Page 7 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

NOTES ON EZEKIEL

IH'TEODTJ CTIOW.
Op the prophet on whose book we enter we know
w circumstances, none save the scanty personal par-
mlars which he gives in the course of his prophecies,
bound up with them and expressive of their charac­
ter. We are told that he was a priest, son of Buzi;
also of his wife and her sudden death, a sign to Israel;
and of his residence at Tel-abib by the Chebar in the
land of the Chaldeans. He speaks of Daniel his con­
temporary, in his own day famous for righteousness,
even as Noah and Job.*
But there are no writings in the Bible more charac­
teristic, and none more used in furnishing imagery for
the last book of the New Testament, the widest and
deepest of all prophecies. Ezekiel and Jeremiah with
Daniel are the prophets of the time of the captivity,
not certainly without points of contact and the
surest elements of sympathy, but as diverse in their
tone and style and objects as they were in outward
lot, and in the circumstances which Grod employed to
give form to their predictions. It was the place of
* The traditions of the Jews that Ezekiel was servant of
Jeremiah, or his son (identifying Buzi with J.) seem unworthy of
credit. Even Josephus makes him too young when a captive,
for in the fifth year he begins to prophesy.
B