Visions by the river of Babylon — wheels within wheels, and dry bones that live.
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new ______ will I put within you."
The valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37 — 'can these bones live?' — inspired the spiritual 'Dem Bones.' The theology of the vision: a dead nation, breathed back to life.
Ezekiel saw 'a wheel in the middle of a wheel' full of eyes by the river Chebar — the most puzzled-over vision in the Old Testament, and he was a priest describing the indescribable glory of God.
God made Ezekiel a watchman and a performance artist: he lay on his side for months, cooked over dung fires, and shaved his head with a sword — every act a sermon.
Ezekiel and Daniel were contemporaries in Babylon — Daniel served in the palace while Ezekiel preached to exiles by the canal.