Ezekiel · chapter 3 of 48
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Ezekiel 3 tells how the prophet eats the scroll, which tastes sweet as honey, and is told to speak to Israel with a forehead as firm as theirs. The Spirit carries him to Tel-abib, where he sits stunned for seven days. There the Lord appoints him a watchman for Israel and teaches him his duty to warn both the wicked and the righteous; then he is told to shut himself in his house and is made unable to speak until further notice.
Ezekiel 3 continues and completes the call of the previous chapter. Here the prophet moves from receiving a vision to taking on a concrete task: carrying God's words to the exiles. It is one of the most quoted chapters of the book because it introduces the image of the watchman, which returns in chapter 33.
The Lord tells Ezekiel to eat what is offered him, the scroll, and then go and speak to the house of Israel. Ezekiel opens his mouth, eats the scroll, and it tastes as sweet as honey. God tells him he is not sent to a foreign people of difficult speech, who would have listened, but to Israel, who will not listen because they will not listen to the Lord. So he makes the prophet's forehead harder than flint, so that he will not be afraid.
God tells him to take his words into his heart and hear them with his ears before speaking to the exiles. The Spirit lifts him up, and he hears behind him a great rumbling, the sound of the living creatures' wings and the wheels, as the glory of the Lord rises. Ezekiel comes to Tel-abib, by the Chebar, in bitterness and with a hot spirit, and he sits stunned among the exiles for seven days.
After seven days the word of the Lord comes: he has made Ezekiel a watchman for the house of Israel. If he warns the wicked and they do not turn, they will die in their sin, but the prophet will have saved his own life. If he does not warn them, the Lord will require their blood from the watchman. The same holds for a righteous person who turns away. Finally, the glory of the Lord meets him in the plain, Ezekiel falls on his face, the Spirit raises him, and the Lord tells him to shut himself inside his house; he will be bound with cords and his tongue will stick to the roof of his mouth until God opens his mouth.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Ezekiel eats the scroll and it tastes sweet as honey. Receiving the word of God, even when its content is lament, is a sweet experience: the message becomes part of the prophet before he announces it.
God makes Ezekiel's forehead harder than flint and tells him not to be afraid. The prophet needs a firmness equal to the people's hardness, and it is God himself who gives it.
The Lord makes Ezekiel a watchman for the house of Israel: he must hear God's word and warn others. The picture of a lookout sounding the alarm describes the prophetic task well.
If the watchman does not warn the wicked, they will die in their sin, but their blood will be required of the watchman; if he warns and they do not turn, the watchman saves his own life. The responsibility is to warn, not to bring about the change.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: It tasted as sweet as honey. — Ezekiel 3:3
Answer: Because Israel is the one that will not listen; those foreigners would have listened. — Ezekiel 3:5-7
Answer: Harder than flint, so that he will not fear the rebels. — Ezekiel 3:9
Answer: Seven days. — Ezekiel 3:15
Answer: Watchman, who must hear God's word and warn the people. — Ezekiel 3:17
Answer: God makes it stick to the roof of his mouth, so he will be mute until the Lord speaks to him and opens his mouth. — Ezekiel 3:26-27
Ezekiel eats the scroll before he speaks: first the word passes through him. For Sunday school teachers, the message is not only a lesson to prepare but something to be digested, obeyed and loved before it is passed on.
The image of the watchman also teaches that warning with love is part of faithfulness. Telling the truth is not always pleasant, but hiding it for fear of causing discomfort makes us responsible for what we keep silent. At the same time, the watchman does not control the response: his duty is to warn clearly and humbly, leaving the outcome to God.
Ezekiel 3 leaves the prophet prepared, commissioned and silent. His silence is not the end: in chapter 4 the Lord will make him speak with gestures, and his first prophecies will be symbolic actions against Jerusalem.
It is a symbolic act of receiving God's word completely, until it becomes one's own. That it tasted sweet shows that obeying God is good even when the message to be given is bitter; the bitterness appears afterward, in the prophet's spirit (verse 14).
The watchman was a city's lookout who sounded the alarm at danger. Ezekiel receives it as an image of his prophetic mission. Today it is often applied to any believer or leader who warns with love, without implying that every Christian is a prophet in Ezekiel's sense.
The text indicates that God binds his tongue so that he cannot reprove them on his own, and speaks only when God opens his mouth. His silence makes every word he does say a word from the Lord, and it is itself a form of ministry.