Ezekiel: Prophet of Judgment, Prophet of Promise
This page is our own summary. The original belongs to BYU Religious Studies Center; please read it there.
Gerald N. Lund gives a guided tour of Ezekiel — the man, his exile in Babylon and the four questions he answered — showing how the prophet’s warnings always lead to promises of hope.
As Come, Follow Me turns to Ezekiel (November 2–8), Gerald N. Lund offers a guided overview of a book many readers find hard to navigate. Rather than covering a few highlights, he gives a "monorail" tour that orients readers so they can find their own way back into the text.
Ezekiel the man and the captive
Ezekiel's name means "God strengthens." He was a priest, the son of Buzi, and was most likely carried to Babylon with the captives Nebuchadnezzar took from Jerusalem about 598 BC. He lived among the exiles at Tel Abib by the river Chebar, was called as a prophet in the fifth year of his exile, and served for at least twenty-two years. Lund notes he was a contemporary of Lehi and could have been one of the "many prophets" Nephi mentions.
Lund explains the setting: the long-standing warnings of Moses and the prophets, the fall of the northern kingdom to Assyria, and Judah's repeated rebellion against Babylon, which ended with Jerusalem's destruction.
Four questions Ezekiel answered
The exiles were asking hard questions, and Lund shows how Ezekiel answered each:
- Will Jerusalem really fall? Yes, a theme Ezekiel dramatized through symbolic acts, including not mourning openly at his own wife's death as a sign to the people.
- Why would God allow it? Because the people had broken the covenant through idolatry and wickedness, though God takes no pleasure in judgment (Ezekiel 33).
- Why not the other nations? Much is required of those given much, and the nations would face judgment too (Ezekiel 25–32).
- What happens to the covenant? Here the "prophet of judgment" becomes a "prophet of promise."
Hope after judgment
Lund shows that Ezekiel's harshest warnings are followed by promises: a new heart and a new spirit, a gathered Israel, a new David to rule over and teach them, the joining of Judah's and Joseph's records, and a land made fruitful again.
How we wrote this: we read the source page linked above and summarized it in our own words, quoting at most a short line with attribution. We have not added facts from outside that source. If anything here differs from the original, the original is correct.