Ezekiel 3

Ezekiel 3:1-27 . EZEKIEL EATS THE ROLL. IS COMMISSIONED TO GO TO THEM OF THE CAPTIVITY AND GOES TO TEL-ABIB BY THE CHEBAR: AGAIN BEHOLDS THE SHEKINAH GLORY: IS TOLD TO RETIRE TO HIS HOUSE, AND ONLY SPEAK WHEN GOD OPENS HIS MOUTH.

1. eat . . . and . . . speak--God's messenger must first inwardly appropriate God's truth himself, before he "speaks" it to others proper, performed outwardly; otherwise, internally and in spiritual vision, the action so narrated making the naked statement more intuitive and impressive by presenting the subject in a concentrated, embodied form.

3. honey for sweetness--Compare Psalms 19:10 , 119:103 , Revelation 10:9 , where, as here in Ezekiel 3:14 , the "sweetness" is followed by "bitterness." The former being due to the painful nature of the message; the latter because it was the Lord's service which he was engaged in; and his eating the roll and finding it sweet, implied that, divesting himself of carnal feeling, he made God's will his will, however painful the message that God might require him to announce. The fact that God would be glorified was his greatest pleasure.

5. See Margin, Hebrew, "deep of lip, and heavy of tongue," that is, men speaking an obscure and unintelligible tongue. Even they would have listened to the prophet; but the Jews, though addressed in their own tongue, will not hear him.

6. many people--It would have increased the difficulty had he been sent, not merely to one, but to "many people" differing in tongues, so that the missionary would have needed to acquire a new tongue for addressing each. The after mission of the apostles to many peoples, and the gift of tongues for that end, are foreshadowed (compare 1 Corinthians 14:21 with Isaiah 28:11 ).
had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened--( Matthew 11:21 Matthew 11:23 ).

7. will not hearken unto thee: for . . . not . . . me--( John 15:20 ). Take patiently their rejection of thee, for I thy Lord bear it along with thee.

8. Ezekiel means one "strengthened by God." Such he was in godly firmness, in spite of his people's opposition, according to the divine command to the priest tribe to which he belonged ( Deuteronomy 33:9 ).

9. As . . . flint--so Messiah the antitype ( Isaiah 50:7 ; compare Jeremiah 1:8 Jeremiah 1:17 ).

10. receive in . . . heart . . . ears--The transposition from the natural order, namely, first receiving with the ears, then in the heart, is designed. The preparation of the heart for God's message should precede the reception of it with the ears (compare Proverbs 16:1 , Psalms 10:17 ).

11. thy people--who ought to be better disposed to hearken to thee, their fellow countryman, than hadst thou been a foreigner ( Ezekiel 3:5 Ezekiel 3:6 ).