Ezekiel Eats the Scroll
The LORD tells Ezekiel to eat the scroll and then go speak to the house of Israel. Ezekiel obeys, opening his mouth to receive it, and finds that what God gives him is to be filled inwardly before it is proclaimed outwardly. The prophet is reminded that he is not being sent to unintelligible foreign peoples, and that if he were, some of them might listen more readily than Israel will.
“1Son of man,” He said to me, “eat what you find here. Eat this scroll, then go and speak to the house of Israel.” 2So I opened my mouth, and He fed me the scroll. 3“Son of man,” He said to me, “eat and fill your stomach with this scroll I am giving you.” 4Then He said to me, “Son of man, go now to the house of Israel and speak My words to them. 5For you are not being sent to a people of unfamiliar speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel — 6not to the many peoples of unfamiliar speech and difficult language whose words you cannot understand. Surely if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you.
Israel's resistance is then described as hard-headed and hard-hearted, unwilling to listen because they do not want to listen to the LORD Himself. In response, God makes Ezekiel's face and forehead correspondingly hard, like diamond harder than flint, so that he will not be broken by opposition. He must take the divine words into his own heart and then speak them to the exiles whether they listen or refuse.
7But the house of Israel will be unwilling to listen to you, since they are unwilling to listen to Me. For the whole house of Israel is hard-headed and hard-hearted. 8Behold, I will make your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. 9I will make your forehead like a diamond, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or dismayed at their presence, even though they are a rebellious house.” 10“Son of man,” He added, “listen carefully to all the words I speak to you, and take them to heart. 11Go to your people, the exiles; speak to them and tell them, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says,’ whether they listen or refuse to listen.”
The Spirit lifts Ezekiel up and he hears a great rumbling sound tied to the moving creatures and wheels of the earlier vision, accompanied by praise to the LORD's glory. Taken away in bitterness and in the heat of his spirit, yet still under the strong hand of the LORD, he comes to the exiles at Tel-abib by the River Kebar. There he sits among them stunned for seven days.
12Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard a great rumbling sound behind me: “Blessed be the glory of the LORD in His dwelling place!” 13It was the sound of the wings of the living creatures brushing against one another and the sound of the wheels beside them, a great rumbling sound. 14So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the LORD upon me. 15I came to the exiles at Tel-abib who dwelt by the River Kebar. And for seven days I sat where they sat and remained there among them, overwhelmed.