Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great rushing, saying, “Blessed be Yahweh’s glory from his place.”
Parallel Translations
-
Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great rushing, saying, “Blessed be Yahweh’s glory from his place.”
-
Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the LORD from his place.
-
Then a spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great rushing: 'Blessed be the glory of the LORD from His place';
Cross-references (23)
Passages linked to Ezekiel 3:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ezekiel 8:3 He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looks toward the north; where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.
- Acts 8:39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, and the eunuch didn’t see him any more, for he went on his way rejoicing.
- Ezekiel 11:1 Moreover the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me to the east gate of Yahweh’s house, which looks eastward. Behold, twenty-five men were at the door of the gate; and I saw among them Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.
- Acts 2:2 Suddenly there came from the sky a sound like the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
- 1 Kings 18:12 It will happen, as soon as I leave you, that Yahweh’s Spirit will carry you I don’t know where; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he can’t find you, he will kill me. But I, your servant, have feared Yahweh from my youth.
- Ezekiel 3:14 So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away; and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; and Yahweh’s hand was strong on me.
- Exodus 40:34-35 Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and Yahweh’s glory filled the tabernacle. Moses wasn’t able to enter into the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud stayed on it, and Yahweh’s glory filled the tabernacle.
- 1 Samuel 4:21-22 She named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel!” because God’s ark was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband. She said, “The glory has departed from Israel; for God’s ark has been taken.”
- 2 Kings 2:16 They said to him, “See now, there are with your servants fifty strong men. Please let them go and seek your master. Perhaps Yahweh’s Spirit has taken him up, and put him on some mountain, or into some valley.” He said, “Don’t send them.”
- Psalms 72:18-19 Praise be to Yahweh God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds. Blessed be his glorious name forever! Let the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and amen.
- Psalms 103:20-21 Praise Yahweh, you angels of his, who are mighty in strength, who fulfill his word, obeying the voice of his word. Praise Yahweh, all you armies of his, you servants of his, who do his pleasure.
- Psalms 148:2 Praise him, all his angels! Praise him, all his army!
- Isaiah 6:3 One called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!”
- Ezekiel 2:2 The Spirit entered into me when he spoke to me, and set me on my feet; and I heard him who spoke to me.
- Ezekiel 9:3 The glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house; and he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn by his side.
- Ezekiel 10:4 Yahweh’s glory mounted up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of Yahweh’s glory.
- Ezekiel 10:18-19 Yahweh’s glory went out from over the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim. The cherubim lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in my sight when they went out, with the wheels beside them. Then they stood at the door of the east gate of Yahweh’s house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.
- Ezekiel 11:22-24 Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, and the wheels were beside them. The glory of the God of Israel was over them above. Yahweh’s glory went up from the middle of the city, and stood on the mountain which is on the east side of the city. The Spirit lifted me up, and brought me in the vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to the captives. So the vision that I had seen went up from me.
- Ezekiel 40:1-2 In the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was struck, in the same day, Yahweh’s hand was on me, and he brought me there. In the visions of God he brought me into the land of Israel, and set me down on a very high mountain, on which was something like the frame of a city to the south.
- Revelation 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet
- Revelation 1:15 His feet were like burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace. His voice was like the voice of many waters.
- Revelation 5:11-14 I saw, and I heard something like a voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders. The number of them was ten thousands of ten thousands, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who has been killed to receive the power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and blessing!” I heard every created thing which is in heaven, on the earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb be the blessing, the honor, the glory, and the dominion, forever and ever! Amen!” The four living creatures said, “Amen!” Then the elders fell down and worshiped.
- Revelation 19:6 I heard something like the voice of a great multitude, and like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of mighty thunders, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (20 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain The Prophet again affirms what we have formerly seen,…
The Prophet again affirms what we have formerly seen, that God had worked upon his mind by the secret instinct of his own Spirit. Although, therefore, God had exhorted him to fortitude, yet the Prophet shows what he demanded of himself. In short, the Prophet was strong in God, because God implanted his virtue within him. He says, therefore, that he was raised up by the Spirit, which only means that the agitation within him was of no avail, unless through heavenly inspiration; so also he ought to be carried beyond himself for the time, that nothing human should appear within him. But more will be said about this hereafter.
He adds, that he heard a voice of a great rushing, that is, a sonorous voice, and one different from the usual voice of men: for the, Prophet, by the noise or tumult of the voice, could distinguish it from the usual voice of men. Blessed, said it, be the glory of Jehovah from his own place We cannot doubt that this benediction was suitable to the occasion of its utterance: when, therefore, this voice was heard, God wished to refute the clamorous voices of the people who thought themselves injured. For we know that the people were querulous, and murmured because they thought themselves treated with greater harshness than they deserved. Hence the glory of God is opposed to all impious and sacrilegious blasphemies, which the Israelites were in the habit of vomiting forth against God, as if he treated them cruelly. In short, this voice restrained all calumnies, by which the impious then endeavored to overwhelm the glory of God. He says that glory is blessed, because although men dare not utter gross and open reproaches against God, nevertheless they curse his glory as often as they detract from his justice, and accuse him of too much rigor. Hence, in opposition to this, a voice is heard, saying, the glory of God is blessed
Read full note →
By God’s place, I understand the Temple. I confess that in many passages of Scripture heaven is so called; not that God’s essence, which is immense, can be included within any place; for as heaven is called his throne or seat, so also the earth is his footstool, because he fills all things with his immensity. So here, as often in other places, the Temple is called God’s place, because he dwelt there with respect to men. Besides, this is said as well with reference to the exiles as to the rest of the people yet remaining at Jerusalem. For the exiles did not sufficiently consider that they were banished from their country, and dragged into a distant region, through the just vengeance of God. Since, therefore, this captivity did not sufficiently subdue them, the name of God ought to be set before them, that they might know that they were not banished from their country by the cruelty of their enemies, but by the judgment of God. The Prophet, doubtless, regards also those Jews who as yet remained at home: for they boasted that God was seated in the Temple, and so fancied that they should be always safe under his protection. But the Prophet, as we shall afterwards see, denounces on those who remained a punishment similar to that of those who were in captivity. It is then just as if he had said that God remained in his Temple, that he might shine there with conspicuous glory. Now as he wished to humble the ten tribes as well as the other two, so he wished to alleviate the grief of them all, that they should not cease to hope for the promised return. For calamity itself might lead them to despair, and to suppose their salvation impossible: nay, to think that God was as it were dead, and his virtue extinct. To what purpose, then, was the worship of God? to what purpose the splendor and dignity of the Temple, unless that God should protect his own? But they had been deserted by him; here then was matter for despair, unless it had been met: the Prophet now treats this, since on one side he reminds them that God was the just avenger of wickedness, when he suffered the ten tribes to be dragged into exile, yet that he would be their deliverer, because he does not cease to reign in his Temple, although profane men think him conquered, and treat with wanton insolence their own triumphs over him. Now therefore we perceive the sense of the Prophet: for this sentence would be cold if it were merely general; but when it is accommodated to the state of things at the time, we see that the glory of God is not extolled by any vain eulogium, and that the Temple is not mentioned in vain. (Psalm 11:4; Psalm 103:19; Isaiah 66:1.)
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Whereby he signifieth, that God’s glory should not be…
Whereby he signifieth, that God’s glory should not be diminished, although he departed out of his Temple, for this declared that the city and Temple should be destroyed.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Eze 3:12 Then the spirit took me up, and…
Eze 3:12 Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, [saying], Blessed [be] the glory of the LORD from his place.
Ver. 12. Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me, &c.] This was for the prophet’s encouragement, and to put mettle into him, as it were, that he might the better bear up amidst all, since he should shortly bear a part in that angelic concert, whose λειτουργια εστι ψαλμωδια, as Theodoret hath it, their daily service is singing of psalms.
Read full note →
Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place,] i.e., From heaven, where saints and angels glorify his name without ceasing or satiety. Monica, after a discourse with her son Augustine about the happiness of heaven, concluded thus: Quantum ad me attinet, fili, nulla re amplius delector in hac vita. Quid hic facio? As for me, what make I here, since I take no more pleasure in anything that is here to be had? A picture of a globe of the whole earth, saith one, set out with all the brave things that sea and land can afford, with this sentence encircling it round, "To be with Christ is far better," is a Christian’s emblem, and should be his ambition.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The spirit; the Spirit of God, which governed the…
The spirit; the Spirit of God, which governed the wheels and the living creatures, Eze 8:3.
Took me up; either raised him up to nearer approaches, to see and discern, to hear and learn; or carried him to his countrymen, to whom he was to speak.
Read full note →
Behind me; his face toward the north while he saw the vision, now that he is carried south to his people the voice is behind him. A voice of a great rushing; an articulate sound, and intelligible, but with great commotion, for it was the voice of angels, attended with the rushing noise of the wheels added to the noise of their wings, and a mighty wind which might likely accompany all this.
Blessed be the glory of the Lord; praised and magnified be the gloriously holy and just God, riding on the glorious chariot of his sovereignty in prescribing laws, appointing ordinances, threatening sin, and punishing sinners.
From his place; either coming down from heaven, or departing from his temple. In brief, the glorious angels, and all the saints of God, bless, i.e. praise, admire, and justify God in all the ways of his judgments among the sons of men.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Then the spirit took me up,.... Not the wind,…
Then the spirit took me up,.... Not the wind, nor an angel, but the Spirit of God; who took up the prophet from the ground, from the place where he was, among the captives by the river Chebar, and had seen the glorious vision described in the first chapter; and had had his call and mission, as expressed in the second chapter, and hitherto in this; and was carried by him to another company of captives, who were at another place by the same river, as appears by comparing Eze 1:1, with Eze 3:15; for this was not done in a visionary way, as Kimchi thinks, but in reality; not in spirit, but in body; just as the Spirit caught away Philip from the eunuch, Act 8:39;
and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing; of the living creatures and wheels, as is afterwards explained:
Read full note →
saying, blessed be the glory of the Lord out of his place; either out of heaven, the place where his glory is manifested; so the Targum, out of the place of his Shechinah or majesty; or out of the temple, from between the cherubim over the mercy seat, from whence he was about to remove, Eze 10:4. These words may be considered either as a doxology of the church, and people of God, ascribing glory, blessing, and praise unto him; not only on account of the perfections of his nature, but because of his works of nature, providence, and grace, and even for his righteous judgments on men. Maimonides (p), by his place, understands the essence of God. Or as a lamentation for the departure of the blessed and glorious majesty of God from the temple, which seemed to be threatened; for the words may be rendered, "the blessed glory of the Lord out of his place" (q); that is, it is just ready to go out of his place.
(p) Moreh Nevochim, par. 1. c. 8. p. 12. (q) "benedictam gloriam Jehovae e loco ipsius, migrantem", Junius & Tremellius, Polanus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain A voice - An articulate sound, of many angels,…
A voice - An articulate sound, of many angels, attended with the rushing of the wheels, added to the noise of their wings. Blessed - Praised be the gloriously holy and just God. His place - Coming down from heaven.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 12. Then the Spirit took me up] This,…
Verse 12. Then the Spirit took me up] This, as Calmet remarks, has been variously understood.
1. An impetuous wind carried him to the place where his brethren sojourned.
Read full note →
2. The Holy Spirit, which filled his heart, transported him in a moment to the place where the captives were.
3. Or, he was so transported with heavenly ardour in his mind, that he ran immediately off, and seemed to fly to the place where God commanded him to go.
The promptitude and impetuosity of his spirit seemed to furnish him with wings on the occasion. However this may be understood, the going to the captives was real.
A voice of a great rushing] This was the noise made by the wings of the living creatures that formed the chariot of Jehovah. See the notes on Eze 1 and Eze 10.
Blessed be the glory of the Lord] Probably the acclamation of the living creatures: "Let God be blessed from the throne of his glory! He deserves the praises of his creatures in all the dispensations of his mercy and justice, of his providence and grace."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain I heard behind me - The commission having been…
I heard behind me - The commission having been given, and the prophet transported to the place of his ministry, the chariot of the vision passes away with the proper tokens Eze 1:24-25. A voice from above the firmament is now heard proclaiming the divine glory.
From his place - The place where the glory of the Lord had revealed itself in the vision. The words are to be joined to “saying:” put a comma after Lord.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Spirit; wind (Hugo) or angel, took me through the…
Spirit; wind (Hugo) or angel, took me through the air; (Prado.) or, I went willingly. (St. Jerome) --- Commotion, like an earthquake, (Hebrew; Septuagint) occasioned by the motion of the chariot, or the voice of the cherubim, ver. 13.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain II. THE FIRST EXECUTION OF THE DIVINE COMMISSION.—Eze_3:12 to…
II. THE FIRST EXECUTION OF THE DIVINE COMMISSION.—Eze_3:12 to Eze_7:27
1. The Installation and Instructions (Eze_3:12-27)
Read full note →
12And the spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a sound of a great 13tumultuous noise: Praised be the glory of Jehovah from His place. And [I heard] the noise of the wings of the living creatures striking one upon another, and the noise of the wheels beside them, and the sound of a great tumultuous 14noise. And the spirit lifted me up, and took me, and I went bitterly, in the 15heat of my spirit, and [but] the hand of Jehovah was strong upon me. And I came to the captivity at Tel-abib, who dwelt by the river Chebar, and where they were sitting, there I also sat stunned [starr] in their midst seven days. 16And it came to pass at the end of seven days, that the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, 17Son of man, I have given thee as a watchman to the house of Israel; 18and thou hearest a word at my mouth, and thou warnest them from me. If I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou warnest him not, and speakest not to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life,—he, the wicked, shall die in [because of] his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine 19hand. But if thou dost warn the wicked, and he doth not turn from his wickedness and from his wicked way, he shall die in [because of] his iniquity; 20but thou hast delivered thy soul. And if the righteous doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I give a stumbling-block before him, he shall die, for thou didst not warn him; in his sin he shall die, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will 21I require at thine hand. But if thou dost warn him as a righteous man, not to sin as being righteous, and he sinneth not, he shall surely live, because he is warned; and thou hast delivered thy soul. 22And the hand of Jehovah came upon me there, and He said unto me, Arise, go forth to the valley, and there will 23I speak with thee. And I arose, and went forth to the valley: and, behold, the glory of Jehovah standing there, as the glory which I saw by the river Chebar: 24and I fell upon my face. And the spirit came into me, and set me upon my feet, and He spake with me, and said unto me: Go, shut thyself within thine 25house. And thou, son of man, behold, they give [lay] bands upon thee, and bind 26thee in them, and thou shalt not go out among them. And thy tongue will I make to cleave to the roof of thy mouth, and thou art dumb, and thou shalt not be to them a man that reproveth; for they are a house of rebelliousness. 27But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou sayest unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear: for they are a house of rebelliousness.
Eze_3:13. Sept.: K. εἰδον φωνην—
Eze_3:14. K. το πνευμα χυριου ἐξηρεν με—
Eze_3:15.…εἰζ τ αἰχμαλωσιαν μετεωρος, κ.. περιηλθον τ. κατοικουντας … τ. ὀντας ἐκει, κ.. ἐκαθισα ἐκει—(some mss. and Syr. omit ואשר המה׳ שם).
Eze_3:19. Another reading: הוא רשע בעונו. Sept. and Arab. have read הרשע for the omitted הרשעה which precedes.
Eze_3:25.…δησουσιν σε ἐν αὐτοις, κ. συ μη ἐξελθης ἐξ αὐτων.
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
Eze_3:12-15. After the Installation of Ezekiel in his Sphere of Labour by means of the Commission in Word, there follows now the Installation in actual Fact.
Eze_3:12. רוח cannot possibly be anything else here than it has always been hitherto. Both Keil and Klief. unnecessarily bring in “a wind,” which, however, according to Keil, carried the prophet through the air not in body, but in spirit, Eze_8:3; Eze_11:1; Eze_11:24. But here, also, just as in Eze_3:14, there is no reference to being carried through the air. The lifting up by the spirit corresponds entirely to the raising up in Eze_2:2. Only what was there raising up from the earth, in order to stand and hear, is here rather (and that also because of the higher situation of Tel-abib) lifting up from the place of hearing, in order to go and speak; and at the same time, Ezekiel hears immediately behind him קול רעש גדול, by which is signified to him the marching forth of the divine glory, with which movement of the same, his installation in actual fact commences in highest fashion. His mission, shadowed forth by the character of the vision of glory, begins in this way to be realized in actual fact. Thus, and the spirit lifted me up is connected with and I heard, etc., and what Ezekiel hears with his actual introduction to his sphere of labour. As the spirit qualified him (Eze_2:2) to hear Him that spake to him, so the spirit moves, lifts him up to do what he is told (Eze_3:11). Comp. besides, 1Ki_18:12; 1Ki_18:46; Mat_4:1; Act_8:39. The lifting up quite harmonizes with this influence of the spirit, just as it entirely corresponds with the character of the vision (Eze_3:24-25) in the midst of which it occurs. And because the prophet is moved to betake himself to his fellow-countrymen, he also hears what he hears behind him.—The great tumultuous noise (Eze_3:13, Eze_37:7; Isa_9:5; Jer_10:22) takes an articulate form, first of all, as praise of the glory of Jehovah, whereby our view (given at p. 39) of something super-terrestrial, heavenly, in the chajoth is only confirmed. It is not said who gave utterance to this praise; and nothing in the context, at least, compels us to think of heavenly spirits. Thus there remain in fact for it only the chajoth; and for this we may compare not merely Rev_4:8 sqq., but even Isa_6:3.—From His place, no matter whether we refer it to Jehovah or His בבוד, denotes very suitably, what Keil denies, not indeed so much as: who now leaves His place (Hengst.), nor what is said in Eze_9:3, still less the temple (Häv.), which is not at all the subject in hand, but perhaps, that from the place where Jehovah’s glory has manifested itself to the prophet, and just as it manifested itself, its praise must and will go forth, and that immediately, over Israel (first), and into the whole world, and among all mankind (Mic_1:3). Hence, also, as respects Ezekiel’s doings and labours, how remarkably in this way the praise of the divine glory introduces him to his sphere of action! ממקומו is certainly too far off from ואשמע, to which Keil wishes to refer it! Philippson refers ממקומו to “the creation embraced in the vision: Praised be, etc., from the place where it is borne along, where it tarries” (Isa_13:13).
Eze_3:13 : comp. Eze_1:24; Eze_1:9; Eze_1:11; Eze_1:23; Eze_1:15; Eze_1:20-21. This was in a manner the musical accompaniment of the laudation expressed above in words. וקול dependent on ואשמע in Eze_3:12.—נשק, to arrange, to join together. Hiphil: to strike on one another.—It ends, as it began, in the great tumultuous noise. (“The life of the creatures is the boundless sphere of the praise of the Creator of heaven and earth [Psalms 148]. This is the fugue notes of the sublimest music, which makes the universe, itself ring. Finely and beautifully for the melodious harmony, we have the happy expression, that the wings kiss one another: fearful as is the sound of the striking of wings, and of the wheel-work of creation, yet there is unison and love in it; at last comes the soft, gentle whisper, as in the case of Elijah!”—Umbreit.)
Eze_3:14 (Eze_11:24) as at Eze_3:12; the ecstatic lifting up is designated as a being laid hold of, a being taken (לקח). Nothing in the context points to “taking away” (J. H. Mich.); on the contrary, he went (ואלך), as he had been commanded in Eze_3:1; Eze_3:4; Eze_3:11. Now, therefore, a corporeal movement of the prophet in space took place, but not by means of wind through the air (Jer., Klief.). The vision, as to the matter of it, is at an end with (Eze_3:12-13) the laudation and great tumultuous noise (comp. Gen_17:22); Keil unnecessarily adopts the view that it ends only with Eze_3:21. Personally, as respects the person of Ezekiel, the vision ends when he is ecstatically lifted up and laid hold of by the spirit, and not by wind, inasmuch as the power of the spirit put an end to all lingering and loitering in him, and prepared him, so that he betook himself to the quarter that was necessary, as was also expressly indicated to him by the departure of the divine glory. And with this the following description necessarily corresponds. Bitterly, in the heat of my spirit—thus he describes what is in his spirit, when he goes now on his own feet, after the spirit lifted him up and laid hold of him, so that he could neither stand still, nor move off in any other direction. The subjectivity of the prophet comes into the foreground (so already Calvin has it). The taste that was so sweet before (Eze_3:3) is followed (as in Rev_10:9-10) by a bitter after-taste; the joyousness which Ezekiel felt during the vision, gives place, when the vision ends, to bitterness (Mat_26:41). This bitterness expresses the special feeling of the prophet, while the heat designates the general character of his mental state.בחמת רוחי, reflecting the fiery style of the vision he has had, shows Ezekiel’s spirit raised to glowing heat by the wrath of God, by the unavoidable judgment on Israel which he has to announce. In so far there is as yet no difference which would have to be got rid of or repressed; the difference respects not so much the relation to God, as the relation to Israel. It is in this direction that the interpretation of מר is to be sought (have the LXX. read רם?), and that simply as an expression for the pain which the prophet specially feels when he goes to his people. That is the human element of bitterness in his divine wrath. Distress and sorrow undoubtedly say too little,—Hitzig: “because the days of cheerful, sportive innocence are now over for him” (!)—but neither is it the “bitterness of fiery wrath because of the hardening of Israel, because of his commission with no prospect of success” (Keil); and just as little have we to think, with Hengsten., of “holy irritation.” In Ezekiel’s spirit there is the wrath of God (Jer_15:17); but love to his people feels it bitter,—feels bitter pain. Hence: the hand of Jehovah was strong upon me (חזקה, according to the ingenious remark of Hitzig, different from בבד in Psa_32:4), where we must not compare either Eze_1:3 or Isa_8:11, but equivalent to: God strengthened him, as the Jewish expositors render it, with an allusion to the name Ezekiel. וְ may be the simple and, not “since” (Ewald), nor as Hengst., who derives the indignation and heat of spirit from the powerful divine influence in him.
Eze_3:15. The bitterness of the pain, and the glow of the wrath, and the strengthening of the Almighty, obtain a corresponding plastic expression in the behaviour of the prophet, as soon as he finds himself in the midst of his fellow-exiles.—תל אביב, the dwelling-place of Ezekiel, probably “hill of corn-ears,” so called from the elevated situation and richness in grain of this colonial settlement; for other combinations with Tel in Babylon, see Gesen. Lex., Rosenm.; comp. besides, Introd. pp. 7, 8. Jerome gives a symbolical meaning to the name of the place. The LXX. appear to have thought of a form תָּלַל and סָבַב. (The Kethib ואשר has given rise to many far-fetched interpretations. Even a second river has been made of it. The Qeri reads וָאֵשֵׁב, that he has not only come hither, but also remained [!], not to speak of other explanations. It is simply to be read וַאֲשֶׁר, and to be connected with שָׁם: and where.) Seven days—not because the week is the unity that most readily suggests itself for a plurality of days (Hitz.), nor as a standard period for cleansing, consecration, preparation for holy service (Keil), but, if this number shadows forth anything, then, according to its leading symbolical signification (Bähr, Symb. i. pp. 187 sqq., 193 sqq.), the covenant relation of God to Israel, by which the wrath as well as the pain of the prophet might be excited. Comp. Job_2:13; Gen_50:10; 1Sa_31:13 (Psa_137:1).—משמים partic. Hiph. Hitz.: sunk in fixed silence; Keil: motionless and still. Comp. Ezr_9:3-4. (Hengst.: in a state of horror. But how is this conceivable during the whole seven days?)—Häv. finds in the text two classes of exiles: those who had recently settled near the Chaboras, and the old inhabitants of former times belonging to the kingdom of the ten tribes still dwelling there. Comp. Introd. pp. 7, 8.
Eze_3:16-27. To the Installation of Ezekiel in actual Fact there is appended an Admonition of a more general Character (Eze_3:16-21), and a special One having reference to his Sphere of Labour (Eze_3:22-27).
Eze_3:16. The admonition after the installation comes to Ezekiel in a new revelation. (In the usual Hebrew text we find between ימים and ויהי דבר־ the sign Pisca: פסקא באמצע פסוק, i. e. a pause in the middle of the verse.)
Eze_3:17. There is first an admonition of a more general character, but less, as Hitz. supposes, with respect to the relation between the revelation and him, that he is to speak only when he receives a revelation, than as to how he is to look upon himself in reference to his sphere of labour; for the latter reference is that which predominates in what follows. צֹפֶה partic., not subst., from צפה, “to draw round,” to draw over, to cover, to take care of, hence: “to keep one’s eyes on anything,”—the seer, the look-out, who from his watch-tower, which, in the case of the prophet, is the divine standpoint, turns to account the revelations which are made to him for the weal and woe of the people entrusted to his care as a watchman. Comp. 1Sa_14:16; 2Sa_13:34; 2Sa_18:24; Jer_6:17; Hab_2:1; Isa_56:10; Eze_33:1 sqq.—With the judicial character which predominates in the mission of Ezekiel, the word from My mouth is not revelation in general, but announcement, hint, command, sentence in connection with the threatening judgment of God, with a view thereto, and determined thereby; and, therefore, זהר in Hiph. not: to enlighten in the sense of to teach (Heb_13:17), but in the sense of to caution, to warn. ממני is explained in accordance with the preceding ממי. Häv.: “partly in compliance with definite divine instructions received, partly with continual appeal and reference thereto.”
Eze_3:18. The רשע, like the צדיק in what follows, is not so much a rhetorical personification of the species (Hengst.), and that of the people on the one hand, of the little flock on the other, but a characteristic individualization, for this preliminary period of the New Covenant; already the individuals are separating themselves from Israel as a national whole according to their individual qualification, i.e. as they exhibit themselves in their procedure towards the divine judgment on Israel, and the public preaching takes the shape of the special care of souls; and in this way the national mission of the prophetic order, on the one hand, enters more deeply into its spiritual significance, and, on the other hand, brings into prominence its general human side.—If I say unto the wicked, in accordance with Eze_3:17 : “thou hearest a word at my mouth,” equivalent to: when thou hearest what I say unto the wicked, that I announce unto him inevitable ruin in the impending judgment (Luk_10:16; 1Th_4:8).—מות תמות, the original threatening on the transgressor of the divine word (Gen_2:17) is nothing new, unheard of, is only applied here (Gen_20:7) to the individual. In order to make his duty quite clear to the prophet, to free it from every objection, whether springing from his own heart, or coming from his fellow-men, or from surrounding circumstances, to fix it for all cases, and thus to enforce it very strongly, the simple and thou warnest him not is expanded still farther into what follows, and speakest not to warn, etc., implying at the same time repetition and urgency. Although the nation as a whole is lost (Eze_3:7), the return of the individual is nevertheless, nay, so much the more, to be sought (Act_20:31; 2Ti_4:2). The substance of such warning: “of” and “from his way;” it is consequently not the judgment of God, this way of God with Israel, for this may issue in life, inasmuch as it awakens to return, to repentance, but it is his own way and will, the life of self-will on the part of the רשע, which, in accordance with God’s righteousness, is changed into death, just as it is in its root a dying, because departure from God, from the divine way, pointed out in the law. There lies at the root of רשע (if not, as contrasted with צדק, the meaning of what is crooked, awry—Hupf. on Psa_1:1—and thus deviation from the straight, right way, yet at least) apostasy from God (Psa_18:22 [21]). He is one who, according to the divine law, the rule for Israel as a nation, appears unrighteous, here as everywhere the opposite of צדיק—הָרְ .שָׁעָה, which the LXX. in Eze_3:19 also have passed over, refers to דרבו (like א̇רַח), construed as feminine, perhaps in order to emphasize the significance of the figurative expression.—לחיתו, the object of the warning, perhaps at the same time: to bring him to life again (Psa_30:4 [3]; Hos_6:2; Eph_2:5).—עון, properly: what is not straight, perverted in consequence of deviating from the straight, right way, hence: unrighteousness, and also: iniquity. In his perversity the unrighteous man necessarily brings upon himself death as a consequence; there is an עון קץ, as it is expressed in Eze_21:30 [E. V. 25].—The close of the verse likewise contains an allusion to a passage in Genesis, Gen_9:5 (Gen_42:22), only with this difference, that בקש stands instead of דרש, which latter Ges. explains as: to go after any one, thus of a more active reclamation, while בקש means more a looking after, a seeking with the eyes. It is the life, which is in the blood, of those in Israel which is entrusted to the prophet as a watchman. For this Jehovah, the Supreme Proprietor, demands a reckoning. The prophet who forgets his duty, which he owes to the unrighteous in God’s stead, becomes a man-slaughterer, a murderer of that man, and is regarded as such by God.
Eze_3:19. What the way of deliverance is for the unrighteous man, is shown, viz. return, alike inwardly (wickedness) and outwardly. The deliverance of soul, as regards the prophet (here נפש, formerly דם Gen_9:4), is preservation from the divine avenging of blood.
Eze_3:20. Antithetic parallelism of this and the following verse with the two preceding. Hengst., holding fast by the people in his interpretation, denies the personal contrast in צדיק; they are, according to him, designated as wicked at present, as righteous with reference to their destiny and better past. The description of the righteous man does not certainly rise above a certain outward legality and isolated righteousnesses. Eze_3:18 : באמרי, here באוב.—His righteousness is that attained by him as regards the law of Israel, the national-legal righteousness; hence, also, departure therefrom is quite conceivable as “committing wickedness (iniquity);” and, for the decision of the matter, the stumbling-block is given by God; i. e., to such a righteous man (comp. however, Pro_4:11-12; Pro_15:19) the exile, or the state of matters in Jerusalem, becomes a temptation from God, in so far as, for the purpose of deciding the condition of the man, such like outward circumstances are arranged by Him, but not: a stumbling-block “on which he may die” (Ew.); for הוא ימות begins the apodosis, just as in Eze_3:18 הוא רשע, he shall die,—so it is decided as to the apostate righteous man, who has become like the wicked (Eze_18:24), and therefore must appear still worse than he; just as the stumbling-block to be given by God brings him also in actual fact to utter ruin. The parallel, however, with Eze_3:18 necessarily implies neglect in warning on the part of the prophet; and as such omission is presupposed, so also the death of this “righteous” man, his ruin in the Chaldean divine judgment, must be expressly (בי) referred to the prophet, and, consequently, the possibility of another result be presupposed. How the case will be in reality with this man, who is worse than the רשע, is shown by the statement: in his sin he shall die, which points, not to a false step arising from mere weakness, ignorance, but to wickedness become a habit. The individualizing description of our verse (as already in Eze_3:19) gives additional proof of the fearful corruption of Israel as a whole, which was disclosed in what precedes (Eze_2:3). His righteousnesses mean, according to Hengst., “the good works of pious ancestors, Psa_132:1” (!). They are the legal deeds of the “righteous man,” or collectively: what he has done in accordance with the law, works without reference to the state of the heart. [Rosenm. reads צִדְקָתוֹ as a collective singular with the plural of the verb תִּזָּכַרְוָ.] Comp. besides, on Eze_3:18.
Eze_3:21. ואתה בי as in Eze_3:19; but the issue of the case is exactly the opposite: there warning without return, here warning which attains its object. After the three dark pictures which precede, this is drawn in colours so much the brighter. It is the righteous man as he ought to be: and hence also the emphatic mode of expression. Comp. besides, 1Jn_3:8-9; 1Jn_2:1; 1Jn_3:6.—בי as in Eze_3:20. Comp. besides, on Eze_3:19.
In Eze_3:22-27 there follows a quite special instruction for Ezekiel as to his sphere of labour, which is introduced by a special demand in Eze_3:22. Comp. Eze_1:3. It is at Tel-abib, also, that this divine revelation is made to the prophet. Hengst. consistently asserts that there is no actual change of place, that Ezekiel’s betaking himself to the valley, like his presence at the Chebar, takes place in the inner region of the spirit (!).—The valley, as distinguished from the height on which Tel-abib was situate, is not exactly the plain extending to the river—not הַשָׂדֶה, but הבקעה, a certain valley between the mountain-walls there. It is not so much the solitude (Hengst.) as the subsequent renewal of the earlier vision of glory which leads to the choice of this locality. (2Co_6:17; Psa_45:10-11; comp. Eze_37:1-2.)
Eze_3:23; comp. Eze_1:28. The vision begins with: and, behold. עמד indicated to him the standing background and protection for his labours, or the Judge before the door!
Eze_3:24; comp. Eze_2:2. Hitzig’s conjecture seems a correct one, that this definite ordering of the prophet into the house is connected with the preceding summons to go forth; it appears at least so much the more visible,—which is certainly of importance, if the prophet was, in the first place, to preach to the eye merely of his countrymen. If his procedure in Eze_3:15 was a sermon, this shutting of himself up within his house is, primarily, nothing else,—an action, a condition of Ezekiel’s, meant for a sermon; just as in his case, more readily than in that of any of the other prophets, the inward becomes outward, and the outward is inward. His isolation from the midst of his countrymen in the valley for God is now followed by his isolation among them within his own house; the former a momentary one, the latter of a more enduring character. This latter symbolical sermon is further defined as a non in publicum prodire (Eze_3:25), and more exactly as a silence on the part of the voice calling to repentance (Eze_3:26). Those who are so very eager after what is visible are accordingly directed, first of all, to look at what the prophet will do (Eze_12:6; Eze_12:11). That would necessarily excite attention, and curiosity would necessarily, with ever growing intensity, desire to have it explained, what Ezekiel’s acting has in view, what it means. This is certainly the primary reason why the prophet is not only summoned away by God (Eze_3:22 sqq.) from the midst of his countrymen, but also receives the command to shut himself up in his house in their midst. The shutting himself up in his house is therefore, of course, symbolic, although, at the same time, it explains to us the way in which Ezekiel 4, 5 are to be understood, viz. as domestic occurrences. It has been regarded as a picture of the future of Ezekiel’s own prophetic destiny (Häv.), and also as a picture of Jerusalem under investment (Ephraem Syrus, Jer.), inasmuch as it was falsely assumed that there was a connection with what follows immediately, or at a later stage. (Raschi: that thou mayest show them that they are unworthy of admonition. Grot.: in order to await the suitable time for speaking.) Moreover, this house of the prophet is the innocent cause of all the “leisure of domestic life,” amid which, according to Ewald, Ezekiel was almost exclusively occupied in literary pursuits.
Eze_3:25. The shutting himself up in his house is not intended to shut out his countrymen from him; for what he is to do there is for the house of Israel (Eze_4:3 sqq.), is done before their eyes (Eze_3:12; comp. also Eze_8:1); but he (ואתה) is to be for them one who is shut up, i. e. in the first place, one who is not to go forth into their midst.—For son of man, comp. on Eze_2:1.—Behold, they lay, etc., can only be his countrymen, and that not as being members of his family, who take him for a madman (a Lapide),—a view which nothing in the context favours. But Hitzig’s view (accepted by Keil) of invisible, heavenly powers, which bound Ezekiel (“as it were bands of enchantment”!), is quite opposed to the context. Eze_3:25 by no means moves in the same line with Eze_3:26; but in Eze_3:26 the transition is made from men to God. Eze_4:8, according to Keil’s own explanation, has no connection with this. Everything depends on whether we are to look upon the binding of the prophet as intended to prevent him leaving his house, which would, indeed, fall in with the shutting himself up in it commanded by God, but which would correspond little with the disposition of the prophet’s countrymen, who do not certainly wish what God wishes, but much rather the contrary! (Hence, perhaps, Kimchi: Go into thine house, and thou shalt be shut up therein, just as if they had bound thee with bands.) We are not to assert with Keil that a fettering by means of these would be irreconcilable with Ezekiel 4, 5, since a fettering of this description might take place afterwards, and Ezekiel, meanwhile, might again have become free; and just as little is it to be regarded as a decisive objection to this view, that no trace of such assault is to be discovered elsewhere; our passage itself might contain the missing trace. But ולא תצא בתובם is rather (as also Hengst.) = but thou (ואתה) wilt (shalt) not go forth to them. Instead of hindering him from speaking, his countrymen will, on the contrary, in their curiosity, do everything, will even lay violent hands upon him, that he may come forth and speak to them; they will throw bands over him, will bind him with them, in order the more easily to bring him forth. All that they gain thereby, besides his not going forth himself to them in such a case, will be, that, notwithstanding their efforts, he will not speak to them, since
Eze_3:26—God will hinder it. The shutting himself up in his house is to become something more definite, viz. the shutting of his mouth at the same time, and that as an איש מוביח, which is here equivalent in meaning to “a declaimer against vice,” in an almost exclusively formal respect, since they are a house of rebelliousness (Eze_3:5), and nothing material is to be accomplished among them as a whole. Comp. on Eze_3:18.
Eze_3:27. ובדברי points back to באמרי in Eze_3:18. Thus the silence of Ezekiel is even here already a judgment of God upon Israel; for the opening of his mouth has for its object the communication of the divine revelation to his countrymen. Comp. besides, on Eze_2:4; Eze_3:11; Eze_2:5; Eze_2:7 (Rev_2:7; Rev_22:11). The reference of Eze_3:25-27 is primarily to Ezekiel 4, 5; in a less degree it is carried on to Ezekiel 7; but, perhaps Eze_24:27 and Eze_33:22 refer to Eze_3:26-27. Comp. there. In general, Eze_3:26-27 express the entire dependence of the prophet, alike in silence and in speaking, on God, and consequently his divine legitimation; in particular, the remaining dumb imposed upon him—but that as regards the other character of his prophetic labours from Ezekiel 34 onwards—may be applied to the period down to the destruction of Jerusalem, as characteristic of this period, and therefore significantly repeated at its close. Comp. besides, on Eze_5:5.
Additional Note on Eze_3:12-27
[This section, which should have formed a separate chapter, records the entrance of Ezekiel on his high vocation, and contains the first message delivered to him respecting it. His former place of abode, it would seem, was not the most advantageously situated for prosecuting with success the work committed to him; and, in consequence, he removed to Tel-abib, which is nowhere else mentioned, but was, in all probability, the best peopled locality, or the chief town of the Jewish colony. When he came and saw the captives dwelling there, in a dejected and mournful condition, he sat down among them for seven days continuously—sitting being the common attitude of grief (Ezr_9:3; Lam_1:1-3), and seven days being the usual period for the manifestation of the heaviest sorrow (Job_2:13). By thus spending, at the outset, so many days of desolation and sadness, he gave proof of his deep fellow-feeling with his exiled brethren in their depressed condition, and showed how entirely he entered into their state. Thus sorrowing in their sorrow, and breathing the tenderness of a sympathizing spirit toward them, he sought to win their confidence, and secure a favourable hearing for the words of mercy and of judgment which he was from time to time to press upon their notice.
The prophet, however, did not go alone to this mournful field of prophetic agency. He was borne thither under the conscious might of the Spirit of God, and was attended by the symbols of the divine presence and glory. When he rose to proceed on his course, the whole machinery of the heavenly vision began also to move; and amid the crashing or tumultuous noise which broke upon his spiritual ear, he heard the words, “Blessed be the glory of Jehovah from His (or its) place”—certainly a somewhat peculiar utterance, and one not found in any other part of Scripture; yet not materially different from another in frequent use, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” The glory of Jehovah here was that manifested glory which had appeared in vision to the prophet, and which was, in other words, a revelation of His glorious name. To pronounce it blessed from its place, was in effect to bless God Himself, as thus and there revealing His adorable perfections and divine will. And as the prophet was going to be the representative and herald of these in a sphere where there was much to damp his spirit, and withstand his faithful agency, it was fit that he should go with the solemn word pealing in his ears, from those ideal ministers of heaven, “Blessed be the glory of the Lord.” As much as to say, Let this above all be magnified; whatever is experienced or done, let nothing interfere with that pure and majestic glory of Jehovah, which has now in emblem been exhibited.
In regard to the message communicated to the prophet after the seven days of sadness had expired, there is also something peculiar in it; for it is only Ezekiel among the prophets who is described as a watchman appointed by God, to give timely and faithful warning to the people. Habakkuk speaks of standing upon his watch-tower (Eze_2:1), but this was only in respect to his eager and anxious outlook for the manifestations he was expecting of divine power and faithfulness. Ezekiel alone is represented as called to do for others the part of a watchman; and in doing it he was most strictly charged, on the one hand, to receive all his instructions from God as to the existence of whatever danger there might be in the condition of the people, and, on the other, to sound a loud and solemn alarm when he might perceive it actually besetting them. That such should have been the distinctive character given to his position and calling, manifestly bespoke the very perilous condition of those to whom he was sent. It indicated that he had something else to do than merely to sympathize with them in their afflicted state, and speak soothing words to their downcast and drooping spirits. It was to be his rather to open their eyes to the profounder evils that encompassed them, to break the spell of inveterate and cherished delusions, and raise the cry of danger where none was suspected. So that the very form of the commission given to him was like the deliverance of a strong and impressive testimony to the people of the latent corruptions and imminent perils with which they were beset.
If we look also to the substance of the communication, or to the particular instructions given to the prophet concerning the discharge of his office, we see at once the grand principle disclosed on which the destiny of Israel was to turn. The question, whether life or death, blessing or cursing, was to be their portion, hung upon another, whether they were to make righteousness or sin their choice? Their return to righteousness was the indispensable condition of their restoration to blessing. If, in despite of this, the wicked should persevere in his evil ways, or even the righteous man should turn aside and practise iniquity, a visitation of wrath must be looked for—the original sentence against sin, to which the language designedly points, that the purpose of God in this respect might be seen to be fixed and unalterable—the sentence, that he who transgresses “shall surely die,” must take effect; for God is unchangeably the same, and what he appointed at first as the wages of sin must continue to be its wages still.
But while this part of the charge cut off all hope from a backsliding and impenitent people, the other part of it held out ample encouragement to such as remained stedfast in the covenant of God, or repented of their evil ways. The man who continued to love the paths of righteousness, and the man also who, after having forsaken, again returned to them, was to be assured of the blessings of life; these should as surely live as the others should die. For the prophet, as God’s watchman, was to represent the mercy as well as the justice of God’s administration; he was to have a wakeful eye upon the good, not less than the evil, that appeared among the people; and was to stretch out the hand of fellowship, and display the banner of divine love and protection, in behalf of all who might be inclined or moved to cleave to the service of Heaven. Thus were they to know from the outset that, for the people as a whole, and for each individual amongst them, this one path lay open for their return to peace and blessing.—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 40–43.—W. F.]
DOCTRINAL
1. The revelation of the glory of God, because it is revelation, has always accordingly its special locality (מָקוֹם). If heaven, above all, is reckoned the place from which it beams forth (Deu_26:15; 2Ch_30:27; Isa_63:15; Hab_2:20; Zech. 2:17; 1Ki_8:39), yet even of it 1Ki_8:27 is true; how much more of all places of revelation upon earth! Thus God Himself remains ὁ Θεὸς and ὁπατὴρ τῆς δόξης (Act_7:2; Eph_1:17), the independent Possessor and Dispenser of glory, and the self-revelation of God made in Christ is the full revelation of His glory (Luk_2:14); for to Him the angels of God descend, just as from Him also and from no other spot on earth they again ascend (Joh_1:51). From God, wherever He manifests Himself, on Sinai, in the temple, His praise goes forth accordingly with its destination for the whole world.
2. The praise of God is the glory of God, which is reflected in the blessedness of the creature, especially of man. “It is a momentary celebration beforehand of the eternal perfection, which, momentary though it be, has already an element of eternity in itself,” says Lange with respect to the prayer of the doxology.
3. The servants of God, however mightily, however completely they fulfil their task, so that Ezekiel can speak of the “heat (glow) of his spirit,” yet always remain men, i. e. if חמה signifies the holy wrath of God as distinguished from חרה, the being angry as the effect of passion, yet we shall meet with pain in the prophet’s natural love to his people; just as Jesus the Son of man has tears over Jerusalem (Luk_19:41). Pain is more active than sorrow, which is more a passive state. We ought to be full of the wrath of God over sin, especially where it has already become punishment, the judgment of hardening; but our feeling towards the sinners can only be pain, because of our love to them as men, as in the case of Ezekiel, or sorrow, if we wish to distinguish the melancholy, sorrowful Jeremiah (comp. Jer_6:11) in this way from the choleric, energetic Ezekiel. The servant of God, who should not find the latter emotions in himself, according to character and the circle in which he is placed, would need to bethink himself, and to mourn over himself. Wrath without love is of the devil, but not of God; just as a love which cannot be angry may be mere nature, mere human weakness.
4. Even a silent preacher may be a loud and very impressive sermon. In certain circumstances silence may be even more expressive than speaking. “This is the wisdom of him who is truly called,” says Umbreit, “that he is sometimes silent, sometimes speaks; but that when he speaks, he lets the divine word stream forth freely without fear and trembling as to whether it is understood; for the light is not to be put under a bushel; it has a right to shine, because it is light.”
5. The prophetic office of watchman, in accordance with the similitude of one who is posted on a height, or a watch-tower, has a twofold application. Inasmuch as the watchman has, in the first place, to keep a look-out—but what meets the prophetic eye is presented to him in vision, or by means of a revelation in word—the office of watchman is identical with the general designation of the prophets as “seers” (Doct. Reflect. 6 on Eze_1:1-3). Thus it is the circumstance of their descrying or not descrying that makes them “watchmen,” not the circumstance that they have always to speak or to be silent accordingly (Hitz.); for the-former, at least as regards Ezekiel, is still dependent on divine instructions. In Ezekiel’s case, the opening of his mouth by God forms the transition to the second and more definite application and interpretation of the similitude of a watchman, viz. that the watchman has to announce the approaching danger, and therefore to warn against it. As such he is certainly not “the mere watchman, i.e. (as Ew. expresses it) the sharp but quiet, calm observer of men, in order to warn each at the right time.” The whole of the people as such, as well as in their governing heads, is what is entrusted to the watchman. But the application of the figure of the watchman, in the direction of warning, rests on the more general duty of prophecy, to be the controlling power of the national life according to the divine law in all respects. Only the warning of the prophetic watchman is of a more special kind, not as regards the law, but in view of the judgments of God,—an express turning to account of the future which he has seen for the immediate present in its existing state.
6. If we find with Ezekiel—of course, on the basis of the nation as a whole, of the theocratic nationality of Israel—individualization already taking place (comp. Eze_33:1 sqq.), such individualization, in view of the period in the kingdom of God, is a sign of this period, and more than the personification, so frequent elsewhere, of what accords with the law and what is contrary to it, in the ideal picture of the righteous man, just as in his opposite, the רשע. Israel as a whole, in contradiction to its idea, begins to resolve itself into the ὅσοι δὲ of Joh_1:12. Comp. on Eze_9:4.
7. In times when the axe is laid at the root of a whole nation, the mission of those who were originally destined for the whole becomes of itself the work of saving individuals.
8. The emphasizing (in Ezekiel 18 still more explicit) of the statement as to the personal responsibility of the individual has reference to the theocratic delusion and superstition of the hypocrites, the secure, which the false prophets still flattered, according to which the individual, because a descendant of Abraham according to the flesh, might hold himself assured of belonging to a nationality where, and where alone, a sure salvation was to be found.
9. The illustration of the prophet’s office by means of the sixth commandment, supported by Genesis 9, shows not merely how πνευματικός the νόμος is, but what an idea of life ought to be familiar to the ministers of the word. They are not, as it were, in accordance with the world’s policy, “to live and let live.”
10. The disputed question, as to whether the righteous can fall away, as the Lutheran theology along with that of the Jesuits asserts, and which the Reformed doctrine, on the other hand, denies, demands for its solution that we should make the distinction between law and grace. That the man who is righteous according to the law may apostatize unto death, is the very thing asserted in Eze_3:20; comp. Eze_18:24. Just in the same way, it is denied in Eze_3:21 with respect to him who is justified by faith, and who remains righteous when admonished by the Spirit. Only this distinction must not be applied so as to become a distinction between the Old and New Testament, as is done by Hävernick. For the righteousness of God is one and the same in both (comp. Romans 4). The legal standpoint, although not in its national form, yet in its externality, runs through the period of the New Covenant, just as the evangelical standpoint is not strange to the period of the Old Covenant, although mediated—not obscured—under the law by means of the symbolism of sacrifice.
11. “As the sinner may turn from his way and be saved, so a righteous man may fall away from his righteousness and become a wicked man. The man who is really and truly righteous cannot do so in such a way as to be lost; but he may fall into heinous transgressions, and appear for the time stripped of his faith, like the sun under a cloud, like fire beneath the ashes (David, Peter). But there are also those who believe for a time (1Jn_2:19), who become quite manifest during temptation, and also after it is ended, when it is all over with them.”—Lavater.
12. If we speak of a snare which God lays for man, this cannot be sin, what is evil, but the position in which God places man with a view to his own personal decision, as well as with a view to the decision regarding him; and, in fact, this cannot be misfortune merely, but also so-called good fortune, the former leading to despair, the latter conducing to hardening in false security. Of course a snare of God in a definite development of sin may also be already punishment, the beginning of divine judgment.
13. Around the warning as neglected or administered by the prophet, four cases group themselves, four types for all time: the wicked man in general, who goes to destruction without warning,—this being the relative and ever-increasing guilt of Christendom; the wicked man in particular, who, in spite of warning, chooses the way of death; the righteous man, who is so merely in form, whether a conscious hypocrite or not,—just as nominal Christians in the mass have fallen away from the Church in critical times of persecution,—he who without warning falls under the judgment, in connection with whose case the Church ought to remember her duty, as opposed to the Pietism of the future, the diplomatic or government Pietism, as well as the “soldierly-pious” element (“militär-fromm”); lastly, the upright and sincere righteous man, who also remains so, who lets himself be warned. Of the four, then, there is one against three. What a conclusion may be drawn from this numerical relation of individuals to the whole!
14. No mere declaimer against vice, still less one who is this in the disguise of a homiletic mask, or who labours thereat as being his profession, is in accordance with God’s word. That man only ought to reprove his brethren who has a commission from God for it, and only when he has that commission. “God does not permit mortal men, according to their mere will and pleasure, to condemn or to absolve. And although He sends forth His servants, yet He does not Himself renounce His authority, in virtue of which the supreme sovereignty remains with Him. He is the One Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy (Jam_4:12)” (Calv.). The so-called “in virtue of our office” is by no means sufficient for this, but our own conscience must legitimate our doing it.
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze_3:12. “He had come unto me for the purpose of drawing me out of myself, and taking me into Himself” (B. B.).—“The Holy Spirit lifts us up from the earth towards heaven; and where He rules, the man hastens in willing obedience to God to perform his duties” (Stck.).—“Scripture is full of examples of how God has lifted up rulers of the people and His prophets by His Spirit to higher things. Moses thinks no longer of his sheep, but of the people whom he has to lead forth; David is drawn by the Spirit from the flock to something higher; the apostles openly confess Christ, and conspicuous among them Peter, whom a maid had formerly frightened; even with respect to Saul we read of the elevating influence of the Spirit” (L. L.).—“Lest he should execute his work with fleshly zeal, the Spirit is sent him as a Guide. Hence for a time he is transported out of himself, raised on high beyond the bounds of the lower and merely human mode of representation. In this state he hears the judgments of God again” (Heim-Hoffmann).
Eze_3:12-13. The servants of our God have not merely His praise as a blessed prospect before them, but behind them also the cloud of witnesses which encompasses them resounds with the praise of His glory.—“All creation glorifies God; only the ungodly blaspheme Him” (Stck.).—A contrast to the people, who accused God of unrighteousness and severity, and thereby insulted His honour, just as when they imagined themselves to be the only people that was worthy and capable of knowing the Glorious One (after Calvin).—“In His glory are comprehended all the perfections of God, which can ever be manifested to man, most of all the glory of His justifying grace (Jer_23:6; 1Co_1:30). Hence the prophet had formerly seen the divine glory in the likeness of a man upon a throne. The Church wishes this only, that God’s glory should be praised not merely in, but from its place, i.e. throughout the whole world, Mal_1:5” (Cocc.).—God’s praise is the harmony in which heaven and earth, angels and men, all beings, agree.—One note, yet no monotony.—“By all these voices he might be encouraged and stimulated, as soldiers are by the sound of the trumpet and the drum” (L. L.).
Eze_3:14. “How easy it is for God to bring a teacher to any place” (Stck.).—“To those who are younger the preacher’s office appears sweeter than it does when, after due experience, the original sweetness is mingled with bitterness” (Stck.).
Eze_3:15. “The silence of the prophets is tin sign of God’s wrath” (Chrysost.).—“Exactly so ought the people to sit in penitent sorrow and humiliation before their God; but their representative, the servant of Jehovah, is, at the same time, a sign of how ungodly the multitude surrounding him are, and how righteous the judgments which are descending upon the people” (Häv.).—“The stillness of a sick-bed is often a means of salvation to ourselves and to others” (Richt.).
Eze_3:17. “It is a splendid misery to be obliged to stand on a height; those who encamp in the valley are decidedly more comfortable” (Stck.).—“That God has assigned him to that position, and placed him in it, ought to make the matter easy for him, and to make him careful in it” (B. B.).—“Jewels can be more easily watched than souls” (Stck.).—“God’s word remains unspoken, partly from fear of man, partly from sloth, partly from desire to please man” (Jerome).—“The first step in salvation is the knowledge of our sins. Of comfort, the principal thing, nothing is said; the prophet is only to warn, for they became capable of comfort only after they had come to know their sin” (L. L.).—“The passage Eze_3:17-21 is a weighty lesson of doctrinal instruction, given in holy earnestness” (Richt.).
Ver.18 sqq. “If the prophet neglects his duty, that does not help the wicked; he dies because of his iniquity: hasn’t he got Moses? Where the public ministry does not do its duty, still Holy Scripture is at hand; and it is every one’s own blame if he does not allow himself to be called to repentance by its voice” (H.).—Those murderers who must die by the hangman’s hand are far from being so bad murderers, in God’s sight, as many thoroughly genial and very cultivated men, who look to their office simply as a fat living, and who, by their example, or even merely from their being dumb dogs, allow souls to go to destruction in hell.—The weight of the sin of omission in God’s scale.—“Thou art every moment in danger of becoming a murderer, and of undergoing the judgment of the murderer: this is an effective stimulus for every one who is entrusted with the office of the public ministry” (H.).—God as the sinner’s blood relation and avenger of blood. What an intensity about the divine love!—“The life lost is something lost, the soul lost is everything lost. Oh what folly, when a teacher is silent for the sake of a handful of earth, and over and above brings his own soul into danger!” (St.)—“Plainly and diligently the warning is to be given, with earnestness and impressiveness, not with flattering words, nor half in joke, nor merely touching the skin, but setting forth the danger most carefully” (B. B.).—“God quickens, by means of grace, His servant through the instrumentality of the word of exhortation; the sinner quickens himself by the acceptance of the word. Without spiritual life and quickening here there is no life in eternity, but there also only death. Faith is spiritual life, and piety the sign of this life” (Stck.).—“We are not forthwith to despair of the salvation of the sinner, for at even also many still go into the vineyard (Matthew 20); the malefactor was not converted till upon the cross. God must declare a man wicked and condemned; otherwise he is not so, although the whole world were to shut him out of heaven” (L. L.).—“For in God’s sight nothing is more precious than our souls” (Calvin).
Eze_3:19. Every function in his calling is a saving of himself in the case of the servant of God. What need, then, has he to cast a side-look after reward, love, comfort, honours, etc.?—“There are men who do indeed gladly proclaim what God wishes, but who yet, when they see that their words have no entrance and are of no use, are thereby troubled, and, from fear of having deceived themselves, no longer wish to have anything to do with the word. But all who continue to act so are lovers of themselves. An honest servant of God bears the word so long as God will have it, and does not trouble himself about the good result” (B. B.).—That which is demanded of the sinner, viz. return, shows that the prayer finds audience: Turn Thou me, and I shall be turned.—Return is promised by God, but man would rather hold fast what is his own, viz. wickedness and the wicked way.—Progress on the bad road resembles standing still on the good one.
Eze_3:20. “It is not enough to have been pious, but we must also have continued so. Be thou faithful unto death, and he that endureth unto the end shall be saved” (Stck.).—“Then does godliness shine most, when it has the opportunity of sinning, nay, is everywhere enticed thereto, and yet does it not; on the other hand, the man who turns away from what is good and from the way of righteousness is worse, and in a more dangerous condition than the man who has never known it, 2Pe_2:21” (B. B.).—“He who does not admonish the sinner,—a duty to which even common love binds every man, when he sees another in danger, and can in any way help him,—is exposed to the judgment, but much more still, if he is specially appointed by God for the purpose, or pretends to be so”. (B. B.).
Eze_3:21. “A faithful teacher must care for converted and unconverted alike; for the latter, that they may awake out of the sleep of false security; for the former, that they may not again fall asleep” (St.).—“Yea, even where parties are found who are willing to help sinners into the right way, there is still difficulty in finding one to offer his hand to the righteous, in order that they may advance with greater ease in the true way” (B. B.).—“We sin indeed daily, but let us beware of sinning knowingly. The man who hates sin flees from it, shrinks back with dread from it, does not sin” (Stck.).—“If a teacher does not seek with all earnestness the salvation of the hearers entrusted to him, it is a sure sign that he is not very much concerned about his own salvation; for if the latter be the case, he cannot neglect the former” (St.).
Eze_3:22 sqq. “Isolation is the condition of the receipt of divine communications. God makes Himself known to the mind only when it has been quite withdrawn from worldly influences. We must be in the valley; but we may be in the bustling town, and yet in the valley” (H.).
Eze_3:23. “Although the saved will behold the glory of God eternally in heaven, yet they will never become satiated or wearied of it; for here below even the contemplation of the divine glory fills believers with hunger in all the fulness of enjoyment” (Stck.).
Eze_3:24. “Those are the true children of God who are continually ruled by the Spirit of God, Rom_8:14” (Stck.).
Eze_3:25. “Bands and trouble is the reward for the faithful labour of an unwearied teacher” (Stck.). Whoever is pleased with such a salary is fit for the kingdom of God.—“The bands wherewith believers are bound are of different sorts: misery, pains, the cross, temptations; but God has arranged it beforehand, and frees us from it” (Stck.).—“To feel at home in the world is to feel well in the midst of danger” (Stck.).
Eze_3:26-27. “God has His times and seasons. Well for him who gives heed to them” (Tüb. B.).—“It is no good sign God’s hindering His servants when eager to speak, Act_16:6”(Lg.).—“God must give teachers and preachers a joyful opening of the mouth, if they are to teach profitably” (Cr.).—To be silent to men and to speak from God is the right kind of preacher.—“How great is God’s mercy, that He causes the sermon to reach dumb ears even!” (Stck.)
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain (Act 8:39). Ezekiel's abode heretofore had not been the…
(Act 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; Lam 1:1-3), seven days, the usual period for manifesting deep grief (Job 2:13; see Psa 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 Act 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].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain THE PREACHER’S BITTERNESS OF SPIRIT, AND HIS UTTER DISCOMFITURE…
THE PREACHER’S BITTERNESS OF SPIRIT, AND HIS UTTER DISCOMFITURE IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS FIRST CONGREGATION, Eze_3:12-15.
Here the turbulent, passionate nature of the prophet displays itself. This is not at all inconsistent with sensitiveness and tenderness. St. John was by nature a “son of thunder.” Both of these great spirits needed to feel the controlling “hand of the Lord” upon them. Ezekiel, as he heard Jehovah’s plan for him grew hot, and angry, and bitter(Eze_3:14). “A” spirit controlled him then (Hebrews). It was only after a second visit from Jehovah that “the” spirit came to him (Eze_3:24), and he needed no compulsion henceforth to drive him to his work.
Read full note →
12. The spirit took me up — Literally, a spirit, or wind. (Compare Eze_1:4.) Perhaps the meaning is that the whirlwind lifted him when the glory departed, and notwithstanding his rebellion of spirit took him to his disagreeable lifework; perhaps it refers only to inner compulsion (Eze_3:14).
I heard behind me… a great rushing — The chariot of Jehovah leaves at the same time as the prophet, and in the distance he hears the wings of the cherubim “kiss” each other, and the noise of the wheels “beside them,” as they rush forward (Eze_3:13; compare Eze_1:9; Eze_1:11; Eze_1:23).
Saying, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place — The text here is almost untranslatable, but by the change of one letter we get a reading corresponding to the parallel passages when the glory of the Lord was lifted up (Eze_1:19-24; Eze_10:5; Eze_10:19; Eze_11:22-23).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 12. the spirit took me up] See on Eze_2:2.…
12. the spirit took me up] See on Eze_2:2. This “lifting up” by the spirit must be interpreted according to ch. Eze_8:1-3, it was part of the trance. The great theophany or vision of God in ch. 1 was not an external phenomenon which the prophet beheld with his actual eyes, it was a vision which he saw, being in a trance. The same is true of all the words heard by him, and all the actions done in ch. 2, 3, they took place in the spirit, not outwardly. See after Eze_3:21.
I heard behind me] The prophet had been in the presence of the theophany (ch. 1) during all that has hitherto been narrated (ch. Eze_2:1 to Eze_3:12), and thus when he was lifted up and carried away it seemed to him that he left the theophany behind him.
Read full note →
a great rushing] The word is used of an earthquake, and of the roar of battle (Isa_9:5, confused noise); also of the rattling of chariots (Jer_47:3; Nah_3:2). In ch. Eze_37:7 it is said of the sound of the coming together of the dry bones, but it appears nowhere employed of the noise caused by voices speaking.
Blessed be the glory of the Lord] According to the present text these words were uttered with a sound like “a great rushing,” though no intimation is given who they were who uttered the words. But (1) the phrase “blessed be the glory of the Lord” has no parallel; and it is hardly admissible to take the “glory of the Lord” as equivalent to “the Lord” or “the name of the Lord” or even his “glorious name” (Psa_72:19). Even the fact that the “glory” is distinct from the divine chariot, which it may leave (ch. Eze_9:3), and that a voice may come from where it is (Eze_43:6) is hardly sufficient to justify such an expression. (2) It is natural to take the “great rushing” of this verse to be the same as that in Eze_3:13, where it is the roar of the wings of the living creatures and the wheels when the chariot is in motion. (3) With the present text the exclamation “Blessed,” &c., might come from the cherubim. There is no other passage in the prophet where the cherubim are represented as praising God, although the seraphim do so in Isaiah 6, and the living creatures in Revelation 4, and this might possibly be the meaning, particularly as the reading “Blessed,” &c., is the only one known to the versions. Luzzatto, and independently of him Hitzig, proposed to read: when the glory of the Lord rose up from its place; cf. ch. Eze_10:5; Eze_10:19, Eze_11:22-23. The reading implies a change of only one letter.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (12) Then the spirit took me up.—This also is…
(12) Then the spirit took me up.—This also is to be understood as done in vision, as in Eze_8:3; Eze_11:1; Eze_11:24. (Comp. Act_8:39.) In the last case the “taking up” is expressly said to have been in vision. This closes one act, so to speak, of the prophet’s consecration, and now the vision which he has been seeing all along leaves him for a time. He hears the great voice of ascription of praise, without definite mention of its source, but doubtless, as in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, from all that surround the throne; and he hears the noise of the moving wings of the cherubim, and of the wheels. He has seen the representation of the glory of Him who sends him, and has heard the character of his message. He must now, in the light of this knowledge, see those to whom he is sent. The Hebrew for “wings that touched one another” is beautifully figurative: “wings that kissed each one its sister.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Then the Spirit took me up, etc. The words…
Then the Spirit took me up, etc. The words are to be interpreted as in Eze_2:2. Luther, however, gives "a wind lifted me up." The parallels of Eze_8:3 (where, however, we have the addition, "in the visions of God and Eze_11:1 suggest the conclusion that this was a purely subjective sensation, that it was one of the phenomena of the ecstatic state, and that there was no actual change of place. On the other hand, the use of like language in the cases of Elijah (1Ki_18:12; 2Ki_2:16) of our Lord, (Mar_1:12) of Philip, (Act_8:39) would justify the inference that the prophet actually passed from one locality to the other. The language of 1Ki_18:46 probably points to the true solution of the problem. The ecstatic state continued, and in it Ezekiel went from the banks of Chebar to the dwellings of the exiles at Tel-Abib (see note on ch. 1.), at some distance from it. I heard behind me, etc. The words imply that the prophet, either in his vision or in very deed. had turned from the glory of the living creatures and of the wheels, and set his face in the direction in which he was told to go. As he does so, he hears the sounds of a great rushing (LXX, seismov; Luther, "earthquake"), followed by words which, though in the form of a doxology, uttered, it may be presumed, by the living creatures, were also a message of encouragement. His readiness to do his work as a preacher of repentance calls forth the praise of God from those in whose presence there is "joy over one sinner that repenteth." We are reminded of the earthquake in the Mount of Purification and the Gloria, in excelsis of Dante ("Purg.," 20:127-141; 21:53-60). The words, from his place (belonging, probably, to the narrative rather than the doxology), point, not to the sanctuary at Jerusalem, which Jehovah had forsaken, but to the region thought of as in the north, (see note on Eze_1:4) to which he had withdrawn himself.
Vers. 12, 13. Celestial voices.
Read full note →
As a true prophet, Ezekiel was specially susceptible to spiritual influences. Again and again he speaks of the Spirit as taking possession of him, pleasing him in new circumstances, enlarging his experiences, qualifying him for special ministries. Divesting ourselves of the notion that such interpositions are to be interpreted as mechanical and local, we must seek to enter into their spiritual significance. The interest of this passage largely lies in its bearing upon the prophet"s own personal history and ministerial service.
I CELESTIAL VOICES CAME TO ONE WHO HAD JUST PASSED THROUGH VERY DISHEARTENING EXPERIENCES.
1. Ezekiel had been reminded of the unbelief and rebelliousness of hiscountrymen, to whom it was his vocation to minister. Their character had been described to him in language of the truth of which he was too well aware. To preach to the hardened and unsympathetic is no pleasant task. Yet it is a task to which every retreater of religion is often called. His is frequently the voice of one crying in the wilderness. And again and again has he been cast down and distressed in spirit when thus encountered by prejudice, worldliness, and unbelief.
2. Ezekiel had been made to feel the difficulties arising from the feeblenessand insufficiency of the spiritual labourer. It is hard to face a powerful foe; but to do so becomes harder when the warrior is conscious of his own weakness. And this has been the experience of every faithful servant of God. Often has the minister of Christ, overpowered by a sense of his impotence, cried aloud, "Who is sufficient for these things?
II CELESTIAL VOICES COME TO REANIMATE, TO COMFORT, AND TO STRENGTHEN THE SERVANT OF GOD. When the prophet was depressed by his experiences and apprehensions, the Spirit lifted him up, and he heard voices from above. Whilst we listen only to the voices of earth, we shall endure distress and discouragement. But if filled with the Spirit, we may hear voices which shall ravish our hearts with joy and inspire them with courage.
1. Celestial voices summon our attention away from man to God. There isa Divine side to our humanity, to our life, our work, and even our sorrows. The spirit of man is capable of apprehending the Divine, and, indeed, only in doing so does it realize the purpose of its existence. God is not far from every one of us; and he is near to all who call upon him in truth.
2. Celestial voices summon us to contemplate the majesty of the Eternal.This is their burden: "Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place." How poor do earth"s pleasures, and how paltry do earth"s interests seem, when brought into comparison with the heavenly and eternal! The Hebrew prophets certainly enjoyed a wonderful insight into the majestic attributes of Jehovah. If we will be led by them, they will lead us into the presence, and reveal to us something of the glory, of the Lord of all. Thus may we be freed from bondage to earth"s littleness; thus may we learn the true, full lessons of being.
3. Thus earthly trouble may be lost and absorbed in heavenly grandeur. Thevoice of the rushing, the noise of the wheels, the rustling of the wings, these appealed to the imagination and touched the spirit of the prophet; and his trials and difficulties shrank into their proper insignificance, when he was conscious of the nearness and of the infinite superiority of the Divine. We may not always be able to reason down our difficulties, to repress our anxieties, to vanquish our temptations. But we may bring all into the presence of Divine visions and Divine voices; and they will assume their just proportions, and God will he the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, of all. T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Then the Spirit took me up.
Eze_3:12-13
Then the Spirit took me up.
Read full note →
The light of God reconciles the disorders of life
In the light of God the presence of moral disorder can be reconciled with His superintending goodness and mercy. And as we are lifted up in spirit into that light we see that there is an explanation of these terrible perplexities, a solution of these baffling problems, an unfolding of an occult and inscrutable plan. Birks, in his Four Prophetic Empires, says, The storms which rocked the cradle of Rome, and nursed it into greatness--the wars of Carthage, the victories of Hannibal, the proud triumphs of Scipio and Paulus, of Marius and Sylla, of Pompey and Caesar--the fall of Greece, and Syria, and Egypt, of Spain, and Gaul, and Britain, with all the fierce conculsions of intestine strife, and the imperial line of Caesar--were all planned out and clearly foreseen in the counsels of the Most High. Where a worldly mind sees nothing but a wild sea of human passions, or the dark workings of subtle policy and ambition, Gods Word reveals a mightier presence standing in the midst of those proud statesmen and warriors, though they know Him not. A flood of heavens light streams down upon the darkest page of Roman ambition and crime. Amid those gloomy scenes of triumphant injustice, foul idolatry or superstitious pride, almighty power was there to control, onmiscient wisdom to foresee and ordain, and love and holiness were overruling the mighty drama of strife and violence, to accomplish their own hidden counsel of grace and redemption to a fallen world. (A. W. Welch.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain Section 3 (Eze 3:12-27).
Section 3 (Eze 3:12-27).
Set apart to be Israel’s watchman, the voice of God to the people.
Read full note →
The prophet has been now qualified and energized for his work. He is accordingly inducted into it: "The Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the sound of a great rushing, Blessed be the glory of Jehovah from its place and the sound of the wings of the living creatures that kissed one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them was even the sound of a great rushing."
This sound is heard behind him, at his back, because in the path in which God leads, the movement of the living creatures, the whole machinery of government, as it were, follows him who is in it, and thus becomes articulate in praise of the outshining glory, whatever the place from which it shines. It was seen, in fact, now, not in what had been its dwelling place upon earth, not in Israel’s temple consecrated to it for so many generations, neither yet in its own proper home in heaven, but in an activity to which not simply its own nature calls it, but the needs of man, of the creature, and thus of creation everywhere, which if touched in one point is touched in all. It is everywhere the creation of God, and He is manifested in it. Thus it can take no place, but its glory shines from it so as to awaken (not, alas, the praise of man now fallen, but) the praise of all that is symbolized here by the living creatures and the moving wheels upon the earth, which will at last utter His praise so that it shall be re-echoed throughout the universe.
Here is again another connecting link with the book of Revelation, where it is said of these same living creatures that "they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come" (Rev 4:8). Beautiful it is to see the perfect harmony here as their wings, in the emphatic language of the prophet, "kiss" one another. On earth the pall of night may be hanging, and the lightnings quiver from the threatening storm nevertheless here there is no storm, no conflict, but emphatically peace the wings taking on, according to the Hebrew here, even a tender feminine character, as that of "a woman with her sister" -harmony and subjection united in one, or, in fact, but one and the same thing.
So, impelled by the same energy, the prophet says: "The Spirit lifted me up and took me away and I went in the bitterness of my spirit, and the hand of Jehovah was strong upon me." The bitterness of God’s judgment upon His people is still felt and this is no discord, when we know the heart that is behind the judgment -not slackened by it, but rather impelled; the anger against the rebellion of the people of God burning all the more within him who realizes that these are the people of God, and that God is robbed of His glory in them. The hand of Jehovah, of the unchangeable One, known as the Unchangeable in His very covenant name, this hand is strong upon him to enable him for the execution of the commission which has been given him.
Thus he goes to those of the captivity at Tel-abib, who dwelt by the river Chebar. Tel-abib means "the mound of green corn." How vividly is pictured in this name the hopes springing up afresh, as it were, in this land of captivity -a mere green mound though it be by the waters of the desolating river. Here they have come into a land of vagabondage like Cain of old, to build their city and rest, if they may rest. The sight smites upon the prophet’s heart and overwhelms him with astonishment seven days. How complete is the ignorance, how puerile the self-confidence of this hope against hope, but which has no faith for its support! Tel-abib by the river Chebar is the very sign of their condition, around which the circling storm of the divine wrath is moving for its overthrow.
The prophet is allowed full time for the realization of these true human feelings the weight of his charge not pressing him unduly, but permitting the perfect realization of it all in his soul before, at last, he takes it up. Only at the end of the seven days does the word of Jehovah come to him, saying: "Son of man, I have given thee as a watchman to the house of Israel, and thou shalt hear the word from my mouth, and warn them from Me." But we see in what follows that as a nation there is no hope at all. The case as to them is closed. His mission, for the mass, is only to declare the certainty of the judgment coming but which is, because God is in it, a discriminative judgment, which separates a remnant of those who do hear from the unheeding mass.
The divine words are now, however, first of all to himself, set in charge as God’s watchman for the people to put every individual soul upon his responsibility before God, his own responsibility remaining unaffected, whatever the result or apparent want of result. Warned or unwarned, the wicked, obstinate in his wickedness, will die; he also who turns from his righteousness to commit iniquity, whether or not the warnings were uttered which should have preserved him in the path of righteousness. This is an important point for us at all times: so apt as we are to argue from mere results which can never rightly be our guide, as results cannot precede but follow, and cannot affect the question of duty for those who are to walk by faith and not by sight, who are to be in the divine Hand for the execution of His purposes with whom the result is.
Let us notice here that, in all that which is now before us, we are upon the plane of God’s outward, manifest government, so conspicuous and fitting in the prophecy of Ezekiel. Thus the death threatened to the wicked is not simply that under which we all are; nor, is it, as commonly supposed, eternal death as the doom of every unrepentant soul; but it is a removal from earth, under the government of God, which even for the present makes for blessing to the upright with Him, as the apostle also tells us, that "godliness hath the promise of the life that now is," as well as "of that which is to come." The deeper question is not raised here -it is not what is put before us; not even as the law raised it, appealing to the outward government of God which levels all pretension to righteousness on the part of any, and shuts up to grace alone, of which the law is everywhere the handmaid.
This charge being given him, the prophet is now summoned into the valley that Jehovah may speak with him. The word used here is "cleft," though it is sometimes used for a plain, as in Gen 11:2, "plain of Shinar;" yet even there seems to have reference to what is its strict meaning, as a cleft between the mountains. It is used for the valley of Jericho, the deep Jordan-cleft through which it enters the Dead Sea. Its significance here should be plain. In all that we have seen, God is cleaving indeed the mountains of man’s pride, bringing in a breach upon all that seems most stable, wherein those who are really His own are made to recognize a judgment which abases them before Him, but where the glory of God can appear to them, as now it does to the prophet. One must ever be abased in order to be exalted; and because of what we are, we must abide in that abasement in order to abide in the exaltation itself. God thus abides for us in all that He is, as the apostle realized after his being taken into the blessedness of the paradise of God, the third heaven; yet, because of the flesh in him, needing the thorn for the flesh, which love itself could not remove, while it could enable him to glory in it.
Prostrate the prophet falls again; for who can stand before this holy, holy, holy God? But again the Spirit raises and sets him upon his feet, and with an injunction now, which at first seems almost in contradiction to the call he has received, but which is in fact to guide him in obedience to it. He is to shut himself in his house. There is no readiness on the people’s part to receive the divine communication. Thus their condition will, as he is told, put bands upon him, and he can only speak amongst these obdurate people as the way is opened for him irresistibly, the Spirit of God refusing to be hindered. We cannot but realize that what was true of Israel in that day is true now of the world at large; and that is why the apostle says that we must "redeem the time," (Eph 5:16) -"the opportunity," as it really is -take the opening or opportunities which God makes in speaking His message amongst men, "because the days are evil." For it is He who "openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth." And while the commission of His grace is world-wide, yet he who would be fruitful in it must realize entire dependence, and watch for the doors that open under the Hand that guides.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Ezekiel as Watchman
Ezekiel as Watchman
v. 12. Then the Spirit took me up, so that he would at once be placed into a position where he might perform the work of his calling, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, a tumultuous noise, saying, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place, going forth, from His throne, into all the world, manifested even in the great disasters which would strike the rebellious Jews.
Read full note →
v. 13. I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another, literally, "kissed each other," the one toward her sister, said of the gentle touch of the ends of the wings, and the noise of the wheels over against them and a noise of a great rushing, the vision of chapter 1 thus being brought into the closest relation to the commission of Ezekiel.
v. 14. So the Spirit lifted me up, placing him into a state of ecstasy, and took me away; and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit, in deep sadness on account of the calamities of which he was required to be the unwelcome messenger; but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me, holding him firmly in this strange conflict within him.
v. 15. Then I came to them of the captivity, the main colony of the Jewish exiles, at Tel-abib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar, and I sat where they sat, joining them in their misery, and remained there astonished among them seven days, almost motionless, staring down before him, as one almost paralyzed with grief and horror.
v. 16. And it came to pass at the end of seven days, the usual period of preparation for acts of special worship, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
v. 17. Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel, the seer on the watch-tower applying the revelations which are made to him for the weal and woe of the people entrusted to him. Therefore hear the word at My mouth, the message of commandment and threatened judgment, and give them warning from Me, by a continual appeal to the divine instructions received.
v. 18. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, namely, paying the penalty for open transgressions of the holy will of God, and thou givest him not warning- nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in an urgent attempt to save him from his wickedness and its results, to save his life, which would otherwise be threatened with eternal perdition, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, being obliged, indeed, to pay the penalty of his sins; but his blood will I require at thine hand, as having caused the slaughter of an immortal soul by his negligence.
v. 19. Yet if thou warn the wicked, performing the solemn duty laid upon him as watchman, unpleasant though this may be, and he turn not from his wickedness, the inner evil condition of his heart, nor from his wicked way, the outward manifestation of his evil heart, he shall die in his iniquity, on account of his deliberate, habitual wickedness, but thou hast delivered thy soul, having done his duty in sounding the warning in time.
v. 20. Again, when a righteous man, one who has always lived an upright and honest life, doth turn from his righteousness and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling-block before him, he shall die, for he has sunk to the level of the wicked; because thou hast not given him warning, to keep him from the path of sin, he shall die in his sin, whose guilt will certainly be charged to him, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered, will no longer count in his favor; but his blood will I require at thine hand, the watchman again being charged with negligence for failing to prevent the apostasy.
v. 21. Nevertheless, if thou warn the righteous man that the righteous sin not, not yielding to any temptation which might come in his way, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live because he is warned, he has heeded the warning in time; also thou hast delivered thy soul, in performing the solemn duty included in his prophetical commission. God, indeed, tempts no one to sin, Jas 1:13, but He permits even the believers to he surrounded with conditions which put their faith to a test, as in the case of Job. Thus was the great and solemn commission transmitted to Ezekiel.
v. 22. And the hand of the Lord was there upon me, symbolizing the fact that His power and authority was transferred to the prophet for his special sphere of labor; and He said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain, down from the height on which Tel-abib was situated to the valley below, and I will there talk with thee.
v. 23. Then I arose and went forth into the plain, whose solitude was favorable to the Lord’s plan; and, behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar, 1:1; and I fell on my face, once more overcome by the majesty of the vision.
v. 24. Then the Spirit, as in the other instance, entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself within thine house, the purpose of this seclusion becoming evident from the connection, shut out from social intercourse, but not as if imprisoned.
v. 25. But thou, O son of man, behold, they shall put bands upon thee, the Lord Himself putting the restraint of a strange ecstasy upon him, and shall bind thee with them, and thou shalt not go out among them, this very fact being intended to arrest their attention,
v. 26. and I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, before the very eyes of the rebellious people, that thou shalt be dumb and shalt not be to them a reprover, lest the words of his reproof might win the self-hardened sinners back; for they are a rebellious house, confirming themselves in their apostasy and obstinacy.
v. 27. But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, in revealing the judgment of God upon his countrymen, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, He that heareth, let him hear, and he that forbeareth, let him forbear; for they are a rebellious house, and therefore would have only themselves to blame for the calamity which would surely strike them. Every pastor, as the Lord’s watchman in the midst of his congregation, has a tremendous responsibility resting upon him, both in calling sinners to repentance and in warning the believers against the ways of unrighteousness. One negligent in this duty is a murderer of souls.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Ezekiel continues telling about the vision he saw.
Read full note →
I heard behind me the sound of a great earthquake: "Blessed be the glory of Yahweh from his place!"
Some versions take "Blessed ... place!" as a words that the "great earthquake" spoke: "I heard behind me the sound of a great earthquake, which said, 'Blessed be the glory of Yahweh from his place!'" Others understand the sound of the earthquake as the sound of the glory of Yahweh leaving his place, "as the glory of Yahweh left its place, I heard behind me the sound of a great earthquake."
the sound of a great earthquake
It is not clear if the sound came from an earthquake, from a voice that was loud like an earthquake, or from the wings and wheels. AT: "a sound like the sound of a great earthquake" or "a voice speaking; the voice sounded like a great earthquake" or "a loud rumbling noise"
the glory of Yahweh
See how you translated this in Ezekiel 1:28.
the sound of a great earthquake
"a loud, deep and powerful rumbling sound like the sound of an earthquake"
translationWords
Holy Spirit
bless
glory
Yahweh
creature
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 3:12 May the glory of the Lord be praised…
3:12 May the glory of the Lord be praised in his place! In the Hebrew text, this exclamation of praise is odd in both placement and grammar. The alternate reading (see textual footnote) is based on emending a single Hebrew letter.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.