Ezekiel 1:3

What was visions, Ezekiel 1:1, is here the word, both as signifying and declaring the mind of God, what he would do, and as containing his commands to Ezekiel and to the people, to whom these visions spake by signs. The word of the Lord: lest the prophet should want his warrant, or the Jews except to his advice, it is plainly told them that Jehovah the sovereign Lord and eternal God, by Ezekiel, counsels, warns, commands, and threatens. Came expressly unto; emphatically translated as it is emphatically expressed in the Hebrew, being with him, it was with him; so long he might discern, so clear he might understand, so near he could not be deceived, or easily forget what he was to tell them. Ezekiel signifies either, the strength of God, or, strengthened by God, and in a few syllables contains what is more largely set forth, Ezekiel 3:8,9. He speaks of himself in the third person. The priest; who therefore should be regarded as one whose interest among the priests at Jerusalem would be best promoted if better things might be hoped and shortly expected than he must now tell them; it was likely he dealt truly with them, when he must share so much in the sad things foretold. He was of the priests originally, he was a prophet by extraordinary call. The son of Buzi; of a contemned man, so the etymology of the Hebrew, which gave the rabbins occasion to apply it to Jeremiah, and to account the prophet either son or servant to Jeremiah; but it is a proper name. In the land of the Chaldeans, enemies to, and now masters of, poor captive Jews, the church of God: there God makes him a prophet, who was an ordinary priest in the land of Israel. The river Chebar, though a river of Mesopotamia, yet here seems placed in Chaldea, because Mesopotamia was part of the kingdom of the Chaldeans; so Chebar or Chobar was in the land, i.e. within the kingdom, of Chaldea, but particularly in Mesopotamia, a province of that kingdom. The hand of the Lord; the Divine impulse moving with power and efficacy on Ezekiel for the work, and clearly confirming and demonstrating to the captive Jews that he was the prophet of the Lord, and spake to them in his name; the Spirit of prophecy, as the Chaldee Paraphrase. Was upon him there: God is not confined; though most prophets were in the land of Israel, yet here in Chaldea also appears a great prophet, and should be hearkened unto.