Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we jumped into the book of the major prophet Ezekiel. It's 48 chapters long.

Ezekiel was exiled to Babylon in the first round of deportation, which happened in

597 BC. He begins by prophesying a few years later in 593 BC, and Jerusalem doesn't fall

until 586 BC, which is still seven years away when he starts prophesying. Ezekiel was from the line

of priests, and priests begin their service when they turn

30. But when Ezekiel turns 30, he's in exile, far away from the temple in Jerusalem. So instead of

serving as a priest, God calls him to serve as a prophet. Knowing he would task Ezekiel with writing

this book, I'm grateful for the unique personality traits God gave him. We probably all have a

friend who's like Ezekiel in some ways. He's like the friend who correct you when you say,

it took us half an hour to get here by saying, actually, it was only 25 minutes and that includes

stopping for gas. Compared to the other prophets, he goes the extra mile to give us very specific

details. And even when he has a hard time coming

up with concrete descriptions for things he's seeing, he does his best to give helpful comparisons.

Despite all his details and metaphors, he doesn't get lost in the weeds. He continually

reminds the reader of the main point. In fact, one of the most common phrases in the book is,

Then they will know that I am the Lord. Ezekiel reminds us that God's plans revolve around

getting his people to know him. Chapter 1 opens with Ezekiel's first vision as a prophet.

Before we talk about the vision, we need to know that any time he says things like,

they had the appearance of, or the likeness of, he's basically letting us know that this is his closest

approximation to what he saw. His vision begins with a storm cloud appearing. Then he sees some

living creatures that look kind of human but with four wings and four faces. So it seems

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