There is no reason to doubt that what is thus described represents an actual experience on the part of the prophet. It is not to be regarded merely as a conscious clothing of spiritual truths in symbolic imagery. The _description_ of a vision is of course a conscious exercise of literary faculty; and in all such cases it must be difficult to distinguish what a prophet actually saw and heard in the moment of inspiration from the details which he was compelled to add in order to convey an intelligible picture to the minds of his readers. It is probable that in the case of Ezekiel the element of free invention has a larger range than in the less elaborate descriptions which other prophets give of their visions. But this does not detract from the force of the prophet’s own assertion that what he relates was based on a real and definite experience when in a state of prophetic ecstasy. This is expressed by the words “the hand of Jehovah was upon him” (ver. 3)—a phrase which is invariably used throughout the book to denote the prophet’s peculiar mental condition when the communication of divine truth was accompanied by experiences of a visionary order. Moreover, the account given of the state in which this vision left him shows that his natural consciousness had been overpowered by the pressure of super‐sensible realities on his spirit. He tells us that he went “in bitterness, in the heat of his spirit, the hand of the Lord being heavy upon him; and came to the exiles at Tel‐abib, ... and sat there seven days stupefied in their midst” (ch. iii. 14, 15).