Ezekiel and Daniel
In the last edition of the Wicket Gate (edition 132) we learned about Isaiah. We now consider Ezekiel and Daniel.
Ezekiel: -
The third in the order of the greater prophets, was a contemporary of the later years of Jeremiah. Himself a priest, the son of a priest named Buzi, he was taken captive during the reign of Jehoiakim eleven years before the destruction of Jerusalem and carried to Babylon where he exercised his prophetical office amongst his captive brethren.
His functions as a prophet commenced, as narrated by himself, in the fifth year of his captivity and continued to at least the twenty-seventh year - probably later. He is supposed to have been murdered at Babylon by one of the Jewish captives. Unlike Jeremiah, he seems to have been a man peculiarly fitted in his personality to be a prophet of God to such a stiff-necked and rebellious people.
The threatenings and judgments which he was called upon to deliver lost nothing of their force when proceeding from his lips. His stern and unbending nature; his hearty abhorrence of the sins of which the people were guilty, and which he so forcibly exposed, make him an unsparing instrument. His ministry, until the fall of Jerusalem, consisted of appeals to repent whilst yet there was time, with the assurance that God was ready to pardon. Afterwards, he administered the consolations of the promised return, and a peaceful enjoyment of their own land when they had through punishment been purified from their sins.
He was also, like his predecessors, the messenger of judgments to the surrounding heathen nations, predicting their destruction at the hand of the Assyrian king. Although resident in Babylon, his prophecies are directed to the people at Jerusalem, and accord with those written by Jeremiah at the same period. The time-span of Ezekiel's prophetic work was around 595-573 B.C.
Daniel: -
The fourth in the order of the greater prophets is considered by the Jews the greatest of them all, and simply refer to him as "The Prophet." He is supposed to have been of the Royal house of David and was carried to Babylon while still a youth, in the third year of the reign of the King Jehoiakim. He was brought up in the palace of the King of Babylon, and carefully instructed in all the learning of the Chaldeans. At an early age, he gave remarkable evidence of prophetic inspiration, and of a wisdom superior to all his contemporaries. He rapidly rose to a position of great eminence under the Chaldean monarchy, being made the ruler of a whole province, and chief of the wise men.
Under the Persian conqueror, he enjoyed a position of similar greatness, being made third president of the Empire, and held in high esteem by the King, as shown by his concern for the prophet's safety when cast into the lions' den. Jewish tradition states that he visited Judea after the return from captivity, but this is unsupported by any historic evidence and is very improbable seeing that he must have been at least about 90 years of age at that time.
Daniel's prophecies are distinct from the utterances of all the other prophets - wider in their range and clearer in their indications of the Messiah's coming. He took up the spirit of his forerunners' prophecies and carried it forward into the new times that were then coming into view. What they had pointed forward to but vaguely, Daniel clearly indicates, so that the period of Christ's coming and the events preceding it are accurately foretold.
The prophecies of Daniel are repeatedly referred to in the New Testament by the Lord Himself, and also by the Apostles.