The Prophet Ezekiel (VI c. before the Nativity of Christ)

The Prophet Ezekiel was born about six hundred years before the Nativity of Christ, in the time of Ozias, king of the Jews, in the city of Sarira. According to Jewish tradition he was a servant of the Prophet Jeremiah and, like him, a descendant of priests. It is known that his father was named Buzi, and that he had a wife, who was a great comfort to him, but four years after Ezekiel’s calling as a prophet she died suddenly. At the age of twenty-five the prophet was carried captive to Babylon together with King Jeconiah and other countrymen. In captivity he lived in Mesopotamia, by the river Chebar. It was here that he had his first miraculous vision. At a command from on high Ezekiel ate a scroll on both sides of which was written: “lamentations, and mourning, and woe,” and he tasted the sweetness of honey in his mouth. Thus the Lord called him to prophetic service (Ezek. 2:1–10).

Ezekiel foretold to the Israelites in Babylonian captivity the trials that would fall upon them as punishment for their disobedience; he also foretold the coming of a better time: deliverance from the Babylonian captivity and the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem… The fruit of the prophet’s twenty years of labour is the book he wrote, made up of forty-eight chapters, which blessed Jerome calls an ocean of divine mysteries.

The holy Prophet Ezekiel was also granted the gift of wonderworking. Through his prayer the river Chebar parted, and the Jews pursued by the Chaldeans crossed safely to the other bank; in time of famine food was multiplied for the hungry…

The blessed Ezekiel died a martyr: for denouncing one of the Jewish princes he was tied to untamed horses and torn apart. The prophet’s holy remains were gathered by pious Jews and buried with honour.