Context: Ezekiel prophesied among the exiles in Babylon (593–571 BC). A priest before a prophet, his theology is deeply liturgical and visionary. The book is the most symbolic of the major prophets and exercised enormous influence on Jewish apocalyptic literature and John's Revelation.

The merkavah vision (ch. 1): The divine chariot — four living creatures with wings and wheels within wheels — is the opening vision. It represents the omnipresence and mobility of YHWH's glory, which is not bound to Jerusalem's Temple. The subsequent departure of the divine glory from the Temple (chs. 8–11) is the most frightening moment in the book: God abandons the defiled Temple before the Babylonians destroy it.

Oracles of judgment and restoration: Chapters 4–24 contain dramatized judgment oracles in Ezekiel's symbolic actions. Chapters 25–32 are oracles against the nations. The final section (chs. 33–48) is one of hope: the vision of the dry bones that come to life (ch. 37 — image of Israel's restoration and, for the NT, of bodily resurrection), and the vision of the new eschatological Temple with a river flowing from the sanctuary and reviving the Dead Sea (chs. 40–48).