Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
A Watchman to the House of Israel
Ezekiel 3:16-27
16 At the end of seven days, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, · WEB
The watchman is answerable for the warning and not for the outcome, and the four cases set out leave no room to argue about which is which.
The image is military and everyone in that world knew it. A watchman stood on the wall, saw what was coming before the city did, and blew a trumpet. He did not fight. He could not make anyone act. His entire duty was to give notice in time, and the penalty for sleeping through an approach was the blood of the people below.
That is applied with unusual precision, in four cases rather than a general principle. A wicked man unwarned dies in his iniquity, and I will require his blood at your hand. A wicked man warned who does not turn dies, and the watchman has delivered his own soul. A righteous man who turns to iniquity and was not warned dies, and again the blood is required. A righteous man warned who does not sin lives, and again the watchman is clear. The grid is complete. It separates two things that are constantly confused. The hearer's fate turns on the hearer. The watchman's guilt turns only on whether he spoke.
One clause in the third case is harder than the rest and should not be softened. When a righteous man turns from his righteousness, his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered. A record of past obedience is not a balance that can be drawn on. That claim is argued at length later in the book, together with its mirror image: a wicked man who turns will live, and his wickedness will not be mentioned Ezekiel 18:21–24. The two together say that what a person is at the end is what counts, in both directions.
Then the chapter does something unexpected with a man who has just been made responsible for speaking. He is shut in his house, bound with ropes, and made mute: I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth. The silence lasts until the night the city falls Ezekiel 33:22, broken only when God opens his mouth for a specific word. A watchman is appointed, and then permitted to sound only the notes he is given. Nothing here is left to his judgment. That is a burden, and it is also the removal of one.
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