Ezekiel was thus a younger contemporary of Jeremiah, whose career extended from Josiah to the destruction of Jerusalem. Some of these oracles contain mystical visions that the Rabbis of the Talmud feared would confuse and mislead all but the most learned readers. They also could not explain why some of the rituals described by Ezekiel contradict laws in the Torah. They therefore urged teachers to avoid lecturing on certain parts of the book. The classic Jewish commentators count the thirty years from Josiah's reform.
Some modern scholars interpret it as the prophet's age.
Ezekiel is among the exiles in Babylon, at the River Kebar, or Great Canal, when the heavens open and he sees divine visions. Though the sequence implies that the heavens opened and then the visions began, obviously the opening of the heavens is part of the vision. This lack of a clear line between reality and vision is common in the book. Since the creatures have faces in all directions, they move without turning their bodies. The wheels are filled with eyes and animated by the will of the creatures, so that creatures and wheels move in unison.