Bird's-eye view
In this short but potent conclusion to Ezekiel's commissioning, the prophet is given a command that is both bizarre and profoundly symbolic. After being warned not to imitate the rebellion of the house of Israel, he is told to eat a scroll. This is not a vision to be interpreted at a distance; it is a command to be obeyed physically, or at least with visionary physicality. The scroll, sent by a divine hand, is filled with words of judgment: lamentations, sighing, and woe. By eating the scroll, Ezekiel is not merely receiving a message to deliver; he is being commanded to internalize it completely. The Word of God, and specifically this word of judgment, must become part of his very being before he can speak it to the people. This act establishes a foundational principle of prophetic ministry: the messenger must be utterly identified with his message. He cannot be a detached courier. The bitterness of the message must first be his own bitterness, the woe his own woe. It is a graphic illustration of what it means to be a man of God, a man whose life is consumed by the Word he is called to proclaim.
This passage serves as a crucial link between the vision of God's glory in chapter one and the difficult ministry that lies ahead. The God of the fiery chariot is a holy God who does not take rebellion lightly. His Word of judgment is not arbitrary; it is a righteous response to covenant unfaithfulness. Ezekiel, as God's representative, must not only see the glory and hear the call, but he must also taste the judgment. This prepares him for the resistance he will face and solidifies in him the gravity of the message he carries. It is a stark reminder that true ministry is never a matter of professional detachment, but of costly, personal identification with the truth of God, in all its sweetness and all its sorrow.
Outline
- 1. The Prophet's Consecration to the Word (Ezek 2:8-10)
- a. The Negative Command: Do Not Be Rebellious (Ezek 2:8a)
- b. The Positive Command: Eat the Word (Ezek 2:8b)
- c. The Divine Provision: The Hand and the Scroll (Ezek 2:9)
- d. The Nature of the Message: A Word of Judgment (Ezek 2:10)
Context In Ezekiel
This passage comes at the very end of Ezekiel's commissioning scene in chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 1 was the overwhelming vision of the glory of the Lord, the cherubim, the wheels, and the throne. This vision flattened Ezekiel, and rightly so. At the beginning of chapter 2, God raises him to his feet and gives him his mission: he is to go to the rebellious house of Israel, a people of "stubborn faces and hard hearts" (Ezek 2:4). God repeatedly warns him that they will not listen, but he is to speak God's words to them regardless. The passage we are considering is the final act of this commissioning. Before he can go and speak, he must first receive the message in the most intimate way possible. This act of eating the scroll is immediately followed by the description of the scroll's taste, sweet as honey (Ezek 3:3), and the formal sending of the prophet to the people. Thus, this moment is the pivot point between receiving the call and beginning the work.
Key Issues
- The Nature of Prophetic Identification
- The Symbolism of Eating the Word
- The Relationship Between God's Sweet Word and Bitter Judgments
- The Danger of Ministerial Rebellion
- The Sufficiency of God's Revealed Word
The Prophet's Digest
The central metaphor here is digestion. God does not hand Ezekiel a briefing packet or a list of talking points. He hands him a meal. This is a recurring biblical theme. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deut 8:3). Jeremiah found God's words and ate them, and they became the joy and rejoicing of his heart (Jer 15:16). The psalmist declares God's words to be sweeter than honey to his mouth (Ps 119:103). But here, the meal is a scroll of judgment. This is not a sweet cake; it is a bitter pill.
And yet, as we see in the next chapter, it tastes like honey. How can this be? Because for the man of God, any word from God is sweet. The privilege of being God's spokesman, the honor of receiving direct revelation, the sheer fact of communion with the living God, is a profound sweetness that overwhelms the bitterness of the content. But the bitterness is not negated. The prophet must digest the woe. He must feel the lamentation in his own gut. He cannot preach judgment from a position of detached superiority. He must preach it as one who has first been broken by it. The Word of God must be metabolized by the prophet. It must become his very flesh and blood, his bone and sinew, before it can be spoken with any integrity or authority.
Verse by Verse Commentary
8 “Now as for you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you.”
The address, son of man, emphasizes Ezekiel's humanity in the face of God's overwhelming glory. He is a man, a son of Adam, and he is being commanded to listen. The first part of the command is a negative prohibition, and it is crucial. Do not be rebellious. The great temptation for a prophet sent to a rebellious people is to become like them. He can do this in two ways. He can soften the message to gain their approval, which is a form of rebellion against God. Or, he can deliver the hard message with a hard heart, full of self-righteous contempt, which is another form of rebellion. Ezekiel is being warned from the outset to maintain his loyalty to God alone, neither fearing the people nor despising them. His obedience must be in stark contrast to their disobedience. The positive command flows from this: Open your mouth and eat. This is an act of utter submission and reception. A baby bird opens its mouth to be fed by its mother. Ezekiel is to be utterly dependent on what God provides. He is not to invent his message, or edit it, or select the parts he likes. He is to take what is given, all of it.
9 Then I looked, and behold, a hand was sent forth to me; and behold, a scroll was in it.
The action follows the command. Ezekiel's obedience begins with looking. He sees a hand extended to him. The text doesn't specify whose hand, but in the context of the vision of God's glory, it is clearly a divine hand, a manifestation of God's personal action. God does not just shout the message from heaven; He reaches out and delivers it personally. In the hand is a scroll. This is the Word of God in written form. In an age of visions and direct speech, this emphasizes the authority and fixed nature of the message. It is not a vague impression; it is a text. It is a defined, delimited, written word. God's judgments are not capricious; they are recorded, they are legal, they are covenantal. The prophet is being given the official indictment.
10 Then He spread it out before me, and it was written on the front and back, and written on it were lamentations, sighing, and woe.
The scroll is unrolled before Ezekiel so he can see its contents before he eats it. This is important. God is not tricking him into eating something under false pretenses. He wants Ezekiel to know exactly what he is internalizing. The scroll was written on both sides, which in the ancient world indicated that it was completely full. There was no more room to write. This signifies the completeness and finality of the judgment. The cup of Israel's iniquity was full, and so the scroll of God's judgment was also full. There was nothing to be added. And the contents are summarized with three devastating words: lamentations, sighing, and woe. This is a message of grief, sorrow, and doom. There is no gospel in this scroll, no message of comfort for the unrepentant. It is the unvarnished bad news of what happens when a covenant people persist in rebellion. This is what Ezekiel is commanded to eat. He must take this comprehensive message of judgment and make it his own. The sorrow of God over His people's sin must become the sorrow of the prophet.
Application
This passage is a profound challenge to anyone who handles the Word of God today, whether as a pastor, a teacher, or simply as a believer sharing his faith. The first lesson is that we must not be rebellious. We live in a rebellious age, and the temptation is immense to trim the sails of God's Word to accommodate the prevailing winds of culture. We are tempted to skip the hard parts, to mumble through the doctrines that offend modern sensibilities, to turn the lion of Judah into a domesticated house cat. This is rebellion. To be faithful, we must resolve not to be like the rebellious house we are sent to. We must resolve to speak what is written.
The second lesson is that we must eat the book. We cannot faithfully proclaim a Word that we have not first internalized. This means more than just academic study. It is one thing to exegete a passage; it is another thing to let the passage exegete you. We must chew on the Word in meditation, digest it in prayer, and allow it to be absorbed into the bloodstream of our lives. We must let the warnings of Scripture terrify us, the promises of Scripture thrill us, and the commands of Scripture obligate us. We must weep over the lamentations before we can pronounce the woes. If the Word of God is not first a living, active, transforming power in us, it will be a dead letter on our lips. We are called to be conduits of a divine message, and the message must pass through our own hearts before it reaches the hearts of others. Like Ezekiel, we must open our mouths and eat what God has given us, the whole scroll, front and back, sweet and bitter both.