Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 3:4 - 3:4

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 3:4 - 3:4


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The Sending of the Prophet. - This consists in God's promise to give him power to overcome the difficulties of his vocation (Eze 3:4-9); in next transporting him to the place where he is to labour (Eze 3:10-15); and lastly, in laying upon him the responsibility of the souls entrusted to his charge (Eze 3:16-21). After Ezekiel had testified, by eating the roll which had been given him, his willingness to announce the word of the Lord, the Lord acquaints him with the peculiar difficulties of his vocation, and promises to bestow upon him strength to overcome them. - Eze 3:4. And He said to me, Son of man, go away to the house of Israel, and speak with my words to them. Eze 3:5. For not to a people of hollow lips and heavy tongue art thou sent, (but) to the house of Israel. Eze 3:6. Not to many nations of hollow lips and heavy tongue, whose words thou dost not understand; but to them have I sent thee, they can understand thee. Eze 3:7. But the house of Israel will not hear thee, because they will not hear me; for the whole house of Israel, of hard brow and hardened heart are they. Eze 3:8. Lo, I make thy countenance hard like their countenances, and thy brow hard like their brow. Eze 3:9. Like to adamant, harder than rock, do I make thy brow: fear not, and tremble not before them, for they are a stiff-necked race. - The contents of this section present a great similarity to those in Eze 2:3-7, inasmuch as here as well as there the obduracy and stiff-neckedness of Israel is stated as a hindrance which opposes the success of Ezekiel's work. This is done here, however, in a different relation than there, so that there is no tautology. Here, where the Lord is sending the prophet, He first brings prominently forward what lightens the performance of his mission; and next, the obduracy of Israel, which surrounds it with difficulty for him, in order at the same time to promise him strength for the vanquishing of these difficulties. Ezekiel is to speak, in the words communicated to him by God, to the house (people) of Israel. This he can do, because Israel is not a foreign nation with an unintelligible language, but possesses the capacity of understanding the words of the prophet (Eze 3:5-7), עַם עִמְקֵי שָׂפָה, “a people of deep lips,” i.e., of a style of speech hollow, and hard to be understood; cf. Isa 33:19. s' 'עִמְקֵי is not genitive, and עַם is not the status constructus, but an adjective belonging to עַם, and used in the plural, because עַם contains a collective conception. “And of heavy tongue,” i.e., with a language the understanding of which is attended with great difficulty. Both epithets denote a barbarously sounding, unintelligible, foreign tongue. The unintelligibility of a language, however, does not alone consist in unacquaintance with the meaning of its words and sounds, but also in the peculiarities of each nation's style of thought, of which language is only the expression in sounds. In this respect we may with Coccejus and Kliefoth, refer the prophet's inability to understand the language of the heathen to this, that their manner of thinking and speaking was not formed according to the word of God, but was developed out of purely earthly, and even God-resisting factors. Only the exclusive prominence given by Kliefoth to this side of the subject is incorrect, because irreconcilable with the words, “many nations, whose words (discourse) thou didst not understand” (Eze 3:6). These words show that the unintelligibility of the language lies in not understanding the sounds of its words. Before 'אל־בֵּית ישׂ, in Eze 3:5, the adversative particle sed is omitted (cf. Ewald, §354a); the omission here is perhaps caused by this, that אַתָּה שָׁלוּחַ, in consequence of its position between both sentences, can be referred to both.

In Eze 3:6 the thought of Eze 3:5 is expanded by the addition of עַמִּים רַבִּים, “many nations” with different languages, in order to show that it is not in the ability, but in the willingness, to hear the word of the Lord that the Israelites are wanting. It is not to many nations with unintelligible languages that God is sending the prophet, but to such men as are able to hear him, i.e., can understand his language. The second hemistich of Eze 3:6 is rendered by the old translators as if they had not read לֹא after אִם, “if I sent thee to them (the heathen), they would hear thee.” Modern expositors have endeavoured to extract this meaning, either by taking אִם לֹא as a particle of adjuration, profecto, “verily” (Rosenmüller, Hävernick, and others), or reading אִם as Ewald does, after Gen 23:13. But the one is as untenable as the other: against אִם לֻא stands the fact that לוּ is written with ו, not with א; against the view that it is a particle of adjuration, stands partly the position of the words before 'אֲלֵיהֶם שׁל, which, according to the sense, must belong to 'הֵמָּה ישׁם, partly the impossibility of taking שְׁלַחְתִּיךָ conditionally after the preceding אִם לֹא. “If such were the case, Ezekiel would have really done all he could to conceal his meaning” (Hitzig), for אִם לֹא, after a negative sentence preceding, signifies “but;” cf. Gen 24:38. Consequently neither the one view nor the other yields an appropriate sense. “If I had sent thee to the heathen,” involves a repenting of the act, which is not beseeming in God. Against the meaning “profecto” is the consideration that the idea, “Had I sent thee to the heathen, verily they would hear thee,” is in contradiction with the designation of the heathen as those whose language the prophet does not understand. If the heathen spoken a language unintelligible to the prophet, they consequently did not understand his speech, and could not therefore comprehend his preaching. It only remains, then, to apply the sentence simply to the Israelites, “not to heathen nations, but to the Israelites have I sent thee,” and to take יִשְׁמְעוּ as potential, “they are able to fear thee,” “they can understand thy words.” This in Eze 3:7 is closed by the antithesis, “But the house of Israel will not hear thee, because they will not hear me (Jehovah), as they are morally hardened.” With 7b, cf. Eze 2:4. The Lord, however, will provide His prophet with power to resist this obduracy; will lend him unbending courage and unshaken firmness, Eze 3:8; cf. Jer 15:20. He will make his brow hard as adamant (cf. Zec 7:12), which is harder than rock; therefore he shall not fear before the obduracy of Israel. צר, as in Exo 4:25, = צוּר. As parallel passages in regard of the subject-matter, cf. Isa 50:7 and Jer 1:18.

Eze 3:10-15

Prepared then for his vocation, Ezekiel is now transported to the sphere of his activity. - Eze 3:10. And He said to me, Son of man, all my words which I shall speak to thee, take into thy heart, and hear with thine ears. Eze 3:11. And go to the exiles, to the children of thy people, and speak to them, and say to them, “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah,” whether they may hear thee or fail (to hear thee). Eze 3:12. And a wind raised me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great tumult, “Praised be the glory of Jehovah,” from their place hitherward. Eze 3:13. And the noise of the wings of the creatures touching each other, and the noise of the wheels beside them, the noise of a great tumult. Eze 3:14. And a wind raised me up, and took me, and I went thither embittered in the warmth of my spirit; and the hand of Jehovah was strong upon me. Eze 3:15. And I came to Tel-abib to the exiles, who dwelled by the river Chebar, and where they at there sat I down seven days, motionless and dumb, in their midst. - The apparent hysteron proteron, “take into thy heart, and hear with thine ears” (Eze 3:10), disappears so soon as it is observed that the clause “hear with thine ears” is connected with the following “go to the exiles,” etc. The meaning is not, ”postquam auribus tuis percepisses mea mandata, ea ne oblivioni tradas, sed corde suscipe et animo infige” (Rosenmüller), but this, “All my words which I shall speak to thee lay to heart, that thou mayest obey them. When thou hast heard my words with thine ears, then go to the exiles and announce them to them.” With Eze 3:11 cf. Eze 2:4-5. Observe that it is still בְּנֵי, “the children of thy” (not “my”) “people.” Stiff-necked Israel is no longer Jehovah's people. The command “to go to the people” is, in Eze 3:12., immediately executed by the prophet, the wind raising him up and transporting him to Tel-abib, among the exiles. רוּחַ, phenomenally considered, is a wind of which God makes use to conduct the prophet to the scene of his labour; but the wind is only the sensible substratum of the spirit which transports him thither. The representation is, that “he was borne thither through the air by the wind” (Kliefoth); but not as Jerome and Kliefoth suppose, in ipso corpore, i.e., so that an actual bodily removal through the air took place, but the raising up and taking away by the wind was effected in spirit in the condition of ecstasy. Not a syllable indicates that the theophany was at an end before this removal; the contrary rather is clearly indicated by the remark that Ezekiel heard behind him the noise of the wings of the cherubim and of the wheels. And that the words תִּשָּׂאֵנִי רוּחַ do not necessitate us to suppose a bodily removal is shown by the comparison with Eze 8:3; Eze 11:1, Eze 11:24, where Kliefoth also understands the same words in a spiritual sense of a merely internal - i.e., experienced in a state of ecstasy - removal of the prophet to Jerusalem and back again to Chaldea. The great noise which Ezekiel hears behind him proceeds, at least in part, from the appearance of the 'כְּבֹוד being set in motion, but (according to Eze 3:13) not in order to remove itself from the raptured prophet, but by changing its present position, to attend the prophet to the sphere of his labour. It tells decidedly in favour of this supposition, that the prophet, according to Eze 3:23, again sees around him the same theophany in the valley where he begins his work. This reappearance, indeed, presupposes that it had previously disappeared from his sight, but the disappearance is to be supposed as taking place only after his call has been completed, i.e., after Eze 3:21. While being removed in a condition of ecstasy, Ezekiel heard the rushing sound, “Praised be the glory of Jehovah.” מִמְּקֹומֹו belongs not to 'בָּרוּךְ , which would yield no appropriate sense, but to אֶשְׁמַע, where it makes no difference of importance in the meaning whether the suffix is referred to יהוה or to כבוד. Ezekiel heard the voice of the praise of God's glory issuing forth from the place where Jehovah or His glory were to be found, i.e., where they had appeared to the prophet, not at all from the temple. Who sounded this song of praise is not mentioned. Close by Ezekiel heard the sound, the rustling of the wings of the cherubim setting themselves in motion, and how the wings came into contact with the tips of each other, touched each other (מַשִּׁיקֹות, from נָשַׁק, “to join,” “to touch one another”).

Verse 14 describes the prophet's mood of mind as he is carried away. Raised by the wind, and carried on, he went, i.e., drove thither, מַר בַּחֲמַת רוּחַ, “bitter in the heat of his spirit.” Although מַר is used as well of grief and mourning as of wrath and displeasure, yet mourning and sorrow are not appropriate to חֵמָה, “warmth of spirit,” “anger.” The supposition, however, that sorrow as well as anger were in him, or that he was melancholy while displeased (Kliefoth), is incompatible with the fundamental idea of מַר as “sharp,” “bitter.” Ezekiel feels himself deeply roused, even to the bitterness of anger, partly by the obduracy of Israel, partly by the commission to announce to this obdurate people, without any prospect of success, the word of the Lord. To so heavy a task he feels himself unequal, therefore his natural man rebels against the Spirit of God, which, seizing him with a strong and powerful grasp, tears him away to the place of his work; and he would seek to withdraw himself from the divine call, as Moses and Jonah once did. The hand of the Lord, however, was strong upon him, i.e., “held him up in this inner struggle with unyielding power” (Kliefoth); cf. Isa 8:11. חָזָק, “firm,” “strong,” differs from כָּבֵד, “heavy,” Psa 32:4. תֵּל אָבִיב, i.e., “the hill of ears,” is the name of the place where resided a colony of the exiles. The place was situated on the river Chebar (see on Eze 1:3), and derived its name, no doubt, from the fertility of the valley, rich in grain (הַבִּקְעָה, Eze 3:23), by which it was surrounded; nothing further, however, is known of it; cf. Gesen. Thesaur. p. 1505. The Chetib rhs'w, at which the Masoretes and many expositors have unnecessarily taken offence, is to be read וָאֲשֶׁר, and to be joined with the following שָׁם, “where they sat” (so rightly the Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate). That this signification would be expressed differently, as Hitzig thinks, cannot be established by means of Job 39:30. The Keri וָאֵשֵׁב is not only unnecessary but also inappropriate, which holds true also of other conjectures of modern expositors. Ezekiel sat there seven days, מַשְׁמִים, i.e., neither “deprived of sensation,” nor “being silent,” but as the partic. Hiphil from שָׁמֵם, as מְשֹׁומֵם in Ezr 9:3-4, “rigidly without moving,” therefore “motionless and dumb.” The seven days are not regarded as a period of mourning, in support of which Job 2:13 is referred to; but as both the purification and the dedication and preparation for a holy service is measured by the number seven, as being the number of God's works (cf. Exo 29:29.; Lev 8:33.; 2Ch 29:17), so Ezekiel sits for a week “motionless and dumb,” to master the impression which the word of God, conveyed to him in ecstatic vision, had made upon his mind, and to prepare and sanctify himself for his vocation (Kliefoth).

Eze 3:16-21

When these seven days are completed, there comes to him the final word, which appoints him watchman over Israel, and places before him the task and responsibility of his vocation. - Eze 3:16. And it came to pass after the lapse of seven days, that the word of Jehovah came to me as follows: Eze 3:17. Son of man, I have set thee to be a watchman over the house of Israel; thou shalt hear the word from my mouth, and thou shalt warn them from me. Eze 3:18. If I say to the sinner, Thou shalt surely die, and thou warnest him not, and speakest not to warn the sinner from his evil way that he may live, then shall he, the sinner, die because of his evil deeds, but his blood will I require at thy hand. Eze 3:19. But if thou warnest the sinner, and he turn not from his wickedness and his evil way, then shall he die because of his evil deeds, but thou hast saved thy soul. Eze 3:20. And if a righteous man turn from his righteousness, and do unrighteousness, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, then shall he die; if thou hast not warned him, he shall die because of his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood will I require at thy hand. Eze 3:21. But if thou warnest him - the righteous man-so that the righteous man sin not, and he do not sin, then will he live, because he has been warned, and thou hast saved thy soul. - As a prophet for Israel, Ezekiel is like one standing upon a watchtower (Hab 2:1), to watch over the condition of the people, and warn them of the dangers that threaten them (Jer 6:17; Isa 56:10). As such, he is responsible for the souls entrusted to his charge. From the mouth of Jehovah, i.e., according to God's word, he is to admonish the wicked to turn from their evil ways, that they die not in their sins. מִמֶּנִּי, “from me,” i.e., in my name, and with my commission. “If I say to the sinner,” i.e., if I commission thee to say to him (Kimchi). As מֹות תָּמוּת reminds us of Gen 2:17, so is the threatening, “his blood will I require at thy hand,” an allusion to Gen 9:5. If the prophet does not warn the wicked man, as God has commanded him, he renders himself guilty of a deadly sin, for which God will take vengeance on him as on the murderer for the shedding of blood. An awfully solemn statement for all ministers of the word. הָרְשָׁעָה, in Eze 3:18 and Eze 3:19, at which the lxx have stumbled, so that they have twice omitted it, is not a substantive, and to be changed, with Hitzig, into רִשְׁעָה, but is an adjective, foemin. gen., and belongs to דַּרְכֹּו, which is construed as feminine. The righteous man who backslides is, before God, regarded as equal with the sinner who persists in his sin, if the former, notwithstanding the warning, perseveres in his backsliding (Eze 3:20.). שׁוּב מִצִּדְקֹו, “to turn oneself from his righteousness,” denotes the formal falling away from the path of righteousness, not mere “stumbling or sinning from weakness.” עָשָׂה עָוֶל, “to do unrighteousness,” “to act perversely,” is “se prorsus dedere impietati” (Calvin). וְנָתַתִּי מִכְשֹׁול belongs still to the protasis, הוּא יָמוּת forming the apodosis, not a relative sentence-as Ewald and Hitzig suppose - ”so that he, or, in consequence of which, he die.” מִכְשֹׁול, “object of offence,” by which any one comes to fall, is not destruction, considered as punishment deserved (Calvin, Hävernick), but everything that God puts in the way of the sinner, in order that the sin, which is germinating in his soul, may come forth to the light, and ripen to maturity. God, indeed, neither causes sin, nor desires the death of the sinner; and in this sense He does not tempt to evil (Jam 1:13), but He guides and places the sinner in relations in life in which he must come to a decision for or against what is good and divine, and either suppress and sinful lusts of his heart, or burst the barriers which are opposed to their satisfaction. If he does not do the former, but the latter, evil gains within him more and more strength, so that he becomes the servant of sin, and finally reaches a point where conversion is impossible. In this consists the מִכְשֹׁול, which God places before him, who turns away from righteousness to unrighteousness or evil, but not in this, that God lets man run on in order that he may die or perish. For יָמוּת does not stand for וָמֵת, and there is therefore no ground for a change of punctuation to carry forward Athnach to הִזְהַרְתֹּו (Hitzig). For the subject spoken of is not that the backsliding righteous man “in general only dies if he is not warned” (Hitzig) - that meaning is not in Eze 3:21, “that he, in contrast to the רָשָׁע, gives sure obedience to the warning,” - but only the possibility is supposed that a צַדִּיק, who has transgressed upon the way of evil, will yield obedience to the warning, but not that he will of a certainty do this. As with the רָשָׁע in Eze 3:19, only the case of his resisting the warning is expressly mentioned; while the opposite case - that he may, in consequence of the warning, be converted - is not excluded; so in Eze 3:21, with the צַדִּיק, who has entered upon the path of unrighteousness, only the case of conversion in consequence of the warning is expressly mentioned, without the possibility of his hardening himself against the prophet's word being thereby excluded. For the instruction of the prophet it was sufficient to bring forward the two cases mentioned, as it appears from them that in the one case as well as in the other he has done his duty, and saved his soul.