Ezekiel (active 6th century B.C.) was a Hebrew priest and prophet. He held that each man is responsible for his own acts.

Little is known about Ezekiel's personal life. The son of Buzi, he was apparently a descendant of the priestly family of Zadok. While in Jerusalem, he had been influenced by his older contemporary Jeremiah. Ezekiel was exiled to Babylonia with King Jehoiachin in 597 B.C. or shortly thereafter. Five years later he lived in the Babylonian Jewish settlement of Tel Aviv (Tel Abubu, the hill of the storm god) by the Chebar River. It was there that he received his call to prophecy in a mystical vision (Ezekiel 8:1 ff). Josephus speaks of Ezekiel as having been young at the time of his exile, but that is probably not correct. Ezekiel demonstrated the kind of precise knowledge of the Temple and its ritual that could be...