Commentary Compass

Ezekiel is one of those biblical books for which I find it especially difficult to recommend only one commentary. The book demands too many different kinds of competence. Its Hebrew can be difficult; its visions are visually and symbolically dense; its argument is shaped by priestly categories that many modern readers do not instinctively understand; its historical setting matters enormously; its use of earlier Scripture is extensive; and its final chapters raise major questions about temple, sacrifice, land, kingship, holiness, and eschatology. A commentary can therefore be excellent on Ezekiel while being excellent in a quite different way from another equally valuable work.

As elsewhere on Commentary Compass, I have ranked these works primarily according to their balance of originality and usefulness. By originality I do not mean novelty for its own sake. An interpretation does not become valuable merely because no one has proposed it before. I am looking instead for commentators who make observations that genuinely illuminate the text: a literary pattern that explains an apparent difficulty, an ancient Near Eastern parallel that clarifies imagery, a theological connection that brings separate passages together, a philological argument that changes how a verse is understood, or a reading of the book as a whole that makes more of Ezekiel intelligible than before.

Nor does a high ranking mean that I agree with the commentator more often. I can learn a great deal from a work whose critical assumptions, theology, or conclusions I sometimes reject, provided that it repeatedly forces me to look more carefully at Ezekiel. Conversely, a commentary can be doctrinally congenial and very useful without being especially original. Both have value, but they contribute differently.

That distinction matters particularly with Ezekiel. Block excels at comprehensive exegetical and theological integration. Greenberg changed the way many readers approach the literary integrity of the book. Allen combines critical methods with unusually careful attention to the final text. Duguid brings serious scholarship into exceptionally fruitful conversation with biblical theology. Odell sees cultural, literary, and ancient Near Eastern dimensions that are easy to miss. Eichrodt can be more theologically penetrating than commentators written decades later. Sweeney offers a remarkably coherent priestly interpretation of Ezekiel’s vocation. Zimmerli remains historically indispensable even where I would now resist some of his reconstruction.

I have therefore retained the existing overall ranking, but I have separated works that are not really comparable to normal sequential commentaries—specialist treatments, background resources, surveys, and preaching or theological companions—into their own sections. Their original overall ranking numbers are retained so that nothing in the earlier ranking has been silently changed.

Full and Sequential Commentaries

1. Daniel I. Block — The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1–24; The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 25–48(NICOT)

Rating: 5/5

Block’s two-volume NICOT set remains my first choice if I had to select a single commentary on Ezekiel. Its strength is not simply comprehensiveness, though it is extraordinarily comprehensive. Block combines close Hebrew exegesis, textual criticism, ancient Near Eastern evidence, literary structure, historical context, theological interpretation, and canonical reflection without allowing any one method to dominate the others. His commentary consistently treats Ezekiel as an intelligent literary and theological work rather than as a collection whose difficulties must first be explained by dismantling it.

One of Block’s most fruitful contributions is his sensitivity to what might be called Ezekiel’s inner-compositional exegesis: later passages deliberately retrieve, develop, and transform motifs introduced earlier in the book. This helps explain recurring language and imagery without treating repetition as evidence of secondary expansion. His work on Ezekiel’s literary architecture, the recognition formula, divine glory, priestly identity, kingship, the Spirit, sacred space, Gog, and the final vision repeatedly produces observations that are both original and exegetically useful.

I especially appreciate his resistance to two opposite tendencies. On the one hand, he does not accept the older habit of isolating a reduced prophetic Grundtext whenever the received text appears repetitive or uneven. On the other hand, his high view of the text does not push him toward wooden literalism. His handling of the river in Ezekiel 47, for example, recognizes the symbolic and ideal dimensions of the vision, while his treatment of Ezekiel 39:21–29 argues persuasively for the coherence of material sometimes detached from its context. His interpretation of chapters 40–48 pays close attention to spatial movement, holiness, graded access, and the theological significance of the restored presence of YHWH rather than reducing the vision to a speculative architectural blueprint.

Block is not beyond criticism. The very scale of the commentary means that a reader can occasionally lose the main line of argument amid textual and comparative detail. At points his proposals are more elaborate than necessary, and readers will not follow every historical or literary reconstruction. Yet even when I disagree, the disagreement normally arises after Block has identified the right problem and assembled the relevant evidence. For pastors, students, scholars, and serious readers wanting one commentary that can support almost every kind of work on Ezekiel, I know of no stronger choice. 5/5.

2. Moshe Greenberg — Ezekiel 1–20; Ezekiel 21–37 (Anchor Bible)

Rating: 5/5

Greenberg’s unfinished Anchor Bible commentary is one of the genuinely decisive works in the modern interpretation of Ezekiel. Its importance lies above all in his holistic method. At a time when many interpreters responded to repetition, tension, or stylistic irregularity by positing successive layers and editorial expansions, Greenberg deliberately asked first whether the received text might make sense as a coherent literary composition. That apparently simple methodological decision had enormous consequences.

Again and again Greenberg shows that features earlier criticism regarded as signs of clumsy growth can instead function as purposeful literary devices. His attention to repetition with variation, graduated utterance, thematic recurrence, structural balancing, delayed completion, and what he sometimes describes as forms of “halving” makes Ezekiel look less like a poorly edited archive and more like a carefully constructed book. His approach does not require denying all editorial activity; rather, it insists that hypothetical prehistories should not replace interpretation of the text that actually exists.

Greenberg is also much more than a literary critic. His philological work is frequently excellent, his knowledge of Jewish interpretation gives the commentary a dimension not always present in Christian treatments, and his use of biblical and historical parallels is consistently judicious. Later commentators—Block in particular—owe a considerable debt to the interpretive possibilities Greenberg opened. Even when later scholarship has refined individual judgments, his way of asking questions remains productive.

One reason I rank Greenberg so highly is that his originality usually increases usefulness rather than competing with it. He is not offering clever novelty; he is showing why passages work as they do. A reader comes away not merely with an alternative hypothesis but with a better sense of Ezekiel’s literary intelligence.

The obvious limitation is painful: Greenberg died without completing the commentary, so the work stops at chapter 37. This is especially regrettable because chapters 38–48 contain some of the most contested material in the book. Stephen Cook’s later Anchor Yale volume provides a continuation of the series, but it is methodologically its own work rather than simply “Greenberg volume three.” Greenberg therefore cannot serve as the one complete commentary on Ezekiel. For the thirty-seven chapters he covers, however, his commentary remains indispensable. 5/5.

3. Leslie C. Allen — Ezekiel 1–19; Ezekiel 20–48 (Word Biblical Commentary)

Rating: 5/5

Allen’s two WBC volumes are probably the commentary I trust most when I want a technically serious second opinion after Block. His distinctive strength is methodological mediation. He takes the historical-critical questions associated with Zimmerli seriously—text, form, tradition, composition, and possible growth of individual units—while also absorbing the challenge posed by Greenberg’s holistic reading. The result is neither an atomized Ezekiel nor an uncritical assumption that every literary difficulty is immediately transparent.

Allen’s textual work is particularly strong. He pays careful attention to the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, grammatical difficulties, poetic and rhetorical form, and the internal structure of individual oracles. The standard WBC movement from textual and form-critical analysis into an “Explanation” section works unusually well for Ezekiel because Allen is able to distinguish the historical questions surrounding a passage from the theological and literary function of the form in which it now stands.

He is also refreshingly candid about his relationship to earlier scholarship. Allen rarely presents an insight as revolutionary when it has antecedents, and his originality often lies in integration and adjudication rather than a new theory bearing his name. This makes the commentary less dramatic than Greenberg or Odell but exceptionally dependable. He regularly sees why competing positions each contain part of the truth and then offers a reading that preserves their strongest features.

His treatment of the restoration material is particularly valuable. The final vision is not reduced to architecture; Allen connects land, sanctuary, social order, justice, equality, covenant fellowship, and divine presence. That theological integration helps chapters 40–48 emerge as the culmination of Ezekiel rather than as an appendix of cultic minutiae.

The limitations largely follow from the WBC format and Allen’s critical method. Readers who dislike form- and redaction-critical discussion may find sections more reconstructive than necessary, and his theological exposition is less expansive than Block’s. He is also less likely than Greenberg or Odell to make the reader stop and say, “I had never thought of the book that way.” But for careful exegesis across the whole of Ezekiel, few commentaries are as consistently balanced or reliable. 5/5.

4. Iain M. Duguid — Ezekiel (NIV Application Commentary)

Rating: 5/5

Duguid’s NIV Application Commentary is substantially better as an academic Ezekiel commentary than the series title might lead one to expect. The “Original Meaning” sections are grounded in serious scholarship, and Duguid repeatedly draws on his own earlier research into Ezekiel and Israel’s leaders rather than merely summarizing Block, Greenberg, Allen, and Zimmerli. At the same time, the NIVAC structure forces him to ask a question technical commentaries sometimes postpone indefinitely: what theological work is the text actually doing?

One of Duguid’s most persuasive methodological discussions concerns attempts to reconstruct earlier forms of Ezekiel. He notes that Ezekiel 22:25–29 demonstrably reworks Zephaniah 3:3–4. Because we possess Zephaniah, we can see both the source and what Ezekiel has done with it. If Zephaniah had disappeared, however, no critical reconstruction from Ezekiel could reliably recover the exact earlier text—and the reconstructed source would not in any case be what belonged in Ezekiel. Duguid uses this concrete example to expose an important weakness in overly confident source reconstruction: the transformed text is precisely the text that requires interpretation.

His earlier work on leadership also gives him unusual strength in passages involving princes, shepherds, kingship, and Gog. He argues, for example, that rōʾš in Ezekiel 38 is better read as part of Gog’s hierarchical title than as a place-name, a reading that also preserves the symbolic completeness of Gog’s seven-nation coalition.

The outstanding section, however, is his treatment of Ezekiel 40–48. Duguid argues that the material is vision in the form of legislation, not legislation that happens to be delivered in a vision. That distinction allows him to resist both the rabbinic problem of forcing every regulation into harmony with Mosaic legislation and dispensational attempts to construct a literal future sacrificial system. The restricted powers of the nāśîʾ then become theologically significant: the prince is no autonomous messianic monarch but a subordinate representative under the true King, YHWH. The vision communicates holiness, transformed order, repentance, hope, and divine presence before it is related canonically to Christ and Revelation.

The NIVAC application material inevitably dates more quickly than the exegesis, and some late-twentieth-century cultural illustrations now feel tied to their moment. Readers may also think that Duguid occasionally moves from legitimate canonical fulfilment to Christological application more quickly than the immediate passage alone would warrant. Even so, the combination of independent exegesis, literary judgment, biblical theology, and pastoral usefulness is exceptional. 5/5.

5. Margaret S. Odell — Ezekiel (Smyth & Helwys)

Rating: 5/5

Odell’s commentary is one of the most intellectually stimulating modern works on Ezekiel because she repeatedly brings material to the text that changes what the reader notices. Her most distinctive proposal is her comparison between the architecture of Ezekiel and ancient Near Eastern royal building inscriptions, especially those associated with Esarhaddon and the rebuilding of Babylon. In those inscriptions, rebellion and disorder are followed by abandonment or destruction, restoration of divine favour, rebuilding of sacred space, renewed order, and the re-establishment of divine presence. Odell argues that this sequence provides an illuminating analogue for Ezekiel’s movement from Jerusalem’s rebellion and YHWH’s departure to restored land, sanctuary, order, and presence.

I would not make this ancient Near Eastern parallel the exclusive key to Ezekiel. Exodus, Leviticus, priestly traditions, and Israel’s own scriptural heritage remain more fundamental than an external genre comparison. But Odell does not depend on one thesis. Her commentary is filled with local observations that justify returning to it even where the larger framework is debatable.

Her treatment of the “image of jealousy” in Ezekiel 8 is a good example: she questions the automatic assumption that semel must simply denote an idol of a deity and considers whether a human votive statue might be in view. In Ezekiel 18 she gives the proverb about fathers eating unripe grapes a concrete socioeconomic possibility: an older generation may consume produce prematurely and leave the consequences to its children. Her use of honour and shame is also illuminating. The exiles could interpret national humiliation as evidence that their divine patron had failed them; Ezekiel reverses the accusation by insisting that YHWH has been faithful while Jerusalem has violated the relationship. Her reading of chapters 8–11 is especially good at integrating temple, land, exile, moral disorder, and divine absence.

Odell is also willing to confront difficult texts such as Ezekiel 16 and 23 rather than neutralize their violence or gendered imagery. Her engagement with feminist interpretation is often useful even where I would not follow every conclusion, because it identifies genuine ethical and rhetorical difficulties that interpreters should not evade.

The principal limitation is that Smyth & Helwys is not designed to provide the sustained Hebrew and textual discussion available in Block or Allen. Some contemporary theological and ethical excursions also move farther from the central exegetical task than I would prefer. Yet Odell has the rare virtue of repeatedly making Ezekiel look different after one has read her. That is exactly the kind of originality I value. 5/5.

6. Walther Eichrodt — Ezekiel (Old Testament Library)

Rating: 4.5/5+

Eichrodt is one of the works I would most regret seeing disappear simply because it is older. His commentary is not as strong as the leading modern volumes in textual criticism or ancient Near Eastern background, but at the level of theological exegesis he can be extraordinary. He has a gift for identifying the theological logic holding Ezekiel’s imagery and proclamation together rather than treating theology as a short concluding section after historical analysis.

His handling of Ezekiel 36 is a particularly good example. The gift of a new heart and a new spirit is not merely inward renewal detached from covenant history; cleansing, forgiveness, divine initiative, transformed obedience, and restored fellowship belong together. His account of the Spirit likewise avoids reducing the passage either to anthropology or to later systematic categories. He is also especially strong on the recognition formula—“then they shall know that I am YHWH”—which he understands not simply as acquisition of information but as divine self-manifestation aimed at bringing human beings into right acknowledgement and fellowship.

Eichrodt’s treatment of Ezekiel as both prophet and priest is similarly fruitful. Rather than regarding the priestly material as an alien layer attached to a prophetic core, he sees the priestly and prophetic dimensions as integral to Ezekiel’s distinctive vocation. His theology of divine holiness, presence, judgment, restoration, and covenant makes the book cohere.

The main reservation concerns composition. Eichrodt still works with considerable confidence in identifying displaced passages, secondary additions, editorial welding, and independent units. In many places later holistic interpretation has shown that features requiring redactional explanation for Eichrodt can make good sense within the final literary form. I therefore find his compositional judgments less durable than his theology.

Readers looking primarily for the newest philological discussion should begin elsewhere. Readers interested in what Ezekiel is theologically saying, however, should not assume that a commentary from this period has been superseded. In theological penetration Eichrodt can still outperform much newer work. 4.5/5+, very close to 5/5.

7. Marvin A. Sweeney — Reading Ezekiel

Rating: 4.5/5+

Sweeney’s Reading Ezekiel is among the most original whole-book interpretations in this ranking. Its controlling insight is to take Ezekiel’s Zadokite priestly identity with maximum seriousness. Ezekiel reaches thirty—the age at which priestly service would ordinarily begin—while exiled far from the Jerusalem temple for which he had been trained. His prophetic vocation therefore becomes, in Sweeney’s reading, a transformed priestly vocation.

Sweeney develops this observation into a remarkably coherent reading of the book’s chronology. The period from Ezekiel’s inaugural vision to the vision of the restored temple corresponds broadly to the active years in which he might have served as a priest. His seven days of silence after the inaugural vision are interpreted as analogous to the seven-day priestly ordination process. Ezekiel cannot be ordained to ordinary temple service, but he is effectively commissioned into a different sacred office: visionary prophet and guardian of Israel’s holiness.

That framework leads to several creative readings. Sweeney connects Ezekiel’s role as “watchman” with the priestly gatekeeper who protects sacred boundaries. He interprets the whole book as moving from the purging of a defiled Jerusalem and temple toward the restoration of a purified sanctuary, Israel, and ultimately creation. Chapters 40–48 are consequently not an awkward cultic appendix but the necessary completion of Ezekiel’s priestly-prophetic vocation. Sweeney also reads the temple as the symbolic holy centre of creation, so that its defilement and restoration have cosmic implications.

Some individual proposals are especially bold. He interprets Ezekiel 8–11 through analogies with the Day of Atonement purgation ritual, including a comparison between the destruction/exile of Jerusalem and the two-goat ceremony. He suggests that the “image of jealousy” may have been a Babylonian victory stele erected after Jerusalem’s subjugation. He can even ask whether actions Ezekiel calls sun worship may have originated in ordinary sunrise temple practice interpreted polemically by the prophet.

This is also where my reservation lies. The priestly framework is illuminating; some of the reconstructions built on it are much harder to demonstrate. At times Sweeney seems willing to explain what historical participants were “really” doing behind Ezekiel’s presentation when the evidence permits more than one possibility. I therefore treat him as a stimulating interpreter rather than an adjudicator whose reconstruction should automatically be preferred. For originality, however, he is exceptional, and his central priestly reading permanently enriches how I see the book. 4.5/5+.

8. Walther Zimmerli — Ezekiel 1; Ezekiel 2 (Hermeneia)

Rating: 4.5/5

Zimmerli is impossible to ignore in serious study of Ezekiel. Even commentators who reject important features of his method continue to engage questions he formulated and categories he refined. His two-volume commentary represents the high point of twentieth-century form-critical, tradition-historical, and redaction-critical study of the book, and its historical importance alone would justify reading it.

Zimmerli’s great strength is that his criticism is much more nuanced than a caricature of “source chopping” suggests. He carefully identifies recurring forms, theological formulas, traditions, and processes by which prophetic proclamation may have been reapplied. His work on the recognition formula has been especially influential, and his analysis of prophetic speech forms often clarifies how individual oracles function. He also takes Ezekiel’s theology seriously; reconstruction is not an end in itself.

The feature most associated with Zimmerli is his distinction between an underlying prophetic Grundtext and subsequent Nachinterpretation. This gives him a way to explain expansions, repetitions, and reinterpretations as the developing reception of Ezekiel within a prophetic school. Historically, that was enormously productive. Yet it is also the aspect of the commentary I would use most cautiously today.

Greenberg and later final-form interpreters have repeatedly shown that material Zimmerli separates can participate in sophisticated literary patterns within the received composition. What appears to be secondary repetition can be deliberate thematic retrieval; what looks like explanatory expansion may contribute to the rhetorical architecture of the passage. I therefore find Zimmerli more convincing when he identifies forms, traditions, and exegetical problems than when he confidently reconstructs the sequence by which the text acquired its present form.

For understanding the history of Ezekiel scholarship, Zimmerli is effectively indispensable. For deciding what the final text means, I would regularly put him into dialogue with Greenberg, Allen, Block, and Duguid rather than follow his reconstruction alone. 4.5/5 overall; 5/5 for historical significance.

9. John L. Mackay — Ezekiel (Mentor)

Rating: 4.5/5

Mackay’s large two-volume Mentor commentary is one of the strongest conservative and Reformed treatments of Ezekiel and, for many pastors, may be more immediately useful than some of the academically more innovative works ranked higher. He provides his own translation, pays serious attention to Hebrew lexicology and syntax, engages major Ezekiel commentators, and consistently moves from exegesis into theological interpretation without turning the commentary into a collection of sermons.

A distinctive feature is Mackay’s attention to Ezekiel’s chronology. He develops what might be called an anniversary-calendar approach to the dates in the book, reading them in relation to Jehoiachin’s exile and exploring how Ezekiel’s dated revelations structure the prophetic ministry. Even where his chronological conclusions are not certain, he treats the dates as theological and literary information rather than introductory clutter.

Mackay is also particularly useful on restoration. His treatment of the new heart and new spirit takes the language seriously as divine transformation rather than moral exhortation. Ezekiel 11:16, where YHWH becomes “a sanctuary” for the exiles, is connected with a new-exodus pattern and then followed through canonically. His discussions of Ezekiel’s symbolic actions, Gog, and the progression into the final vision are careful and frequently independent.

His treatment of chapters 40–48 is one of the stronger conservative readings. He rejects both the idea that the passage is merely an architectural blueprint and the classic dispensational expectation of a straightforwardly restored sacrificial temple. The vision is symbolic and ideal, yet it belongs organically to Ezekiel’s theology of holiness, restored presence, and ultimate fulfilment. Mackay then relates its conclusion, “YHWH is there,” to the New Jerusalem without simply collapsing Ezekiel into Revelation.

The main reason I stop short of 5/5 is originality rather than usefulness. Mackay engages the major Ezekiel literature but not the wider specialist scholarship with the breadth of Block or Allen, and his greatest achievement is often mature synthesis and adjudication rather than an interpretive model that reshapes the field. For pastors wanting detailed Hebrew exegesis within a consistently Reformed theological framework, however, this is an exceptionally valuable commentary. 4.5/5.

14. Joseph Blenkinsopp — Ezekiel (Interpretation)

Rating: 4.5/5

Blenkinsopp’s Interpretation commentary is much shorter than the major technical works, yet it contains a surprising number of memorable observations. One of its strengths is the way it organizes Ezekiel around the great movements of divine presence, absence, and return. The opening vision, the departure of the glory from Jerusalem, and the final restored sanctuary form a theological arc, while the fall of Jerusalem functions as the historical fulcrum around which Ezekiel’s ministry turns from relentless warning toward restoration. Blenkinsopp is also alert to the movement from death toward new life that culminates in the later chapters.

His handling of chronology can be stimulating. He explores the significance of the dates rather than treating them merely as historical notices and draws attention to the roughly twenty-five-year movement toward the final temple vision, including possible Jubilee resonances. His discussions of kingship and political failure are also perceptive, and his compact format often forces him to state the interpretive issue with admirable clarity.

I would nevertheless use Blenkinsopp critically. He can move quite quickly from textual difficulty to confident compositional reconstruction, assigning passages or details to later stages without the degree of restraint I find in Allen or the final-form alternatives supplied by Greenberg. At times his language about Ezekiel’s behaviour becomes quasi-clinical—catatonia, aphasia, and related psychological categories—even while he rightly resists simplistic psychiatric diagnosis. I do not think such language explains as much as he sometimes suggests.

I am also uncomfortable with some of his more provocative descriptions of Ezekiel’s imagery and divine judgment. Calling particular portrayals “sadistic,” for example, risks moving from analysis of disturbing rhetoric to a moral characterization that the commentary has not adequately demonstrated. His reconstructions surrounding foreigners, Zadokite claims, Gog, and the later temple material likewise contain suggestions worth considering without requiring assent.

Blenkinsopp is therefore not a commentary I rank highly because I agree with it. I rank it highly because it is intelligent, economical, and regularly identifies issues worth arguing about. Readers who pair it with a more textually conservative or holistic commentator will often find the disagreement productive. 4.5/5.

17. Patrick Fairbairn — Ezekiel and the Book of His Prophecy

Rating: 4.5/5 as a historical commentary

Fairbairn is one of the older commentaries on Ezekiel that still deserves to be read for ideas rather than merely for historical interest. His particular strength is his theology of prophetic symbolism and fulfilment. He understands prophecy as frequently portraying the future in forms drawn from Israel’s past institutions. The continuity lies in the reality signified, not necessarily in a literal reproduction of every historical form.

That principle becomes especially important in chapters 40–48. Fairbairn rejects the expectation that Ezekiel predicts a restored sacrificial system in which the old cult simply returns. He also avoids arbitrary allegory in which every measurement acquires an unrelated spiritual meaning. Instead, the temple, priesthood, land, sacrifices, and divine presence constitute an ideal representation of restored fellowship with God using the religious vocabulary available to the prophet.

This allows Fairbairn to make a remarkably fruitful connection with Revelation. Ezekiel ends with restored sacred space and “YHWH is there”; Revelation ultimately arrives at a city with no temple because God and the Lamb are themselves its temple. Fairbairn sees these not as contradictory expectations but as different stages in the disclosure of the same theological reality: complete divine presence among a sanctified people. That remains a sophisticated way of relating the two books.

Fairbairn also writes with an explicitly doctrinal and practical purpose. He does not want exegesis to terminate in antiquarian information, and his commentary often draws out the priestly and theological dimensions of Ezekiel with considerable spiritual insight.

Naturally, the work predates modern textual criticism, archaeology, Akkadian evidence, and the enormous development of Ezekiel scholarship. His theological conclusions occasionally outrun the historical questions now available to us, and some nineteenth-century exegetical discussions have been superseded. Yet on prophetic hermeneutics and the final vision he remains genuinely worth consulting. 4.5/5 as a historical commentary.

18. Peter Naylor — A Study Commentary on Ezekiel (EP Study Commentary)

Rating: 4/5+

Naylor’s substantial commentary is one of the more serious conservative expositions of Ezekiel. It works phrase by phrase from Naylor’s own translation, gives sustained attention to the Hebrew text and structure, and closes chapters with explicit application. The commentary therefore occupies useful territory between technical exegesis and confessional exposition: it is detailed enough for serious study but written with pastors and Bible teachers clearly in view.

Naylor is especially interested in the symbolic and eschatological coherence of Ezekiel. His introductory material treats symbolism, chronology, the book’s major divisions, and the interpretation of chapters 40–48 rather than leaving those questions until the end. He also provides diagrams and appendices dealing with temple measurements, Ezekiel’s city, and Romans 11, showing that his eschatology is worked through rather than simply assumed.

His interpretation of the closing part of the book is distinctive. He understands Ezekiel 34–39 as anticipating a spiritual renewal of ethnic Israel before the second coming of Christ, while chapters 40–48 describe a heavenly reality rather than a literal millennial reconstruction of the temple. This enables him to maintain a future for Israel without requiring the reinstatement of an earthly sacrificial system.

I find that synthesis much more attractive than a straightforwardly literal future-temple interpretation, though I would not follow every element of Naylor’s eschatological sequencing. The connection between Ezekiel 34–39 and a specific pre-Parousia renewal of natural Israel depends on a wider theological construction that is less securely established by every individual passage than Naylor sometimes suggests.

His strongest qualities are careful exposition, theological seriousness, and a willingness to give difficult texts a coherent canonical reading. He is less original at the level of Ezekiel scholarship than the highest-ranked works and interacts less extensively with the full critical literature. For conservative pastors wanting considerably more detail than a standard preaching commentary, however, Naylor is an excellent resource. 4/5+.

19. John B. Taylor — Ezekiel: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentary)

Rating: 4/5+

Taylor’s TOTC remains one of the most successful concise commentaries ever written on Ezekiel. Its enduring virtue is clarity. Ezekiel can become bewildering very quickly, especially in the opening vision, symbolic actions, lengthy foreign-nation oracles, Gog, and the final temple vision. Taylor normally identifies the central exegetical issue, gives the necessary historical or linguistic information, and moves on without allowing detail to obscure the passage.

His introduction is particularly useful for students encountering Ezekiel for the first time. He gives serious attention to the prophet as a person, the historical setting, the book’s message, textual questions, and the broad structure of the prophecy. He does not treat Ezekiel’s priesthood, symbolism, or psychological distinctiveness as curiosities; they help explain why the book sounds and looks as it does.

Taylor is also prepared to ask theological questions rather than simply paraphrase. His discussion of the altered cultic arrangements in the final vision, for example, at least recognizes that the changes themselves require interpretation. I am less persuaded by the suggestion that they largely demonstrate the continuing need for liturgical experimentation in new circumstances; the differences appear to perform a more substantial symbolic and theological function than that explanation captures.

The chief limitation is simply that scholarship has moved on. Published in 1969, Taylor could not benefit from Greenberg’s holistic work, Block’s extensive ancient Near Eastern and literary research, the later development of Ezekiel studies, or more recent work on priestly traditions and chapters 40–48. Its brevity also means that genuinely difficult textual problems often receive only a few lines.

Nevertheless, age has not made Taylor useless. Quite the opposite: his ability to explain the broad sense of a passage efficiently makes him an excellent first commentary to read before opening Block, Allen, or Zimmerli. For students, pastors, and readers who want a concise evangelical guide rather than a research commentary, it remains remarkably good. 4/5+.

20. Lamar Eugene Cooper Sr. — Ezekiel (New American Commentary)

Rating: 4/5

Cooper’s NAC volume provides a conservative, evangelical, whole-book commentary that is particularly useful for readers who want historical explanation, textual discussion, theological exposition, and application without entering the density of Block or Allen. He takes seriously the unity and prophetic authority of Ezekiel and gives ample space to the book’s major theological themes: the glory of God, covenant judgment, individual responsibility, restoration, messianic kingship, Spirit-enabled renewal, and the future of God’s people.

The commentary is especially helpful in passages where readers can become overwhelmed by detail. Cooper generally gives a clear account of the historical setting and then identifies the theological point of the imagery. His reading of the throne vision, for example, emphasizes divine mobility and sovereignty: the God of Israel is not confined to Jerusalem but is present with his people in exile. That basic insight is not unique to Cooper, but he communicates it effectively.

His approach to prophecy and eschatology is more literal and futurist than I find convincing in several places, particularly in the later chapters. The resulting framework can sometimes decide the shape of the interpretation before the literary and symbolic character of the passage has been fully explored. Where chapters 40–48 are concerned, I would prefer the more nuanced symbolic approaches of Duguid, Fairbairn, Mackay, or Block.

Cooper is also more of a synthesizer than an innovator. Readers looking for major new literary or historical proposals will find considerably more in Greenberg, Odell, or Sweeney. Yet originality is not the only form of usefulness. Cooper is doctrinally serious, readable, and capable of guiding pastors through the whole book without ignoring difficult passages. As a dependable evangelical intermediate commentary, it does its job well. 4/5.

21. David L. Thompson — Ezekiel (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary)

Rating: 4/5

Thompson’s Cornerstone commentary is designed to make the results of exegesis accessible to teachers, pastors, students, and serious lay readers, and that is where it is most successful. The format works passage by passage through the NLT while still interacting with Hebrew, textual issues, historical context, and theological interpretation. The result is more exegetically grounded than a devotional commentary but far easier to navigate than a major technical work.

Thompson is especially good at keeping the thought-flow of Ezekiel visible. Because the book contains long stretches of repeated judgment material, a commentary can easily become a sequence of disconnected notes. Thompson usually explains why a unit is present, how it contributes to Ezekiel’s message, and what theological issue is at stake. His evangelical commitments are clear without turning every paragraph into immediate application.

The strongest use for this volume is therefore as a bridge. A pastor who has consulted Block or Allen can use Thompson to see how detailed exegesis might be distilled for teaching; a reader who finds the technical commentaries intimidating can use Thompson to establish the main interpretive options before going deeper.

Its limitation is the same quality that makes it accessible. The commentary rarely has space to develop a major independent thesis, pursue textual problems at length, or engage the more complex scholarly debates surrounding composition, priestly traditions, and the final vision. Its contribution is lucid synthesis rather than a distinctive new account of Ezekiel. I would therefore not use it as my primary research commentary, but as a readable evangelical guide through the entire text it is consistently useful. 4/5.

22. Ralph H. Alexander — Ezekiel in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary

Rating: 4/5

Alexander offers a compact evangelical treatment that combines historical background, Hebrew observations, theological exposition, and a strongly futurist reading of Ezekiel’s restoration prophecies. For readers wanting a clear representative of conservative dispensational or literal-futurist interpretation, the volume is useful precisely because it does not hide its hermeneutical commitments.

There is much that is helpful outside the disputed eschatological material. Alexander argues for the substantial unity of Ezekiel, pays attention to historical chronology, and treats the prophet’s visions and symbolic actions as meaningful communication rather than pathological behaviour. He is also useful in tracing the themes of divine glory, judgment, individual accountability, restoration, and messianic rule.

The principal reservation is chapters 38–48. Alexander’s tendency is to map the later prophecies rather directly onto a future historical sequence and to treat the temple and cult in millennial terms. This produces a coherent system, but I do not think it gives sufficient weight to the visionary, symbolic, ideal, and canonical dimensions of the text. The problem becomes especially acute when renewed sacrifices must be integrated with the New Testament’s presentation of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. Solutions such as treating those offerings as memorial sacrifices are theologically possible within the system but are not obvious from Ezekiel itself.

Alexander is therefore more useful to me as an informed dialogue partner than as an adjudicator on the final chapters. His concise treatment is nevertheless valuable for seeing how a traditional literal-futurist interpretation handles the evidence. 4/5.

23. Mark F. Rooker — Ezekiel (Holman Old Testament Commentary)

Rating: 4/5

Rooker’s commentary is stronger exegetically than the Holman Old Testament Commentary format might suggest. Rooker had already completed specialist work on the language of Ezekiel, and his background in Leviticus gives him an especially useful instinct for priestly vocabulary, holiness, sacrifice, and Ezekiel’s relationship to Torah. The commentary is consequently more informed by Hebrew and intertextual detail than a purely homiletical series volume.

One particularly worthwhile feature is Rooker’s attention to Ezekiel’s use of earlier Scripture. In Ezekiel 22:25–28 he notes the remarkable correspondences with Zephaniah 3:1–4: prophets, officials, and priests appear in both texts, officials are compared with predatory wolves, and priests are uniquely accused of doing violence to Torah. That sort of observation shows that Ezekiel is not simply repeating traditional ideas but actively reworking inherited prophetic language.

Rooker also keeps the theological structure of the book clear: judgment before Jerusalem’s fall, restoration after it, new heart and spirit, Davidic hope, divine glory, and the final return of YHWH’s presence. The “Deeper Discoveries” material can provide useful lexical or historical notes for teachers who would otherwise need several reference works.

The limitations derive partly from the series. Considerable space goes to illustrations, life application, outlines, and devotional material, leaving less room for sustained interaction with competing exegesis. Much of the interpretation necessarily builds on larger commentators such as Block, Alexander, Stuart, and others. Rooker also leans toward a more dispensational understanding of some eschatological material than I would follow, including aspects of the future temple and prince.

For pastors wanting an orthodox, readable commentary with more linguistic substance than the format implies, Rooker is useful. For originality or detailed adjudication of Ezekiel’s hardest problems, I would go elsewhere. 4/5.

24. Peter C. Craigie — Ezekiel

Rating: 4/5

Craigie is at his best when he explains why Ezekiel’s strange imagery matters for the spiritual and theological situation of the exiles. His commentary is accessible, pastorally sensitive, and concerned with the message of the book rather than merely cataloguing interpretive problems. He understands that Ezekiel’s visions and actions are forms of prophetic communication designed to confront despair, rebellion, and false assumptions about God.

A recurring strength is his ability to move from ancient context to theological significance without making the historical setting disposable. The eating of the scroll, prophetic call, watchman motif, divine presence in exile, and restoration imagery all receive clear exposition. He is particularly effective for readers who want to understand why Ezekiel matters rather than simply how every difficult Hebrew phrase might be parsed.

Craigie’s treatment also preserves the balance between judgment and grace. Ezekiel’s harshness is not an end in itself: judgment exposes the seriousness of covenant rebellion, while restoration depends on divine initiative rather than Israel’s ability to repair itself. That theological instinct makes the commentary useful for teaching.

Its limitation is depth. Craigie is not attempting anything comparable to Greenberg’s literary argument, Zimmerli’s form-critical reconstruction, Block’s technical detail, or Odell’s cultural analysis. Textual and compositional problems are necessarily compressed, and many major developments in Ezekiel scholarship postdate the work. It is therefore best used as a secondary exposition alongside a larger commentary. Within that role, Craigie remains clear, humane, and theologically worthwhile. 4/5.

25. C. F. Keil — Ezekiel in Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Rating: 4/5 as a historical commentary

Keil remains useful because he reads Ezekiel with a seriousness about Hebrew, literary coherence, and biblical theology that prevents the commentary from becoming merely antiquarian. He resists attempts to explain Ezekiel’s distinctive imagery as simple borrowing from Babylonian art and insists that the prophet’s symbolism is fundamentally rooted in Israel’s sanctuary traditions, the cherubim, Sinai, and earlier biblical theophany. Even where modern ancient Near Eastern evidence requires a more qualified judgment, that instinct is important: parallels should illuminate Ezekiel, not replace his Israelite theological world.

His verse-by-verse work is often impressively detailed. Symbolic actions such as Ezekiel’s siege enactments, restricted diet, and ritual pollution are explained with close attention to Hebrew vocabulary, measurements, and Old Testament parallels. Keil also takes seriously the unity of the book and the theological relationship between its judgment and restoration sections.

The final vision is interpreted within a strongly biblical-theological framework rather than treated as a random late appendix. Keil recognizes continuity with Solomon’s temple and Israel’s cult while also seeing the vision as ideal and prophetic. Readers coming from later dispensational debates may be surprised by how differently older conservative exegesis could handle the same material.

The age of the commentary is nevertheless decisive. Akkadian evidence, archaeology, textual criticism, literary theory, and modern Ezekiel scholarship have advanced enormously. Some linguistic arguments are obsolete, and Keil can defend traditional conclusions more confidently than the evidence now permits. Yet his work remains valuable precisely because it supplies a substantial pre-modern-critical conservative reading grounded in the Hebrew text. 4/5 as a historical commentary.

26. John Calvin — Commentaries on the First Twenty Chapters of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel

Rating: 4/5 as a historical commentary

Calvin on Ezekiel displays the qualities that make his biblical commentaries continually rewarding: he wants to understand the argument of the passage, identify the theological issue at stake, expose evasions of human sin, and defend the righteousness and providence of God without burying the reader under scholastic detail.

He is especially strong where Ezekiel confronts false confidence. The exiles and Jerusalemites repeatedly assume that covenant privilege, temple, land, or inherited identity will protect them. Calvin sees clearly that Ezekiel dismantles every refuge by which people attempt to enjoy God’s promises while rejecting God’s rule. His discussions of prophetic vocation, divine sovereignty, idolatry, judgment, and repentance therefore retain considerable pastoral force.

Calvin also has a useful instinct for the moral psychology of the text. He regularly notices how self-justification, stubbornness, despair, or presumption shapes the audience’s response to prophecy. His theological applications arise from the argument rather than from unrelated allegory.

The limitation is unusually severe: Calvin died before finishing Ezekiel, and the commentary ends with chapter 20. We therefore lose his treatment of Ezekiel 34, the new heart and Spirit, the dry bones, Gog, and especially chapters 40–48—precisely the passages where his covenantal and Christological hermeneutic would have been most interesting. The work also naturally predates modern textual and historical resources.

For the chapters Calvin actually covers, he remains a penetrating theological expositor. As a commentary on the whole book, however, incompleteness prevents a higher ranking. 4/5 as a historical commentary.

29. Matthew Poole — Commentary on Ezekiel

Rating: 3.5–4/5

Poole’s annotations remain useful as a concise representative of older Reformed exegesis. He frequently goes directly to the lexical, grammatical, historical, or theological question causing difficulty and presents plausible alternatives without the discursiveness found in many older commentators. His knowledge of Hebrew means that the notes are not merely devotional paraphrase.

That concision can be particularly helpful in Ezekiel, where modern commentaries sometimes turn a small textual issue into several pages of scholarly history. Poole often tells the reader what the options are, which he prefers, and why. His theological instincts are conservative and canonical, so he naturally reads the prophet in relation to the wider biblical story.

At the same time, the limitations are substantial. Poole wrote before the recovery of the ancient Near Eastern world that now illuminates Ezekiel’s throne imagery, treaties, temples, iconography, political background, and exile. He also lacks modern textual evidence and the literary developments that have transformed interpretation of Ezekiel’s structure. His brief annotations can therefore preserve a traditional interpretation without possessing the evidence needed to adjudicate it against alternatives now available.

I would not use Poole as a primary commentary on Ezekiel. I do think he is worth consulting after the modern works, particularly when one wants to know how a difficult verse was read before nineteenth- and twentieth-century critical categories became dominant. 3.5–4/5.

30. Matthew Henry — Commentary on Ezekiel

Rating: 3.5–4/5

Henry is far more useful for theological and devotional appropriation than for technical Ezekiel scholarship. His great gift is the ability to see moral and spiritual implications in a passage and express them memorably. In a book filled with judgment, idolatry, prophetic responsibility, false shepherds, new life, and restored presence, that gift often produces genuinely edifying observations.

He is particularly effective when Ezekiel addresses the responsibilities of leaders, the danger of hearing God’s word without obeying it, the folly of idolatry, and the necessity of inward renewal. Henry also reads the Old Testament as Christian Scripture and naturally connects themes such as shepherd, temple, resurrection imagery, and divine presence with the New Testament.

The weakness is that the move to theological application can occur before the historical and literary problems have been fully resolved. Ezekiel’s visions are susceptible to over-spiritualization, and a reader relying on Henry alone will miss much of what modern study has recovered concerning priesthood, exile, ancient Near Eastern imagery, literary design, and the final temple vision. His work is therefore not competitive with modern exegetical commentaries on questions of original meaning.

Used for what it does best, however, Henry still has value. After working through the exegetical issues elsewhere, I often find older devotional commentators useful for asking the question technical works can neglect: what spiritual response does this text seek? 3.5–4/5.

Expository, Theological, and Preaching Companions

The following works retained high places in the overall ranking because they are exceptionally useful, but I would not compare them directly with large technical verse-by-verse commentaries. Their original overall rank numbers are retained.

12. Christopher J. H. Wright — The Message of Ezekiel (Bible Speaks Today)

Rating: 4.5/5

Wright’s great strength is theological synthesis. He is unusually good at seeing how Ezekiel’s themes of holiness, mission, idolatry, social injustice, leadership, covenant, divine reputation, judgment, restoration, land, and the nations belong together. He is not trying to produce an alternative to Block at the level of Hebrew syntax; he is asking what the book says about God, God’s people, and God’s purposes in the world.

The emphasis on the name and reputation of YHWH is particularly fruitful. Ezekiel’s concern that the nations know who YHWH is becomes a missional theme rather than a narrow concern for Israel’s internal restoration. Wright also takes the ethical indictments seriously: idolatry and injustice are not separate failures, because distorted worship produces distorted social life. His treatment of the false shepherds and restored shepherd in Ezekiel 34 is especially useful for Christian reflection on leadership.

Wright consistently relates Ezekiel to the larger canon without turning the Old Testament into a collection of isolated predictions. Christological fulfilment emerges through themes such as shepherd, temple, cleansing, Spirit, resurrection, restored people, and divine presence. That makes the book particularly useful for preaching.

The limitation is that Wright depends extensively on the larger exegetical commentaries, especially Block, and does not usually offer sustained independent philological argument. Readers should therefore not mistake theological freshness for a replacement for detailed exegesis. Yet as a second volume beside Block, Allen, or Greenberg, Wright often answers the question those works leave the preacher asking: “What does all this amount to theologically?” 4.5/5.

13. Iain M. Duguid — Ezekiel in the ESV Expository Commentary

Rating: 4.5/5

Duguid’s later ESV Expository treatment distils decades of thinking about Ezekiel into a much more compact form than his NIVAC commentary. It is particularly effective at maintaining the movement of the book and showing how judgment, exile, restoration, kingship, temple, Spirit, and divine presence fit into the biblical storyline.

His Reformed biblical-theological instincts are evident throughout. Ezekiel’s restoration promises are not isolated predictions to be matched mechanically with later events; they participate in patterns that move through Christ, the church, resurrection, and new creation. His reading of chapters 40–48 is therefore ideal and canonical rather than a literal reconstruction of a future sacrificial system.

This volume is also very useful for preaching because Duguid knows which exegetical details genuinely affect proclamation. He does not simply shrink the NIVAC commentary; he reorganizes the material around the needs of exposition.

The reason I rank the NIVAC considerably higher for the originality/usefulness criterion is that the ESV format removes much of the evidence behind Duguid’s conclusions. His arguments against source reconstruction, his interaction with competing readings, and the detailed results of his leadership research are far more visible in the earlier volume. Here one often receives the mature conclusion without the extended case.

For pastors who want Duguid’s theological reading in concentrated form, this may actually be the more convenient book. For serious study or evaluating his distinctive contributions to Ezekiel interpretation, the NIVAC is the one to own. 4.5/5.

15. Douglas Stuart — Ezekiel (The Preacher’s Commentary)

Rating: 4.5/5

Stuart is a scholar who understands the practical problem presented by Ezekiel: many readers avoid most of the book because it seems repetitive, historically distant, or overwhelmingly strange. His commentary is deliberately written to make the whole prophecy teachable, including the sections pastors routinely skip.

He is particularly effective at clarifying prophetic imagery. In Ezekiel 1, for example, the mobility of the throne-chariot communicates that YHWH is not confined to Jerusalem: God can be present and active among the exiles. Stuart repeatedly translates visual imagery into its theological force without turning it into arbitrary allegory. His historical explanations are concise but sufficient for most preaching purposes.

His treatment of chapters 40–48 is also strong for this kind of commentary. He interprets the temple vision symbolically as a portrayal of the eschatological order inaugurated in Christ rather than as a straightforward construction plan. The measurements, restricted access, holiness arrangements, and abundant space communicate purity, divine presence, hope, and the vastly better order God will establish after exile.

Stuart’s applications can be vivid and memorable, though some illustrations and cultural references inevitably show their late-twentieth-century setting. The commentary also does not provide enough technical discussion to resolve major textual or compositional disputes. Scholars will need larger works, and readers looking for highly original Ezekiel research will find less here than in Greenberg, Block, or Odell.

For its intended audience—preachers, teachers, and serious lay readers—Stuart succeeds exceptionally well. He helps readers preach chapters they might otherwise avoid. 4.5/5.

Specialist and Reference Companions

These works illuminate important dimensions of Ezekiel but are sufficiently specialized that a direct ranking against full commentaries would be misleading. Where they previously had an overall position, I have retained that number.

10. Stephen L. Cook — Ezekiel 38–48 (Anchor Yale Bible)

Rating: 4.5/5 overall; arguably 5/5 as a specialist resource

Cook had the difficult task of continuing the Anchor Ezekiel coverage after Greenberg without pretending simply to reproduce Greenberg’s method. His volume is therefore best treated as an independent specialist commentary on Ezekiel’s final eleven chapters.

Its most distinctive contribution is the serious use of architectural reconstruction and three-dimensional visualization. Cook does not treat Ezekiel’s temple measurements as tedious data to be summarized; he attempts to understand the spaces the text describes. This produces genuinely exegetical results. His reconstruction of the inner court, for example, allows him to challenge aspects of previous models, including details found in Block and Milgrom. Here visual modelling is not decoration but an interpretive tool.

Cook is also deeply interested in the relationship between Ezekiel, the Holiness tradition, Zadokite priesthood, social organization, and utopian thought. He asks what kind of community chapters 40–48 imagine and how sacred geography structures social relationships. That makes the commentary especially valuable for readers interested in priesthood, temple ideology, and the social implications of sacred space.

I am less convinced by some of the more speculative elements. “Utopian literature” can illuminate the ideal character of the vision, but importing modern social-scientific categories or detailed reconstructions of the groups behind the text can sometimes create more certainty than the evidence supports. Cook’s compositional theories are also more reconstructive than I would generally prefer.

Because the commentary begins at chapter 38, it cannot be an all-purpose Ezekiel recommendation. On precisely the chapters it covers, however, it contains material available almost nowhere else. 4.5/5 overall; specialist 5/5 is defensible.

11. Jacob Milgrom and Daniel I. Block — Ezekiel’s Hope: A Commentary on Ezekiel 38–48

Rating: 4.5/5 overall; specialist 5/5

This is one of the most unusual Ezekiel commentaries because it is effectively a scholarly conversation rescued from circumstances that prevented the originally planned Anchor continuation. Jacob Milgrom brings his extraordinary knowledge of Leviticus, priestly terminology, Holiness traditions, sacrifice, and Jewish exegesis into sustained engagement with Block’s already published NICOT interpretation.

Milgrom is especially illuminating on details that general Ezekiel commentators can easily flatten. He asks why familiar sanctuary objects are absent, why priestly roles change, how the calendar differs from Pentateuchal legislation, what the altar’s position means, and how Ezekiel adapts rather than merely repeats earlier cultic institutions. His arguments concerning the reduction or elimination of the high priestly role, the absence of the ark, menorah, and incense altar, and the organization of the cult make chapters 40–48 look like a deliberate theological redesign rather than a defective reproduction of Torah.

The interaction with Block is part of the value. Milgrom sometimes takes visible pleasure in disagreeing with him, so the reader sees two highly informed interpreters testing different accounts of the same evidence. I would not follow every proposal. Milgrom’s suggestion of comparison with Delphi, for example, strikes me as far less persuasive than his analysis of priestly and Holiness traditions.

The book’s unusual history also creates limitations. Milgrom died before the work could be polished in the normal way, and Block and Joel Duman had to bring the manuscript to publication. It therefore has a conversational and occasionally unfinished character. It also presupposes Block more than a fully independent commentary normally would.

For anyone studying Ezekiel 38–48 seriously—especially sacrifice, priesthood, holiness, and temple institutions—this is nonetheless indispensable supplementary reading. 4.5/5 overall; specialist 5/5.

16. John H. Walton — Ezekiel in the IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament

Rating: 4.5/5 as a specialist resource

Walton’s contribution is intentionally narrow: he explains the ancient Near Eastern cultural world behind the text rather than supplying normal verse-by-verse theological exposition. On Ezekiel, that specialist purpose is unusually valuable because so much of the book depends on imagery modern Western readers can easily misunderstand.

The throne vision benefits especially from Walton’s knowledge of divine thrones, guardian figures, radiance, composite creatures, wheels, and the iconography of royal and temple settings. Rather than beginning with modern guesses about spaceships or mechanical devices, the reader is placed within an ancient symbolic world in which divine kingship, mobility, sovereignty, and supernatural attendants make sense.

Walton is similarly useful for temple imagery, ritual purity, royal ideology, sign acts, curse formulas, body imagery, and concepts such as “heart” that carry cultural assumptions different from modern psychological usage. His background comments can sometimes explain in a paragraph what would otherwise require consulting several dictionaries.

The danger with any background commentary is parallelomania: a Mesopotamian or Egyptian analogue does not prove dependence, and an ancient custom does not automatically determine the meaning of an Israelite text. Walton is usually aware of this, but readers still need a full commentary to decide how the background functions in Ezekiel’s particular literary and theological argument.

I would never use the IVP volume as my only Ezekiel commentary. Alongside Block, Allen, Greenberg, or Odell, however, it supplies an entire dimension of interpretation with remarkable efficiency. 4.5/5 as a specialist resource.

27. Henry McKeating — Ezekiel (Old Testament Guides)

Rating: 4/5 as a guide

McKeating’s book is better understood as a guide to reading Ezekiel and understanding Ezekiel scholarship than as a commentary one consults verse by verse. Its chapters address the structure of the book, Ezekiel as a person, the history of critical interpretation, chronology and dating, theology, prophetic traditions, the final vision, messianism, the nāśîʾ, and Gog and Magog.

One strength is methodological orientation. McKeating explains why scholars have disagreed so dramatically about Ezekiel—from older assumptions of unity through radical fragmentation and back toward more holistic approaches. He does not demand that the reader master the entire history of criticism before understanding the basic choices.

He is also appropriately cautious about attempts to diagnose Ezekiel psychologically. The prophet’s strange actions, visions, silence, and emotional intensity have invited retrospective medical labels, but McKeating recognizes how hazardous it is to reconstruct a clinical condition from stylized ancient prophetic literature. That caution has aged well.

His starting point in the final shape of the book is another virtue. The broad movement of judgment against Jerusalem, oracles concerning the nations, and restoration provides an intelligible map even when individual sections complicate it. McKeating also understands Ezekiel as an unusually creative writer and dramatist, not merely a passive recorder of ecstatic experiences.

The limitation is obvious: this is not a substitute for detailed exegesis. Hebrew problems, textual variants, and individual verses often receive little treatment. Its best use is at the beginning of a serious study, when a reader wants to know what the main scholarly questions are before opening Zimmerli, Greenberg, Allen, or Block. 4/5 as a guide.

28. Robert B. Chisholm Jr. — Ezekiel in Handbook on the Prophets

Rating: 4/5 as a guide

Chisholm explicitly sets out to show readers the forest rather than every individual tree, and his treatment of Ezekiel should be evaluated on those terms. He offers a running account of structure, historical setting, rhetoric, theology, and the main exegetical issues while selectively interacting with technical scholarship in notes.

One of Chisholm’s strengths throughout the prophetic books is rhetorical sensitivity. He pays attention to how prophetic metaphors, irony, accusation, judgment speech, and restoration promises attempt to persuade an audience rather than treating the prophets as repositories of propositions. That is particularly helpful in Ezekiel because the prophet communicates through dramatic actions, extended metaphors, disputes, visions, and shocking language.

His treatment of passages such as Ezekiel 11 illustrates the value of the approach: rather than simply cataloguing translation options for the “meat and pot” saying, he asks what the leaders think the metaphor says about their privileged status and how YHWH turns their own image against them. Similar attention to metaphor makes his survey more interpretive than a normal introduction.

Chisholm writes from a conservative evangelical perspective and takes the prophetic message as theological revelation, but he also interacts seriously with Block, Allen, Zimmerli, Cooper, and the broader critical literature. The result is particularly suitable for students in an introductory prophets course and pastors who need an overview before consulting larger works.

Its limitation is intentional. Chisholm cannot give Ezekiel anything like the space needed for a full commentary, and some disputed passages are necessarily summarized. As a map of the book and its major interpretive problems, however, it is very good. 4/5 as a guide.

Gary Edward Schnittjer — Old Testament Use of Old Testament

Specialist companion — not directly ranked

Schnittjer is valuable for a question that ordinary Ezekiel commentaries sometimes address inconsistently: how does Ezekiel use earlier Scripture? Ezekiel is saturated in earlier biblical language—Torah, covenant curses, priestly traditions, prophetic predecessors, exodus motifs, Eden, kingship, and sanctuary imagery—and recognising those relationships can materially change interpretation.

The value of Schnittjer’s approach is that intertextuality becomes exegetical evidence rather than an ornamental list of “possible allusions.” When Ezekiel reuses earlier language, the differences can be as important as the similarities. A transformed citation may reveal how Ezekiel rereads inherited Scripture in the light of exile and judgment.

This resource is especially useful alongside Greenberg, Block, Duguid, or Rooker, all of whom pay considerable attention to inner-biblical relationships. It does not provide continuous exposition of Ezekiel and should not be treated as a replacement for a commentary. As a specialist tool for identifying the scriptural conversations occurring within the book, however, it can open up passages in ways a normal commentary index cannot.

Michael Fishbane — Haftarot (JPS Bible Commentary)

Jewish and liturgical companion — not directly ranked

Fishbane’s Haftarot is not a whole-book commentary on Ezekiel, but it supplies something most Christian Ezekiel commentaries cannot: sustained attention to Ezekiel as a text read within Jewish liturgy and interpretation. The prophetic readings selected for synagogue use acquire meaning not only from their original literary setting but also from the Torah readings, festivals, communal memory, and interpretive traditions with which they are paired.

Fishbane is particularly useful for seeing how Ezekiel’s restoration texts, temple imagery, divine presence, and consolation have functioned within Jewish reception. That perspective can expose assumptions Christian readers bring unconsciously to the book, especially where a passage is habitually read only through New Testament fulfilment.

Because only selected haftarah passages are treated, the work cannot be compared fairly with Block, Greenberg, Allen, or another sequential commentary. I would use it selectively when studying passages included in the liturgical cycle or when I want to understand the Jewish interpretive afterlife of an Ezekiel text. As a complementary perspective, it is highly worthwhile.

Final Assessment

After working through these commentaries, I am more convinced than ever that Ezekiel rewards a multiple-commentary approach. There is no single volume that captures everything the book requires.

If I could have only one, I would still choose Daniel Block. He offers the strongest total combination of Hebrew exegesis, literary structure, ancient Near Eastern background, theology, and usefulness across all forty-eight chapters. He is the commentary most likely to have something substantial to say regardless of where I open Ezekiel.

But Block is not a substitute for Greenberg. Greenberg’s holistic method changes the reader’s instinct when encountering repetition or tension: before dismantling the text, ask what the text is doing. That methodological shift has had enormous consequences for the interpretation of Ezekiel and remains one of the most important achievements represented in this ranking.

Allen is the commentator I would want nearby whenever a passage raises serious textual or compositional questions. He often occupies the most productive middle ground between Zimmerli’s historical reconstruction and Greenberg’s final-form reading. His conclusions may be less spectacular, but his judgments are exceptionally dependable.

Duguid’s NIVAC is the volume whose ranking rose most as I examined it closely. It contains substantially more independent scholarship than its series designation suggests, and his combination of final-form exegesis, leadership studies, biblical theology, and careful interpretation of the temple vision makes it one of the most useful evangelical commentaries on the book.

Odell contributes something different again. Her ancient Near Eastern building-inscription comparison, honour/shame analysis, literary attention, and willingness to reconsider familiar readings mean that she repeatedly makes me see details that are invisible if I remain entirely within the standard evangelical commentary conversation. I do not need to accept every proposal for the commentary to be enormously valuable.

Immediately below them, Eichrodt remains a reminder that newer does not automatically mean more theologically perceptive. His treatment of the Spirit, covenant fellowship, divine self-manifestation, and Ezekiel’s prophet-priest identity can still be outstanding. Sweeney offers one of the most coherent and creative priestly readings of the whole book, even though I would separate his central insight from some of the more speculative historical reconstructions built upon it. Zimmerli remains indispensable for understanding the questions that shaped modern Ezekiel scholarship, even where later holistic interpretation has made some of his Grundtext/Nachinterpretation divisions less persuasive. Mackay is perhaps the strongest near-miss for readers wanting detailed, conservative, Reformed exposition.

For the difficult closing chapters, I would not rely on any one commentator. Block, Duguid, Mackay, Fairbairn, Cook, and Milgrom each illuminate something different: literary architecture, visionary genre, canonical fulfilment, sacred geography, cultic transformation, or priestly detail. Reading them together is far more productive than choosing an eschatological system first and then asking Ezekiel to fit it.

That, in the end, is why I find commentary comparison most valuable. The aim is not to identify an author who can be followed at every point. The best commentary library creates constructive disagreement. One commentator notices the Hebrew, another the literary structure, another the ancient world, another the theological movement, another the reception history. Ezekiel is sufficiently rich—and sufficiently strange—that those different angles are not a nuisance to eliminate but often the means by which the text becomes clearer.

For the best balance of originality and usefulness, my leading recommendations remain Block, Greenberg, Allen, Duguid, and Odell. Read together, they provide five genuinely different ways into Ezekiel, and each makes the others more useful.