Ezekiel
In Hebrew, the name “Ezekiel” means “God strengthens,” or “God is strong.”
- The name combines the Hebrew word for “God” (El) with a form of the verb “chazaq,” meaning “to strengthen”.
- While Ezekiel was contemporary with Jeremiah, Daniel, and Zechariah, he was also a priest to whom God gave visions, signs, and symbols to dramatize the disobedience of God’s people, to show them why they had been removed from their homeland and exiled in Babylon.
- Young Eziekiel and his wife were among the first 10,000 Jews to be taken to Babylon in 597 BC, and they lived on the bank of the Chebar River until his wife died.
- While the Bible doesn’t tell us exactly how Ezekiel died, historians believe he was killed by some Jewish leaders who were offended by his graphic demonstrations of their sins.
