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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
‘Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel.’
Eze_2:3
I. Ezekiel fell prostrate on the ground, as in adoring awe before the marvellous theophany.—He is raised from that prostration partly by a voice that speaks to him, partly by the consciousness of a new spiritual power and presence within him. And the voice calls him by a name which, one might almost say, was identified with Ezekiel till it was identified yet more closely with the Christ. For him, the chief thought conveyed by that name of the ‘son of man’ was, as in Psa_8:4; Psa_144:3, the thought of the littleness of his human nature. That thought was, it is true, associated even in those very psalms with that of man’s greatness as supreme, in the natural constitution and order of the world, over the creation, animate and inanimate, in the midst of which he finds himself; but as yet it had not been connected, as it was a few years afterwards, in Daniel’s vision, with the exaltation of One Who, though ‘like unto a son of man,’ was brought with clouds of glory to sit on the right hand of the Ancient of Days (Dan_7:13). For Ezekiel the name ‘son of man’ simply bore its witness that he stood on the same level with the weakest and meanest of those to whom he spoke, that it was a marvel and a mystery that such an one as he should be called to the office of a prophet of Jehovah.
II. As with other prophets, the mission to which he was thus called was no light or easy task.—He was sent to a rebellious house, ‘impudent children and stiff-hearted.’ His life among them was to be as that of one who ‘dwells among scorpions,’ and with whom are ‘briers and thorns.’ There was but little prospect of their listening to him, but he was to do his work regardless of praise or blame, whether they ‘would hear, or forbear’ hearing. And as in the symbolic language of his contemporary Jeremiah, he was to make the message which it was given him to utter his own, by incorporating it with his very life of life; he was ‘to eat that which was given him,’ and a hand was sent unto him, and in the hand there was as the roll of a book—not perhaps without a reminiscence of the volume that had been found in the Temple in the days of Josiah (2Ch_34:14), or Jeremiah’s roll under Jehoiakim (Jer_36:4; Jer_36:32). A glance at it showed its nature. It was written on both sides, within and without, and from first to last it seemed as if there were no word of hope or promise, nothing but ‘lamentations, and mourning, and woe.’ But it does not lie with a true prophet to choose his message. His work is to ‘eat what he finds,’ and so in simple obedience Ezekiel does as he was told to do.
III. Then there came, as in an acted parable, one of the strange paradoxes of a prophet’s work.—The book so full of woe that it might have been expected to find its analogue in the bitterness of gall and wormwood, which were found to be in his mouth ‘as honey for sweetness.’ In part, as we have already seen, he was echoing the language, and repeating the experience of Jeremiah (Jer_15:16). In part he was reproducing what had been said by the writer of the nineteenth Psalm of the judgments of Jehovah, ‘More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.’ Underlying all three utterances, there was the truth to which the spiritual experience of the ages adds an ever-clearer testimony, that there is an ineffable sweetness and joy in that sense of being in communion and fellowship with God which is the groundwork of a prophet’s calling.
Dear Plumptre.
Illustrations(1) ‘John also, although he had lain on the Lord’s breast, at sight of Him (Revelation 1.) fell at His feet as one dead. And by this as a standard, that very great familiarity which proclaims itself in so many prayers of far lesser saints ought to learn to measure and to moderate itself. There is, however, in our prayers more fancy and sham feeling than real intercourse with the Lord.’
(2) ‘An image of the new birth. When God bids us rise from the death in which we are lying (Eph_2:1; Eph_2:5; Eph_5:14), He at the same time imparts to us His Spirit, who quickens us and raises us up. Similarly is it with our strengthening in all that is good. We are to do our duty; and He brings it about that we are able to do it (Php_2:13).’
(3) ‘God does not cast down His own in order to leave them lying on the ground; but He lifts them up immediately afterwards. In believers, in other words, the haughtiness of the flesh is in this way corrected. If, therefore, we often see the ungodly terrified at the voice of God, yet they are not, like believers, after the humiliation, told to be of good courage.’