By the Rivers of Babylon: Ezekiel at the River Kebar and the Valley of Dry Bones

Psalm 137 is the shortest and most exact document of the age: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows we hung up our harps… How shall we sing the Lord's song on foreign soil? If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget itself." A glass is still broken at every Jewish wedding so that even at the happiest hour the ruined city is remembered.

In the fifth year of Jehoiachin's exile the priest Ezekiel son of Buzi stood by the river Kebar and the heavens opened: a storm out of the north, four living creatures, wheels within wheels, the likeness of a throne. That vision of the Chariot became the most guarded text in Jewish tradition.

At first his message was harsh: he drew the siege on a brick and lay on his side for months, so the exiles would stop expecting a quick return. When Jerusalem fell, his language changed. He was brought "in spirit" to a valley of very dry bones. "Son of man, can these bones live?" He prophesied; there was a rattling, bone joined to bone, sinews and flesh came up, breath entered them, "and they lived and stood on their feet, a very great army."