Ezekiel
Amel-Marduk (d. 560 BC), was the son and successor of Nebuchadrezzar, , king of Babylon. He reigned only two years (562 - 560 BC). According to the Biblical Book of Kings, he pardoned and released Jehoiachin, king of Judah, who had been a prisoner in Babylon for thirty-seven years. (2 Kings 25:27) Allegedly because Amel-Marduk tried to modify his father's policies, he was murdered by Nergal-sharezer (Neriglissar), his brother-in-law, who succeeded him.
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According to religious texts, Ezekiel (Hebrew: יְחֶזְקֵאל, Y'khizqel, IPA: [jəħ.ezˈqel]), "God will strengthen" (from חזק, khazaq, [kħaˈzaq], literally "to fasten upon", figuratively "strong", and אל, el, [ʔel], literally "strength", figuratively "Almighty"), was a priest in the Bible who prophesied for 22 years sometime in the 6th century BC in the form of visions while exiled in Babylon, as recorded in the Book of Ezekiel.
Christianity regards Ezekiel as a prophet. Judaism considers the Book of Ezekiel a part of its canon, and regards Ezekiel as the third of the later prophets. Islam speaks of a prophet named Dhul-Kifl, who is most commonly identified with Ezekiel.
In Judaism
The Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel gives little detail about Ezekiel's life and mentions him only twice by name, in 1:3 and 24:24. Ezekiel was a prophet, the son of Buzi. He was one of the Israelite exiles who settled at a place called Tel-abib (mound of the deluge), on the banks of the Chebar River "in the land of the Chaldeans."[1] Traditionally, the book is thought to have been written in the 6th century BC during the Babylonian exile of the southern Israelite kingdom, Judah. This estimate is supported by evidence that the author uses a dating system which was only used in the 6th century BC.[2]
Other Jewish literature
Monument to Holocaust survivors at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem; the quote is Ezekiel 37:14.
Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, is said by Talmud (Meg. 14b) and Midrash (Sifre, Num. 78) to have been a descendant of Joshua by his marriage with the proselyte Rahab. Some statements found in rabbinic literature[who?] (Radak - R. David Kimkhi - in his commentary on Ezekiel 1:3, based on Targum Yerushalmi) go so far as to posit that Ezekiel was Jeremiah or the son of Jeremiah, who was (also) called "Buzi" because he was despised by the Jews.
Ezekiel was said to be already active as a prophet while in the Land of Israel, and he retained this gift when he was exiled with Jehoiachin and the nobles of the country to Babylon (Josephus, Ant. x. 6, § 3: "while he was still a boy"; comp. Rashi on Sanh. 92b, above).
Rava states in the Babylonian Talmud that although Ezekiel describes the appearance of the throne of God (Merkabah), this is not due to the fact that he had seen more than the prophet Isaiah, but rather because the latter was more accustomed to such visions; for the relation of the two prophets is that of a courtier to a peasant, the latter of whom would always describe a royal court more floridly than the former, to whom such things would be familiar (Ḥag. 13b). Ezekiel, like all the other prophets, has beheld only a blurred reflection of the divine majesty, just as a poor mirror reflects objects only imperfectly (Midrash Lev. Rabbah i. 14, toward the end).
According to the midrash Canticles Rabbah, it was Ezekiel whom the three pious men, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (also called Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego in the Bible) asked for advice as to whether they should resist Nebuchadnezzar's command and choose death by fire rather than worship his idol. At first God revealed to the prophet that they could not hope for a miraculous rescue; whereupon the prophet was greatly grieved, since these three men constituted the "remnant of Judah". But after they had left the house of the prophet, fully determined to sacrifice their lives to God, Ezekiel received this revelation: "Thou dost believe indeed that I will abandon them. That shall not happen; but do thou let them carry out their intention according to their pious dictates, and tell them nothing" (Midrash Canticles Rabbah vii. 8).
Ezekiel's greatest "miracle" consisted in his resuscitation of the dead, which is recounted in chapter 37 of the Book of Ezekiel. Although the Hebrew Bible describes this event as an ecstatic vision rather than a historical occurrence, later interpreters speculated as to the fate of these men, both before and after their revitalization. Some say that they were godless people, who in their lifetime had denied the resurrection, and committed other sins; others think they were those Ephraimites who tried to escape from Egypt before Moses and perished in the attempt. There are still others who maintain that after Nebuchadnezzar had carried the beautiful youths of Judah to Babylon, he had them executed and their bodies mutilated, because their beauty had entranced the Babylonian women, and that it was these youths whom Ezekiel called back to life.
This miracle is said to have been performed on the same day on which the three men were cast into the fiery furnace; namely, on the Sabbath and the Day of Atonement (Cant. R. vii. 9). Nebuchadnezzar, who had made a drinking-cup from the skull of a murdered Jew, was greatly astonished when, at the moment that the three men were cast into the furnace, the bodies of the dead boys moved, and, striking him in the face, cried out: "The companion of these three men revives the dead!" (see a Karaite record of this episode in Judah Hadasi's "Eshkol ha-Kofer", 45b, at foot; 134a, end of the section). When the boys awakened from death, they rose up and joined in a song of praise to God for the miracle vouchsafed to them; later, they went to Israel, where they married and reared children.
As early as the 2nd century, however, some authorities declared this resurrection of the dead was a prophetic vision: an opinion regarded by Maimonides (Guide for the Perplexed, II:46) and his followers as the only rational explanation of the Biblical passage.
In Christianity
Russian icon of the Prophet Ezekiel holding a scroll with his prophecy and pointing to the "closed gate" (18th century, Iconostasis of Kizhi monastery, Russia).
Ezekiel is commemorated as a saint in the liturgical calendar of the Eastern Orthodox Church-and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite-on July 21 (for those churches which use the traditional Julian Calendar, July 21 falls on August 3 of the modern Gregorian Calendar). This date was chosen because it is the day after the feast day of the Prophet Elias. Ezekiel is commemorated on August 28 on the Calendar of Saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Certain Lutheran churches also celebrate his commemoration on July 21.
The Church Fathers interpret Ezekiel's vision of the human likeness upon the sapphire throne (Ezekiel 1:26) as a prophecy of the Incarnation of the Logos from the Theotokos (Virgin Mary), who in many ancient church hymns is called the "living Throne of God".[citation needed]
Ezekiel's statement about the "closed gate" (Ezekiel 44:2-3) is understood by Eastern Christianity as another prophesy of the Incarnation: the "gate" signifying the Virgin Mary and the "prince" referring to Jesus. This is one of the readings at Vespers on Great Feasts of the Theotokos in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches.[citation needed]
Since 1830 the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has identified the Book of Mormon as the "record of the stick of Ephraim" [3] (Ezekiel 37:16) while the stick of Judah is identified with the Bible.
In Islam
Islamic view of Ezekiel (Hizqil)
The Holy Qur'an mentions a prophet called Dhul-Kifl. This prophet is most commonly identified with Ezekiel. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, in his Qur'anic commentary, says: "Dhu al Kifl would literally mean "possessor of, or giving, a double requital or portion"; or else, "one who used a cloak of double thickness," that being one of the meanings of Kifl. I think the best suggestion is that afforded by Karsten Niebuhr in his Reisebeschreibung nach Arabian, Copenhagen, 1778, ii. 264-266, as quoted in the Encyclopaedia of Islam under Dhul-Kifl. He visited Meshad 'All in 'Iraq, and also the little town called Kefil, midway between Najaf and Hilla (Babylon). Kefil, he says, is the Arabic form of Ezekiel. The shrine of Ezekiel was there, and the Jews came to it on pilgrimage." This theory reveals that Dhul-Kifl could indeed have been Ezekiel, and his Qur'anic description as being a man who was "patient" and "outstanding" matches Ezekiel's stories in the Old Testament.
Qur'anic verses
Islam refers to him as "Hizqil" or "Dhu al-Kifl"[4]
21-85 (The Prophets)
" And you shall also tell of Ishmael, Enoch, Dhul-Kifl, who all were of the patient. "
38-48 (Sad)
" And remember Ishmael, Elisha and Dhul-Kifl, and all are among the outstanding. "
Hadith and other sources
Note: As not all Hadith are authentic, the authenticity of the following Hadith depends on which compilation it's taken from and who it's chain of narrators was.
God resurrects the dead through Ezekiel
According to Ibn Abbas, this place was called "Damardan." Its people were inflicted with plague, so they fled, while a group of them who remained in the village perished. The Angel of Death called to the survivors: "Die you all", and they perished. After a long time a prophet called Ezekiel passed by them and stood wondering over them, twisting his jaws and fingers. Allah revealed to him: "Do you want Me to show you how I bring them back to life? He said: "Yes." His idea was to marvel at the power of Allah over them. A voice said to him: "Call: 'O you bones, Allah commands you to gather up.'" The bones began to fly one to the other until they became skeletons. Then Allah revealed to him to say; "Call: 'O you bones, Allah commands you to put on flesh and blood and the clothes in which they had died.'" And a voice said: "Allah commands you to call the bodies to rise." And they rose. When they returned to life they said: "Blessed are You, O Lord, and all praises is Yours." Ibn 'Abbas reported that the dead who were resurrected were four thousand, while Ibn Salih said they were nine thousand. However, this can not be relied to due to its lack of verses supporting the claim from the qur'an.
Hadith about the Plagues
Regarding plague, Abu Ubaidah Ibn Al-Jarrah related that 'Umar Ibn Al-Khattab was on his way to Syria and had reached Sarg when the leader of the Muslim army, Abu Ubaidah Ibn Al-Jarrah, and his companions met him and told him of a pestilence that had broken out in Syria. 'Umar remember the Prophet's saying: "If it (plague) be in a country where you are staying, do not go out fleeing it, and if you hear it is in a country, do not enter it." Umar praised Allah and then went off.
Secular views
Altschuler[who?] has suggested that the person described by the Book of Ezekiel may have suffered from epilepsy. Specifically, it is claimed that Ezekiel himself may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy, which has several characteristic symptoms that are apparent from his writing.[5] These symptoms include hypergraphia, hyperreligiosity, fainting spells, mutism and often collectively ascribed to a condition known as Geschwind syndrome. See list of people with epilepsy.
Tomb of Ezekiel
The tomb of Ezekiel is a structure located in modern day south Iraq near Kefil, believed to be the final resting place of Ezekiel.[6] It has been a place of pilgrimage to both Muslims and Jews alike. After the Jewish exodus from Iraq, Jewish activity in the tomb ceased although a disused Synagogue remains in place.[7]
Another tomb attributed to him is a structure located in the central part of Dezful in Iran.
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According to religious texts, Ezekiel (Hebrew: יְחֶזְקֵאל, Y'khizqel, IPA: [jəħ.ezˈqel]), "God will strengthen" (from חזק, khazaq, [kħaˈzaq], literally "to fasten upon", figuratively "strong", and אל, el, [ʔel], literally "strength", figuratively "Almighty"), was a priest in the Bible who prophesied for 22 years sometime in the 6th century BC in the form of visions while exiled in Babylon, as recorded in the Book of Ezekiel.
Christianity regards Ezekiel as a prophet. Judaism considers the Book of Ezekiel a part of its canon, and regards Ezekiel as the third of the later prophets. Islam speaks of a prophet named Dhul-Kifl, who is most commonly identified with Ezekiel.
In Judaism
The Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel gives little detail about Ezekiel's life and mentions him only twice by name, in 1:3 and 24:24. Ezekiel was a prophet, the son of Buzi. He was one of the Israelite exiles who settled at a place called Tel-abib (mound of the deluge), on the banks of the Chebar River "in the land of the Chaldeans."[1] Traditionally, the book is thought to have been written in the 6th century BC during the Babylonian exile of the southern Israelite kingdom, Judah. This estimate is supported by evidence that the author uses a dating system which was only used in the 6th century BC.[2]
Other Jewish literature
Monument to Holocaust survivors at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem; the quote is Ezekiel 37:14.
Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, is said by Talmud (Meg. 14b) and Midrash (Sifre, Num. 78) to have been a descendant of Joshua by his marriage with the proselyte Rahab. Some statements found in rabbinic literature[who?] (Radak - R. David Kimkhi - in his commentary on Ezekiel 1:3, based on Targum Yerushalmi) go so far as to posit that Ezekiel was Jeremiah or the son of Jeremiah, who was (also) called "Buzi" because he was despised by the Jews.
Ezekiel was said to be already active as a prophet while in the Land of Israel, and he retained this gift when he was exiled with Jehoiachin and the nobles of the country to Babylon (Josephus, Ant. x. 6, § 3: "while he was still a boy"; comp. Rashi on Sanh. 92b, above).
Rava states in the Babylonian Talmud that although Ezekiel describes the appearance of the throne of God (Merkabah), this is not due to the fact that he had seen more than the prophet Isaiah, but rather because the latter was more accustomed to such visions; for the relation of the two prophets is that of a courtier to a peasant, the latter of whom would always describe a royal court more floridly than the former, to whom such things would be familiar (Ḥag. 13b). Ezekiel, like all the other prophets, has beheld only a blurred reflection of the divine majesty, just as a poor mirror reflects objects only imperfectly (Midrash Lev. Rabbah i. 14, toward the end).
According to the midrash Canticles Rabbah, it was Ezekiel whom the three pious men, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (also called Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego in the Bible) asked for advice as to whether they should resist Nebuchadnezzar's command and choose death by fire rather than worship his idol. At first God revealed to the prophet that they could not hope for a miraculous rescue; whereupon the prophet was greatly grieved, since these three men constituted the "remnant of Judah". But after they had left the house of the prophet, fully determined to sacrifice their lives to God, Ezekiel received this revelation: "Thou dost believe indeed that I will abandon them. That shall not happen; but do thou let them carry out their intention according to their pious dictates, and tell them nothing" (Midrash Canticles Rabbah vii. 8).
Ezekiel's greatest "miracle" consisted in his resuscitation of the dead, which is recounted in chapter 37 of the Book of Ezekiel. Although the Hebrew Bible describes this event as an ecstatic vision rather than a historical occurrence, later interpreters speculated as to the fate of these men, both before and after their revitalization. Some say that they were godless people, who in their lifetime had denied the resurrection, and committed other sins; others think they were those Ephraimites who tried to escape from Egypt before Moses and perished in the attempt. There are still others who maintain that after Nebuchadnezzar had carried the beautiful youths of Judah to Babylon, he had them executed and their bodies mutilated, because their beauty had entranced the Babylonian women, and that it was these youths whom Ezekiel called back to life.
This miracle is said to have been performed on the same day on which the three men were cast into the fiery furnace; namely, on the Sabbath and the Day of Atonement (Cant. R. vii. 9). Nebuchadnezzar, who had made a drinking-cup from the skull of a murdered Jew, was greatly astonished when, at the moment that the three men were cast into the furnace, the bodies of the dead boys moved, and, striking him in the face, cried out: "The companion of these three men revives the dead!" (see a Karaite record of this episode in Judah Hadasi's "Eshkol ha-Kofer", 45b, at foot; 134a, end of the section). When the boys awakened from death, they rose up and joined in a song of praise to God for the miracle vouchsafed to them; later, they went to Israel, where they married and reared children.
As early as the 2nd century, however, some authorities declared this resurrection of the dead was a prophetic vision: an opinion regarded by Maimonides (Guide for the Perplexed, II:46) and his followers as the only rational explanation of the Biblical passage.
In Christianity
Russian icon of the Prophet Ezekiel holding a scroll with his prophecy and pointing to the "closed gate" (18th century, Iconostasis of Kizhi monastery, Russia).
Ezekiel is commemorated as a saint in the liturgical calendar of the Eastern Orthodox Church-and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite-on July 21 (for those churches which use the traditional Julian Calendar, July 21 falls on August 3 of the modern Gregorian Calendar). This date was chosen because it is the day after the feast day of the Prophet Elias. Ezekiel is commemorated on August 28 on the Calendar of Saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Certain Lutheran churches also celebrate his commemoration on July 21.
The Church Fathers interpret Ezekiel's vision of the human likeness upon the sapphire throne (Ezekiel 1:26) as a prophecy of the Incarnation of the Logos from the Theotokos (Virgin Mary), who in many ancient church hymns is called the "living Throne of God".[citation needed]
Ezekiel's statement about the "closed gate" (Ezekiel 44:2-3) is understood by Eastern Christianity as another prophesy of the Incarnation: the "gate" signifying the Virgin Mary and the "prince" referring to Jesus. This is one of the readings at Vespers on Great Feasts of the Theotokos in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches.[citation needed]
Since 1830 the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has identified the Book of Mormon as the "record of the stick of Ephraim" [3] (Ezekiel 37:16) while the stick of Judah is identified with the Bible.
In Islam
Islamic view of Ezekiel (Hizqil)
The Holy Qur'an mentions a prophet called Dhul-Kifl. This prophet is most commonly identified with Ezekiel. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, in his Qur'anic commentary, says: "Dhu al Kifl would literally mean "possessor of, or giving, a double requital or portion"; or else, "one who used a cloak of double thickness," that being one of the meanings of Kifl. I think the best suggestion is that afforded by Karsten Niebuhr in his Reisebeschreibung nach Arabian, Copenhagen, 1778, ii. 264-266, as quoted in the Encyclopaedia of Islam under Dhul-Kifl. He visited Meshad 'All in 'Iraq, and also the little town called Kefil, midway between Najaf and Hilla (Babylon). Kefil, he says, is the Arabic form of Ezekiel. The shrine of Ezekiel was there, and the Jews came to it on pilgrimage." This theory reveals that Dhul-Kifl could indeed have been Ezekiel, and his Qur'anic description as being a man who was "patient" and "outstanding" matches Ezekiel's stories in the Old Testament.
Qur'anic verses
Islam refers to him as "Hizqil" or "Dhu al-Kifl"[4]
21-85 (The Prophets)
" And you shall also tell of Ishmael, Enoch, Dhul-Kifl, who all were of the patient. "
38-48 (Sad)
" And remember Ishmael, Elisha and Dhul-Kifl, and all are among the outstanding. "
Hadith and other sources
Note: As not all Hadith are authentic, the authenticity of the following Hadith depends on which compilation it's taken from and who it's chain of narrators was.
God resurrects the dead through Ezekiel
According to Ibn Abbas, this place was called "Damardan." Its people were inflicted with plague, so they fled, while a group of them who remained in the village perished. The Angel of Death called to the survivors: "Die you all", and they perished. After a long time a prophet called Ezekiel passed by them and stood wondering over them, twisting his jaws and fingers. Allah revealed to him: "Do you want Me to show you how I bring them back to life? He said: "Yes." His idea was to marvel at the power of Allah over them. A voice said to him: "Call: 'O you bones, Allah commands you to gather up.'" The bones began to fly one to the other until they became skeletons. Then Allah revealed to him to say; "Call: 'O you bones, Allah commands you to put on flesh and blood and the clothes in which they had died.'" And a voice said: "Allah commands you to call the bodies to rise." And they rose. When they returned to life they said: "Blessed are You, O Lord, and all praises is Yours." Ibn 'Abbas reported that the dead who were resurrected were four thousand, while Ibn Salih said they were nine thousand. However, this can not be relied to due to its lack of verses supporting the claim from the qur'an.
Hadith about the Plagues
Regarding plague, Abu Ubaidah Ibn Al-Jarrah related that 'Umar Ibn Al-Khattab was on his way to Syria and had reached Sarg when the leader of the Muslim army, Abu Ubaidah Ibn Al-Jarrah, and his companions met him and told him of a pestilence that had broken out in Syria. 'Umar remember the Prophet's saying: "If it (plague) be in a country where you are staying, do not go out fleeing it, and if you hear it is in a country, do not enter it." Umar praised Allah and then went off.
Secular views
Altschuler[who?] has suggested that the person described by the Book of Ezekiel may have suffered from epilepsy. Specifically, it is claimed that Ezekiel himself may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy, which has several characteristic symptoms that are apparent from his writing.[5] These symptoms include hypergraphia, hyperreligiosity, fainting spells, mutism and often collectively ascribed to a condition known as Geschwind syndrome. See list of people with epilepsy.
Tomb of Ezekiel
The tomb of Ezekiel is a structure located in modern day south Iraq near Kefil, believed to be the final resting place of Ezekiel.[6] It has been a place of pilgrimage to both Muslims and Jews alike. After the Jewish exodus from Iraq, Jewish activity in the tomb ceased although a disused Synagogue remains in place.[7]
Another tomb attributed to him is a structure located in the central part of Dezful in Iran.
Read More
