Ezekiel 3:16

JEHOVAH AGAIN LAYS HIS HAND UPON THE PROPHET AND RECOMMISSIONS HIM WITH INCREASED SOLEMNITY, Ezekiel 3:16-21.

16. At the end of seven days God was tender with the disobedient prophet; for the task was far harder than Jonah’s or Moses’, in that it was not the heathen, but his own friends whom he must condemn and from whom he must receive scorn. What he was to say would seem to them both treason and blasphemy; for he was commanded to utter words against Israel and the holy city and the holy temple as terrible as former prophets had been commanded to speak against Egypt or Philistia or Babylon. No wonder the tongue of the prophet was paralyzed even as he attempted to obey. For an entire week Jehovah watched the inward struggle, and then again spoke to him of the heinousness of his rebellion, explaining to him that silence on his part would not cause the escape of his guilty countrymen and would bring bloodguiltiness upon his own soul.