Chapter Two

The Prophet’s Calling to Prophecy

Ezekiel 2:1. Such was the vision of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw this, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice speaking, and He said to me: “Son of man, stand upon your feet, and I will speak with you. “Vision of the likeness.” By these words the prophet once again warns the reader about the true sense of those images which fill the vision: they are only likenesses, visible likenesses of the Glory of the Lord; the Glory of the Lord Itself, not to mention God Himself, is invisible and cannot be shown. What is meant by “the Glory of the Lord”—only the One sitting on the throne or the entire phenomenon? Ezek 9:3 favor the first understanding; the similarity of expressions in this sentence with verse 25 also speaks for this: “vision of the likeness” is very close to “likeness as if appearance,” which is used precisely of the One sitting on the throne. But Ezek 43:2 by “the Glory of the Lord” calls the entire phenomenon; and here the reader expects a conclusion to the entire picture of the vision, not to its last section alone; in the Old Testament, “the Glory of God” is called every image or manner of God’s appearance, for example, a cloud. But when applied to the entire phenomenon, the designation “the Glory of the Lord” by this very fact applies also to the One sitting on the throne. The prophet Ezekiel clearly distinguishes the Glory of God from God Himself: if anything in God can be seen, though imperfectly and insufficiently, in images and likenesses, then only the Glory of God, but not God Himself. How the Glory of God can be thought of as something separate from God and appear to a man apart from Him Himself became clear after the perfect revelation on earth of the Radiance of the Glory of God and the Image of His hypostasis. “I fell upon my face” in terror (Dan 7:15; Isa 6:5) and reverence (Gen 17:3), as well as from the exhaustion brought on by the ecstatic shock (Dan 10:8). “And I heard the voice of the One speaking,” that is, not seeing where it came from; and although it should have come from the vault and the throne above it, the prophet is afraid to put the subject to “spoke to me.” (“He” is not expressed in Hebrew.) The vision, not ceasing completely (Ezek 2:9), may be gradually obscured before the prophet’s eyes and replaced by an equally strong and all-consuming auditory ecstasy: “the voice of the One speaking” shows that the subsequent revelation was not, as probably all the subsequent ones, internal alone. God’s address to the prophet: “son of man”—is a peculiarity of the book of Ezekiel (seventy times) and in part of Daniel (Dan 8:17), explained by Aramaic influence; “in the Syrian language this expression is so common that there is apparently no other name for man there as this one, as they apply it even to the first man who did not have it; so 1 Cor 15:45 is translated into Syriac: ‘the first son of man Adam’ (Rosenmüller, Scholia an Vetus Testamentum, p. VI, S. 1, Lipsiae 1808). To the prophet such an address might say that he was a casually selected individual from his wretched race; compare Isa 8:5; Job 25:6 (Smend). “And I will speak”—so that I might be able to speak.

Ezekiel 2:2. And as He spoke to me, a spirit entered me and set me upon my feet, and I heard the One speaking to me. Since the prophet himself cannot stand from fear and numbness, “a spirit” lifts him up, undefined by anything more clearly (even without the article: the prophet speaks clearly with a certain indefiniteness); in this manner Ezekiel everywhere calls a certain supernatural action upon himself of God’s force, which he must have felt especially keenly (“entered into me, spirit”) and which visited him only at certain moments of visions, sometimes strengthening the exhausted nature under the magnitude of the latter, as here and Ezek 3:24, sometimes carrying him to the place of visions and back from it: Ezek 8:3 (the LXX between “entered into me” and “set me” insert “and took me and raised me up” probably from Ezek 3:14, but there clearly not the same action of the spirit but close to Ezek 8:3). The lack of precision refers to Ezek 1:12, where the Holy Spirit is meant.

Ezekiel 2:3. And He said to me: “Son of man! I send you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious people who have rebelled against Me. They and their ancestors have transgressed against Me up to this very day. When the voice from on high gently encouraged the prophet and he calmed down from his first terror at the appearance, he is called to be a prophet (“I send you” is already in Isaiah a technical term; Isa 6:8) to Israel (instead of “children,” the LXX read the similarly formed “house”: bene-bet), which unfortunately is scarcely worthy of being called by this high name “God-contender,” and is more likely stubbornly disobedient like gentiles (“people”; Hebrew “goyim,” which by Ezekiel’s time had to become a moral-religious term instead of its former ethnological sense, so perhaps the LXX intentionally omit it). Moreover, Israel, from the very beginning of its existence (“fathers” here in the broadest sense) and until this very day has not been distinguished by faithfulness: according to Ezekiel, in contrast, for instance, to Jeremiah (Jer 2:2), Israel is corrupted to its very sources (Ezek 16:3).

Ezekiel 2:4. And these children have hard faces and stubborn hearts; I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them: ‘Thus says the Lord God!’ The stubbornness of Israel seems to have intensified through a long succession of generations, and in these present-day people (“these children”) the face has lost the ability to blush and shame-facedly lower its eyes, while the heart has become inaccessible to persuasion. “You shall say to them: Thus says,” that is to say, you will be a prophet, who is the mouth of God—“the Lord God”—Adonai Jehovah. The double name of God in the Hebrew text of the book of Ezekiel is used 228 times against 218 times of the simple “the Lord” (Jehovah), and in the majority of cases it is difficult to indicate the reason for such rather than another name: the double name should stand in more solemn cases, but apparently the scribes permitted themselves freedom here.

Ezekiel 2:5. Whether they listen or whether they do not listen, for they are a rebellious house; nevertheless let them know that a prophet has been among them. The prophet should not be silent whether they listen or not. Although the latter, in view of Israel’s known stubbornness, is undoubted, yet the matter does not lie in immediate success of the preaching: the results of Ezekiel’s activity lie in the future, when the fulfillment of his prophecies and chiefly his threats will reveal him as a prophet; if he is recognized as a true prophet, then together they will recognize the True God who speaks through him, and this is the first preliminary condition for Israel’s future conversion. The difference in the LXX at the beginning of the verse: “if indeed they hear and are afraid” (favorable for the Hebrews, as well as the omission of “goyim” in verse 3) came about from the fact that the particle “im,” besides “whether,” also means “if” (Josh 24:15; Eccl 2:13), and the second verb instead of “yehidalu” (they will cease) is read “yedhalu” (they will fear). “A rebellious house”—a name for Israel so beloved by the prophet Ezekiel that it is for him almost a proper name, and this was the more possible because originally all Hebrew proper names had a meaningful sense.

Ezekiel 2:6. But you, son of man, do not be afraid of them and do not be afraid of their words, even if briars and thorns are with you, and you are dwelling among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words and do not be terrified by their faces, for they are a rebellious house; The prophet will encounter not only disbelief on the part of Israel. The people will cause him no small amount of direct unpleasantness. “But you, son of man, do not be afraid of them.” Three times God repeats this assurance to the prophet, noting in particular that he does not need to fear “their words,” which alone could harm the fellow-countrymen of Ezekiel under the confining conditions of captivity, and perhaps even that which had already begun to soften the people; so one must also understand the images used further—thorns and briars (the LXX, reading the words not as nouns but as participles: “will become fierce and will surround”); the image of scorpions with their harmful sting well indicates the danger from precisely “their words.” The prophet should not be disturbed by these hostile words: for Israel is a house of rebellion.

Ezekiel 2:7. And speak My words to them, whether they listen or whether they do not listen, for they are obstinate. Ezekiel 2:8. But you, son of man, hear what I am about to say to you; do not be rebellious like this rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you. Ezekiel 2:9. Then I looked, and behold, a hand was extended toward me, and behold, in it was a written scroll. Assured of his future triumph, the prophet can calmly bear all this and continue his work. Constantly the stubbornness of the people with whom Ezekiel will have to deal is put before his eyes, in the hope that this stubbornness will arouse all the greater zeal on the prophet’s part, that he will receive with all the greater readiness the revelations communicated to him and will not permit to reveal on his own part anything like this stubbornness of the crowd, examples of which were found among the prophets (Balaam, Jonah, the Hebrew reprover of Jeroboam). Ezekiel must immediately prove by deed his obedience: let him eat what God is now giving him. The prophet looked to see what was in the hand extended to him and saw that he was indeed being asked to do almost the impossible. The prophet does not dare to say whose the hand was: Jeremiah, however, speaks directly: “And the Lord extended His hand” (Jer 1:9).

Ezekiel 2:10. And He unrolled it before me, and behold, it was written on both sides, on the inside and on the outside, and written upon it were words of lamentation and mourning and woe. The scroll is unrolled before the prophet’s eyes so that he might see its contents in advance. It was written, contrary to custom, on both sides, like the tablets of the covenant (Exod 32:15), as a sign of fullness and richness of content (perhaps also an indication of the length of Ezekiel’s prophetic activity—more than twenty years) and contained exclusively lamentation (as will the future book of Ezekiel, which contains many speeches directly inscribed “lamentation”: Ezek 19:1 and others), at times transitioning even into groans of pain and cries of despair (“woe,” in Hebrew “hoy,” probably an interjection). The content of the scroll Ezekiel can survey at a glance because he is in a state of supernatural reality. From a glance at the scroll the prophet could conclude what his preaching would be like from the standpoint of content, about which nothing had yet been said to him (hence this survey is placed in chapter II, and the eating in chapter III, which speaks of the prophet’s entering into his ministry). Thus the prophet’s ministry, burdensome from the standpoint of the people, will be burdensome also from the standpoint of the content of his preaching.