Ezekiel the Prophet

(Ezek 1:3 and elsewhere) - the third of the major prophets, son of Buzi, who, like Jeremiah and Zechariah, belonged to a priestly family. According to Jewish tradition he was a servant of the prophet Jeremiah, and some even identify his father Buzi with Jeremiah; there are, however, insufficient grounds for this. Ezekiel was born during the reign of Josiah, king of Judah, and at the age of twenty-five, about 600 BC, was taken captive to Babylon together with King Jehoiachin (Ezek 1:2; 2 Kgs 24:6-12), probably settling with the other captives on the banks of the river Chebar in Chaldea.

There he saw the manifestation of God's glory in the cherubic chariot and was called to the prophetic ministry (Ezek 1:2-28; 2-3). Nothing certain is known of his later fate or death. From his prophetic book we know only that he lived in his own house at Tel-abib (Ezek 3:24; 8:1), that he was married and tenderly loved his wife, that she died suddenly (24:16-18), and that his prophetic ministry continued for twenty-two years (29:17). Tradition adds that one of the Jewish princes whom he rebuked for idolatry put him to death; that his tomb near ancient Babylon continued even in the source's day to be a place of pilgrimage for Eastern Jews; and that Muslims too regarded it as a special shrine.

The tomb's construction was attributed to King Jehoiachin, who, according to tradition, placed in it the autograph manuscript of Ezekiel's prophecies, before which a lamp was said to burn continually. A full description may be found in the diary of the twelfth-century Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela and in the later Travels of Niebuhr.