Bible Commentaries

Ezekiel's Vision

Ezekiel 12:1-2).

He was a prophet though the house was rebellious. Can the Lord find no better place for his prophets? Can he not make them a second garden? He made one: can he not make two? Can he not cause his prophet to stand in some high tower where he will be untainted by the pollution of place and time, and whence he can thunder out the divine word? Has the prophet to mingle with the people, to live with them, to touch their corruptness, to feel the contagion of their evil manners? Might he not have a pedestal to himself? No. The Son of man when he comes will go on eating and drinking, a social reformer, a brother, a fellow-guest at tables; he will take the cup after we have partaken of it, and we may cut him what morsel of bread he may eat, or he will hand them to us; he will be one of his fellow-creatures. And yet Ezekiel was a prophet. So is the Son of man. Nothing could mingle Ezekiel with the rebellious house, so as to be unable to distinguish between the one and the other. Proximity is not identification. We may sit close to a murderer, and be quite distinct from him as to all our proclivities, and desires, and aspirations. We need not be corrupt because we live in a corrupt age; we need not go down because the neighbourhood is bad. It is poor pleading, it is an irreligious and inexcusable defence, which says it could not resist atmospheric pressure, the subtle influence of social custom and habitude. It is the business of a prophet to stand right apart from his fellow-men, and yet to be so near as to be able to teach them, exhort them, rebuke them, and comfort them when they turn their face but a point towards the throne, the Cross, and the promised heaven. Ezekiel's experience was tumultuous, rough, difficult, hard to undergo and impossible to understand.

"A rebellious house."—What was the charge made against this rebellious house? The words "rebellious house" are general: does the accusation descend to particulars? It does,—"Which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not." Rebelliousness means loss of faculty. You cannot commit sin and be as clear-minded as you were before you committed it The obscurity of mind may not be immediately evident, but let a man allow one bad thought to pass through his brain, and the brain has lost quality, a tremendous injury has been inflicted on that sensitive organ; by-and-by, after a succession of such passages, there will be no brain to injure. Sin tears down whatever it touches. Your habit is bringing you to imbecility, if it is a bad habit. You must name it; preachers may not speak distinctly and definitely, but they create a standard by which men may judge themselves, and by which preachers may also judge their own aspirations and purposes. You are losing your eyesight by your sin; you are becoming deaf because you are becoming worse in thought and desire and purpose; you are not the business man you were a quarter of a century ago when you were a disciplinarian, a Spartan, a self-critic, when you held yourself in a leash, and would not allow yourself to go an inch faster than your judgment approved: since then you have loosened the reins, you have allowed the steeds to go at their own will, and the consequence is that you miss one half of what is spoken to you, and you fail to see God's morning and God's sunset; they are but commonplaces to you, mayhap but broad vulgarities. Men should be good if they wish to keep their genius. Morality is the defence of mental power and general faculty. The bad man goes down. His descent may not be palpable today or tomorrow, but the process is not the less certain and tremendous because it is sometimes imperceptible.

What does the prophet do? This chapter indicates that Ezekiel was called upon to show himself in two distinct aspects. Ezekiel is charged to represent two signs:—

"Therefore, thou son of Ezekiel 12:3).

He was to be performing a very singular Ezekiel 12:12).

Princes always lay burdens upon other people. A prince is an incubus. The time comes when princes have to carry burdens; that is the burden of the Lord, that is the prophecy of eternal righteousness. The prince that is among them, who has been heaping burdens upon other people's shoulders, shall one day stoop to take up his own load, and his eyes—those "inlets of lust"—shall be dug out, and Zedekiah shall accept the fate of a blind slave. Verily there is a God that ruleth in the world. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." You cannot die before harvest-time. Though you physically die, the harvest is still to be reaped. Imagine not that having had a season of seed-sowing you can run away from the harvest, for the harvest will run after you, and you will have to reap it, here or at the antipodes, or in the invisible state. That black harvest must be cut down and garnered, and you must keep the key of the granary. Sometimes it seems as if it were not so. There have arisen in the Church from age to age men who have been troubled by the prosperity of the wicked, saying, They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men; therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment; their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than heart could wish; they live in palaces, they play on harps and viols, and whatsoever they call for, the answer is immediately at hand; the righteous are driven out, and virtue is thrown down in the streets, and the devil is the prince of this world. There is too much immediate reason for saying Ezekiel 12:17-20).

Thus the prophet was to eat bread as if he were shaken by the palsy, and as if the very eating of the bread added to his pain and distress. He was to take up his water and drink it as if it were bitter, yea, as if it were poison, and the people, seeing this palsied Ezekiel 12:21-22).

Jeremiah has been talking about this upbreaking of the kingdom, and Ezekiel is talking about it; and when the prophecies were delivered to Zedekiah he said they did not sufficiently coincide to confirm one another: for he looked for those literal coincidences which bewilder so many people and which can only satisfy pedantry; he did not see that coincidence is in the purpose, in the substance of the message. So there came up a proverb in Israel, "The days are prolonged," then came a laugh suggestive; "and every vision faileth," then the laugh was prolonged. We have fallen into the mockery of proverb-making. In English we say, "Words are but wind." How foolishly we have lived to believe that: whereas words are the only real life. In the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and the word is the Ezekiel 12:24-25).

Better believe this. All the ages have testified to it; all philosophies point in this direction. "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." Do not enter a fool's paradise; do not enter upon vain imaginations, saying, As it was yesterday, so it will be tomorrow,—for there is a moment which changes all things. Study the action of time, and you will see how many critical moments there are. It is only a moment that separates the night from the day, the day from the not-day, the positive from the negative—an almost incalculable line, so minute, so infinitesimal. God can work wonders in a moment. He may take eternity for some works, but in many a moment he strikes men blind, and turns men into perdition. There is but a step between thee and death. Thy breath is in thy nostrils: a puncture in the right place, and life is gone. One touch, and the balance is lost, and he who was strong an hour since will be buried next week. Seizing these realities, grasping them with the whole mind and heart, the Church ought not to be other than in dead earnest