Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
A Very Lovely Song
Ezekiel 33:21-33
21 In the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, one who had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me, saying, “The city has been defeated!” · WEB
The fugitive arrives, the prophet's mouth is opened after years of silence, and his new audience comes to enjoy him.
The date is given and the sentence is short. In the twelfth year, in the tenth month, on the fifth day, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem arrives and says The city has been defeated! Everything Ezekiel had announced for twenty-two years is settled by three words from a stranger. And the verse before records that God had opened his mouth the previous evening, so the muteness lifted before the news came rather than after it.
What the survivors in the land are saying is quoted next, and it is an argument from arithmetic. Abraham was one, and he inherited the land; but we are many. The land is given us for inheritance. One man received the whole country; there are thousands of us; the property is ours. The reply does not engage the arithmetic. It lists what they are doing — eating with the blood, lifting their eyes to idols, shedding blood, defiling their neighbors' wives — and asks shall you possess the land? Inheritance in this book is never a numbers question.
Then the chapter turns to Ezekiel's own situation, and it is the most quietly devastating passage in the book. His reputation has changed. People now recommend him to each other: Please come and hear what the word is that comes out from Yahweh. They gather. They sit in front of him as God's people sit. They listen to everything.
And the verdict on that audience is exact: with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain. The image given for what he has become is a compliment and an indictment in one sentence — you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument. A man who was ignored for two decades is now popular, and the popularity is a form of not listening. The chapter's last line brings back the standard from his call: when it comes to pass, then they will know that a prophet has been among them Ezekiel 2:5.
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