14 And the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away; and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit, and the hand of Jehovah was strong upon me.
The hand of Jehovah was upon me, and Jehovah carried me out in the Spirit, and set me down in the midst of a valley; and it was full of bones.
And now fetch me a minstrel. And it came to pass when the minstrel played, that the hand of Jehovah was upon him.
And he stretched forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heavens, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entry of the inner gate that looketh toward the north, where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.
And Moses said to Jehovah, Why hast thou done evil to thy servant, and why have I not found favour in thine eyes, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me? Have I conceived all this people, have I brought them forth, that thou sayest to me, Carry them in thy bosom, as the nursing-father beareth the suckling, unto the land which thou didst swear unto their fathers? Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people? for they weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh that we may eat! I am not able to bear all this people alone, for it is too heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with me, slay me, I pray thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, that I may not behold my wretchedness. And Jehovah said to Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and their officers; and take them to the tent of meeting, and they shall stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there; and I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, and thou shalt not bear it alone. And unto the people shalt thou say, Hallow yourselves for to-morrow, and ye shall eat flesh; for ye have wept in the ears of Jehovah, saying, Who will give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt; and Jehovah will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Not one day shall ye eat, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days;
and said to him, Behold now, there are with thy servants fifty valiant men; let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master, lest perhaps the Spirit of Jehovah have taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some ravine. And he said, Ye shall not send.
And I am full of the fury of Jehovah, I am weary with holding in. Pour it out upon the children in the street, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken; the aged with him [that is] full of days.
Jehovah, thou hast enticed me, and I was enticed; thou hast laid hold of me, and hast prevailed; I am become a derision the whole day: every one mocketh me. For as oft as I speak, I cry out; I proclaim violence and spoil; for the word of Jehovah is become unto me a reproach and a derision all the day. And I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name: but it was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I became wearied with holding in, and I could not.
Cursed be the day wherein I was born; let not the day wherein my mother bore me be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad! And let that man be as the cities which Jehovah overthrew, and repented not; and let him hear a cry in the morning, and a shouting at noonday, because he slew me not from the womb. Or would that my mother had been my grave, and her womb always great [with me]! Wherefore came I forth from the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed in shame?
And the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the sound of a great rushing, [saying,] Blessed be the glory of Jehovah from his place!
When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus makes and baptises more disciples than John
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Ezekiel 3
Commentary on Ezekiel 3 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 3
Eze 3:1-27. Ezekiel Eats the Roll. Is Commissioned to Go to Them of the Captivity and Goes to Tel-abib by the Chebar: Again Beholds the Shekinah Glory: Is Told to Retire to His House, and Only Speak when God Opens His Mouth.
1. eat … and … speak—God's messenger must first inwardly appropriate God's truth himself, before he "speaks" it to others (see on Eze 2:8). Symbolic actions were, when possible and proper, performed outwardly; otherwise, internally and in spiritual vision, the action so narrated making the naked statement more intuitive and impressive by presenting the subject in a concentrated, embodied form.
3. honey for sweetness—Compare Ps 19:10; 119:103; Re 10:9, where, as here in Eze 3:14, the "sweetness" is followed by "bitterness." The former being due to the painful nature of the message; the latter because it was the Lord's service which he was engaged in; and his eating the roll and finding it sweet, implied that, divesting himself of carnal feeling, he made God's will his will, however painful the message that God might require him to announce. The fact that God would be glorified was his greatest pleasure.
5. See Margin, Hebrew, "deep of lip, and heavy of tongue," that is, men speaking an obscure and unintelligible tongue. Even they would have listened to the prophet; but the Jews, though addressed in their own tongue, will not hear him.
6. many people—It would have increased the difficulty had he been sent, not merely to one, but to "many people" differing in tongues, so that the missionary would have needed to acquire a new tongue for addressing each. The after mission of the apostles to many peoples, and the gift of tongues for that end, are foreshadowed (compare 1Co 14:21 with Isa 28:11).
had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened—(Mt 11:21, 23).
7. will not hearken unto thee: for … not … me—(Joh 15:20). Take patiently their rejection of thee, for I thy Lord bear it along with thee.
8. Ezekiel means one "strengthened by God." Such he was in godly firmness, in spite of his people's opposition, according to the divine command to the priest tribe to which he belonged (De 33:9).
9. As … flint—so Messiah the antitype (Isa 50:7; compare Jer 1:8, 17).
10. receive in … heart … ears—The transposition from the natural order, namely, first receiving with the ears, then in the heart, is designed. The preparation of the heart for God's message should precede the reception of it with the ears (compare Pr 16:1; Ps 10:17).
11. thy people—who ought to be better disposed to hearken to thee, their fellow countryman, than hadst thou been a foreigner (Eze 3:5, 6).
12. (Ac 8:39). Ezekiel's abode heretofore had not been the most suitable for his work. He, therefore, is guided by the Spirit to Tel-Abib, the chief town of the Jewish colony of captives: there he sat on the ground, "the throne of the miserable" (Ezr 9:3; La 1:1-3), seven days, the usual period for manifesting deep grief (Job 2:13; see Ps 137:1), thus winning their confidence by sympathy in their sorrow. He is accompanied by the cherubim which had been manifested at Chebar (Eze 1:3, 4), after their departure from Jerusalem. They now are heard moving with the "voice of a great rushing (compare Ac 2:2), saying, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place," that is, moving from the place in which it had been at Chebar, to accompany Ezekiel to his new destination (Eze 9:3); or, "from His place" may rather mean, in His place and manifested "from" it. Though God may seem to have forsaken His temple, He is still in it and will restore His people to it. His glory is "blessed," in opposition to those Jews who spoke evil of Him, as if He had been unjustly rigorous towards their nation [Calvin].
13. touched—literally, "kissed," that is, closely embraced.
noise of a great rushing—typical of great disasters impending over the Jews.
14. bitterness—sadness on account of the impending calamities of which I was required to be the unwelcome messenger. But the "hand," or powerful impulse of Jehovah, urged me forward.
15. Tel-Abib—Tel means an "elevation." It is identified by Michaelis with Thallaba on the Chabor. Perhaps the name expressed the Jews' hopes of restoration, or else the fertility of the region. Abib means the green ears of corn which appeared in the month Nisan, the pledge of the harvest.
I sat, &c.—This is the Hebrew Margin reading. The text is rather, "I beheld them sitting there" [Gesenius]; or, "And those that were settled there," namely, the older settlers, as distinguished from the more recent ones alluded to in the previous clause. The ten tribes had been long since settled on the Chabor or Habor (2Ki 17:6) [Havernick].
17. watchman—Ezekiel alone, among the prophets, is called a "watchman," not merely to sympathize, but to give timely warning of danger to his people where none was suspected. Habakkuk (Hab 2:1) speaks of standing upon his "watch," but it was only in order to be on the lookout for the manifestation of God's power (so Isa 52:8; 62:6); not as Ezekiel, to act as a watchman to others.
18. warning … speakest to warn—The repetition implies that it is not enough to warn once in passing, but that the warning is to be inculcated continually (2Ti 4:2, "in season, out of season"; Ac 20:31, "night and day with tears").
save—Eze 2:5 had seemingly taken away all hope of salvation; but the reference there was to the mass of the people whose case was hopeless; a few individuals, however, were reclaimable.
die in … iniquity—(Joh 8:21, 24). Men are not to flatter themselves that their ignorance, owing to the negligence of their teachers, will save them (Ro 2:12, "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law").
19. wickedness … wicked way—internal wickedness of heart, and external of the life, respectively.
delivered thy soul—(Isa 49:4, 5; Ac 20:26).
20. righteous … turn from … righteousness—not one "righteous" as to the root and spirit of regeneration (Ps 89:33; 138:8; Isa 26:12; 27:3; Joh 10:28; Php 1:6), but as to its outward appearance and performances. So the "righteous" (Pr 18:17; Mt 9:13). As in Eze 3:19 the minister is required to lead the wicked to good, so in Eze 3:20 he is to confirm the well-disposed in their duty.
commit iniquity—that is, give himself up wholly to it (1Jo 3:8, 9), for even the best often fall, but not wilfully and habitually.
I lay a stumbling-block—not that God tempts to sin (Jas 1:13, 14), but God gives men over to judicial blindness, and to their own corruptions (Ps 9:16, 17; 94:23) when they "like not to retain God in their knowledge" (Ro 1:24, 26); just as, on the contrary, God makes "the way of the righteous plain" (Pr 4:11, 12; 15:19), so that they do "not stumble." Calvin refers "stumbling-block" not to the guilt, but to its punishment; "I bring ruin on him." The former is best. Ahab, after a kind of righteousness (1Ki 21:27-29), relapsed and consulted lying spirits in false prophets; so God permitted one of these to be his "stumbling-block," both to sin and its corresponding punishment (1Ki 22:21-23).
his blood will I require—(Heb 13:17).
22. hand of the Lord—(Eze 1:3).
go … into the plain—in order that he might there, in a place secluded from unbelieving men, receive a fresh manifestation of the divine glory, to inspirit him for his trying work.
23. glory of the Lord—(Eze 1:28).
24. set me upon my feet—having been previously prostrate and unable to rise until raised by the divine power.
shut thyself within … house—implying that in the work he had to do, he must look for no sympathy from man but must be often alone with God and draw his strength from Him [Fairbairn]. "Do not go out of thy house till I reveal the future to thee by signs and words," which God does in the following chapters, down to the eleventh. Thus a representation was given of the city shut up by siege [Grotius]. Thereby God proved the obedience of His servant, and Ezekiel showed the reality of His call by proceeding, not through rash impulse, but by the directions of God [Calvin].
25. put bands upon thee—not literally, but spiritually, the binding, depressing influence which their rebellious conduct would exert on his spirit. Their perversity, like bands, would repress his freedom in preaching; as in 2Co 6:12, Paul calls himself "straitened" because his teaching did not find easy access to them. Or else, it is said to console the prophet for being shut up; if thou wert now at once to announce God's message, they would rush on thee and bind them with "bands" [Calvin].
26. I will make my tongue … dumb—Israel had rejected the prophets; therefore God deprives Israel of the prophets and of His word—God's sorest judgment (1Sa 7:2; Am 8:11, 12).
27. when I speak … I will open thy mouth—opposed to the silence imposed on the prophet, to punish the people (Eze 3:26). After the interval of silence has awakened their attention to the cause of it, namely, their sins, they may then hearken to the prophecies which they would not do before.
He that heareth, let him hear … forbear—that is, thou hast done thy part, whether they hear or forbear. He who shall forbear to hear, it shall be at his own peril; he who hears, it shall be to his own eternal good (compare Re 22:11).