Tel Abib was a colony of exiled Jews on the banks of the Chebar River, in Babylon, in what is today Iraq. It is not in the land of Israel: it is simply the same name that, centuries later, would be given to the modern Israeli city, a different place.
It was there that the prophet Ezekiel arrived, after receiving by the Chebar River the vision of the glory of God on a throne with wheels and living creatures. Carried by the Spirit, he came to live among the deportees of Judah.
Upon arriving, Ezekiel sat among the people for seven days, overwhelmed, gripped by the weight of what he had seen and heard. Only after that time did he receive from the Lord the mission of being a watchman for Israel, responsible for warning the people of the judgment that was coming.
Tel Abib appears only once by name in the biblical text, but it marks the beginning of the prophet’s ministry among the exiles. It shows that God calls and commissions his servants even far from the temple, in a foreign land, in the midst of the pain of captivity.
