Ezekielchapter 3
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Speaks with:Ezekiel 3×4Ezekiel 2×4Ezekiel 33×4Ezekiel 1×3Jeremiah 1×2Acts 7×2
Summary
Chapter summary
'Eat this roll, and go, speak unto the house of Israel', and it was in his mouth as honey for sweetness, the scene John repeats in Revelation 10. He is not sent to a people of strange speech, who would have listened, but to Israel, who will not; so his forehead is made hard as adamant. The Spirit lifts him with the rushing of a great sound to the captives at Tel-abib, where he sits astonished seven days. Then the watchman commission (3:17-21): warn the wicked, or his blood will be required at thy hand. Finally he is shut in his house, bound with cords, his tongue made to cleave to the roof of his mouth.
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel — Ezekiel overview
- A. 1–3 Eat this scroll — sweet as honey in his mouth
- B. 4–11 Sent to a hard-browed house, given a harder forehead
- C. 12–15 Carried away bitter, sitting seven days stunned
- D. 16–21 Appointed watchman: their blood on your hands
- E. 22–27 Shut in the house, bound and struck mute
The outline
A.Eat this scroll — sweet as honey in his mouthvv. 1 to 3
Read vv. 1 to 3 →B.Sent to a hard-browed house, given a harder foreheadvv. 4 to 11
Read vv. 4 to 11 →C.Carried away bitter, sitting seven days stunnedvv. 12 to 15
Read vv. 12 to 15 →D.Appointed watchman: their blood on your handsvv. 16 to 21
Read vv. 16 to 21 →E.Shut in the house, bound and struck mutevv. 22 to 27
Read vv. 22 to 27 →
The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 3The history
Eating a scroll is an image with a real taste behind it. Ink in that world was carbon black mixed with gum, and the writing surface was papyrus or thin leather. What made it sweet was not the material but the honey comparison: honey was the sweetest thing anyone in that world had ever tasted, the standard by which sweetness was measured.
Tel Abib is a Babylonian place-name, not a Hebrew one — til abubi, the mound left by the flood. Babylonians called an abandoned ruin-mound a tel, and settlers often built on top of one because the ground was raised above the flood plain. The exiles were living on somebody else's ruins.
The watchman was a real municipal office with real legal weight. A man stood on the wall or in a field tower through the night, and if he saw dust on the horizon he blew the ram's horn. If he blew and the town ignored him, the blood was on the town. If he saw and stayed silent, the blood was on him. Ezekiel is being handed that job description word for word, and it is the job description of a man who can be held liable.
The last paragraph is strange and physical: shut yourself in your house, be bound with ropes, and lose the power of speech except when God gives you words. For roughly the next seven years Ezekiel would be a man who acted his messages more than he preached them.
What it meant to them
The exiles had comforted themselves that at least they were among their own kind. God tells Ezekiel it would have been easier to preach to foreigners whose language he could not speak, because foreigners would have listened.
And the watchman charge changes what the exiles are hearing. This is not a man giving his opinion about the war. This is a sentry on the wall, and the horn has been sounded.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 3. 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.