Prophet
Ezekiel
Saint Ezechiele, son of the priest Buzi, was a prophet.
He rebuked the infidelity of the chosen people, predicting the imminent destruction of the holy city of Jerusalem and the deportation of the people. During the deportation he kept hope alive by prophesying a new life.
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Ezekiel Prophet
Ezekiel was born in the kingdom of Judah, around 620 BC. He was deported to Babylon in 597 BC. together with King Jehoiachin and settled in the village of Tel Abib on the Chebar River, near the ancient city of Nippur in present-day Iraq. Five years later he received the call to be a prophet. Unheard at the beginning of his mission, after the fall of Jerusalem the people listened to him because he understood the truthfulness of his prophecies about him.
The prophecies were able to see the events taking place in Jerusalem, even though Ezekiel was almost 2,000 km away. He saw himself as a shepherd who had to watch over the people, guiding them from within, presenting himself as the guardian of the people, announcing the imminent judgment of God, accusing the Israelites for their sins and inviting them to conversion. Like the other prophets, he does not use the expression spirit, although sometimes it appears in literal reference to the divine breath or to a generic spirit that takes possession of the prophet, without other specifications.
Ezekiel was the spokesperson for a message of condemnation: the people of Judah had disobeyed the laws of God, neglected the Sabbath, profaned the Temple, practiced impurity, tightened ties with foreign peoples and for this they should have been punished. But Ezekiel, tied to it, also brought a message of hope, because Judas would have recovered from his fall, would have been raised from his tomb (Ez 37:12), if he had committed himself to follow what God had commanded him.
Ezekiel is an exuberant and imaginative man, full of dreams and visions, without any restraint in telling them! His work is in close relationship with the people in exile and with the great commitment that, consequently, God requires of him so that the divided tribes can be united into one people, in a land free from persecution.
Ezek 3: 1-9: "He said to me:" Son of man, eat what you have before you, eat this scroll, then go and speak to the house of Israel. "I opened my mouth and he made me eat that scroll, saying to me: "Son of man, feed the belly and fill the bowels with this scroll that I offer you." I ate it and it was sweet as honey to my mouth. Then he said to me: "Son of man, go ', go to the Israelites and tell them my words, for I am not sending you to a people with an abstruse language and a barbaric language, but to the Israelites not to great peoples with an abstruse language and a barbarian language, whose words you do not understand: if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you; but the Israelites do not want to listen to you, because they do not want to listen to me: all the Israelites are stubborn and stubborn in heart. Here, I give you a face as tough as theirs and a forehead as hard as their forehead.
Like diamond, I made your brow harder than flint. Do not fear them, do not be afraid in front of them; They are a race of rebels "He lived by the word of God and if he spoke to the people it was because God was speaking to him. Moreover, he sees himself as a sentinel and in particular" At the end of these seven days this word of the Lord was addressed to me: "Son of 'man, I have placed you as a sentry to the house of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, you will have to warn them from me. If I say to the wicked one: You will die! from his perverse and living conduct, he, the wicked one, will die for his iniquity, but I will ask you to account for his death. " (Ez 3,16-18).
He is alone and bears the burden of responsibility before the Lord. At times it will have to be a painfully sign for the people, and will have to pay in person: "This word of the Lord came to me:" Son of man, behold, I am suddenly taking away from you she who is the delight of your eyes: but don't cry, don't cry, don't shed a tear. Sigh silently and do not mourn for the dead: wrap your head with the turban, put on your sandals, do not veil up to your mouth, do not eat the bread of mourning. "In the morning I spoke to the people and in the evening my wife die. The next morning I did as I had been commanded and people asked me: "Don't you want to explain to us what it means what you do?". I replied: "The Lord has spoken to me: Announce to the Israelites: Thus says the Lord God : Behold, I cause my sanctuary to be desecrated, the pride of your strength, the delight of your eyes and the love of your souls.
The sons and daughters you left behind will fall by the sword. You will do as I did: you will not veil yourselves up to your mouth, you will not eat the bread of mourning. You will have your turbans on your head and sandals on your feet: you will not complain and you will not cry: but you will consume yourselves for your iniquities and you will groan with one another. Ezekiel will be a sign for you: when this happens, you will do in everything as he did and you will know that I am the Lord. You, son of man, the day I take away from them their fortress, the joy of their glory, the love of their eyes, the longing of their souls, their sons and their daughters, then a refugee will come to you. to give you news "(Ez, 24,15-26).
The prophet is a creature of God, he is a fruit of his initiative, he knows that he has been called, he is aware that he is a servant of the word. He sees God acting in history, he discovers the signs of time and speaks of them: this is his task. But precisely from this task, precisely from this dialogue with God and with his contemporaries, tensions and difficulties arise.
