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The Lord Chooses Ezekiel
1The Lord said, “Ezekiel, son of man, I want you to stand up and listen.” 2After he said this, his Spirit took control of me and lifted me to my feet. Then the Lord said:
3Ezekiel, I am sending you to the people of Israel. They are just like their ancestors who rebelled against me and refused to stop. 4They are stubborn and hardheaded. But I, the Lord God, have chosen you to tell them what I say. 5Those rebels may not even listen, but at least they will know that a prophet has come to them.
6Don't be afraid of them or of anything they say. You may think you're in the middle of a thorn patch or a bunch of scorpions. But be brave 7and preach my message to them, whether they choose to listen or not. 8Ezekiel, don't rebel against me, as they have done. Instead, listen to everything I tell you.
And now, Ezekiel, open your mouth and eat what I am going to give you.
9 Just then, I saw a hand stretched out toward me. And in it was a scroll. 10The hand opened the scroll, and both sides of it were filled with words of sadness, mourning, and grief.
1 The Lord said, “Ezekiel, son of man, after you eat this scroll, go speak to the people of Israel.”
2-3He handed me the scroll and said, “Eat this and fill up on it.” So I ate the scroll, and it tasted sweet as honey.
4The Lord said:
Ezekiel, I am sending you to your own people. 5-6They are Israelites, not some strangers who speak a foreign language you can't understand. If I were to send you to foreign nations, they would listen to you. 7But the people of Israel will refuse to listen, because they have refused to listen to me. All of them are stubborn and hardheaded, 8so I will make you as stubborn as they are. 9You will be so determined to speak my message that nothing will stop you. I will make you hard like a diamond, and you'll have no reason to be afraid of those arrogant rebels.
10Listen carefully to everything I say and then think about it. 11Then go to the people who were brought here to Babylonia with you and tell them you have a message from me, the Lord God. Do this, whether they listen to you or not.
12The Spirit lifted me up, and as the glory of the Lord started to leave, I heard a loud, thundering noise behind me. 13It was the sound made by the creatures' wings as they brushed against each other, and by the rumble of the wheels beside them. 14Then the Spirit carried me away.
The Lord's power had taken complete control of me, and I was both annoyed and angry.
15When I was back with the others living at Abib Hill near the Chebar River, I sat among them for seven days, shocked at what had happened to me.
Reflect
With respect to eating healthy foods, there is a slogan, “You are what you eat”. It stresses how what we intake into our bodies affects our physical wellbeing. The same can be applied to our spiritual wellbeing. Feeding moral or spiritual trash into our lives, does negatively influence how we live. On the other hand, feeding on morally upright and good things impacts our spiritual lives in a positive way.
Ezekiel 2 is part of the vision experience in which the Lord is calling Ezekiel to serve as a prophet – a messenger who would speak forth God’s word. The Lord requires Ezekiel to do a strange thing: eat a scroll. The eating of the scroll symbolizes Ezekiel taking in and digesting the word of God, before Ezekiel subsequently speaks forth that very word. The eating of the scroll experience demonstrated to Ezekiel that, when it comes to being a prophet, “you are what you eat”. Before Ezekiel can speak forth the word of God, it must first become part of who he is. He cannot, with integrity, speak forth God’s word, unless that word has first become digested into his life and has shaped and molded how he lives his life. There is to be no duplicity between how Ezekiel lives and what he says to others on the Lord’s behalf.
The adage, “you are what you eat”, is true not only for prophets, but for all followers of Christ as our lives are to display Christ in all that we say and do. The scripture repeatedly exhorts all of us to have the word of God in our hearts. There is the necessity for us to be ingesting the word of God into our lives so that we can be living it out.
Respond
Lord, you are the one who has spoken to us through your written word. Give me a desire to immerse myself in your word. Give me a desire to feed on your word, so that it becomes part of who I am, and guides all that I say and do.
Kelvin Friebel
I hold a M.A. & Ph.D. in Hebrew & Semitic Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I have taught Old Testament at Canadian Theological Seminary in Regina, SK, and Houghton College, in Houghton, NY. I have pastored Wesleyan and Christian & Missionary Alliance churches both in Wisconsin and Saskatchewan. I have taught and preached in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Philippines, Jordan, Thailand, My wife works at the University of Regina, and we have two grown children and five grandchildren.