Ezekiel 2:8

But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Eat that I give thee.—This is to be understood, like all that has gone before, as done in vision, as in the case of the book eaten by St. John in Revelation 10:9-10. The figure of eating for receiving into the heart, so as to be thoroughly possessed by what is communicated, is not an uncommon one. (Comp. Jeremiah 15:16; John 6:53-58.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:6-10 Those who will do any thing to purpose in the service of God, must not fear men. Wicked men are as briers and thorns; but they are nigh unto cursing, and their end is to be burned. The prophet must be faithful to the souls of those to whom he was sent. All who speak from God to others, must obey his voice. The discoveries of sin, and the warnings of wrath, should be matter of lamentation. And those acquainted with the word of God, will clearly perceive it is filled with woe to impenitent sinners; and that all the precious promises of the gospel are for the repenting, believing servants of the Lord.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A rebellious house - A phrase employed continually by Ezekiel in bitter irony, in the place of house of Israel, as much as to say, "House no longer of Israel, but of rebellion." Compare Isaiah 30:9.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. eat—(See on [1019]Jer 15:16; Re 10:9, 10). The idea is to possess himself fully of the message and digest it in the mind; not literal eating, but such an appropriation of its unsavory contents that they should become, as it were, part of himself, so as to impart them the more vividly to his hearers.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Hear what I say unto thee; obey when thou hearest. Harden not thyself in a seeming modest declining the office of a prophet, wed not thine own resolution herein.

Rebellious house; house of rebellion, as Ezekiel 2:7.

Open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee: some take this figuratively, as if here the prophet had been called to open the powers of his soul and mind, to receive, retain all that God speaks; but I rather think that the prophet is required to open his mouth to eat what was put into his hand, i.e. the book, insinuating his Divine call and inspiration, and the bitterness of the Jews’ calamity. A visionary book and a visionary eating is here spoken of.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee,.... Which was necessary because he was to speak not his own words, but the Lord's, and therefore ought to hear before he spoke; and indeed those that speak in a public way, for the instruction of others, ought to hear and learn of Christ first:

be not thou rebellious, like that rebellious house; who would not hear what was said unto them; but they were not to be imitated no, not in a lesser degree: the prophet was to avoid everything that looked like rebellion; as in, attention to what was said to him hesitation about it, or backwardness to publish it;

open thy mouth; be ready to receive what should be given, as a symbol of the prophecy he was to deliver. The Targum is,

"incline thy soul, and receive what I give thee.''

Jarchi's note is incline thine ear and hear and let it be sweet to thee, as if thou didst eat food for hunger; and Kimchi observes, the intention of the figurative expression is to learn the words of the prophecy, and to remember them:

and eat that I give thee; which may be safely done; for Christ gives his ministers and people nothing but what is wholesome; his doctrines are wholesome words and may be eaten without fear, 1 Timothy 6:3.

Geneva Study Bible

But thou, son of man, hear what I say to thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and {f} eat that which I give thee.

(f) He not only exhorts him to his duty but also gives him the means with which he may be able to execute it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. be not rebellious] In addition to the positive command, “hear what I say unto thee,” the prophet is warned not to refuse and be rebellious like the house of Israel. There was need for this double peremptoriness of the command. The instinctive act of men before any great undertaking of the kind set before the prophet is to shrink from it. Jonah fled that he might escape from the task laid on him; Moses and Jeremiah both entreated that they might be relieved of it. The work was both arduous and painful: painful because it was against his own people that the prophet had to speak; and arduous because leading to opposition and persecution. There is no easy situation in God’s service. Had the prophet refused the great commission he would have rebelled like Israel. And no doubt Israel’s rebellion was also from an arduous and painful commission, whether we regard its task to have been to walk before God as his people, or to be the prophet of Jehovah to the nations, being entrusted as Ezekiel was with his word. In both Israel may be said to all appearance to have failed. Yet not wholly: the Servant of the Lord, the true Israel of God, existing all throughout the history of the outward Israel, could say, “the Lord opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, nor turned away back” (Isaiah 50:5).

The command to hear and not be rebellious is hardly to be confined to the act of eating the Book, but refers rather to the whole ministry of the prophet, although, considering that the Book was a symbol of all God’s words to him, and his eating it a symbol of his receiving them, the sense in either case is the same (cf. Ezekiel 2:10).

The passage suggests: (1) the divine source of that which the prophet was to say and has said—“eat that I give thee” (Ezekiel 2:8), “a hand stretched out and in it a book” (Ezekiel 2:9), “he made me eat that roll of a book” (Ezekiel 3:2). (2) The definiteness of it: it was a roll of a book (Ezekiel 2:9), although its contents were large, the roll being written both in front of the page and on the back. This was unusual, rolls being generally written only on one side. The idea is reproduced, Revelation 5:1. (3) The nature of the contents—“lamentation and mourning and woe” (Ezekiel 2:10). The prophet was made well aware of the nature of the contents as well as of their extent, “he spread the roll before me” (Ezekiel 2:10). (4) The prophet made the Book his own, he “did eat it,” and it “filled” him (Ezekiel 3:3). And having eaten it it was in his mouth as honey for sweetness. The sweetness was not due to this, that, though the Book contained bitter things at the first, at the end it was filled with promises which were sweet, for there was written thereon lamentation and woe; it was due rather to this that the things written were from God, whose bitter word is sweet. “Thy words were found and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart, for I am called by thy name (am thine and thy servant) Jehovah, God of hosts,” Jeremiah 15:16. Cf. Psalm 19:10; Revelation 10:8-11.

The prophet’s idea of what we call his inspiration is perhaps more precise and stringent than that of Isaiah. In the inaugural vision of the latter prophet (ch. 6), “there flew one of the seraphim having a live coal in his hand, … and he laid it on my mouth and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away.” Immediately on this an impulse seized the prophet to enter upon the service of God: I said, Here am I, send me. The forgiveness of sin and moral purity, carrying with it sympathy with the great King and the ministering spirits around him, and elevating the man into that exalted sphere of life, seemed enough to Isaiah to constitute him a prophet. There was in him a strength and power of character which needed only the removal of the moral hindrance to set them free. But both Jeremiah and Ezekiel were weaker men. Ezekiel as is usual with him makes Jeremiah his model, and he can hardly be said to go beyond that prophet: “The Lord said unto me, whatsoever I command thee that shalt thou speak. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold I have put my words in thy mouth,” Jeremiah 1:7-9. Both the later prophets represent themselves as receiving not merely the “word” but the “words” of Jehovah.

8–3:3. The prophet’s inspiration

Being commanded to speak God’s words to the people, the prophet is next assured by a symbol, a book given him to eat, that God’s words shall be given him.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Be not thou rebellious, etc. The words convey a warning against the prophet's natural weakness. Instinctively he shrank, as Moses had done (Exodus 3:11; Exodus 4:10-13) and Isaiah (Isaiah 6:5) and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:6), from his dread vocation of being a "mortal vessel of the Divine Word." In so shrinking he would identify himself with the very "rebellion" which he was sent to reprove, and would incur its punishment. Eat that I give thee. As in the parallel of Revelation 10:9, the words imply that what was to be given him was no message resting, as it were, on the surface of the soul. It was to enter into the prophet's innermost life, to be the food and nourishment of his soul; to be, in our familiar phrase, "inwardly digested" and incorporated with his very flesh and blood. He was to live "not by bread only" (Deuteronomy 6:3), but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of Jehovah. Ezekiel 2:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

After the Lord had pointed out to the prophet the difficulties of the call laid upon him, He prepared him for the performance of his office, by inspiring him with the divine word which he is to announce. - Ezekiel 2:8. And thou, son of man, hear what I say to thee, Be not stiff-necked like the stiff-necked race; open thy mouth, and eat what I give unto thee. Ezekiel 2:9. Then I saw, and, lo, a hand outstretched towards me; and, lo, in the same a roll of a book. Ezekiel 2:10. And He spread it out before me; the same was written upon the front and back: and there were written upon it lamentations, and sighing, and woe. Ezekiel 3:1. And He said to me: Son of man, what thou findest eat; eat the roll, and go and speak to the house of Israel. Ezekiel 3:2. Then opened I my mouth, and He gave me this roll to eat. Ezekiel 3:3. And said to me: Son of man, feed thy belly, and fill thy body with this roll which I give thee. And I ate it, and it was in my mouth as honey and sweetness. - The prophet is to announce to the people of Israel only that which the Lord inspires him to announce. This thought is embodied in symbol, in such a way that an outstretched hand reaches to him a book, which he is to swallow, and which also, at God's command, he does swallow; cf. Revelation 10:9. This roll was inscribed on both sides with lamentations, sighing, and woe (הי is either abbreviated from נהי, not equals אי, or as Ewald, 101c, thinks, is only a more distinct form of הוי or הו). The meaning is not, that upon the roll was inscribed a multitude of mournful expressions of every kind, but that there was written upon it all that the prophet was to announce, and what we now read in his book. These contents were of a mournful nature, for they related to the destruction of the kingdom, the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple. That Ezekiel may look over the contents, the roll is spread out before his eyes, and then handed to him to be eaten, with the words, "Go and speak to the children of Israel," i.e., announce to the children of Israel what you have received into yourself, or as it is termed in Ezekiel 3:4, דּברי, "my words." The words in Ezekiel 3:3 were spoken by God while handing to the prophet the roll to be eaten. He is not merely to eat, i.e., take it into his mouth, but he is to fill his body and belly therewith, i.e., he is to receive into his innermost being the word of God presented to him, to change it, as it were, into sap and blood. Whilst eating it, it was sweet in his mouth. The sweet taste must not, with Kliefoth, be explained away into a sweet "after-taste," and made to bear this reference, that the destruction of Jerusalem would be followed by a more glorious restoration. The roll, inscribed with lamentation, sorrow, and woe, tasted to him sweetly, because its contents was God's word, which sufficed for the joy and gladness of his heart (Jeremiah 15:16); for it is "infinitely sweet and lovely to be the organ and spokesman of the Omnipotent," and even the most painful of divine truths possess to a spiritually-minded man a joyful and quickening side (Hengstenberg on Revelation 10:9). To this it is added, that the divine penal judgments reveal not only the holiness and righteousness of God, but also prepare the way for the revelation of salvation, and minister to the saving of the soul.