The Fall and the Exile
- When
- c. 593–571 BC, in Babylon
- Written by
- Ezekiel, a priest
- Chapters
- 48
The big idea
Among the exiles, Ezekiel sees God’s glory leave the temple, then promises a new heart, dry bones raised, and the glory returning to a new temple.
Themes
- The glory of God
- The good shepherd
- Personal responsibility
- New heart and new life
Memory verse
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Key passages
- 1The vision of glory
- 10The glory leaves the temple
- 34The shepherds of Israel
- 36:24–28A new heart
- 37The valley of dry bones
- 47The river from the temple
Links to other Scripture
- John 10:11–16I am the good shepherd
- John 3:5Born of water and the Spirit
- John 7:37–39Rivers of living water
- Revelation 22:1–2The river of life
Read the text
Choose a chapter to read it here in the King James Version. Verses with a dotted underline have notes from Bible scholars. Tap one to open them.
Notes from
Chapters
King James text and the commentaries of Henry, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Gill, Clarke, Calvin, and Keil and Delitzsch are in the public domain. Tyndale Open Study Notes are used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license, from tyndaleopenresources.com. Texts were reformatted for this site.
Journal prompts
Keep a journal or notebook for your study. Write your answers there, in your own words.
- Where do you see Christ in this book?
- Ezekiel saw glory leave the temple and later return. When has God seemed far away, and what brought you back?
- God promised to take out the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. What in you feels hard right now?
- Ezekiel stood in a valley of dry bones and God asked, “Can these bones live?” What is your answer about the dry place in your life?
- In one sentence, this book is about…