Ezekiel’s Prophecies in Chronological Order

Ezekiel’s Prophecies in Chronological Order

Contents

Table

Year 7 of Nebuchadnezzar, Month 12, Day 2 1

15 March 597

Nebuchadnezzar invades Jerusalem, takes political prisoners from the nobility, including King Jehoiachin.

No.

Section

Internal Date

External Date

1

1.1b–7.27

Year 5, Month 4, Day 5 of Jehoiachin’s imprisonment 2

31 July 593

Ezekiel’s commission. Judgment of Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem.

2

8.1–19.14

Year 6, Month 6, Day 5

17 September 592

God’s spirit leaves Jerusalem’s temple. Judgment of Judah, Jerusalem.

3

20.1–23.49

Year 7, Month 5, Day 10

14 August 591

Judgment of Judah, Jerusalem.

4

24.1–25.17

Year 9, Month 10, Day 10

15 January 588

Judgment of Judah, Jerusalem. Judgment of Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia.

5

29.1–16

Year 10, Month 10, Day 12

7 January 587

Judgment of Egypt

6

26.1–28.26

Year 11, Day 1 3

587

Judgment of Tyre, Sidon.

7

30.20–26

Year 11, Month 1, Day 7

29 April 587

Judgment of Egypt.

8

31.1–18

Year 11, Month 3, Day 1

21 June 587

Judgment of Egypt.

9

32.17–33.20

Year 12, [Month 1],4 Day 15

28 April 586

Judgment of Egypt. Judgment of Israel.

10

33.21–39.29

Year 12, Month 10, Day 5

19 January 585

News of Jerusalem destroyed. Judgment of Edom. Restoration of Israel. Judgment of Gog of Magog.

11

32.1–16

Year 12, Month 12, Day 1

3 March 585

Judgment of Egypt.

12

40.1–48.35

Year 25, Month 1, Day 1 / Year 14 of Jerusalem’s destruction

28 April 573

Restoration of Jerusalem and all Israel.

13

29.17–30.19

Year 27, Month 1, Day 1

26 April 571

Judgment of Egypt.

14

1.1a

Year 30 2

568

Compilation of the prophecies.

Visualization

Top = canonical order, bottom = chronological order.

Footnotes

1 The date is determined from the Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle, reverse side, lines 11–13. This document is Nebuchadnezzar’s own account of major events from his first eleven years of his reign.

2 Ezekiel 1.1–2 mentions two different years: a ‘thirtieth year’ and the ‘fifth year’. The ‘fifth year’ is stated to be ‘the exile of King Jehoiachin’. His imprisonment by Nebuchadnezzar took place in 597 BCE (i.e. footnote 1), so the fifth year of his exile would be 592 BCE. There are varying interpretations on how to understand the ‘thirtieth year’ relative to that: Ezekiel was thirty years old in 592 BCE, Josiah’s reform (detailed in 2 Kings 23) took place thirty years before 592 BCE, or the thirtieth year of Jehoiachin’s exile. The third interpretation seems the most likely, since every other date given in the book uses Jehoiachin’s exile as its reference point. Hence, 567 BCE, the thirtieth year of the exile and just a few years after Ezekiel’s final prophecy, is probably the year Ezekiel’s thirteen prophecies were compiled into a single volume. Verse 1.1a (‘In the thirtieth year’), therefore, is a superscription for the entire book, and not the date for the first prophecy (which happened ‘in the fifth year of the exile’).

3 The text does not specify the month. We might infer it was the first month.

4 The Hebrew text does not specify the month. The Greek text specifies it was the first month.

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