence and warns that silver and gold will not save anyone when judgment comes. Wealth may create the illusion of security, but it cannot purchase safety from God or satisfy a soul that has turned away from Him.
The prophet also confronts people who dismiss God’s warnings because fulfillment appears delayed. They assume the visions concern some distant future or will come to nothing. God tells them that His word will no longer be postponed. His patience had not made His warning untrue.
In chapters 8 through 11, Ezekiel is shown the corruption taking place within Jerusalem and its temple. He sees idolatry, secret practices, violence, and people behaving as though God neither sees nor cares. Then he watches the glory of the LORD begin to depart.
The glory moves from the inner sanctuary to the threshold, from the threshold to the east gate, and finally away from the city. God is not driven out by Babylon. He withdraws from a sanctuary His people have persistently defiled. Yet even within these chapters of judgment, God promises that the exiles will not be abandoned. He will gather His people and give them an undivided heart and a new spirit.
Ezekiel 18 confronts the people’s attempts to escape personal responsibility. They quote a proverb suggesting that children suffer helplessly for the sins of their parents. God answers that each person is accountable for responding to Him.
The righteous cannot use yesterday’s faithfulness to excuse today’s rebellion, and the wicked are not imprisoned forever by yesterday’s sins if they turn and practice what is right. God’s appeal is clear:
“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (Ezekiel 18:32 ESV).
God does not delight in death. His warnings are appeals to life. Jerusalem’s destruction had reached the point at which it would not be canceled, but that did not mean individual repentance no longer mattered or that God had abandoned His people’s future.
Chapters 25 through 32 turn toward the surrounding nations. Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt all come under God’s judgment. Some celebrated Judah’s fall. Others acted with vengeance, pride, violence, or contempt. Wealthy Tyre imagined itself secure because of its commerce and beauty, while Egypt appeared powerful enough to become an alternative source of protection.
But the God who judged Judah also judged the nations. Babylon’s rise had not removed the world from His authority. Every nation remained accountable to Him, and no ruler, economy, army, or proud city stood beyond His reach.
Chapter 33 marks the book’s great turning point. A fugitive arrives with the news:
Jerusalem has fallen.
The warnings had become history. The city was destroyed, the temple was burned, and the people’s false confidence had collapsed. But God’s message did not end with the ruins.
Chapters 34 through 39 announce restoration. God first condemns Israel’s shepherds. The nation’s leaders had fed themselves while neglecting the flock. They had failed to strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, bring back the straying, or seek the lost.
God promises that He Himself will search for His sheep, rescue them, feed them, and give them rest. He also promises one Shepherd from the line of David:
“And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.” (Ezekiel 34:23 ESV).
God then promises to cleanse His people, give them a new heart, and place His Spirit within them.
In chapter 37, the Spirit carries Ezekiel into a valley filled with bones. There are very many bones, and they are very dry. This is not a battlefield where wounded people still breathe. Death has finished its work, and time has removed every visible reason for hope.
God asks Ezekiel:
“And he said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered, ‘O Lord GOD, you know.’” (Ezekiel 37:3 ESV).
Ezekiel does not pretend the valley looks promising, but he also refuses to place limits on God. He leaves the answer with the One who gives life.
God explains that the bones represent the whole house of Israel. The exiles believe their hope has died and their future has been cut off. The vision first addresses Israel’s fear that its future as God’s people had died.
Ezekiel prophesies. Bones come together, and sinews, flesh, and skin appear. Then breath enters the bodies, and they live. God promises to put His Spirit within His people and bring them to life. What Israel cannot accomplish through strength, strategy, or determination, God can accomplish through His word and Spirit.
The vision is followed by another sign. Two sticks representing the divided people of Israel and Judah become one in Ezekiel’s hand. God promises one people, one Shepherd, and one King from David’s line.
Chapters 38 and 39 portray Gog gathering a vast coalition against God’s restored people. The enemy appears overwhelming, but the conflict never threatens God’s throne. God defeats the assault and vindicates His holiness before the nations.
The message is not that we should search modern maps for Gog or attach Ezekiel’s ancient names to countries appearing in today’s headlines. Gog functions as a picture of evil’s final assault against God’s purpose. Evil may assemble as though it can overturn what God has promised, but its defeat will be complete.
The final movement, chapters 40 through 48, contains Ezekiel’s vision of a restored sanctuary, reordered land, and renewed people. A guide carefully measures the temple courts, gates, chambers, walls, and altar. Everything is arranged around holiness and God’s presence.
Then the glory that departed returns from the east. The same glory Ezekiel saw beside the Chebar Canal enters the sanctuary and fills it. Judgment did not end with an empty city. God returns to dwell among His people.
From the temple flows a river. It begins as a small stream but becomes deeper as it moves outward. Wherever it flows, dead waters become fresh, living creatures flourish, and trees produce food and healing. The book that began beside the waters of Babylon ends beside a river of life flowing from the presence of God.
The city receives a new name: “The LORD Is There” (Ezekiel 48:35 ESV).
That is where Ezekiel has been leading us. The greatest hope is not merely that the people regain land, rebuild structures, or recover what they lost. The greatest hope is that God dwells among them.
Major Themes to Watch
The glory and holiness of God stand at the center of Ezekiel. His glory appears in exile, departs from the defiled temple, and eventually returns. This movement teaches us that God’s presence cannot be manipulated. The people could not continue in rebellion while assuming the temple guaranteed their safety.
We can make a similar mistake. We may trust our religious history, church attendance, knowledge of Scripture, or public profession while resisting God in the way we live. Ezekiel reminds us that sacred language cannot make rebellion safe.
God acts for the sake of His holy name, which His people have profaned among the nations. This does not mean He is protecting a fragile reputation. God’s name represents the truth of who He is. He will show Himself faithful, just, holy, sovereign, and unlike the idols.
This leads to the refrain repeated throughout the book: Israel and the nations shall know that He is the LORD. Those who have treated Him as irrelevant, powerless, absent, or easily manipulated will finally confront the truth.
Judgment and mercy also belong together in Ezekiel. The book contains some of Scripture’s most severe warnings, but it also records God’s repeated call to turn and live. His patience is not indifference, and His judgment is not cruelty.
God had warned His people for generations. He sent prophets, exposed their sins, and called them back. When judgment finally came, it did not prove that He had stopped loving them. It proved that His holiness could not be mocked forever. At the same time, judgment did not destroy His desire to restore.
Personal responsibility is another major theme. The people could not hide behind their ancestry, blame their parents, depend upon former righteousness, or accuse God of injustice. Each person had to answer God’s call.
Yet Ezekiel also shows that human beings need more than external instruction. Ezekiel 18 calls the people to repent, cast away their transgressions, and turn toward life. Ezekiel 36 promises that God Himself will cleanse them, give them a new heart, and put His Spirit within them.
The people must respond to God’s call, but the transforming gift comes from Him. Grace does not make our response unnecessary. Grace makes restored life possible.
Ezekiel also emphasizes faithful shepherding. Leaders are not given authority so they can feed themselves at the expense of the flock. God cares about the weak, injured, wandering, frightened, and lost. He holds shepherds accountable for how they treat those placed in their care.
Finally, Ezekiel moves from exile toward new creation. The restored land flourishes. Dead bones live. Divided people become one. A river heals what was lifeless, and God’s dwelling becomes the center of everything. His purpose is not merely to repair a few damaged structures. He is making His people and creation new.
A Key Verse
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:26–27 ESV).
These verses gather the hope of Ezekiel into one promise. The people’s deepest problem was not Babylon. It was not geography, military weakness, or the absence of a Davidic king. Those were real problems, but beneath them was a heart that repeatedly turned away from God.
Returning to the land would not solve that problem, and neither would rebuilding the temple. The people needed cleansing and transformation.
In Scripture, the heart is more than the seat of emotion. It represents the inner person, including our desires, thinking, commitments, and will. A heart of stone is unresponsive and resistant. A heart of flesh is living, responsive, and capable of receiving God’s word.
God promises more than improved circumstances. He will cleanse His people from idolatry, remove the resistant heart, give them a living heart, and place His Spirit within them. The Spirit will not merely create a momentary feeling. He will empower a new way of walking.
Ezekiel 18 places genuine responsibility upon the people to repent and turn. Here, Ezekiel 36 identifies God as the source of the inward renewal they need. Human responsibility and God’s gracious provision meet in the promise of transformation.
How It Points to King Jesus
Ezekiel points us toward Jesus through several connected promises. The clearest path is the Shepherd.
God condemns Israel’s shepherds and announces that He Himself will come to search for His sheep. Yet He also promises one Shepherd, His servant David, who will feed them and rule over them.
These promises come together in Jesus. He is the promised King from David’s line and God coming to seek and save His people. In John 10, Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd who knows His sheep, gathers them into one flock, and lays down His life for them. The failed shepherds fed themselves, but Jesus gives Himself.
Ezekiel also points toward Jesus through the promise of divine presence. The book’s great movement is the departure and return of God’s glory. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is presented as the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, revealing divine glory. Jesus identifies His body as the true temple. God’s presence is no longer centered in one building in Jerusalem but revealed in His Son.
Through Jesus, the Spirit comes to dwell within God’s people. The church becomes a temple shaped not by stone walls but by the presence of the living God.
The river in Ezekiel prepares us to recognize the life that flows from God’s presence. Jesus offers living water and identifies that water with the Spirit. Revelation carries Ezekiel’s imagery into its vision of new creation, where the river of the water of life flows from the throne of God and the Lamb, bringing life and healing.
The valley of dry bones provides another connection, but we should follow the movement carefully. The bones first represent Israel in exile. God promises to restore the people through His word and Spirit, establishing the pattern that He brings life from death.
In Jesus, that pattern reaches its center. God raises His Son from the grave. Those united with Christ die to the old life and are raised to walk in newness of life. The Spirit who raised Jesus dwells within His people, and we await the day when God will raise our mortal bodies and renew creation.
Ezekiel’s use of “son of man” also provides part of the wider biblical background for Jesus’ chosen title, though Daniel 7 supplies the clearest picture of the royal, heavenly Son of Man who receives everlasting dominion. In Ezekiel, the title reminds us that the prophet is a mortal messenger standing before divine glory. In Jesus, we meet the Son of Man who shares our humanity, gives His life, rises, ascends, and reigns.
Finally, Ezekiel points to Jesus through God’s victory over evil. Revelation uses Gog and Magog for the nations gathered in final opposition to God. Christ is reigning now, and He will return to bring evil to its final end, raise the dead, judge the world, and usher in the new heavens and new earth.
There, God’s people will not need a temple building because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb will be their temple. The story ends where Ezekiel’s vision was always moving: God dwelling with His people in a creation filled with life.
How to Read It Well
First, read Ezekiel within the world of exile. The visions were given to real people confronting the loss of Jerusalem, the temple, the monarchy, and the land. Before we make the dry bones, new heart, watchman, or river directly about ourselves, we should ask what those images meant to Israel and how they served the book’s movement from judgment to restoration. Once we establish that meaning, we can follow the themes through the rest of Scripture and into our lives.
Second, read Ezekiel as visionary prophecy. Ezekiel repeatedly uses words such as “appearance,” “likeness,” and “like.” He is describing realities that exceed ordinary human experience. We should not assume every wheel, measurement, direction, number, or creature has a secret modern equivalent waiting to be decoded.
This is especially important in chapters 38 through 48. Gog should not be identified with Russia or another modern nation. Ezekiel is not giving us a newspaper key to current geopolitics. He is portraying evil’s final assault and God’s complete victory. Revelation uses Gog and Magog for hostile nations gathered from the whole earth.
Likewise, Ezekiel’s final temple should not be treated as a construction plan for a future millennial sanctuary where animal sacrifices resume after the cross. Ezekiel was a priest communicating through the language of temple, altar, sacrifice, holiness, land, and divine presence. His vision assures the exiles that defilement and destruction will not have the last word. God will cleanse, reorder, renew, and dwell with His people.
The vision’s deepest fulfillment is not found by returning to sacrifices that could never take away sin. Jesus has offered the final and sufficient sacrifice. He is the true temple, His people are indwelt by the Spirit, and the story moves toward the new creation where God and the Lamb dwell openly with redeemed humanity.
We should also read Ezekiel’s severe judgment alongside God’s appeals to repentance. If we isolate the violence, we may picture God as eager to destroy. If we isolate the restoration promises, we may minimize the rebellion that made judgment necessary. Ezekiel gives us both God’s kindness and severity. He warns, waits, calls, judges, cleanses, and restores.
Chapters 16 and 23 require particular care. They use graphic sexual and violent imagery to portray Jerusalem and Samaria’s covenant unfaithfulness, idolatry, and reliance upon foreign powers. The language is intentionally shocking, but it must never be used to degrade women, excuse abuse, or make human violence appear righteous. These passages expose betrayal through prophetic metaphor, and we should handle their painful rhetoric honestly.
Finally, do not read Ezekiel 18 as a ledger in which our latest good deeds earn salvation or our past righteousness creates credit for future rebellion. God is calling people away from false excuses and inherited confidence. We cannot blame someone else for our refusal to turn, and we cannot depend upon yesterday’s faithfulness while choosing rebellion today. Yet no history of wickedness places a repentant person beyond God’s mercy. God’s appeal remains: turn, and live.
What We Carry With Us
First, Ezekiel teaches us that the throne is never vacant. God was still reigning when His people were carried into exile, when Jerusalem fell, when the temple burned, and when the exiles believed their hope had died.
He reigns when we understand what He is doing and when every visible sign appears to tell us otherwise. Wherever we stand, whether in familiar places or circumstances we never wanted, we stand within God’s world. His sovereignty does not end at the boundary of our disappointment.
Second, we should never presume upon God’s patience. The people in Ezekiel’s day dismissed the warnings because time had passed. They decided the visions concerned a distant future or would never happen, but delay did not mean God had forgotten His word.
The same temptation remains. We may hear about judgment, Christ’s return, or the need to repent and assume there will always be more time. God’s patience is an expression of mercy, but the day of the Lord will come. Today is the time to hear His voice, release the sins we intend to abandon later, and turn toward life.
Third, no history of failure places us beyond God’s invitation. He takes no pleasure in death and calls the wicked to turn and live. We do not have to remain trapped by who we have been, what we have done, or how long we have wandered.
But neither can we use former faithfulness to excuse present rebellion. Faith is not something we store away while our hearts move in another direction. God calls us into a living walk with Him.
Ezekiel also teaches us that we need more than improved circumstances. The exiles needed more than a change of address. They needed new hearts and the Spirit of God. We may long for God to change what is around us while overlooking what needs to change within us.
God does not merely move dry bones into a better valley. He gives them life.
Finally, Ezekiel teaches us how to stand before what appears impossible. When God asks whether the dry bones can live, Ezekiel does not deny the death before him. He does not offer shallow optimism or pretend to know what God will do. He answers, “O Lord GOD, you know.”
That answer carries humility, surrender, and faith. We do not have to understand how God can restore what has died or map every step by which He will keep His promises. We place the question in the hands of the One who speaks to bones, gives the Spirit, raises the dead, and brings life wherever His river flows.
The book begins with God’s glory appearing beside a canal in Babylon. It moves through rebellion, judgment, exile, and death. Then it leads us into a valley where bones live, toward a sanctuary filled again with glory, and beside a river that heals everything it touches.
At the end stands a city with a new name: The LORD Is There.
That is our hope. Not merely that every painful circumstance will be repaired exactly as we imagine, but that God will finish His work and dwell forever with His renewed people in a renewed creation.
The throne is never vacant.
The Spirit still gives life.
And the story is moving toward the day when everyone will know that He is the LORD.
I’ve also created a companion video for this installment, where we walk through Ezekiel more conversationally and trace how its major movements fit into the larger story of faith.
Click this YouTube link to watch the YouTube video:
Watch the companion video here →
As we sit with Ezekiel today, perhaps the question is not whether the bones look alive or whether the ruins have disappeared. It is whether we trust the God whose throne remains secure when our world feels uncertain. Are we presuming upon His patience, or are we answering His call to turn and live? Are we asking Him merely to improve our circumstances, or are we allowing Him to transform our hearts and lead us by His Spirit?
If you are willing, share your reflections or questions in the comments so we can learn and walk this journey together.
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