Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
Eat This Scroll
Ezekiel 2:1-3:15
1 He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” · WEB
The commission redefines success as having spoken, and the scroll full of mourning tastes like honey to the man who has to swallow it.
The first word from the throne is not a message but a posture: Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you. A man on his face is lifted by the Spirit and set upright to be addressed. The title used is the one used ninety-five times in this book and by no other. He has just seen wheels full of eyes and a likeness on a sapphire throne, and he is addressed as a mortal. The contrast is set up on the first page and never relaxed.
The audience is described before the message is given, and described three times as rebellious. Then comes the clause that governs Ezekiel's entire career: whether they will hear, or whether they will refuse... yet they will know that there has been a prophet among them. Success is defined as the delivery, not the reception. That is a hard mercy for a man about to spend twenty years being ignored, and it is the only thing that makes the assignment survivable. What he is promised for protection is not safety but hardness. His forehead is made as a diamond, harder than flint — a strange gift to give a man, and exactly the one he needs.
The scroll is handed over already written, and two details make it. It is written within and without — on both sides, which was not the normal use of a scroll. There is more here than the roll was meant to hold. And its contents are itemized before he eats it: lamentations, mourning, and woe. He is told to fill his belly with it. Then the sentence nobody expects: It was as sweet as honey in my mouth.
Those two facts are left side by side without reconciliation, and they should be. The word of God is sweet to the man who receives it, because of whose word it is. Its content is grief, because of what it has to say. The immediate sequel proves both at once. He goes in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit, with the hand of Yahweh strong on him. He arrives at Tel-abib among the captives, and sits there for seven days, overwhelmed, saying nothing. A commission that tasted like honey produces a week of silence, and the book records that without embarrassment.
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