The Life of the Holy Prophet Ezekiel

The memory of the 21st of July The Holy Prophet Ezekiel came from a Jewish town called Sarir, he was the son of Vusi, from the tribe of Levi, and a priest of the Most High God.

In this case, we understand Nebuchadnezzar II, son of Nabopolassar, <unk> the great eastern conqueror who conquered Syria, Persia, and Egypt and took the Jews captive; reigned from 605 to 562 B.C.E.

Babylon was built by Nimrod, the son of Hus or Kush, a descendant of Ham. It was situated on both sides of the Euphrates River, Babylon resembled a rectangle built on a vast plain.

And the walls of the city were four hundred cubits round about, and the thickness of the walls was thirty cubits, so that six chariots could pass over the walls of the city, and on the walls were two hundred and fifty towers, and a hundred gates of copper.

crossing the river, stretched a huge bridge, on the eastern side of which rose the royal palace and the pagan temple of Bela.

Later Babylon was conquered by the Persian kings Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes and Alexander the Great and was completely ruined.] together with Joachim, the king of Judah, called Jeconiah II (4 Kings 24:1).

Three times Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar: the first time in the days of the king of Judah Joakim (who is also called Eliakim in the Holy Scriptures (4 Kings.23:34)), son of Josiah, brother of Jehoahaz and Zedekiah, father of another Jeconiah; he was first taken by Nebuchadnezzar in chains to Babylon; then

and the holy prophet Daniel was carried away captive.

But soon Nebuchadnezzar released Joachim to reign in Jerusalem, making him his tributary.

After reigning in Jerusalem for three years under Nebuchadnezzar, Jehoiakim, at the end of these three years, withdrew from him, refusing to pay him tribute.

And the army of the Chaldeans came again to Jerusalem, and the holy city was taken, and Jehoiakim the king was slain, and was thrown to the dogs outside the city; and Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiakim his son king in his stead, and called him after his father's name, Jeconiah, and made him the second after him.

and Jehoiachin, who was the tax-giver to the king of Babylon, as his father had been before.

And because this Jeconiah did evil in the sight of Jehovah his God, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, and took him, and all his household, and a great multitude of mighty men, and mighty men of valour, and all that could carry armour, out of all the cities of Judah.

And he took the gold vessels of the church: this was the second captivity of Jerusalem.

And the third and last destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar was in the days of Zedekiah king of Judah.

And it came to pass, when Zedekiah had deposed him, that Nebuchadnezzar came with all the army of the Chaldeans, and smote Jerusalem, and destroyed it with the fire and with the sword, and carried away captive the rest of the people.

This third destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar is described in detail in the life of the holy prophet Jeremiah.

While in captivity in Babylon, the prophet Ezekiel lived near a river called Chebar; and a marvelous vision came to him in the thirtieth year of his life, in the fifth year of the captivity of Jeconiah, in the fourth month [i.e.

And on the fifth day of the month he saw the heavens opened, and a strong north wind came, and a great white cloud, and a flame of fire in the midst of it, and brightness was round about it; and out of the cloud there appeared the likeness of four living creatures, as it were pure.

a hot brass in the fire.

And every one had four faces: a man's face, and a lion's face, and a bull's face, and an eagle's face; and every one had four wings, and under their wings were the hands of a man; and with two they spread out their wings, and with two they covered their bodies; and the fire passed between the living creatures, and out of the fire came lightning.

And the appearance of the wheels was as the appearance of a sapphire stone, as the appearance of a sea; and the appearance of the wheels was as the appearance of a golden sea.

And the likeness of the wheels was as the likeness of the wheels; and the likeness of the wheels was as the likeness of the spirit, and the wheels were full of eyes round about; and the likeness of the living creatures was as the likeness of the wheels; and when the living creatures went, the wheels went with them; and when the living creatures stood,

And the wheels.

And there was a sound of their wings as the sound of many waters, as the sound of a multitude of hosts; when they stood still, their wings were still; and when they stood still, the voice of God was heard from above.

And upon the four living creatures and upon the wheels there was an expanse like crystal, and upon the expanse was a throne as it were of sapphire, and upon the throne a likeness like a man, and upon the throne as the likeness of a rainbow, shining in the cloud in a rainy day.

This is the vision of the glory of the Lord that the holy prophet Ezekiel saw.

In it, according to the interpretation of the men of wisdom and inspiration, a shining human figure on a sapphire throne represented the incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Pure Virgin, who was the animated throne for the incarnate God and was shaped by this sapphire throne.

For the precious stone of sapphire, like the sky in its brightness, and containing in itself, like the sky, stars, gold particles, is the image of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, in whom, as in the heavenly nature, there is no blemish; whose womb appeared wider than the heavens, having contained in itself

Unfathomable, and which, like the stars, is adorned with the manifold gifts of God's grace; four animals with four faces represented the four holy Evangelists, each of whom, describing Christ's life with men on earth, depicted His humanity, embodied in these animals' face

human; the divinity of Christ revealed by the face of a lion; the suffering of Christ indicated by the face of a calf; the resurrection and ascension of Christ depicted by the face of an eagle [Accordingly in painting the holy Evangelists are symbolically depicted, <unk> Matthew in the form of a man, Mark in the form of a lion, Luke

And John in the form of an eagle.

And the four wheels, and the eyes of the wheels, were the four corners of the earth, and the four eyes of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four eyes of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth, and the four wheels were the four corners of the earth; and the apostle's preaching opened the eyes of many peoples, and they saw the fire, and the fire that was in the midst of the heaven.

The revelation, and the greatness of God's glory surrounding it, show the unfathomable glory of God.

Other spiritual mysteries were also portrayed in that marvelous and awe-inspiring vision, in which St. Ezekiel, in terror, fell to the ground and heard from above from the One seated on the throne a voice in the likeness of a man saying to him: "Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you".

And there entered into him an invisible power, and lifted him up from the ground, and set him upon his feet. And the prophet trembled, and stood before the glory of Jehovah, who appeared unto him. And the Lord said unto him, Son of man!

and I will send thee to the house of Israel, unto a people that are rebellious against me, and that have transgressed against me; and they and their fathers have rebelled against me unto this day, a stiff-necked people, and a stiff-necked heart: unto them will I send thee, and thou shalt speak my words unto them; thou shalt not be afraid of their countenance; for they are rebellious against thee, and they have surrounded thee,

(Ezekiel 2:3-4) What is the meaning of this verse?

And behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and there was a roll of a book in it; and he rolled it out before me; and it was written on the inside and on the outside, lamentation, mourning, and wailing.

And thou, son of man, eat this roll, and go, speak unto the house of Israel all the words that I command thee.

And Ezekiel was filled with the spirit of prophecy, and he took to heart all that God had spoken to him. And it came to pass, when the vision was taken away from him, that he heard a voice as the voice of a great multitude, saying, Blessed be the glory of Jehovah from his place.

And the sound of the wings of the living creatures, and the sound of the wheels, when they went, was like the sound of a great earthquake; and the chariot was lifted up, and the vision was ended. And the vision was finished, and the man of God was dumb seven days.

And the word of Jehovah came unto him, saying, Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; and thou shalt hear the word from my mouth, and warn them from me.

When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt certainly die; and thou speakest not to warn the wicked from his way, that he may live; that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thy hand.

But if thou hast warned the wicked, and he turn not from his iniquity, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.

Then, being carried away by the spirit into the field, Ezekiel again saw the glory of Jehovah as before, and he was told to shut up in his house and remain silent until the Lord commanded him to open his mouth to speak and preach the words of God.

At that time of silence, the final siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and the destruction of the people were revealed to him in a few years, so that he would not only announce it to the people in words, but to show it in action.

And he measured his hair in three parts, and burned one part in the fire before the eyes of them that were carried away captive with him, and cut off the other part with the sword, and scattered the third part to the wind, to signify the wrath of God, which he purposed to bring upon Jerusalem and upon all Palestine.

And he divided the children of Israel, who would not repent of their abominations, into three parts, that they might bear their iniquity: the third part by famine, and the third part by pestilence, and the third part by the sword of the Chaldeans, in the siege of Jerusalem.

And the third <unk> will be scattered throughout the universe.

And they feared the God of the heavens, who had brought their fathers up out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and with a stretched-out arm; and they worshipped idols, and served them, and did abominable things, from the days of Solomon.

And in the feasts of the days of their wickedness, when they ate and drank, and did shameful and unlawful things; for the kings, and the princes, and the judges, and the princes, were the same in this wickedness.

And they have made the gods of the heavens and the idols of their detestable things, and have set up their idols in the house of their God, and have sacrificed abominable things to demons in the place where they sacrificed to the most high God; for abomination to the Lord.

For the people of this city are like unto a woman that commiteth adultery, and keepeth not the truth of her husband, but commiteth adultery with others.

That is why in the Gospel, the Lord later said of this people, "a wicked and adulterous generation" (Matthew 12:39); and earlier in the prophecy of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 3:1) God likened this generation to an adulterous woman and for a long time warned them through the holy prophets to repent.

But when they did not repent, he gave them up to the Chaldeans to be utterly destroyed, and he left their land desolate for seventy years.

And it came to pass at the end of seventy years, that Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt by Zerubbabel, but they had not the beauty, and the wealth, and the glory, which they had before; and the Jews, being delivered out of the captivity of Babylon, were again established in their own land, but they were governed no more by their own kings, but by foreigners, and by a foreign nation.

and they were brought under a heavy yoke, and served other kings, first the Babylonians, and then the Egyptians, and then the Romans, by whom they perished.

(Matthew 24:2) And the former desolation from the Chaldeans was foretold by the holy prophet Ezekiel (along with other holy prophets).

And it came to pass in the days of the holy prophet Ezekiel, when he was in captivity in Babylon, in the land of the Chaldeans, that Jeremiah the holy man dwelt in Jerusalem.

And the Spirit of God was upon them both, and they prophesied with one accord concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and many other things, as it is written in their books; and the words of Jeremiah were sent from Jerusalem to Babylon.

And the words of Ezekiel were sent from Babylon to the captivity to Jerusalem; and Ezekiel testified in Babylon before his own people, that the prophecy of Jeremiah was true, and Jeremiah testified in Jerusalem; but they did not trust in him.

The hypocrites of the Jews, who were led astray by their idolatry, and who trusted in the false prophets, and called the holy prophets of God liars.

So Jeremiah was persecuted by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and Ezekiel was kept in agonizing chains by those in captivity in Babylon, just as Jehovah had foretold: "Look!

(Ezekiel 8:11, 16) And he spoke of it to the people who were with him in captivity.

And he was brought up from Babylon to Jerusalem, and was set in the temple of Solomon; and he saw the abomination of the holy place, and the idols that were in it, outside and within, and the idols that were in the holy place, and the idols that were in the holy place; and he saw the elders of Israel burning incense before the idols,

The priests turned their faces from the throne of God and worshiped the sun, and the women sat and wept for Famuza, the fictional Greek Adonis, who had committed adultery with the vile Venus, was slain.

A wild boar, he was considered a god by the pagans, and a god by the perverted Jews.

And behold, the glory of God, as it had appeared before by the river Chebar, was rising up, and was about to come forth out of the house, to make it empty. And he heard the word of Jehovah, saying unto him, Son of man, dost thou see that the wickedness of these men is great?

And they have filled the land with violence, and have provoked me to anger; and they have conspired to provoke me to anger, and I will take vengeance in my anger; and my eye shall not spare, neither will I have mercy; and though they cry aloud in my ears, I will not hear them.

And the voice of God cried with a great and terrible voice to the prophet, and said, Vengeance and destruction are come upon the city, and every man with his instruments of destruction in his hand.

And Jehovah spoke, and behold, there came forth six mighty men with drawn swords; and among them was a man clothed with a vesture, and in his hand a staff of ink, and a scribe's staff. And Jehovah spoke to him, saying,

Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark upon the foreheads of my servants, who sigh and groan because of all the iniquity that is done in the midst of her; for I will redeem my chosen ones.

And the man went forth in the garment of a priest, and put on the foreheads of the faithful servants of God the letter Taurus, which is written in the form of a righteous cross, and in our alphabet the letter Testudo.

And it came to pass, as the man went through the city, the man clothed in fine jewels, and the men of God, the six men of fear, who were after him, six captains of the Chaldeans, who were to come with Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Jerusalem;

To the men the angry Lord said:

Go and smite, spare not, and have no pity on the old man, or on the young man, or on the woman, or on the virgin, or on the suckling; but smite them all to death, beginning with the priest, and with the elder; and every one on whom is my mark, touch him not.

And the holy prophet saw the vision of the slaughter of all the people of Jerusalem, both of the old and of the young, as it should come to pass; and the prophet fell down on his face before Jehovah, and cried,

Woe, woe, woe to me, Lord Jehovah, that thou art about to destroy the remnant of Israel, in pouring out thy fury upon Jerusalem! And when he had seen the man in the vestments, he turned to Jehovah, and said, I have done as thou hast commanded me, Lord Jehovah.

And Jehovah said unto him, Take in thy hand a handful of coals of fire between the wheels of the cherubim, and scatter them over all Jerusalem, for a sign, that it shall not be consumed by the sword of the Chaldeans, but by fire.

After this astonishment and vision, the prophet finds himself back in his place in Chaldea, and what he sees soon comes true.

He prophesied also of St. Ezekiel and the neighboring Gentiles, who laughed at the punishing of Jerusalem by God, of the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Philistines, Idumea, Tyre and Egypt, announcing to them the same divine punishment that was to come upon them through the Chaldeans because they

And they rejoiced because of Jerusalem, because she was desolate.

And it came to pass, when all this was accomplished, that he prophesied that the wrath of God should come upon the Jews, and that they should return from Babylon to their own land, and that the city and the temple should be built again; for the second time the hand of Jehovah was lifted up upon the land of Judah, after Jerusalem was destroyed.

And he saw in the vision of his former vision, that Jerusalem was measured by the commandment of God, and the city and the temple of the Lord were built, and the glory of God filled his temple, as it is written in the book of his prophets.

This whole vision was a mysterious foreshadowing of our deliverance from the work of the enemy and the establishment of the Church of Christ, to be accomplished through the appearance of God in the flesh, born of the Virgin, whom the prophet called "the gates of the prisoners" and impenetrable to anyone but God himself.

(Ezek. 44:2) What a blessing that will be!

(Ezek. 37:1) He was also a prophet of God.

And he saw as if the hand of God had taken it up, and had set it in the midst of the valley, and it was full of very dry bones of men; and they were all clothed with flesh, according to the word of God; and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, a very great multitude. And Jehovah said,

And I will open your graves, and I will bring you out of your graves, and I will reveal to the Prophet many of the mysteries of God, which shall be made manifest in the last days, and he shall declare them, and write them in a book, and whosoever will, let him read them.

And we will narrow our account, but we will only mention, based on the testimony of reliable narrators about him, that he was also a great miracle worker, like Moses he was a water divider.

And there were gathered to him by the river Chebar multitudes of Jews, and the Chaldeans came upon them in a robbery; and he prayed, and the waters of the river were divided, and there was a dry way for the pursuers, and they fled.

And the people passed on dry ground; and the Chaldeans, who had the courage to go after them, were covered with the waters, and died.

And he sent serpents in their cities, and scorpions; and they devoured the little ones and the cattle. And he repented them, and took away the serpents, and the scorpions from among them.

In the time of famine he multiplied food in abundance by his prayers to God, and brought back to life from the gates of death those who were fatally weary from hunger, and he himself died a martyr's death.

(3:24; 8:1) that he was married and tenderly loved his wife, that she died suddenly (24:16-18); his prophetic ministry lasted 22 years.

His tomb, near ancient Babylon, continues to attract pilgrims to this day.

<unk> The prophetic book of Ezekiel, which consists of 48 chapters, contains a rich variety of material - visions, parables, parables, allegories, prophecies, and symbolic actions.

Because of the symbolic-mysterious nature of some passages in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, the Jews considered it to be secret and did not allow persons under 30 years of age to read it.] .

When he saw that his people, the Jews, who had been exiled with him, were becoming acquainted with the idolatrous Chaldeans and learning all their wicked deeds, he rebuked them, urged them to stop their wickedness, and threatened them with God's wrath.

And the old man of the Jews, who was a chaste man, was wroth with him, and smote him, and cut him in pieces upon his horses; and they took up his body, and buried him in the field of Mahor, in the sepulchre of Shem and Arphaxad, Abraham's fathers.

And many of the Jews were gathered to his sepulchre, and there they offered their prayers to the God of hosts, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

I 'm going to have to go .