A priest, son of Buzi, deported to Babylonia with King Jehoiachin in 597 BC and called as a prophet five years later by the Chebar canal — the first prophet in the Bible commissioned entirely OUTSIDE the land of Israel. His name means 'God strengthens' (or 'may God strengthen'). He is the most precisely dated prophet in the Old Testament, the most physically afflicted (struck dumb, made to lie on one side for months, forbidden to mourn his wife), and the one to whom God speaks almost exclusively as 'son of man' — ninety-three times. His book runs from the chariot vision of chapter 1, through the departure of the glory from the temple, to the valley of dry bones and a temple measured stone by stone in a final vision, ending on the name of the city: 'Jehovah is there.'