The Watchman · The Symbolism of Scripture
The Watchman
An office with no weapon: the whole job is to see and to say. Ezekiel writes out the liability case by case, and the only variable is whether the man on the wall spoke, and then, in Habakkuk and Isaiah 62, the watchman turns round and faces the other way.
What It Stands For
an office with no weapon
The Hebrew verb is tsaphah (H6822), which the lexicon glosses as to lean forward, i.e. to peer into the distance. That is the whole picture: a man on a wall, leaning out, in the dark, before anybody else can see anything. He does not defend the city. He is the reason the city has time.
Now David was sitting between the two gates when the watchman went up to the roof of the gateway by the wall, looked out, and saw a man running alone.No metaphor yet: just the job. David sits between two gates, and a man is up on the roof watching the road.
Albert Barnes adds the working detail that makes sense of the “never hold their peace” of Isaiah 62 — the watch was audible. A watchman on duty called out at intervals, both to mark the hour and to prove he was awake.
The watches in the East are to this day performed by a loud cry as they go their rounds. This is done frequently in order to mark the time, and also to show that they are awake to their duty.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1847Presbyterian
Isaiah 62:6
And before the image is used of any prophet, Scripture sets its limit on it. Psalm 127 puts the builder and the watchman in the same verse and says the same thing about both.
Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the LORD protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.'The watchman waketh but in vain.' The office is real; it was never the thing keeping the city.
The Liability, Written Out
Ezekiel 33: four cases, and only one variable
| The watchman | The people | Who answers: in the chapter’s words | Stated at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blows the trumpet | Hear it and take warning | The hearer “shall deliver his soul.” | Ezekiel 33:5 |
| Blows the trumpet | Hear it and do not take warning | “His blood shall be upon his own head.” | Ezekiel 33:4 |
| Sees the sword and does not blow | Are taken away | “His blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.” | Ezekiel 33:6 |
| Warns the wicked man | He does not turn from his way | “Thou hast delivered thy soul.” | Ezekiel 33:9 |
But if the watchman sees the sword coming and fails to blow the horn to warn the people, and the sword comes and takes away a life, then that one will be taken away in his iniquity, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’The hardest sentence in the picture, and the chapter states it without softening.
“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from My mouth, give them a warning from Me.The first charge, thirty chapters earlier: hear the word AT MY MOUTH, and warn them FROM ME.
Ezekiel is given this twice, and the two are not a repetition. The first comes at his call; the second comes in the chapter immediately before the news arrives that Jerusalem has fallen (Ezekiel 33:21). And between the parable and the application, the appointing hand changes: in the story the people of the landtake a man and make him their watchman; when it is applied to Ezekiel, the sentence is “I have set thee.”
As for you, O son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word from My mouth and give them the warning from Me.'I have set thee a watchman': the appointment is God's, and so is the word he is to pass on.
I have set thee a watchman--application of the image. Ezekiel's appointment to be a watchman spiritually is far more solemn, as it is derived from God, not from the people.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Ezekiel 33:7
He is a watchman to the house of Israel. He had occasionally given warning to the nations about, but to the house of Israel he was a watchman by office, for they were the children of the prophets and the covenant
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Nonconformist
Ezekiel 33:7-9
The Answer That Refuses to Comfort
Isaiah 21:11-12
This is the burden against Dumah: One calls to me from Seir, “Watchman, what is left of the night? Watchman, what is left of the night?” The watchman replies, “Morning has come, but also the night. If you would inquire, then inquire. Come back yet again.”The question is asked twice, from Seir, in the dark. The reply is eight words long and gives away nothing anyone wanted.
It is worth sitting with, because it is the opposite of what a watchman is normally for. Somebody asks how much of the night is left and is told that morning is coming and so is night again — and then invited to come back and ask again. John Wesley reads it exactly as it stands:
The night - The night is past without any mischief, and the light of the morning is approaching; but tho' the morning is coming, it will be gone, and the night will return, and your fears with it.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Isaiah 21:12
Against it, set the other report. In Isaiah 52 the watchmen are not hedging: they see one thing coming up the road and shout together. The same office, the same wall, and the difference is entirely in what is actually approaching.
Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices, together they shout for joy. For every eye will see when the LORD returns to Zion.'They shall see eye to eye': the one time in Scripture the watchmen all sing.
Who is asking, and about whatIsaiah 21:11 in its own paragraph, and the honest limit
The oracle is headed Dumah, and the voice calls out of Seir, which is Edom. So the questioner is an outsider — not Jerusalem asking about Jerusalem — and Thomas Aquinas takes the answer as addressed accordingly: Second, the refusal of their petition is set out: and the watchman, namely, God, said: the morning comes, the time of liberation for the Jews, also the night of captivity still remains for the Idumeans.
The honest limit: the oracle is two verses long and names no event. Commentators have attached it to Assyrian and Babylonian campaigns against Edom, and none of those identifications is stated in the text. What the passage does give plainly is the shape of the exchange: a question about how long, and a watchman who will not pretend to know more than he sees.
The Watch Turns Round
Habakkuk 2:1 and Isaiah 62:6
I will stand at my guard post and station myself on the ramparts. I will watch to see what He will say to me, and how I should answer when corrected.He is not watching the horizon. He is watching to see what God will SAY, and he has just finished complaining.
This is the hinge of the whole symbol. Habakkuk keeps every element of the picture, the post, the tower, the standing, the waiting, and faces it the other way. Adam Clarke says the double direction was always in the office:
I will stand upon my watch - The prophets are always represented as watchmen, watching constantly for the comfort, safety, and welfare of the people; and watching also to receive information from the Lord: for the prophetic influence was not always with them, but was granted only at particular times, according to the will of God. When, in doubtful cases, they wished to know what God was about to do with the country, they retired from society and gave themselves to meditation and prayer, waiting thus upon God to hear what he would say In them.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Habakkuk 2:1
The "watch-post" is the withdrawal of the whole soul from earthly, and fixing it on heavenly, things. The accumulation of synonyms, "stand upon . . . watch . . . set me upon . . . tower . . . watch to see" implies persevering fixity of attention.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Habakkuk 2:1
If someone perseveres continually in this watchfulness, therefore, he will effectively bring to pass what is quite plainly expressed by the prophet Habakkuk: "I will stand on my watch and go upon my rock, and I will look out to see what he will say to me and what I should reply to him who reproaches me."
John Cassian· Conference 24, 435Latin, fifth century
Habakkuk 2:1
And then Isaiah finishes the turn. The watchmen of chapter 62 are on the walls of Jerusalem day and night, exactly where Ezekiel’s would stand — and what they are doing there is not letting God alone.
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD shall take no rest for yourselves,'Ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence': the same prohibition on silence, aimed the opposite way.
Day nor night - There shall be a vigilant and industrious ministry. Ye - That is, are his servants. And here especially are meant his servants in ordinary, his remembrancers, such as put God in mind of his promise, and such as make the Lord to be remembered, putting his people in mind of him.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Isaiah 62:6
Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence - The faithful, and in particular the priests and Levites, are exhorted by the prophet to beseech God with unremitted importunity
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Isaiah 62:6
Wesley catches both directions in one line: these men put God in mind of His promise, and put His people in mind of Him. It is the same silence that Ezekiel is forbidden, turned to face God.
Where It Points
the wall gets crowded
And what I say to you, I say to everyone: Keep watch!”Said privately to four men on the Mount of Olives, and then deliberately widened to everybody.
But what I say to you, I say to all: Keep watch. Not only the apostles and their successors, indeed the leaders of the Church, but all are commanded to keep watch.
Bede the Venerable· On the Gospel of Mark, 735Anglo-Saxon, eighth century
Mark 13:37
I say unto all, Watch--anticipating and requiring the diffusion of His teaching by them among all His disciples, and its perpetuation through all time.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Mark 13:37
Which is where the symbol lands, and it lands carefully. The office was always narrow — one man, appointed, over a named city. Mark 13 keeps the verb and drops the appointment: everyone is to be awake, and nobody is handed Ezekiel’s liability for a nation. Watching is commanded of all; being set as a watchman is something God does.
What Scripture says outright
- Ezekiel 33:6
The terms are given in the chapter itself: blood required at the watchman’s hand, and only where the trumpet was not blown.
- Ezekiel 33:7
“I have set thee a watchman.” The appointment is stated as God’s act, not the congregation’s.
- Mark 13:37
Jesus widens the command out loud: what He said to four men privately, He says to all.
What readers have heard in it
Readings and applications, named as such.
- Ezekiel 33:6
That every Christian carries Ezekiel’s blood-liability for everyone they meet. The charge in the text is given to a named prophet, twice, by God, and Mark 13:37 widens the watching without widening the office.
- Isaiah 21:11
Every attempt to date the oracle of Dumah to a particular campaign. The two verses name no event, and the readings offered have varied for centuries.
- Isaiah 62:6
That the watchmen here are angels, or kings, or the church’s ministers specifically. Each has been argued; the verse says only that God set them and that they are not to be quiet.
The Voices
with the work named
Adam Clarke is the most useful voice on this symbol: he sees that a prophet-watchman was always facing two ways, and he describes the practice, withdrawing, waiting, listening, rather than only the image. JFB read Habakkuk’s piled-up verbs as what they are, a description of sustained attention, and they catch the shift from the people’s appointment to God’s. Wesley gets both directions of Isaiah 62 into one sentence. Barnes supplies the ordinary fact that the night watch was audible, which is why silence is the failure. Bede refuses to let Mark 13:37 stay with the clergy.
And one historical note worth keeping: Possidius, who knew him, describes Augustine’s whole ministry in this word — “In all this he thought of himself as a watchman set by the Lord over the house of Israel; he preached the word in season and out of season, convincing, exhorting, rebuking and teaching with unfailing patience” (Life of Augustine 19).
Where to Go Next
Where the watch is the whole scene
Where the watch faces God
Where the picture goes on
Its neighbours in the index
The Symbolism of Scripture gathers every picture the Bible thinks in. This one sits with: