The prophet Ezekiel was active from 597-587 during the time of the Babylonian conquest. At the time of the writing, Babylon was a leading political power as a nation
and one action of theirs was to exile the people of Judea in order to keep a tighter grip on their power. As the exile went on, Jerusalem and the Temple in the city were destroyed with the Judean people still in exile with little hope or thought of redemption left.
Ezekiel himself was a priest and temple worker, the temple was the most important thing to him and serving God was very important to him. However there was a point where he condemned the temple and those who worked in it because of the massive corruption he saw occurring every day. Ezekiel prophesized destruction because the people were guilty of oppression of the less fortunate and, more seriously, idolatry.
However unlike most other prophets, Ezekiel also prophesized that there was still hope for the people and they would eventually be saved by God somehow.
Ezekiel had a vision of God and saw Him as a "son of man", or human being. In the vision, first Ezekiel sees a
cloud with bright light surrounding it and fire coming out of it, both frequent images used for God. Ezekiel then saw four being that had faces that looked in all four directions around them. Attached to the bottoms of these beings where their feet would be were wheels, wheels that were completely covered with eyes. Above the creatures heads, there was a crystal dome and above that was what appeared to be a throne and sitting atop that throne was God who had taken the form of a human being. The wheels on the throne showed that God wasn't necessarily tied down...