spirit which has entered into him. It has often been noted that the socalled classical prophets, from the eighth to the sixth century B.C., speak little of the activity of the spirit, perhaps in reaction to the more emotional and violent forms of ecstatic possession associated with the prophetic conventicles known in the Hebrew Bible as “the sons of the prophets.” In this, as in other respects, Ezekiel draws on earlier and more “primitive” forms of prophecy illustrated, for example, in the narrative