Ezekiel 24:26-27 - Exposition

Yet another sign was given, not to the people, but to the prophet himself. For the present there was to be the silence of unutterable sorrow, continuing, day after day, as there had been before ( Ezekiel 3:26 ). Then there should come a messenger from Jerusalem, reporting its capture and destruction, and then his mouth should be opened. The messenger does not come till nearly three years afterwards ( Ezekiel 33:21 ); and we must infer that there was no spoken message during the interval, but that from Ezekiel 25:1 onward we have the written words of the Lord that came to him from time to time, not as messages to Israel, but as bearing on the fate of the surrounding nations. We have, i.e; what is, strictly speaking, a paten-thesis in the prophet's work.