Ezekiel 3:16-27

The theme of this passage is the responsibility of doing exactly what God
says or facing the consequences.

Context
This passage presents many difficulties of interpretation, 98 not least of which is the
relationship of the watchman passage of 3:16-21 to its context. 99 There are a number of
puzzling features of this watchman passage which call for comment. The first is the fact
that it stands outside the account of Ezekiel’s commissioning which ends at 3:15. Is it
therefore to be regarded as a second commissioning, or perhaps a second stage of
Ezekiel’s commissioning? Either way the question of its relationship to what has gone
before needs to be addressed.

The second issue has to do with its focus on individuals rather than the nation as a whole,
and the way in which it seems to envisage the possibility of escape from judgement if the
proper response is made. This is in marked contrast to what has gone before, where
Ezekiel’s ministry is described as having a national focus, and where the message is one
of irrevocable judgement (‘lamentations, mourning and woe’).

The third problem relates to Ezekiel’s divinely imposed dumbness. It seems strange that
Ezekiel is commissioned as a watchman, charged with warning people, and then told to
close himself up in his house and informed that he will be made dumb. This is not an
insoluble problem, as we shall see below, but a puzzling aspect of the passage
nevertheless. It has to do fundamentally with how the watchman passage relates to what
follows.

Two main possibilities deserve consideration:

• The watchman passage of 3:16-21 is part of a Ezekiel’s initial call to be a prophet
(Block, Greenberg)
• The watchman passage of 3:16-21 belongs chronologically after the fall of Jerusalem,
but is placed here for thematic reasons (Zimmerli).

On the first view the call of Ezekiel occupies the whole of the first three chapters of the
book, but has two distinct stages to it. The first is completed by the end of 3:15. This
stage highlights Ezekiel’s ministry of judgement to the nation as a whole. This judgement
is inescapable. The central component in this stage of his call is the eating of the scroll. To
put it another way, the focus here is on Ezekiel’s reception of the content of his ministry—
the message of judgement on Jerusalem. What follows in 3:16-27 is a second phase of his
commissioning in which the focus is on his responsibility to warn and admonish
individuals. Like the first phase this second stage of his call has a symmetrical design.
Two speeches frame a second encounter with the glory of Yahweh, in which (again) the
Spirit enters Ezekiel and sets him on his feet (3:22-24a). The first speech informs Ezekiel
that he has been appointed a watchman; the second tells him how he is to discharge
that role: not by a continuous public ministry of reproof and admonishment, but by a
symbolic silence broken from time to time when Yahweh gives him an oracle and opens his
mouth.

This is how Ezekiel actually functions in chs 4-5. He performs symbolic acts in silence, and
then speaks an oracle of judgement. But the content of chs 4-5 seems to relate much
more the first phase of his commissioning, for it is in effect an announcement of
irrevocable judgement on the nation as a whole rather than a warning to individuals. So
the precise relationship of the watchman passage to what follows remains unclear, which
is a problem for this view.

The second viewpoint (Zimmerli’s) is suggested by the fact that there is a second
watchman passage in chapter 33, after the fall of Jerusalem has been announced. This
marks the transition to the new phase of Ezekiel’s ministry in which hope is offered,
especially to those who will heed the warning that the national disaster has given. The
watchman passage of 3:16-21 is included at the beginning for completeness (a full
account of Ezekiel’s call in both its aspects), but chronologically it belongs to the
second, later phase of his ministry. On this view there is no real connection between the
watchman passage of 3:16-21 and what follows it. Instead, it stands somewhat isolated in
its context. It tells us in advance about an aspect of Ezekiel’s ministry which will not come
into effect until later. What follows it, in 3:22-27, is not the beginning of Ezekiel’s ministry
as a watchman, but the beginning of the first phase of his ministry, in which he
announces irrevocable doom on Jerusalem. His going to his house and being made dumb
sets the scene, and acts as introduction to, the series of symbolic actions which follow.
This first phase of his ministry continues until his dumbness is lifted with the fall of
Jerusalem. The problem with this view is that Ezekiel’s commissioning as a watchman is
explicitly said to have occurred seven days after the end of the first phase of his call
(3:16). Unless we are to regard this as purely artificial chronology produced by the
thematic arrangement of the material, we cannot relegate Ezekiel’s role as watchman
solely to the later part of his ministry.

A third alternative is to see the watchman passage of 3:16-21 as part of Ezekiel’s initial
call, but highlighting something (i.e. warning individuals) that does not become a
prominent part of his ministry until later—after the fall of Jerusalem. The passage which
immediately follows it, 3:2227 is best seen as introducing the series of symbolic acts
which follow. In these Ezekiel embarks upon the first major part of his ministry,
announcing irrevocable judgement on Jerusalem. However, each individual is
responsible for how he responds to this message of judgement on the nation (3:27). 101

Structure
These verses clearly fall into three main sections, marked by three distinct divine
instructions: 1. The call to be a watchman (vv.16-21)
2. The command to relocate for further revelation (vv.22-23)
3. The charge to submit to divinely-imposed restraints (vv.24-27)

Ezek. 3:16 And at the end of seven days,

the word of the LORD came to me: 17 “Son
of man, I have made you a watchman for
the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a
word from my mouth, you shall give them
warning from me. 18 If I say to the wicked,
‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no
warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from
his wicked way, in order to save his life, that
wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but
his blood I will require at your hand. 19 But
if you warn the wicked, and he does not
turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked
way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you
will have delivered your soul. 20 Again, if a
righteous person turns from his
righteousness and commits injustice, and I
lay a stumbling block before him, he shall
die. Because you have not warned him, he
shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds
that he has done shall not be remembered,
but his blood I will require at your hand. 21
But if you warn the righteous person not to
sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live,
because he took warning, and you will have
delivered your soul.”

Ezek. 3:22 And the hand of the LORD was

upon me there. And he said to me, “Arise,
go out into the valley, and there I will
speak with you.” 23 So I arose and went
out into the valley, and behold, the glory of
the LORD stood there, like the glory that I
had seen by the Chebar canal, and I fell on
my face.

24 But the Spirit entered into me and set

me on my feet, and he spoke with me and
said to me, “Go, shut yourself within your
house. 25 And you, O son of man, behold,
cords will be placed upon you, and you shall
be bound with them, so that you cannot go
out among the people. 26 And I will make
your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth,
so that you shall be mute and unable to
reprove them, for they are a rebellious
house. 27 But when I speak with you, I will
open your mouth, and you shall say to
them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD.’ He who
will hear, let him hear; and he who will
refuse to hear, let him refuse, for they are a
rebellious house.

Contribution to the Book

As before, this text establishes Ezekiel’s prophetic credentials: he speaks with divine
rather than human authority. God has obligated him to this task, and the prophet must
carry it out as and when God directs. As God’s representative, Ezekiel is the very
embodiment of his message. This message, while primarily negative (the wages of
sin is death, hence judgement is unavoidable), also incorporates a positive
dimension: life for those who persevere in righteousness. While it will subsequently be
made clear that spiritual transformation is required, such an experience is again
illustrated here in the experience of Ezekiel: it was by the Spirit that the prophet became
receptive to Yahweh’s word.