a word · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Matthew 15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæ…
Ezekiel 2:3 And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their…
Ezekiel 2:7 And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious.
Ezekiel 3:11 And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; whe…
Matthew 10:5-6 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 3:1-15
These verses are fitly joined by some translators to the foregoing chapter, as being of a piece with it and a continuation of the same vision. The prophets received the word from God that they might deliver it to the people of God, furnished themselves that they might furnish them with the knowledge of the mind and will of God. Now here the prophet is taught,
I. How he must receive divine revelation himself, Eze 3:1. Christ (whom he saw upon the throne, Eze 1:26) said to him, "Son of man, eat this roll, admit this revelation into thy understanding, take it, take the meaning of it, understand it aright, admit it into thy heart, apply it, and be affected with it; imprint it in thy mind, rumina…
honey for sweetness--Compare Psa 19:10; Psa 119:103; Rev 10:9, where, as here in Eze 3:14, the "sweetness" is followed by "bitterness." The former being due to the painful nature of the message; the latter because it was the Lord's service which he was engaged in; and his eating the roll and finding it sweet, implied that, divesting himself of carnal feeling, he made God's will his will, however painful the message that God might require him to announce. The fact that God would be glorified was his greatest pleasure.
Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 3:3
It was in my mouth as honey - It was joyous to me to receive the Divine message, to be thus let into the secrets of the Divine counsel, and I promised myself much comfort in that intimate acquaintance with which I was favored by the Supreme Being. In Rev 10:10 we find St. John receiving a little book, which he ate, and found it sweet as honey in his mouth, but after he had eaten it, it made his belly bitter, signifying that a deep consideration of the awful matter contained in God's word against sinners, which multitudes of them will turn to their endless confusion, must deeply afflict those who know any thing of the worth of an immortal spirit.
John Gill on Ezekiel 3:4
And he said unto me, son of man, go,.... After he had eaten the roll; for then was he qualified to prophesy:
get thee unto the house of Israel; to whom he was to prophesy:
and speak with my words unto them: not with his own words; nor with the words of men, the enticing words of man's wisdom; but with the words of Christ; with the taught words of the Holy Ghost; with what is written in the roll; the words of this prophecy are meant. So the Targum,
"and thou shalt prophesy the words of my prophecy unto them;''
in like manner John after he had eaten the little book, is told that he must prophesy before many people, nations, tongues, and kings, Revelation 10:9; though Ezekiel was only sent…
The Church Fathers
Here he clearly shows the distinction between apostolic and prophetic labors. Prophets have committed to them the responsibility of only one race, from which they were to have arisen and whose native language they knew. Apostles … have all the nations and peoples of the world entrusted to them, according to the command of the Lord.
What does that show, if not that God was speaking through the prophet? Now it is we clergy who were above all terrified by the prophet's words, that is, the leaders whom God appointed to speak to his people, and so we begin by seeing our own faces in those words. For as the reader intoned them we had a kind of mirror held up to us in which we could inspect ourselves, and inspect ourselves we did. Inspect yourselves, too, then.
(Verse 5, 6.) For you are not being sent to the people of deep and difficult language, to the house of Israel, nor to many people of unknown language, whose language you cannot understand. And if I were to send you to them, they would listen to you. Because they do not want to come to you, you go to them. For they do not have a need for a healthy doctor, but for ones who are sick (Luke 5:31). Nor can you say: I cannot speak to them, because they speak a different language, and we are barbarians to each other, and we cannot understand each other's speech. What shall I speak of one people? If I were to send you to different nations, nevertheless my authority and power would conquer all difficulty.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Rebellion Against God · Ministers: Sent to those guilty of — Ministers: Sent to those guilty of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Ezekiel 3:4-7
4. And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them.
4. Et dixit mihi, Fili hominis, vade (ingredere) ad domum Israel, et loquere ad eos in sermonibus reels.
5. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel;
5. Quia non ad populum profun-dos [67] labiis et gravem lingua, tu missus es ad domum (Israel scilicet.)
6. Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee.
6. Non ad populos multos pro-fundos labio et graves lingua quos non intell…
After the Lord had pointed out to the prophet the difficulties of the call laid upon him, He prepared him for the performance of his office, by inspiring him with the divine word which he is to announce. - Eze 2:8. And thou, son of man, hear what I say to thee, Be not stiff-necked like the stiff-necked race; open thy mouth, and eat what I give unto thee. Eze 2:9. Then I saw, and, lo, a hand outstretched towards me; and, lo, in the same a roll of a book. Eze 2:10. And He spread it out before me; the same was written upon the front and back: and there were written upon it lamentations, and sighing, and woe. Eze 3:1. And He said to me: Son of man, what thou findest eat; eat the roll, and go and…
Ezekiel was sent to God’s people, the people of Israel, whom one would expect to be eager to listen to the Lord. However, it would have been easier for the prophet if he had been sent to people with strange and difficult speech who could not understand him. This hard-hearted community refused to obey the Lord.
Rashi on Ezekiel 3:3
so I ate, and in my mouth, etc. I accepted it, and its words were in my mouth as sweet honey.
