Ezekiel 3:24

Then the spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself within thine house. SET ME UPON MY FEET - having been previously prostrate and unable to rise until raised by the divine power. SHUT THYSELF WITHIN THINE HOUSE - implying that, in the work he had to do, he must look for no sympathy from man, but must be often alone with God, and draw his strength from Him (Fairbairn). 'Do not go out of thy house until I reveal the future to thee by signs and words,' which God does in the following chapters down to the eleventh. Thus a representation was given of the city shut up by siege (Grotius). Thereby God proved the obedience of His servant, and Ezekiel showed the reality of his call, by proceeding, not through rash impulse, but by the directions of God (Calvin)....

Here Ezekiel confirms what I have said: whenever the faithful are frightened at the sight of God’s glory, they cannot collect their mind unless the Lord prop them up by his strength. But this state was peculiar to the Prophet, because he ought to acknowledge himself, as it were, dead when he felt the Spirit of God living and flourishing in his mind. Therefore this tends to confirm him, because the Spirit restored him from a state of death to life: therefore he says, _the Spirit came _In fine, as the soul gives life to the man, so the Spirit of God is a supernatural life in man. We live after the manner of men, because a virtue is implanted in our soul which has faculties of its own. For in the soul is the seat of intelligence, and the will, and the sensations, and it diffuses its vigor through all the members. But the life which souls breathe into bodies is only earthly, but the Spirit o...

22-27 Let us own ourselves for ever indebted to the mediation of Christ, for the blessed intercourse between God and man; and a true believer will say, I am never less alone than when thus alone. When the Lord opened Ezekiel's mouth, he was to deliver his message boldly, to place life and death, the blessing and the curse, before the people, and leave them to their choice....

Verse Ezekiel 3:24. _THE SPIRIT - SAID UNTO ME, GO, SHUT THYSELF WITHIN THINE_ _HOUSE._] Hide thyself for the present. The reason is immediately subjoined....

“Shut” in the privacy of his own chamber he is to receive a message from Yahweh. This “shutting up,” however, and the “bands” (Ezekiel 3:25, used figuratively) were signs of the manner in which Ezekiel’s countrymen would close their ears, hindering him as far as in them lay from delivering the message of the Lord. With this verse commences a series of symbolic actions enjoined to the prophet in order to foretell the coming judgments of Jerusalem Ezekiel 4; Ezekiel 5. Generally speaking symbolic actions were either literal and public, or figurative and private. In the latter case they impressed upon the prophet’s mind the truth which he was to enforce upon others by the description of

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 3:1 EAT THAT THOU FINDEST, etc. The iteration of the command of Ezekiel 2:8 seems to imply, like the words, "be not thou rebellious," in that verse, some reluctance on the prophet's part. In substance the command was equivalent to that of Revelation 22:18, Revelation 22:19. The true prophet does not choose his message (Acts 4:20); his "meat" is to do his Lord's will (John 4:34), and he takes what he "f

THEN THE SPIRIT ENTERED INTO ME,.... Again; the Spirit of God, that was in the wheels and living creatures: see Ezekiel 2:2; AND SET ME UPON MY FEET; as he had done before, when in the same prostrate condition, Ezekiel 2:2; AND SPAKE WITH ME; either the Spirit that entered into him, and set him upright; or rather the Lord Christ, the glory of the Lord that stood where he was, and appeared to him: AND SAID UNTO ME, GO, SHUT THYSELF WITHIN THINE HOUSE: this was not said ironically, but in earnest; and the reason either was, because the people were not fit for reproof and correction, as Jarchi thinks, being a rebellious people; or that the prophet might receive further instructions, and have all the words of his prophecy delivered to him, before he began to p

CHAPTER S 3:15-7:27 The Judgment Announced, the Four Signs and Their Meaning, and the Two Messages This section extends from chapter 3:15 to the close of the seventh chapter. The prophet is told of his great responsibility as watchman, and has to enact four signs. Two solemn messages close this section. The first message first predicts that the sword is to come upon the land and disperse them; the second message predicts the end. _ 1. The new charge and Ezekiel's new experience (Ezekiel 3:15) _ 2. The sign of the tile (Ezekiel 4:1) on (Ezekiel 4:4) 3. The sign of the prophet's physical position (Ezekiel 4:4

A PERIOD OF SILENCE. Another ecstatic mood falls upon Ezekiel, accompanied by a vision similar to the former (ch. 1) but not this time described. The Divine voice seems to decree for him a period of temporary silence and inactivity. Perhaps Ezekiel 3:25 should read, I will lay bands on thee and bind thee: at any rate, he is restrained in some way, whether, as some suppose, by some physical disability (_e.g._ catalepsy) or merely by the angry incredulity of his hearers, from proclaiming his message in public. He does not open his mouth, except in his own house to those who consult him privately (_cf._ Ezekiel 8:1), until his message is confirmed by the fall of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 33:21 f.)....

Ezekiel 3:22-27. The prophet abandons public exercise of his ministry The verses form the preface to ch. 4 24, all the prophecies that bear upon the fate of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, up to its fall. The prophet under the "hand" of God goes out into the "valley," and the same Theophany appears to him as at the first by the river Chebar. He is in communication with the same great God, and all his actions are determined by his commands. According to the interpretation put upon ch. Ezekiel 1:1 to Ezekiel 3:21 above, he had exercised his office of watchman among the people, speaking to them publicly in the name of the Lord, for some time. Possibly the time was not very long, for this passage comes in under the same gene