Short answer: Ezekiel 1:3 identifies Ezekiel as the priest, the son of Buzi, so his father was Buzi. That is the Bible's only naming of his parent, and it places Ezekiel in a priestly line, which matches his own standing as a priest. The text says nothing further about Buzi: no tribe, no hometown, no character sketch. What the opening verses press instead is that Yahweh's word came to this particular son of this particular man, in a real place and at a datable time, with Yahweh's hand on him there.
A priest among the captives: the setting of ezekiel's call
Ezekiel opens not with a poem or a law code but with a dated report in the first person. The writer tells us when, where and who before he tells us what he saw. He counts the thirtieth year, then the fourth month, then the fifth day, and in the next verse he adds a second reckoning: the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity (1:1–2). Two calendars run side by side, one unexplained and one anchored to a known event. The effect is like a court record that suddenly opens into heaven. The vision of the stormy wind and the four living creatures does not arrive until the reader knows exactly where the man is standing.
That location is exile. Ezekiel is among the captives by the river Chebar, in the land of the Chaldeans, and he is named as a priest, the son of Buzi (1:3). Israel had been deported in stages, and dating by Jehoiachin's captivity places this among the earlier exiles, before the final fall of Jerusalem. The text says nothing more about Buzi, so we should not build a profile of him. What matters is the collision: a priest whose life was bound to the temple and its worship now lives in a distant, ritually unclean land, far from the place where God's name was said to dwell.
Only after the time stamp and the address does the word arrive. The text says Yahweh's word came to Ezekiel the priest, and that Yahweh's hand was there on him (1:3). The hand of God is not described as a mood or an inward impression but as a weight laid on a particular man in a particular place. This ordering shapes how we read everything that follows. The call comes to a displaced person in a foreign land, which prepares for the book's great themes: God's presence departing from the temple and returning again. The thirtieth year stays unexplained, and the vision is not a template for predicting guidance; it is a report of what one prophet was given.
The Son of buzi and the word that came
The opening verses of Ezekiel give us a man before they give us a vision. Ezekiel 1:3 identifies him as "Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and Yahweh’s hand was there on him." The phrase "the son of Buzi" is an ordinary genealogical marker, the plain way Scripture ties a person to a household and a line. It tells us his father's name and nothing more. Buzi is named once and never described, so we should resist filling in a biography the text does not give. The point is simple: Ezekiel belonged to a family, and that family was priestly.
That pairing of name, office and father matters. "Ezekiel the priest" joins his identity to his vocation before any vision begins, so the reader knows his inherited calling as well as his lineage. Then comes the standard prophetic formula: Yahweh's word came to him. This presents the message as received rather than invented, given by God to a particular man at a particular time. The same verse adds that Yahweh's hand was upon him, language of divine claim and enabling. The prophet does not summon the word or manufacture the vision. He is addressed, and he is held.
Geography does the quiet work here. The word comes to Ezekiel in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar, among the captives. A priest is located away from the temple, in a foreign land, and the text does not soften it. The mention of the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity grounds the moment in a datable exile. Whatever the unexplained thirtieth year refers to, the passage does not present it as a formula for discerning guidance. It simply records when God spoke, and where: to an exiled priest, in Babylon, by a canal.
The priest, the Son of buzi, by the river chebar
Ezekiel 1:3 gives the only identification of Ezekiel's parent in the Bible: he is called the priest, the son of Buzi. That single line places him in a priestly family. It also fits what the book shows about him, since he is already named a priest while living far from the temple. The text stops there. It gives no tribe, no hometown, no account of Buzi's character or death. Readers who want a fuller family tree will not find one. What the verse presses instead is that a particular man, from a particular line, stood in a particular place when God spoke.
The setting is exile, and the dates are specific. Verse 2 ties the call to the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity, which places Ezekiel among the earlier deportations rather than the final fall of Jerusalem. Verse 1 mentions a thirtieth year that the text never explains; readers have proposed several reckonings and have not agreed. The fifth year of Jehoiachin anchors what the thirtieth year leaves open. For a priest, being carried to Babylon was a crisis as well as a hardship, because so much of priestly life was bound to the temple and its worship. He was displaced from the place his calling assumed.
Only after the reader is told who is speaking, where he stands, and whose hand is on him does the vision begin in verse 4. The stormy wind, the flashing lightning and the four living creatures come to a man by the river Chebar in the land of the Chaldeans, and verse 3 says Yahweh's hand was there on him. The location matters for the whole book, which returns again and again to God's presence departing and returning. The call reaches a displaced priest in an unclean land. That is the claim to weigh here, not a method for decoding guidance in our own lives.
Where readers differ on ezekiel's opening verses
The first line dates the vision twice over. Ezekiel says he was among the captives by the river Chebar in the thirtieth year, then in 1:2 he anchors it again to the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity. Careful readers disagree about the thirtieth year. Some take it as Ezekiel's age, since a priest would begin service around that time. Others read it as a calendar reckoning, counted from some earlier event the text does not name. The passage does not settle the question, and it does not try to. What it does say plainly is that the heavens opened while he was in exile, not in the temple courts.
A second disagreement concerns Ezekiel's priestly background. He is named as a priest, the son of Buzi, and readers differ over how far that shapes the book. Some see priestly concerns running through the whole prophecy, its temple vision and its attention to holiness. Others tie the priestly language more closely to the opening call and let the rest stand on its own. The text also presses the location: the word of Yahweh came to him in the land of the Chaldeans, and Yahweh's hand was there on him. Readers weigh how much that location claims about God's presence outside the land. What stays central is that God spoke to a named priest in exile.
On the father himself there is no real dispute, because there is nothing to dispute. Buzi appears nowhere else in Scripture, and the text supplies no biography, no tribe, no office, no story. Readers who argue about him are arguing with silence. What the passage does not permit is filling that silence with speculation, treating Buzi as a prophet or a notable figure the text never says he was. Nor should the unexplained thirtieth year or the opened heavens become a pattern for predicting guidance in our own lives. The vision was given to one man at one moment. What remains for every reader is the plain fact the verses give: the word of God came to a captive, and his hand was on him.
A priest among captives points to a greater priest
Ezekiel 1:1–3 introduces the prophet with careful, dated detail. He is among the captives by the river Chebar, in the land of the Chaldeans, and the text anchors the moment to the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity. He is named as a priest, the son of Buzi, but the passage says nothing more about his father. Buzi appears only as a name in a line of descent. What the text does say is that Ezekiel was a priest who was not serving at the temple. He was far from Jerusalem, and Yahweh's word came to him there anyway.
The setting matters for what follows. A priest in exile might expect God's presence to be tied to a place he could no longer reach. Instead, the passage says the heavens were opened and that Yahweh's hand was on him by the river Chebar. God's word and hand reach a man in a foreign land. That is the passage's own claim, and it is worth stating plainly. The vision that begins in 1:4 is not a technique for finding guidance. It is God choosing to speak where his people had been carried away.
The pattern here points beyond Ezekiel without being forced. A priest receives God's word among captives, and the gospel presents a greater priest who speaks God's word to people living far from home. The book's visions of God's glory and its hope of restored presence find their fulfillment in Christ, in whom God dwells among his people and through whom exiles are brought near. That is a line traced across Scripture, not something these three verses state. What they contribute stands: God's word and hand reach people in a foreign land, and the gospel confirms it rather than replaces it.
What faithful response looks like where you actually are
Read the opening verses slowly and notice how much ordinary detail surrounds the moment. Ezekiel 1:1 begins, "Now in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God." A man is named by his father, Buzi, placed by a river in a land he did not choose, and dated by a month and a day. God's word came to a priest in exile, not to a man in a comfortable post in Jerusalem. The text does not explain the thirtieth year, and it does not tell us anything more about Buzi than his name. Those gaps are part of the passage's honesty.
If you are in a season of displacement or obscurity, this text does not promise you visions or relief. What it shows is that God is not confined to impressive settings. The word came to Ezekiel in the land of the Chaldeans, and the writer adds that Yahweh's hand was there on him. That is the quiet center of these verses. Faithful response begins by taking your actual circumstances seriously as the place where you are addressed: your family line, your address, the date on the calendar. Attend to Scripture and prayer where you are, not where you wish you were. Grace is the ground of that obedience, not a reward waiting at the end of it.
One more thing needs saying plainly. Do not build a doctrine of personal guidance on the thirtieth year, and do not treat the storm and the living creatures as a pattern for discovering God's direction in your own decisions. The text does not authorize that use of it. What stays central is simpler: God spoke, and a man listened and later obeyed. So read your Bible in the room you are actually in. Pray in the ordinary hours. Keep the small, unremarkable details of your life before God, and let the grace already given in Christ be the reason you show up, rather than the prize you are trying to earn.
Biblical fidelity check
Read Ezekiel 1:1–3 closely and note what the text actually supplies. Verse 1 gives a date by an unexplained reckoning, verse 2 anchors it to Jehoiachin's captivity, and verse 3 names the man, his office and his father: Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Chebar. The risks here are real. Careful readers differ over the thirtieth year, some taking it as Ezekiel's age, others as a calendar count, and the passage does not settle it. Others weigh how far his priestly line shapes the book, or how much the Chebar location means for God's presence away from the temple.
On Buzi himself there is no genuine disagreement, because he appears nowhere else and the text says nothing more. What the passage forbids is filling that silence with a biography, or treating him as a prophet or notable figure. What stays central is plain: God's word came to a named priest in exile, and Yahweh's hand was there on him. That order matters. The call is God's action, the location is foreign ground, and the prophet's part is to receive what was given before he speaks.
Studies that take up Ezekiel 1:1-3 from another angle
For a closer look at the setting and the vision that follows, see Ezekiel 1: Ezekiel's Vision by the River Chebar on the river Chebar and Ezekiel 10: God's Glory and the Cherubim on the date given in the opening verses. Then read Ezekiel 11: Judgment, Sanctuary, New Heart on Ezekiel's priestly background and Ezekiel 12: Signs of Exile and Fulfilled Words on how God's word came to a prophet in exile.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Ezekiel's father according to the Bible?
Ezekiel's father was Buzi, named in Ezekiel 1:3, where the prophet is called the son of Buzi. The same verse identifies Ezekiel as a priest, so his father is introduced to anchor him among the priestly line rather than to tell us anything more about the man himself. Scripture gives no further details about Buzi here. The passage's weight falls elsewhere: the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel among the captives by the river Chebar, and the Lord's hand was on him there.
What does it mean that Ezekiel was a priest in exile?
Ezekiel was a priest, a man set apart to serve God at the temple, yet he was carried off to Babylon and living among the captives by the river Chebar, far from the place his calling assumed. The text names him the son of Buzi and places him in the land of the Chaldeans, so his priesthood did not shield him from defeat and displacement. Yet in that exile Yahweh's word came to him and Yahweh's hand was on him there. The setting does not cancel his calling; God speaks and acts away from the temple.
Why does Ezekiel date his call by king Jehoiachin's captivity?
Ezekiel dates his call by Jehoiachin's captivity because that event fixed where and when he and his fellow exiles actually were: verse 2 ties the vision to the fifth year of the king's captivity, matching verse 1's thirtieth year and the river Chebar setting. The king's deportation is the public calendar marker his hearers would recognize, placing the prophet among the captives rather than in Jerusalem. So the date anchors God's word to a real, datable moment of judgment and exile. Verse 3 then locates that same word in the land of the Chaldeans, with Yahweh's hand on Ezekiel there.
