Ezekiel, the Prophet of the Exile

Ezekiel is a priest of Jerusalem. In 597 before Christ, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, takes the city a first time: he carries off into exile King Jehoiachin, the court and the notables, among them Ezekiel, but leaves Jerusalem standing and its Temple intact, setting Zedekiah on the throne as a vassal king. Eleven years later, the revolt of Zedekiah brings on a second siege: in 587, the city is taken, the Temple burned, and the people deported in mass. Ezekiel prophesies between these two dates, an exile of the first hour, announcing to his companions the ruin still to come of the city yet standing. He lives among the exiles, by the river Chebar, a great canal of Babylonia. There God seizes him, in the fifth year of the exile, and grants him to see: “The heavens opened, and I saw visions of God.” Ezekiel 1:1 The book dates each of its oracles with an archivist’s care, year, month and day of the captivity: the word of God reaches his people in the exile itself, and enters into its history.

The vision of the chariot

From the north a storm rises: a great cloud and a fire, with a brightness all around, and in the midst four living beings. Each has four faces and four wings; on the ground, beside them, wheels full of eyes go forward when they go forward and rise when they rise: the breath that animates the living beings is also in the wheels, so that the ones and the others make but a single movement. Above stretches a firmament of crystal, and on this firmament a throne, and on the throne a figure of a man in fire and brightness: “Such was the aspect of the image of the glory of the Lord. At this sight I fell on my face.” Ezekiel 1:28 The glory of the Lord moves, free of every place, and comes to visit its exiles in a pagan land. It reigns over all the earth, and not over the Temple of Jerusalem alone.

The four living beings

Each living being bears four faces: “A man’s face in front, a lion’s face on the right, an ox’s face on the left, and an eagle’s face.” Ezekiel 1:10 The man says intelligence, the lion royalty, the ox the animal of offering, the eagle the height of vision, and the four together bear the throne: all creation serves the glory of its God. Revelation takes up these four living beings around the throne of heaven: “The first is like a lion, the second like a young ox, the third has as it were a man’s face, and the fourth is like a flying eagle.” Revelation 4:7 The Church has recognised in them, since the first centuries, the figure of the four evangelists: Matthew the man, for his Gospel opens on the human genealogy of Christ; Mark the lion, who begins with the voice crying in the desert; Luke the ox, who begins at the sacrifice of Zechariah in the Temple; John the eagle, whose gaze rises at once to the eternal Word. The four faces that bore the throne now bear the Gospel to the four corners of the world.

The scroll eaten

God holds out to the prophet a scroll written within and without, laden with laments and groanings, and commands him to eat it: “Son of man, feed your belly and fill your entrails with this scroll that I give you. I ate it, and it was in my mouth sweet as honey.” Ezekiel 3:3 Before carrying the word, the prophet must assimilate it to his entrails, make it wholly his own. The scroll announces misfortune, and yet it is sweet: its sweetness lies not in what it says, but in what it is, the word of God. For one who loves God, to feed on his word and commune with his will is a sweetness, even when it bears a judgment.

The watchman

God then defines the prophet’s charge: “Son of man, I have set you as a watchman for the house of Israel: you shall hear the word of my mouth, and warn them on my behalf.” Ezekiel 3:17 The watchman keeps guard over the city and sounds the alarm at the approach of danger. God makes this the charge of Ezekiel: if he does not warn the wicked of his fault, the wicked will die in his sin, but God will require his blood from the prophet; if he warns him, he will have saved his own life, whether the wicked converts or not.