Ezekiel 33 - Introduction

XXXIII.

This chapter consists of two communications (Ezekiel 33:1). The first of them is without date, but at least a very probable conjecture may be formed of the time when it was uttered. In Ezekiel 33:21, it is said that Ezekiel was informed in the morning by a fugitive from Jerusalem of the destruction of the city, and in accordance with the promise of Ezekiel 24:27, his “mouth was opened, and I was no more dumb.” But it is added in Ezekiel 33:22 that “the hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening, afore he that was escaped came.” It is clear, then, that Ezekiel uttered some prophecy on the evening before that recorded in the latter part of the chapter, while there is none bearing such a date. The prophecy of the earlier part is, however, just such an one as might be expected at that time; for it is a renewal of the charge to him in his work on entering afresh on his prophetic activity towards Israel. There can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt that this is the prophecy of the evening before he received the official tidings of the fall of Jerusalem, and is placed, like all his other prophecies (except those against foreign nations), in its proper chronological order.

The prophecy itself is an amplification of the charge given in Ezekiel 3:16, but also with constant reference to Ezekiel 18.