Ezekielchapter 2
10 verses · BSBEzekiel book hub →
Speaks with:Ezekiel 3×6Revelation 10×2Daniel 10×1Ezekiel 4×1Numbers 11×1Jeremiah 3×1
Summary
Chapter summary
'Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak with thee'. And the Spirit entered into him and set him upon his feet, the title 'son of man' that will name him some ninety times. He is sent to a rebellious nation, to children impudent and stiffhearted, with the refrain that governs his whole ministry: 'whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.' Be not afraid of their words though briers and thorns be with thee and thou dost dwell among scorpions. Then a hand holding out a roll of a book, spread before him, written within and without: 'lamentations, and mourning, and woe.'
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel — Ezekiel overview
- A. 1–5 Stand on your feet, son of man
- B. 6–7 Do not fear the briers and the scorpions
- C. 8–10 A scroll of lamentation handed over
The outline
A.Stand on your feet, son of manvv. 1 to 5
Read vv. 1 to 5 →B.Do not fear the briers and the scorpionsvv. 6 to 7
Read vv. 6 to 7 →C.A scroll of lamentation handed overvv. 8 to 10
Read vv. 8 to 10 →
The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 2The history
Every prophet's call in the Old Testament follows a recognizable shape: a confrontation, a commission, an objection, and a sign. Ezekiel gets the confrontation and the commission, and he is not given room for the objection. He is stood on his feet by a force outside himself and told to go.
The title God uses for him — son of man — simply means human being, a mortal man. Set against the blazing throne of chapter one, it is a way of keeping the distance clear. It appears more than ninety times in this book and almost never elsewhere in that way, so it becomes Ezekiel's name for the whole of his ministry.
The scroll is a physical object with a physical cost. Writing surfaces were expensive: papyrus imported from Egypt, or leather sheets sewn end to end and rolled on a rod. Scribes normally wrote on one side only, the side with horizontal fibres, because the back was awkward. A scroll written front and back meant the message had overrun the material — there was more bad news than the page could hold.
Briers, thorns and scorpions were not poetry to men who farmed that plain. Thorn scrub took over any neglected field, and scorpions lived under stones and in wall cracks in every village. God is telling him what the audience will feel like to live among.
What it meant to them
The exiles had a story about themselves: Babylon was a disaster that happened to them. God's first instruction to their prophet calls them a rebellious nation, and says so twice before He says anything else.
But notice the measure of success He gives. Ezekiel is not told to get results. He is told to speak whether they listen or not, so that they will know a prophet has been among them. That standard would carry him through twenty-two years.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 2. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.