On the fifth of the month, (it was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity,)
This verse dates God's word by a captive king, not by a king on his throne. That calendar says a great deal about where Israel stood with God. Ezekiel was one of the exiles, and the word came to him in a foreign land, five years into a captivity that was not yet over.
Ezekiel could have counted the years by the king still reigning in Jerusalem. He does not. One writer treats this as a settled habit, and a key to reading him:
Ezekiel had been carried into captivity with king Jehoiachin. At least, he was one of those made captive at that time. He regularly dates his prophecies from that period. This is an important thing to notice if we are to understand the revelations made to him. For himself there is no longer any question of dates or of kings, of Judah or of Israel. The people of God are in captivity among the Gentiles.
The fifth year counts from an event with a date. One writer sets out when it happened and who was taken.
He was a contemporary of Jeremiah and Daniel, and his prophecy seems to open about the fifth year of his captivity, B.C. 594. This we learn from Ezekiel 1:2. You will remember Jehoiachin, king of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar carried him into captivity in his eighth year, along with a great many of his subjects.
The chapter opens with a "thirtieth year" and then gives this second date. One reference work links the two:
The thirtieth year of Ezekiel 1:1 is doubtless the year of the Babylonian kingdom which Nabopolassar founded in B.C. 625: the thirtieth year would be 595, which agrees with the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity.
The date names a king, and his name carried a promise. One writer sees his removal as God clearing away a false confidence.
This fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity shows us Israel's present relationship to God. That relationship is marked by the taking away of the man whose name falsely promised "establishment by Jehovah." ... The false confidence must be taken away before God can come in for blessing. And when His "judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness" (Isaiah 26:9). These are principles of God's very nature which no grace He shows can ever change. Grace itself can only reign through righteousness.
The gap between the deportation and this vision was not empty time. Those still in Judah could have learned from what happened to the people already taken away.
The fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity is not without special reason either. There had been plenty of time for those left behind in the land to repent of their empty hopes, as well as of their rebelliousness and their idolatry. They had had the warning of their brothers removed from the land: had they taken it to heart?
They had not.
The prophet is in exile, so God's throne appears to him outside the land. Where it appears says something about how God now deals with His people.
This throne of the supreme and sovereign Lord God is seen in Chaldea — in the place where the prophet then was — among the Gentiles. It is no longer seen at Jerusalem in connection with the land... So the voice of God speaks to Ezekiel as to a "son of man." That title suited the testimony of a God who spoke outside of His people. He was no longer among them. Instead He was judging them from the throne of His sovereignty.
- Captivity as calendar. Ezekiel dates his prophecies from Jehoiachin's deportation, not from any reigning king. For him the question of kings, of Judah or Israel, is over. The people of God are in captivity among the Gentiles.
- Captivity as fact. The fifth year points back to a real deportation. Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive in his eighth year, and Ezekiel went into exile with him.
- Captivity as exposure. The king's name promised establishment by the Lord. His removal shows that false confidence must go before God can come in for blessing. Grace itself reigns only through righteousness.
- Captivity as delay. Five years gave those left in the land time to repent of their empty hopes and their idolatry. They had watched their brothers taken away, and still they did not.
- Captivity as vantage point. The prophet sits in Chaldea, so God's throne appears there, outside Jerusalem. He speaks to a "son of man" — no longer among His people, but judging them from His sovereignty.
the word of Jehovah came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of Jehovah was there upon him.
Verse 3 repeats the setting of verse 1, but the voice changes: verse 1 says "I," verse 3 says "him." Now it reads like an official record — the man, his father, his office, and the hand that rested on him.
The shift from first person to third is deliberate, and the names carry the message. One writer reads the whole verse as the public register of a commission:
Notice the change of person. This is, so to speak, the official account; before, we had the personal one. So the message must be one of sorrow and judgment... the word that now comes is the word of Jehovah, this unchangeable God. It comes to Ezekiel the priest, whom "the Mighty One makes strong" to proclaim it. The son of Buzi, "my contempt," marks the fruit of that contempt of God. The people showed it fully in all that had happened, and in all that was still happening, in Israel.
The verse names his priestly office at the very moment he is furthest from the temple. Under the law, a priest examined disease and gave the verdict. Ezekiel must do that with a whole nation.
God chose Ezekiel the priest to be the judge of the leprous condition of the people, following the law of Leviticus in its spiritual meaning. God takes him to witness their wilful, deep-rooted turning away from Jehovah. Then, once the proof is complete, the leper goes outside the camp, as Leviticus commands.
Yet the title also says something hopeful about the remnant he came from.
In verse 3 Ezekiel is called "the priest." Idolatry was rampant throughout the land. Yet God had kept a true seed for Himself, a priestly seed — men who had gone on with the service of God.
The place matters as much as the man. God's glory is not tied to the land of Israel.
Outside the land, far away by distant Chebar, a prophet whose name does not suggest the covenant God sees visions of God outside Israel.
What Ezekiel received then has a bearing on what we have now.
As a priest his normal service was to minister to the Lord. Now, in this special situation, the Lord ministered to him in exactly the same way as He ministers to us in our day. The word of the Lord "came alive" to him in a very special way, a new revelation. We do not need any new revelation today. But we do need to gain the real good of what God has already laid up for us in the precious pages of His holy Word.
Older translations read that the word came "expressly" to him. It reached the prophet before it ever reached his hearers.
Before he passed these messages on to others, they first came home to his own heart... We can only help others with the precious truths of God as we ourselves are subject to the Word and shaped by it.
The little word "there" is the point. Ezekiel had known that hand while serving in the temple; now he knows it beside a foreign canal.
That hand of omnipotence rests on each one of us and will not be lifted from us until we are safe home in the glory. Perhaps he had often felt that hand resting on him as he did his priestly work in the temple. But now God is saying, as it were: I am as much with you here by the river Chebar as I was with you in the temple. What an encouragement this must have been to him!
The same hand does two things at once.
So he was in the land of the Chaldeans (perhaps "the robber-like" or "the encroachers"), by the river Chebar. And now the hand of Jehovah is there upon him, molding him to His will while sustaining him for all that His will may involve.
Verses 1–3 list four things in a fixed order. One writer takes that order as a model for anyone God sends.
Notice the order: an opened heaven, a vision, the call, and enabling by the power of God. Such is still the order for the servants of the Lord. The phrase "the hand of the LORD was upon him," or "came upon me," is found seven times in Ezekiel, in chapters 1:3, 3:14 and 22, 8:1, 23:22, 37:1, 40:1.
The result is a man made ready before he is ever sent.
Heaven has his attention. God has strengthened his faith. The Word of the LORD has instructed his mind, and his heart is encouraged. So he is ready for the vision of the living creatures.
- There — place. The word came in the land of the Chaldeans, by a foreign river; God is not confined to the temple or the land.
- There — record. The switch to third person makes this the official commission. The names spell out God's strength and Israel's contempt.
- There — office. God makes a priest with no altar the examiner of the nation's disease. His title also proves a faithful priestly line survived.
- There — word. The word came home to his own heart first, then went through him to others.
- There — hand. That hand molds and sustains. Opened heaven, vision, call, then power: the same order still holds for anyone God sends.