Ezekiel 3

Notes

Ver. 1-3. This roll noted his prophetic commission, or the messages he was to deliver. The eating imported his cordial reception of his messages, and serious meditation on them, that he might understand them. Its being sweet in his mouth imported that his commission was delightful to him at first, though afterwards he was filled with grief and anguish, when he found that he was to deliver such terrible messages, and those to be so little regarded. 8, 9. I will endow thee with boldness to deliver my messages, and with courage and constancy to hold out against all opposition. 12-14. The great rushing, &c., denotes the great commotions and troubles which he was to foretell, and in which God would be glorified.—The noise of the wings of the animals, and of the wheels, denotes the great activity of angels, ministers, and others in executing God's threatenings and providences. 20. If a man, who is but apparently righteous, without any real principle of grace, abandon his seemingly virtuous course, and give up himself to a continued practice of wickedness, and I lay in his way what his lusts shall improve to his destruction, whatever seeming good things once appeared about him, they shall in no wise avail to prevent his punishment. And if thou hast not warned him, thou shalt be punished as guilty of his destruction. 25. These bands may either denote the restraints which God put upon him during his four hundred and thirty days' emblematical siege of Jerusalem [ch. iv.], or the restraints which the Jews would lay upon him, in order to prevent his denouncing judgments against them.

Ver. 3. Honey is the emblem of sweetness collected by industry, and preserved by care—of which the bee is one of the most remarkable natural examples. It here represents the sweetness of those reflections that arise from the knowledge and meditation of God's Word, and ready obedience to his will. C.

Ver. 4. This expression, Speak with my words unto them, is such a plain and explicit assertion of full and complete verbal inspiration in one prophet, that unless it be found explicitly disavowed, which it never is, the same amount of inspiration must be ascribed to every other prophet. See ver. 10. C.

Ver. 9. Adamant. What particular stone is intended cannot be determined, nor is the determination important, as the import of the passage is sufficiently plain. God had endowed the prophet with knowledge by means of the roll, or revealed word; he, in face of all opposition, with honesty and courage, determined to deliver his message. C.

Ver. 12. The glory of the Lord from his place, was the Shekinah in the wilderness—in the tabernacle, God manifest in light and cloud. 'The glory of the Lord from his place' in the temple, Mal. 3. 1, was 'the Word made flesh' and dwelling among men, who thus beheld 'his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.' 'The glory of the Lord from his place' in the heavens, is Christ sitting at the right hand of God, and ever living to make intercession for us. C.

Ver. 14. In bitterness of spirit because of the calamities he was commissioned to reveal.—In the heat. In the godly indignation of his spirit against ingratitude and hardness of heart to be rebuked. C.

Ver. 20. There is a faith that is living, and there is a faith that is dead, Ja. 2. 17; there is, with Christ, an outward union of profession—there is an inward union of the heart, Jn. 15. 2, 6; Ro. 10. 9. The man that professes faith in Christ is righteous in profession, but no farther. And such a one may fall away from that profession in which, for a time, he 'did run well:' and that either through ignorance of the real nature of the gospel, Mat. 13. 19, or want of 'root in himself,' or the dread of persecution, Mat. 13. 21, or through 'care of the world and deceitfulness of riches,' and the seed may thus be choked, and the plant become 'unfruitful.'—A stumbling-block. This may be either a fuller exposition of divine truth for the edification of the church, whereby ignorance is alarmed and alienated—the letting loose of the storm of persecution, by which indolence is disturbed, and the lovers of pleasure disgusted—or the full demand of God upon the liberality of Christian stewardship, at which covetousness takes the alarm and shuts out Christ, by admitting and cherishing 'the love of money.' These and other such 'stumbling-blocks' God is said to 'lay before' men—not to induce them to stumble and fall—not to tempt them to evil—but to punish them for their sins—to bring out from beneath the garb of profession the reality within; and to be a warning to him that 'thinketh he standeth (by faith) to take heed lest he fall' (by sense). C.

Ver. 26. This dumbness may have been physical, so that he could not speak; God thereby manifesting to the prophet and people that speech was his gift, their lips not their own, Ps. 12. 4: or it may have been mental, arising from such an overwhelming astonishment at the view of the divine glory, as deprived him for a time of the power of utterance—a result often arising from deep impressions of natural objects and occurrences: or it may have been merely the effect of that commanded retirement or compulsory imprisonment, by which he was for a time reduced to silence as a public 'preacher of righteousness.' C.

Reflections.—God's Word ought to be received as the delightful food of our soul, without disputing: and the more readily we obey God's difficult commandments, we shall receive the more comfort in the issue. Saints may receive with delight what speaks terror to the wicked. And they who minister in holy things, ought to meditate on and experience their subject before they deliver it to others. But unless God give them a spirit of wisdom and understanding, their own labours can avail but little. The more impudent sinners are in opposition to religion, the more bold and resolute should ministers and others appear in defence of it, that if any obstinately reject the counsel of God, they may be rendered inexcusable. And if we be called to hard services, he will fit and furnish us for them. Nor must the want of desired success discourage us, or in the least abate our faithfulness and diligence. What struggles of fear and unbelief may there be where grace reigns! It is very discouraging for ministers to be sent to preach to such as are uncontrollably wicked, and hate to be reformed. And their great griefs are often too big to be uttered. But God can bow their hearts as well as furnish their heads, and so prevent their refusal or desertion of their work. And he often for a time straitens them whom he intends to exalt.—Perseverance in sin, and apostasy from God, must certainly issue in temporal and eternal destruction. But readily will God pardon the most wicked if penitent. O the infinite importance of the ministerial office! What influence the execution thereof hath upon the everlasting happiness or misery of mankind! and ministers are acquitted or condemned as guilty of the destruction of souls as they faithfully deliver God's messages or not. Men's apostasy from, or perseverance in, good works, clearly manifests the counterfeit or real nature of their religion and grace. But they who follow God's direction shall have his necessary comforts always attending them. They who sinfully evade God's public work are ordinarily punished with temporary restraints from it: and they who hate reproof are deprived of faithful reprovers. Such as intend public preaching ought to be prepared for it by much reading, meditation, and prayer, as their messages are deeply connected with the eternal salvation or damnation of men.