Ezekiel to be God’s spokesman
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📚Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, eat what you are encountering; eat this scroll, and go speak to the house of Israel”. 2 📚So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that scroll. 3 📚And he said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach, and fill your belly with this scroll that I am giving you”. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was like honey in sweetness 📖.
3:1-3 Compare Jer 1:9; 15:16; Rev 10:9-10. God’s word must be received and digested by God’s servants. It must become a part of their lives.⚜
4 📚And he said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel, and speak to them with my words. 5 📚For you are not sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel; 6 📚not to many people of obscure speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you. 7 📚But the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they will not listen to me; for the whole house of Israel is obstinate and hard-hearted.
3:7 Jer 7:27. But God has His good purpose in sending His messages even if the people they go to won’t listen.⚜
8 📚See, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads. 9 📚I have made your forehead like adamant, harder than flint. Do not fear them, or be dismayed by their looks, though they are a rebellious house”.
3:8-9 Ezekiel means “God is strong” or “God strengthens” or “God makes hard”. To face the kind of people he faced Ezekiel needed to be a tough, strong, determined man and only God could make him so. Compare Isa 50:7; Jer 1:17-19. God will make all His servants suited to the task to which He calls them (2 Cor 3:5-6).⚜
10 📚Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, hear with your ears and receive in your heart all my words that I speak to you.
3:10 The messenger of God himself must be very careful to respond to the Word of God. He is not to be like a mere talking parrot or a myna bird, untouched by the Word he delivers.⚜
11 📚And go to those of the captivity, to the children of your people, and speak to them, and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord God’, whether they listen or refuse to listen”.
3:11 The exiles were troubled by false prophets who predicted an early end to their exile. They did not believe Jerusalem would be destroyed and that they would be in Babylon for many decades. See Jeremiah’s letter to these same exiles in Jeremiah chapter 29.⚜
12 📚Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a voice sounding like a great rushing, saying, “Blessed be the glory of the LORD in his place”. 13 📚Also I heard the sound of the wings of the living beings that touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, and a sound of a great rushing. 14 📚So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; but the hand of the LORD was strong on me.
3:12-14 From Ezek 2:1—3:11 the cherubim, the wheels, and the glory of God have been there. Now Ezekiel must leave all that and begin a ministry to a stubborn people who will reject what he says. The word of God with its messages of sadness and woe is burning in his heart (Ezek 2:10). It is no wonder he went in bitterness and anger of spirit. God was already beginning to work in him to make him the kind of person who could deliver His message as He wanted it delivered (vs 8,9). Observe that God’s Spirit compelled him to go.⚜
15 📚Then I came to those of the captivity at Tel-Abib, who lived by the Kebar River, and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days.
Ezekiel a watchman
16 📚And at the end of seven days it happened that the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
17 📚“Son of man, I have made you a watchman 📖 for the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word from my mouth, and give them warning from me. 18 📚When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die’, and you do not give him warning or speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life, that wicked man will die in his guilt, but I will require his blood at your hand. 19 📚But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he will die in his guilt, but you will have delivered your soul.
20 📚“Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. Because you did not warn him, he will die 📖 in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done will not be remembered; but I will require his blood at your hand. 21 📚But if you warn the righteous man that the righteous are not to sin, and he does not sin, he will surely live, because he was warned; also you have delivered your soul”.
3:18-21 See the awesome responsibility of God’s prophets. They had to give an account to God for their ministry and for the people to whom they were sent. It is not clear what God would do to Ezekiel if he failed to warn those to whom God sent him, but the words “I will require his blood at your hand” (vs 18,20) are very severe and no doubt went deep into the mind and heart of Ezekiel.⚜
God shut Ezekiel’s mouth and opened it
22 📚And the hand of the LORD 📖 was on me there; and he said to me, “Arise, go out 📖 to the plain, and there I will talk with you”. 23 📚Then I arose, and went out to the plain; and the glory of the LORD appeared standing there, like the glory which I saw by the Kebar River; and I prostrated myself.
3:23 God’s glorious presence awaited His obedient servant – as always.⚜
24 📚Then the Spirit came into me, and set me on my feet, and spoke to me, and said to me, “Go, shut yourself up inside your house. 25 📚But, son of man, see, they are going to put ropes on you and tie you up with them; and you will not go out among them. 26 📚And I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you will be mute, and will not be one who rebukes them; for they are a rebellious house. 27 📚But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ He who will listen, let him listen; and he who refuses to listen, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.
3:24-27 God gave Ezekiel new instructions that would further prepare Ezekiel for what he had to face.⚜
3:26-27 Apparently Ezekiel for some time was unable to speak except when God enabled him. At times there are firm restraints on God’s servants; they may not have the same freedom that others enjoy. During this time Ezekiel’s ministry was in his house and only to those who came there. But through them his words and news of his doings would surely spread among all the exiles. Compare Paul bound (Phil 1:12-14; 2 Tim 2:9).⚜