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ezekiel
The Dates in the Book of Ezekiel
Text Year Month Day B.C.E.¹ Event
1:1 30 14 35 Note 2 Vision of heavenly beings.
1:2f. 35 – 35 July 2 593 Vision of God’s vehicle and call of the prophet.
3:16 A week later Appointment as lookout.
8:1 36 36 35 Sept. 592 Vision of temple abominations.
20:1 37 35 10 Aug. 591 Prophecy of compulsory exodus.
24:1 39 10 10³ Jan. 588 Beginning of Jerusalem’s siege.
26:1 11 – 31 587–6 Prophecy of Tyre’s destruction.
29:1 10 10 12 Jan. 587 Prophecy of Egypt’s destruction.
29:17 27 31 31 April 571 Tyre’s doom amended, substituting Egypt therefor.
30:20 11 31 37 April 587 Prophecy of Pharaoh’s destruction.
31:1 11 33 31 June 587 Parable of Pharaoh as a fallen tree.
32:1 12 4 12 31 March 585 4 Dirge over Pharaoh.
32:17 12 – 5 15 March 585 5 Lament over Pharaoh in Sheol.
33:21 12 10 35 Jan. 585 Arrival of fugitive with news of Jerusalem’s fall 6 .
40:1 25 1/7 7 10 April/Oct. 573 7 Vision of future temple.
¹ The year-count in the dates starts from the exile of King Jehoiachin (1:2; 33:21; 40:1), datable by a Babylonian chronicle to 2 Adar (mid-March) 597. However, II Chron.
36:10 has the exile beginning at “the turn of the year” – i.e., the next month, Nisan, the start of Nebuchadnezzar’s 8th year (II Kings 24:12). The era of the exile thus began
in Nisan (April) 597, and its years, like Babylonian regnal years, ran from Nisan to Adar.
² The date formula in vs. 2 is manifestly an editorial gloss on that of vs. 1 (hence the third person and the absence of the month); the era of the 30th year is enigmatic (traditionally:
from the discovery of the Torah in Josiah’s reign [622 B.C.E.], or the jubilee year [see note 7 below]). Some take 30 to be the age of the prophet at his call (cf.
Gen. 8:13).
3 Not the usual data formula: = II Kings 25:1 and perhaps taken from there.
4 LXX: 11th year, i.e. 586.
5 Month to be supplied from 32:1; LXX: 1st month (April 586).
6 About five months after Jerusalem’s fall, in the summer of 586 (Tammuz [July]–Ab [August], Jer. 39:2; 52:6f., 12), the 19th (Nisan–Adar) year of Nebuchadnezzar and the
11th (Tishri–Elul) year of Zedekiah.
7 Heb. Rosh Ha-Shanah; LXX: first month (Nisan [April]); tradition, comparing Lev. 25:9: seventh month (Tishri [Oct.]). Tradition thus makes the 25th year of exile a jubilee
year; since 20 years before is called the 30th year (1:1, taking 1:2 as its gloss), tradition interprets it as counting to a jubilee that coincided with the discovery of the Torah
in the reign of Zedekiah (see Targum and Kimḥi at 1:1).
possibly (cf. R. Marcus) a reference to the fact that chapters
1–24 are, on the whole, prophecies of Israel’s doom, while
chapters 25–48 are prophecies of consolation. The contents
of the book may be subsumed under these two major rubrics,
with further specification by subject and date. (See Table:
Book of Ezekiel – Contents and Table: Dates in the Book
of Ezekiel.)
The marking of certain prophecies (or events) by dates
possibly signifies their evidential value to the prophet (cf. his
concern over being vindicated by events: 2:5; 12:26ff.; 29:21;
33:33) and may adumbrate the Second Isaiah’s argument from
prophecy (Isa. 41:26f.; 42:9; 44:8; 45:21; 46:10f.; 48:3ff.). First
practiced by Jeremiah’s biographer, the custom of dating is at its
height in Ezekiel, and is followed by Haggai (1:1, 15; 2:1; 10; 20)
and Zechariah (1:1; 7:1) – though Ezekiel’s formula is unique.
From the prophet’s call to the start of Jerusalem’s siege
the dated prophecies are condemnatory, and this is true of
the great bulk of chapters 1–24 (cf. the scroll of “laments and
moaning and woe” that the prophet eats in 2:10–3:3). During
the siege years and briefly thereafter, the dated prophecies
condemn Israel’s neighbors – the subjects of chapters 25–32
(note the clustering of dates in the Egypt oracles, perhaps
signifying an expectation of Egypt’s imminent fall). The
news of Jerusalem’s fall is embedded in a miscellany of brief
oracles related to the first part of the book (ch. 33), and is followed
by consolatory prophecies of Israel’s restoration (chs.
34–48). The sole dated prophecy among these opens the detailed
program of the future theocracy’s institutions in chapters
40–48.
The division of the book into pre-fall doom prophecies
and post-fall consolations must thus be at once qualified by
recognition of the intermediate status of the oracles against
foreign nations; both thematically and chronologically they
straddle the two major divisions. Moreover, the two divisions
are not strictly homogeneous thematically (nor is it likely they
ever were). Besides prophecies of doom, the first half of the
book contains both calls to repentance (14:6; 18) and a few
consolations (e.g., 17:22–24), of which 11:14–21 is palpably
pre-fall (though intruded into its present context by association
with what precedes it). Similarly, condemnation appears
in the post-fall prophecies (e.g., 34:1–10; 36:3ff.) – entirely
appropriate to its context. Nor is the block of foreign-nation
oracles exhaustive: a veiled anti-Babylonian oracle comes earlier
(21:33–37) and an explicit anti-Edomite oracle comes later
(ch. 35), both integrated into their contexts. Nor is the dating
strictly followed in the face of a good countervailing reason.
636 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6