Ezekiel 3:16-21

More precise definition of the prophet's appointment: he is set to be a watchman

So soon as the prophet is face to face with the exiles, and is able to see the sphere and materials of his work, he receives a more precise account of his position he is appointed a watchman or sentinel. The watchman stands on his watch-tower to observe, and his office therefore is to warn, should danger be seen approaching. Isaiah 21:6, "Thus saith the Lord, Go set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth." Jeremiah 6:17, "Also I set watchmen over you and said, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet, but they said, We will not hearken;" Habakkuk 2:1; comp. 2 Kings 9:17-20. The appointment of Ezekiel as watchman was not a change upon his original appointment as "prophet" (ch. Ezekiel 2:5), it is only a more precise definition of it. The term, which had already been used by Jer. (Jeremiah 6:17), expresses the duties and part of a prophet of this age. Ezekiel entered on his prophetic career with his ideas as to the course of events to come fixed and matured. The fall of Jerusalem was a certainty. And his true place was in the midst of a people whom this great calamity had overtaken. The destruction of the state was not the end of Israel or of the kingdom of God. Israel would be gathered again, and the kingdom of God reconstituted. But it would be on new principles. God would no more deal with men in the lump and as a state, he would deal separately with each individual soul (ch. 18). The destruction of the former state, however, was not the final judgment. Before the new kingdom of God arose men would have to pass through a new crisis, and to pass through it as individual persons, and the issue of this crisis would be "life" or "death" to them. It is in this full sense that Ezekiel speaks of the wicked dying and the righteous living. To "live" is to be preserved and enter the new kingdom of God, to "die" is to perish in the crisis and be excluded from it. The idea of a "watchman" implies danger imminent (ch. Ezekiel 33:1-6), and the coming crisis is the ideal danger before the prophet's mind. Hence the part of the watchman is to warn men in regard to this coming sifting of individual souls, and to prepare them for it. The idea is part of the prophet's individualism, his teaching regarding the freedom and responsibility to God of the individual mind (ch. 18, 33). Hence the watchman warns all classes of men, the wicked that he may turn from his evil lest he "die," and the righteous that he may be confirmed in his righteousness and "live." The watchman's place is behind the destruction of the old state and in front of the new and final kingdom of God, for the reconstruction of which he labours. This place is given him in ch. 33.