Ezekiel 3:22

And the hand of the LORD was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) The hand of the Lord was there upon me.—The prophet’s week of silent meditation being past, and the charge of responsibility given, the constraining power of God again comes upon him, and sends him forth to the final act of preparation for his work.

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 3:22-27. And the hand of the Lord was there upon me — Namely, at Tel-abib. I felt a divine power acting upon me as before: see on Ezekiel 1:3. And he said, Arise, go forth into the plain — Withdraw from the multitude, and retire to a place more private, and fit for contemplation, and the reception of divine communications. Then I arose — As I was commanded; and the glory of the Lord stood there — The same glorious vision and representation of God’s majesty, which I had seen before, (Ezekiel 1:28,) were manifested to me again. Then the spirit entered into me — The spirit, power, or influence of God came upon me in an extraordinary manner; and set me upon my feet — Raised me up after I had fallen on my face; and spake with me — This should be rendered, And he spake with me: for the verb ידברis in the masculine gender. The spirit or power, which now entered into him, is distinguished from the divine glory, or Shechinah, which the prophet saw, as it is also very plainly Ezekiel 2:2. And said, Go, shut thyself within thy house — From public view, and to receive further instructions. Or, as some think, symbolically to represent the siege of Jerusalem. Behold, they shall put bands upon thee — The LXX. read ιδου δεδονται επι σε δεσμοι, και δησουσι σε εν αυτοις, bands shall be put upon thee, and they shall bind thee with them. So also the Vulgate. Some think this was done by the captive Jews at Tel- abib, and that they bound him as a criminal, and disturber of the peace, in order to the punishing of him. Others suppose his domestics bound him, as thinking him out of his right mind. But it is more probable, comparing this passage with chap. Ezekiel 4:8, that the meaning is, as Bishop Newcome observes, that his friends or servants bound him by his order; namely, more fully to express the shutting up of the Jews in Jerusalem by the siege. And thou shalt not go out among them — Thou shalt not go abroad among the people, but continue thus shut up. And thou shalt be dumb — For some space of time I will withhold revelations from thee, and thou shalt say nothing to the people by way of admonition or reproof. For they are a rebellious house — They are an obstinate, refractory people, who will give no heed to thy words. But when I speak with thee — Or, when I have spoken to thee; that is, revealed to thee the knowledge of what is to come, or have communicated to thee what I intend to be declared to them; I will open thy mouth — Give thee the power of speaking such things to them as it is my pleasure should be set before them. He that heareth, let him hear — This is the last warning I shall give them, and they must take it as such, and either give heed to and obey what is said to them, and so avoid the impending evil; or neglect it at their peril, and take the consequence which shall follow. These words, it seems, were spoken to Ezekiel only, and are not any part of the message which he was to deliver to the people.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:22-27 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The repetition of the word "righteous" is to be noted. There seems to be an intimation that sin is alien to the character of a "righteous" man. Compare 1 John 3:7-9.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. hand of the Lord—(Eze 1:3).

go … into the plain—in order that he might there, in a place secluded from unbelieving men, receive a fresh manifestation of the divine glory, to inspirit him for his trying work.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Ezekiel 3:14 Ezekiel 1:3.

There; at Tel-abib.

Go forth into the plain; withdraw from the multitude, and retire into the opener place. Likely it was some spacious level in that low country which lay between the rivers.

Talk with thee; to comfort, encourage, direct, and communicate further of the Divine will and counsels to the prophet.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the hand of the Lord was there upon me,.... At Telabib, Ezekiel 3:15. The Targum interprets "the hand of the Lord" of the spirit of prophecy, which remained upon him there; but it seems to design a fresh impulse of the Spirit, a powerful emotion of the split upon his spirit, stirring up to attention to what might be said unto him:

and he said unto me; the same glorious Person, the Lord Christ, described in Ezekiel 1:26;

arise, go forth into the plain; or "the valley" (w); the Arabic version renders it, "the desert"; a solitary place, free from noise and hurry, and from the company and conversation of men; and so more fit for retirement and contemplation, and for attention to divine orders. What plain this was is not certain; Kimchi thinks it was the plain in which Babel was built, and where the Lord showed the prophet what he had in his providence done in this place formerly, in confounding the languages of men, and causing their devices to cease;

and I will there talk with thee; when alone, sedate, and composed; so God sometimes brings his people into a low and humble state and condition, into the valley of humility, and there grants them communion with himself; see Hosea 2:14; perhaps the allusion to a custom among the Jews of revealing secrets to others in fields and deserts, and such like solitary places; see Genesis 31:4 (x).

(w) "in istam convallem", Junius & Tremellius, Polanus, "in vallem", Vatablus, Coeceius; "in vallem, quasi fissum locum", Starckius. (x) Vid. Menasseh Ben Israel, Spes Israelis, p. 110.

Geneva Study Bible

And the {m} hand of the LORD was there upon me; and he said to me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee.

(m) That is, the Spirit of prophecy.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. the hand of the Lord] A trance or ecstasy from the Lord. It is probable that the prophet’s retiring to the “valley” was merely transacted in vision. He felt himself transported away from the presence of men to some lonely retreat, and there the glory of the Lord seemed again to stand before him (cf. ch. Ezekiel 8:1-3).

into the plain] R.V. marg. the valley. This is scarcely a general term, meaning the plain country in opposition to Tel-Abib, where the exiles dwelt; some particular place in the neighbourhood called the “valley” is meant. According to Ezekiel 3:23 the place was not identical with the other by the river Chebar, where the Vision of God first appeared to the prophet. Cf. ch. Ezekiel 37:1 seq.

Ch. 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 general date as all that preceded it. His ministry had met with resistance, the people would not hear, as he had anticipated. A public ministry among them was fruitless; the burden of his preaching to them was distasteful. He warned them against their idolatries, from which they would not turn; and foretold the downfall of their city and country, a thing which they heard with an incredulous ear and would have none of. Therefore the prophet feels instructed of God to cease to be a public “reprover” (Ezekiel 3:26) for a time. The people refuse to believe his words when he speaks of the downfall of their beloved city, they will be constrained to believe events when they happen; and then the prophet, his word being confirmed, will speak with boldness, his mouth will be opened, and he will be able to impress upon more ready listeners the lessons of God’s righteous providence. His silence meantime is not an absolute one, it is only a change of method; but this so-called silence continues till the actual destruction of the city. In ch. Ezekiel 24:27, it is said, “in that day (when tidings come of the city’s fall) shall thy mouth be opened and thou shalt speak and be no more dumb, and they shall know that I am the Lord;” and in ch. Ezekiel 33:21 seq., when those that escaped came bringing tidings, saying, the city is fallen, it is said: “then my mouth was opened, and I was no more dumb.” No motive is assigned for the change in his prophetic method, beyond the unwillingness of the people to listen, “for they are a rebellious house” (Ezekiel 3:26). At the same time as a prophet of the restoration with its new principles (ch. 18, 33), a watchman appointed to speak no more to the state but to individual men, his ministry proper could not commence till the state had fallen. See note on ch. Ezekiel 3:17.

Second Section. Ch. Ezekiel 3:22 to Ezekiel 7:27The second section of the Book contains these parts:

(1) Ch. Ezekiel 3:22-27. A preface in which the prophet is commanded to confine himself to his own house, and abandon for a time his public ministry.

(2) Ch. Ezekiel 4:1-4. A series of symbols representing the siege of Jerusalem, the scarcity during it, the pollution of the people in exile among the nations, and the terrible fate of the inhabitants on the capture of the city.

(3) Ch. Ezekiel 5:5-17. Exposition of these symbols.

(4) Ch. 6. Prophecy against the mountains of Israel, the seats of Idolatry.

(5) Ch. 7. Dirge over the downfall of the state.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - And the hand of the Lord was there upon me, etc. There is obviously an interval between the fact thus stated and the close of the message borne in on the prophet's soul. Psychologically, it seems probable that the effect of the message was to fill him with an overwhelming, crushing sense of the burden of his responsibility. How was he to begin so terrible a work? What were to be the nearer, and the remoter, issues of such a work? Apparently, at least, he does not then begin it by a spoken warning. He passes, at the Divine command borne in on his soul, from the crowd that had watched him during the seven days' silence, and betakes himself to the solitude of the "plain," as distinct from the "mound" where the exiles dwelt, and there the vision appears again in all points as he had seen it when he stood on the river's bank. Ezekiel 3:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Introduction to the first prophetic announcement. - Ezekiel 3:22. And there came upon me there the hand of Jehovah, and He said to me, Up! go into the valley, there will I speak to thee. Ezekiel 3:23. And I arose, and went into the valley: and, lo, there stood the glory of Jehovah, like the glory which I had seen at the river Chebar: and I fell upon my face. Ezekiel 3:24. And spirit came into me, and placed me on my feet, and He spake with me, and said to me, Go, and shut thyself in thy house. - הבּקעה is, without doubt, the valley situated near Tel-abib. Ezekiel is to go out from the midst of the exiles - where, according to Ezekiel 3:15, he had found himself-into the valley, because God will reveal Himself to him only in solitude. When he had complied with this command, there appears to him there the glory of Jehovah, in the same form in which it had appeared to him at the Chaboras (Ezekiel 1:4-28); before it he falls, a second time, on his face; but is also, as on the first occasion, again raised to his feet, cf. 1:28-2:2. Hereupon the Lord commands him to shut himself up in his house - which doubtless he inhabited in Tel-Abib - not probably "as a sign of his future destiny," as a realistic explanation of the words, "Thou canst not walk in their midst (Ezekiel 3:25); they will prevent thee by force from freely exercising thy vocation in the midst of the people." For in that case the "shutting of himself up in the house" would be an arbitrary identification with the "binding with fetters" (Ezekiel 3:25); and besides, the significance of the address ואתּה בן אדם, and its repetition in Ezekiel 4:1 and Ezekiel 5:1, would be misconceived. For as in Ezekiel 4:1 and Ezekiel 5:1 there are introduced with this address the principal parts of the duty which Ezekiel was to perform, so the proper divine instruction may also first begin with the same in Ezekiel 3:25; consequently the command "to shut himself up in his house" can only have the significance of a preliminary divine injunction, without possessing any significance in itself; but only "serve as a means for carrying out what the prophet is commissioned to do in the following chapters" (Kliefoth), i.e., can only mean that he is to perform in his own house what is commanded him in Ezekiel 4 and 5, or that he is not to leave his house during their performance. More can hardly be sought in this injunction, nor can it at all be taken to mean that, having shut himself up from others in his house, he is to allow no one to approach him; but only that he is not to leave his dwelling. For, according to Ezekiel 4:3, the symbolical representation of the siege of Jerusalem is to be a sign for the house of Israel; and according to Ezekiel 4:12, Ezekiel is, during this symbolical action, to bake his bread before their eyes. From this it is seen that his contemporaries might come to him and observe his proceedings.