This book is named after its author as are the other boooks of the prophets. Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel was not only a prophet but he was a priest as well. He was a prophet during the captivity. When he was twenty-five years old, he was carried captive to Babylon in 597 B.C. with the upper class of people, eleven years before the destruction of Jerusalem. This means that for eleven years 10,000 exiles were living in a concentration camp in Babylon while Jeremiah and the folks at home tried to "carry on" at Jerusalem. For five years the captives had no preacher. Then Ezekiel began to serve them. He immediately tried to remove their false hopes of an early return to Palestine. He tried to prepare them for the news of the tragic destruction of their beloved Jerusalem. He lived at the same time as Daniel and Jeremiah. Jeremiah remained among the Jews in Jerusalem. Ezekiel lived with the exiles in Babylon, and Daniel lived in the court of the rulers in Babylon.
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