What Is the Book of Ezekiel about?

Understanding Ezekiel 36:26

Ezekiel is one of the Bible's most extraordinary books — visually stunning, theologically profound, and structurally precise. The prophet Ezekiel was a priest (1:3) who was among the first wave of exiles deported to Babylon in 597 BC, about eleven years before Jerusalem's final destruction. He prophesied from Babylon for over 22 years (c. 593-571 BC), ministering to fellow exiles who were struggling with a devastating question: Has God abandoned us?

The prophet

Ezekiel was a priest's son, trained for temple service — but he never served in the Jerusalem temple because he was deported before beginning his priestly duties. This background profoundly shaped his prophecy: Ezekiel thinks in terms of holiness and defilement, sacred space and divine glory, ritual purity and covenant violation. He was married, and his wife's sudden death became a prophetic sign — God told him not to mourn, just as the exiles would be too stunned to mourn when they heard that Jerusalem had finally fallen (24:15-27).

Ezekiel performed more symbolic actions than any other prophet: he lay on his side for 390 days (4:4-6), ate food cooked over dung (4:12-15), shaved his head and divided the hair into thirds (5:1-4), and dug through a wall to act out an escape (12:1-7). These were not merely illustrations — they were prophetic theater, the word of God enacted in the body of the prophet.

Structure

Ezekiel has one of the clearest structures of any prophetic book:

1. Chapters 1-24: Judgment on Jerusalem — before the city falls
2. Chapters 25-32: Judgment on the nations — surrounding peoples judged
3. Chapters 33-48: Restoration of Israel — after the city falls

The pivot point is 33:21: 'In the twelfth year of our exile... a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, "The city has fallen!"' Everything before this verse explains why Jerusalem must be destroyed. Everything after it promises that destruction is not the end.

The glory of God

The organizing theme of Ezekiel is the kabod — the glory of God. The book opens with an overwhelming vision of God's glory (chapter 1): a storm from the north, four living creatures with four faces each, wheels within wheels covered with eyes, and above it all 'what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man... brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD' (1:26-28).

Ezekiel is careful with his language — 'appearance of the likeness of the glory' — because God's full glory cannot be directly described. But the vision establishes that God is not confined to the Jerusalem temple. His glory is mobile, cosmic, and sovereign.

Then comes the devastating sequence:

• Chapter 8: God shows Ezekiel what is happening inside the temple — elders worshiping idols, women weeping for Tammuz, men bowing to the sun. The temple is defiled.
• Chapter 10: The glory of God rises from the cherubim above the ark and moves to the threshold of the temple.
• Chapter 11: The glory moves to the east gate, then departs from the city entirely, resting on the Mount of Olives (11:23).

God leaves His own house. The temple is now just a building. This is the theological explanation for why Babylon can destroy it — God has already departed.

But the book's climax reverses this departure. In the vision of the new temple (chapters 40-48), the glory returns: 'I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east... The glory of the LORD entered the temple through the gate facing east... and the glory of the LORD filled the temple' (43:2-5). The arc of Ezekiel is departure and return — God's glory leaves a defiled temple, judges a rebellious people, and returns to a purified one.

The valley of dry bones (chapter 37)

This is the book's most famous passage. God sets Ezekiel in a valley filled with dry bones and asks: 'Son of man, can these bones live?' Ezekiel answers carefully: 'Sovereign LORD, you alone know' (37:3). God commands him to prophesy to the bones. Bone connects to bone, flesh appears, skin covers them — but there is no breath. Then Ezekiel prophesies to the breath (ruach, also meaning wind and spirit), and 'breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet — a vast army' (37:10).

The interpretation is explicit: 'These bones are the people of Israel. They say, "Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off"' (37:11). The vision promises national resurrection — Israel in exile feels dead, but God will bring them back to their land and put His Spirit in them. The vision operates on multiple levels: it promises physical return from exile, spiritual renewal, and (as later Jewish and Christian readers understood) points toward bodily resurrection.

The new heart (36:26-27)

Alongside Jeremiah's new covenant, Ezekiel's promise of a new heart is one of the Old Testament's most important theological statements: 'I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.'

The old problem was not that the law was bad but that human hearts were hard. The solution is not a better law but a new heart — God's own Spirit providing the internal motivation that external commands could never produce. This promise underlies the New Testament theology of regeneration and the work of the Holy Spirit.

The new temple (chapters 40-48)

The book's final nine chapters describe a vision of a new temple in extraordinary architectural detail — measurements of gates, courts, rooms, the altar, and the sacred district. A river flows from the temple, growing deeper as it goes, bringing life to everything it touches including the Dead Sea (47:1-12). The vision concludes with the city's new name: 'And the name of the city from that time on will be: THE LORD IS THERE' (48:35) — Yahweh Shammah, the final words of the book.

The interpretation of these chapters has been debated for millennia. Some read them as a literal blueprint for a future temple. Others see them as symbolic — the ultimate vision of God dwelling with His people in a restored creation. The river of life imagery appears again in Revelation 22, where it flows from the throne of God in the new Jerusalem.

Why it matters

Ezekiel answers the exile's deepest fear: God has not abandoned His people. His departure from the temple was judgment, not defeat. He remains sovereign over all nations (the foreign oracles prove this), He can resurrect what is dead (the dry bones prove this), and He will return to dwell with His people forever (the new temple proves this). The phrase 'Then they will know that I am the LORD' appears over 60 times — more than in any other biblical book. Everything in Ezekiel serves one purpose: the revelation of God's character through His actions in history.