Ezekiel 3:16-21

III. THE RESPONSIBILITY OF SERVICE 3:16-21

TRANSLATION

(16) And it came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, (17) Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel. Hear the word from My mouth and give them warning from Me. (18) When I say to the wicked, You shall surely die, and you do not warn him nor speak to preserve his life, he is the wicked one who shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will seek from your hand. (19) But as for you, when you warn a wicked one and he does not turn from his wickedness and from his wicked way, he in his iniquity shall die, but as for you, your life you have delivered. (20) And when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I place a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not warn him in his sin he shall die, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will seek from your hand. (21) But as for you, if you warn a righteous man that a righteous man does not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he has been warned and as for you, you have delivered your life.

COMMENTS

Beginning in Ezekiel 3:16 the focus shifts from the national to the individual aspects of Ezekiel's mission. In the midst of the general visitation which would fall upon the nation as a whole, each individual was to stand before the Lord to have his faith and works rewarded or punished. This passage underscores the basic moral principle that each man is individually responsible for his own conduct. Another principle enunciated here is that God's messengers must face up to the responsibility to warn all men of the consequences of their ways.

At the end of the seven days of silence, the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, i.e., he had another revelation from God (Ezekiel 3:16). He learned in this revelation that God had appointed him to be a watchman for the house of Israel.[127] Watchman was not a new name for the prophet of God, but it was not common. Yet it is used at the beginning of Ezekiel's commissioning and is repeated and amplified at his recommissioning in Ezekiel 33:1-9. Evidently the term brings out a prominent feature of Ezekiel's ministry. Ellison puts his finger on this feature when he notes that Ezekiel was not merely to be God's messenger to the people in general; he was to be God's messenger to the individual in particular.[128] He was to be a personal evangelist as well as a public orator. While it is true that only the facts of his public ministry have been preserved, this in no wise nullifies the conclusion here reached. Ezekiel was to engage in a pastoral ministry such as priests in Old Testament times were supposed to perform.[129] The chief contribution of Ezekiel to Old Testament theology is his emphasis on individual responsibility.

[127] Earlier usage of the Watchman concept Isaiah 21:6; Isaiah 52:8; Isaiah 62:6; Habakkuk 2:1; Jeremiah 6:17, A fuller description of the watchman phase of Ezekiel's ministry M found in chapter 33,

[128] Ellison, EMM p. 28.

[129] See Leviticus 10:14, Deuteronomy 24:8 Malachi 2:7; 2 Chronicles 17:7 ff

In his capacity as Watchman Ezekiel was to wait and watch for the word from the mouth of God and warn the people of impending calamity (Ezekiel 3:17). The life and safety of a community was in the hand of a city watchman. So also the life and safety of the people of God was in the hands of Ezekiel. Four different cases are discussed so that Ezekiel might clearly assess his responsibility as Israel's Watchman.

1. Case One Watchman failing to warn the wicked. In his Watchman's role Ezekiel would encounter two types of individuals. First, he would encounter the wicked, those destined to die for the sin they had committed. Ezekiel's job was to warn him. of his wicked way, i.e., of the consequences of continuing his wicked course of conduct. The wicked would be those who do not serve God, but on the contrary, live in open defiance of Him.

Ezekiel is told that the penalty for the wicked is death. He shall die in his iniquity (Ezekiel 3:18). Most commentators see nothing more involved here than the end of physical life. It should be noted that it is not Ezekiel who here speaks; it is the Lord. The question is not, then, what was the level of understanding of the doctrine of retribution or the doctrine of the afterlife in the sixth century. Still less is the full meaning of the utterance to be determined by ascertaining how Ezekiel or his contemporaries may have interpreted the word die. The teaching of the Bible is that those who die unforgiven die for all eternity in a conscious existence elsewhere known as the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15). That a premature death may also be involved cannot be denied. But to contend that premature death exhausts the meaning of the statement is to disregard the total Biblical teaching that eternal retribution follows the physical death of the wicked.

If the prophet fails to faithfully and forthrightly sound the alarm he will be held accountable for the death of that sinner his blood I will seek from your hand (Ezekiel 3:18). Note the change in Ezekiel 3:18 from them to him the individual. The teaching here harks back to the principle expressed in Genesis 9:5 f. Just as the blood of a murdered man demanded retribution by the nearest kinsman on the murderer, so a man dying unwarned would be regarded virtually as the victim of murder committed by the unfaithful Watchman. Though this utterance is metaphorical, it nonetheless emphasizes the enormous responsibility which was Ezekiel'S. Is the Christian responsibility to warn the lost of this generation any less?

2. Case Two Non-repentant wicked. Nothing but good can result from the discharge of responsibility to warn the wicked. If he heeds the warning and alters his course of conduct he will live, i.e., save his soul. If he refuses, he will suffer the con sequences of death. But the messenger thereby has done his duty and thus delivered his own life of blood-guiltiness (Ezekiel 3:19). An important principle of Old Testament jurisprudence is illustrated in this passage: The failure to save life corresponds to murder.

3. Case Three The straying righteous man. On occasion Ezekiel would encounter a man whose basic orientation was righteous but who momentarily had strayed from the path of fidelity. Sometimes God permits a stumblingblock to be placed before such a one some trial, some difficulty, some opportunity for sin. For an example of such a stumblingblock see Ezekiel 7:19 and Ezekiel 44:12. It is true that God tempts no man in order to bring about his destruction. But through His providence and permissive will He allows men to be tried that their faith may be found true. Stumbling was not inevitable. A moral choice was always involved, Furthermore, God provided the Watchman to warn where the stumblingblocks were located,

In such difficulties those who were superficially pious might succumb and depart from the path of righteousness. In such an event the past righteous acts[130] of the man would not be remembered. To neglect to warn such a one would result in his death and the Watchman's guilt (Ezekiel 3:20).

[130] The verb is plural. I n the marginal notes of the Hebrew Bible the Masoretic scribes suggest that the noun should also b e read a s a plural.

4. Case Four: The righteous man who heeds. If a righteous man who had stumbled into sin repented he would thereby save his soul. In any case the Watchman is free from any responsibility so long as he sounded the alarm (Ezekiel 3:21).