Ezekiel 3:22

22 And there is on me there a hand of Jehovah, and He saith to me, `Rise, go forth to the valley, and there I do speak with thee.'

Ezekiel 3:22 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 3:22

And the hand of the Lord was there upon me
At Telabib, ( Ezekiel 3:15 ) . The Targum interprets "the hand of the Lord" of the spirit of prophecy, which remained upon him there; but it seems to design a fresh impulse of the Spirit, a powerful emotion of the split upon his spirit, stirring up to attention to what might be said unto him: and he said unto me;
the same glorious Person, the Lord Christ, described in ( Ezekiel 1:26-28 ) ; arise, go forth into the plain;
or "the valley" ^F23; the Arabic version renders it, "the desert"; a solitary place, free from noise and hurry, and from the company and conversation of men; and so more fit for retirement and contemplation, and for attention to divine orders. What plain this was is not certain; Kimchi thinks it was the plain in which Babel was built, and where the Lord showed the prophet what he had in his providence done in this place formerly, in confounding the languages of men, and causing their devices to cease; and I will there talk with thee;
when alone, sedate, and composed; so God sometimes brings his people into a low and humble state and condition, into the valley of humility, and there grants them communion with himself; see ( Hosea 2:14 ) ; perhaps the allusion to a custom among the Jews of revealing secrets to others in fields and deserts, and such like solitary places; see ( Genesis 31:4 Genesis 31:5 ) ^F24.

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FOOTNOTES:

F23 (heqbh la) "in istam convallem", Junius & Tremellius, Polanus, "in vallem", Vatablus, Coeceius; "in vallem, quasi fissum locum", Starckius.
F24 Vid. Menasseh Ben Israel, Spes Israelis, p. 110.

Ezekiel 3:22 In-Context

20 `And in the turning back of the righteous from his righteousness, and he hath done perversity, and I have put a stumbling-block before him, he dieth; because thou hast not warned him, in his sin he dieth, and not remembered is his righteousness that he hath done, and his blood from thy hand I require.

21 And thou, because thou hast warned him -- the righteous -- that the righteous sin not, and he hath not sinned, he surely liveth, because he hath been warned; and thou thy soul hast delivered.'

22 And there is on me there a hand of Jehovah, and He saith to me, `Rise, go forth to the valley, and there I do speak with thee.'

23 And I rise and go forth unto the valley, and lo, there the honour of Jehovah is standing as the honour that I had seen by the river Chebar, and I fall on my face.

24 And come into me doth a spirit, and causeth me to stand on my feet, and He speaketh with me, and saith unto me, `Go in, be shut up in the midst of thy house.