Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
The Days Are at Hand
Ezekiel 12:17-28
17 Moreover Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, · WEB
Two proverbs are quoted and abolished, and both are ways of agreeing that a prophecy is true while behaving as though it is not.
The chapter's second sign is small and domestic. Ezekiel is to eat his bread with quaking and drink his water with trembling, in front of people, and the meaning is given at once — this is how the inhabitants of Jerusalem will eat and drink. Fear is easier to portray than a siege, and a man visibly shaking over an ordinary meal is a harder thing to ignore than an argument.
The first proverb is then quoted, and it has the polish of something people had been repeating for years: The days are prolonged, and every vision fails. It concedes that visions are given. It simply observes that nothing ever comes of them. That is the natural conclusion of a generation who had heard warnings all their lives and watched the city stand. The answer does not argue the observation. It abolishes the saying — I will make this proverb to cease — and replaces it with the opposite: the days are at hand, and the fulfillment of every vision.
The second proverb is more sophisticated and is quoted immediately after, because it is what people say when the first one stops working. The vision that he sees is for many days to come, and he prophesies of times that are far off. This does not deny the prophecy at all. It accepts it entirely and files it under a later generation. That produces exactly the same behavior as disbelief, while sounding devout. The reply is four words long in substance: None of my words will be deferred any more.
Between the two stands the sentence that answers both, and it is a statement about the speaker rather than about the timetable: For I am Yahweh. I will speak, and the word that I speak will be performed. The gap between a word and its fulfillment is the space where both proverbs live. The passage does not explain the gap. It attaches the word to the character of the one who spoke it and closes the matter. Then, at the end of the same chapter, it dates the fulfillment to the lifetime of the people listening.
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