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Quick essay on the book of ezekiel
Essay on ezekiel the old testament
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The book of Ezekiel is often overlooked and not much is known about his personal life. His name is actually only mentioned twice within the entire book. What is known of this mysterious prophet is that he was the son of Buzi the priest, and his name means "God will strengthen.(Ezekiel)" Ezekiel was a priest who lived during the Israelite exile around 597 BCE, which was a decade before the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. The Israelite exiles settled at a place called Tel-Abib, on the banks of the Chebar, in the land of the Chaldeans(Thomas 24). Ezekeil was said to be about 26 years old when he was put into exile along with King Jehoiachin.
Although Ezekiel lived during a time when Israel was being demolished by the Babylonians his faith remained strong with one God, Yahweh. Unlike Ezekiel, many of the Israelites during this time believed in many gods, each having a political or social purpose for their society (The New Interpreter's Study Bible 169). Yahweh did not agree with this because the Israelites went into a covenant with him. This covenant meant that they could not continue to worship other idols, for if they did Yahweh would emanate his wrath upon them. Ezekiel understood this and he knew that this was the reason why they were being punished. Yahweh uses Ezekiel to relay this message to his people and show them the punishment that they will have to bare because of their sins.
Ezekiel becomes aware that he is a prophet of God's word when he receives a vision by the Chebar River in Babylon (Thomas 25). His first vision consists of amazing creatures that each had four faces and four wings. Above these human like creatures was a dome that looked like a throne. On this throne was a human like form that resembled the likeness of the glory of God. When Ezekiel saw this he fell on his face. Then a voice came to him and said:
"O mortal stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you. And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me. He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day.
Even though the prophets were met with hostility and rebuking from the people, due to the evil in peoples hearts, they continued to speak the words of God. The Prophets knew they would face danger because of the words they spoke, but they also knew the words of God had to be heard. The prophets were an important tool in redirecting the people which makes their role in the history of Israel and Judah one of the most important roles.
Ezekiel’s whose name means “God will Strengthen” or “God Strengthens” and was the son of Priest Buzi. Not all students and scholars agree that the book is in any degree a single effort of one person, for a considerable number understand it to be a composite from several sources (Harper’s Bible Dictionary). Ezekiel and King Jehoiachin and 10,000 other craftsmen, military, and political leaders were taken captive by the King Nebuchandezzar and taken to Babylonia.
The Old Testament and the Bible itself has been studied extensively for centuries. Archeologists and Scholars have labored and pondered over texts trying to decipher its clues. It does not matter how many times the Old Testament has been studied there will always be something new to learn about it or the history surrounding it. In the book Reading the Old Testament: an Introduction, the author Lawrence Boadt presents us with a few different authors of the Old Testament that used different names for God and had a unique insight into the texts. These four sources are titled P for priests, E for Elohim, J for Jehovah, and Y for Yahweh (95). These four unique sources help us realize that there is more than one author of the Pentateuch. These authors took the text and adapted for their culture. This independent source is used by scholars to help gain insight into what was behind the texts of the bible so we are not left with an incomplete picture of what went into the creation of the bible. Julius Wellhausen used these four sources to publish a book to able us to better understand the sources and to give it credibility with the Protestant scholars at the time (Boadt 94). These sources that is independent of the bible as in the DVD Who Wrote the Bible? and the Nova website aide in shedding light on the history that surrounded the writers who wrote the text and what inspired them to write it in the first place. The DVD shows the discovery of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the extensive history of the texts and all its sources in an effort to try to find exactly who wrote the bible (Who Wrote). These scrolls have aided scholars immensely by giving us some of the oldest known manuscripts of the bible in the world today. It shows that the bible w...
Ezekiel meaning the strength of God, is one of the four greater prophets in the Old Testament. Ezekiel was the son of a priest named Buzi. Not much is known about Ezekiel’s childhood; much more is know after the age of twenty-five. Ezekiel was taken captive in the captivity of Jehoiachin, about eleven years before the destruction of Jerusalem. He was one of the many members of a community of Jewish people who settled on the banks of the Chebar, a river of Babylon. Ezekiel began prophesying in 595 B.C, and finished prophesying in 573 B.C. Ezekiel prophesied for a period that lasted about twenty-two years. Ezekiel was a married man but little else is known about his family life, he also had a house in his place of exile. His wife died a sudden death during the siege of Jerusalem. He lived among the top of his companions in exile, and their elders consulted with him on all matters.
The most highly referenced and revered as sacred are The King James Version, considered a masterpiece of English literature, The Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, The Aprocrypha, the books believed left out of some bibles, The Vulgate, the Latin Bible used for centuries by the Roman Catholic religion, and The Septuagint, the first ancient Greek translation of the Tanakh (Geisler and Nix 15, McCallum 4). The Bible is considered a sacred text by three major world religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Many believers consider it to be the literal truth. Others treat it with great respect, but believe that it was written by human beings and, thus is often contradictory in its tenets.
The book of Zephaniah contains messages of divine judgment against Judah and Jerusalem, as well as against other nations. It addresses a rare concentration of references to central issues in the history of ancient Israel. Idolatry, violence, and deception abound in Judah when Zephaniah began prophesying. Zephaniah's prophesying made it clear that Yahweh would execute vengeance upon unrepentant wrongdoers. His adverse judgments would be visited not only upon Judah and Jerusalem, but also upon other peoples: the Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, Ethiopians, and Assyrians. Significantly, Zephaniah, the prophet, never stands at the center of the book of Zephaniah; the word of Yahweh is at the center of the book. Zephaniah is mentioned only insofar as he is necessary for the interpretation of the text.
It is warning the people that if they don’t start listening to the true prophets, he will leave them to be destroyed in the hands of the false prophets and corrupt leaders of the land. God tells them that he really does not want them to come to this, because the passage ends with a prophecy about what will become of the worthless shepherd. I think this is a message to false prophets that eventually no one will believe them, and also to the leaders or kings that they will lose all of their power and military strength. God reminds them that he really is helping protect them from the full effect of their sins, even if they don’t realize it. In other words, things could be a lot worse, but God loves humans so much that he won’t let it get worse.
The Book of Hosea is one among the several books of the Hebrew scripture and appears as the first in the order of the twelve Minor Prophets. The term ‘minor’ refers to the length and not the importance of the books when compared to the books of Ezekiel, Isaiah and Jeremiah. All the twelve minor books are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Haggai & Malachi (Feinberg, 1990). Hosea was instructed by God to marry a prostitute, by the name of Gomer, who symbolized covenantal relationship between Israel and him (God). Hosea’s prophesies were unique in the sense that they were relayed through the names given to his children. This paper seeks to give an illustrative description on the first chapter of the book of Hosea.
The kingdom of Jerusalem is one of the most important Kingdoms in the bible, thats why it was so important when it fell to the Babylonians. The beginning of the book is describing in first person from Jeremiah the prophet the destruction of Jerusalem and how sad it is of a site to see. In chapter two of the book Jeremiah is talking about the how mad the lord is at his people, and how he brought judgement to the wicked land. God is showing in chapter two how mad he is and he cut off the power of Israel, but in chapter three he Jeremiah tells us that he is faithful to us and he will restore the land. Even though he to is very sad from his city being taken and destroyed he remembers what the lord has told him. He then explains that the people of the kingdom of judah and the kingdom of Jerusalem need to fall back to the lord and get rid of those false gods. For the love and kindness of the lo...
In the days of Christ’s life on this earth, believers did not have access to the Bible in its entirety as we know and are familiar with today. Believers in this ancient time period only had access to the Old Testament. However, through their access to the Old Testament, believers were provided a foundation for New Testament times. This foundation provided New Testament believers with the Lord’s established principles of right and wrong they were expected to follow. In addition, the Old Testament is overflowing with accounts of people whose lives exemplified the future life of Christ on this earth. These pictures allowed the Israelite nation to begin to have an understanding of why Christ needed to come as their Messiah and the work He needed to do on earth. Finally, there are common themes that are interwoven throughout the entire Old Testament. Three of these themes: transgression, redemption, and consummation point to the purpose of Christ’s atoning death on the cross. These themes portray God’s work both in the lives of Old Testament believers, but they also foreshadow God’s desire and plan for believers in New Testament times and beyond.
In the beginnings of Jeremiahs ministry he was told that he must warn the people of Jerusalem’s fall. Israel was being an unfaithful people at this time. They were disobeying the commands of God. God was very displeased with his people at this time. They did not obey the laws that God had put before them.
Zephaniah opens his prophecy with an announcement of doom. It begins with broad panorama ( all living beings ) then moves to a much narrow focus ( Judah and Jerusalem ) to those who engage in idolatry and syncretistic religious practices Zephaniah speaks specifically of three types of idolatrous worship which have three loci: Baal worship, conducted in the temple; astral worship, practiced on the rooftops; and the ritual dedicated to the Molekh, performed in the valley of Ben Hinnom.
The last major symbolic action of this section involves Ezekiel shaving his head and beard, which he divides into three groups. The first of which he burns in a fire to symbolize how a third of the people will be killed by a fire from God. The second pile is scattered into the winds, symbolizing how a third of the inhabitants of Jerusalem will be exiled to foreign lands. Another third, he cuts with a sword to show how a third of the people will be killed at the hands of their conquerors, though he does take a small number from that group to weave into his clothes, symbolizing how a small number will be taken back into the fold of God(Ezekiel 5-12). Through the much of the
In the Bible, Old and New Testament, the word “prophecy” is discussed. Prophecy is defined as “a statement that something will happen in the future; the inspired declaration of divine will and purpose” (http://www.merriam-webster.com). Prophecy was used to predict the future or what is forthcoming to the people of God. The Prophets of the Old Testament were spokespersons of God and they were selected to foretell the word of God. The prophecies were used to predict the future and to give warning to the people of Israel. Many believe these prophecies have a great influence on the New Testament. “Prophets occupy a unique place in Israel’s future traditions and they contributed to one third of the Old Testament” (Varughese, A., 2003, p.284). The utterance of these Prophets helped shaped the stories of the New Testament.
The book of Nehemiah was originally the second section of the book of Ezra. “Closely allied to the Book of Ezra, it was attached to it in the old Jewish reckoning.” In this book of the Bible, the book of Nehemiah illustrates Jerusalem’s final stage of reconstruction during the 5th century B.C. Babylonian exile period. Although, Nehemiah might have not been a man with much power, he was in fact a man of ability, courage, and action. God’s purpose for Nehemiah was to prepare him to accomplish a forceful task within the entire Bible. Nehemiah had a job and responsibility, which was to help rebuild and reestablish the walls of Jerusalem.