Ezekiel 4

BOOK 1.

CHAPTERS 4-24.

Symbols and Oracles Concerning the Wickedness and Doom of the Chosen People and the Holy City because of Idolatry.

SIEGE OF JERUSALEM SYMBOLIZED BY THE PICTURED TILE.

It has been a question with commentators whether these symbolic actions were actually performed or whether they were merely parts of the vision described by Ezekiel after awaking from his ecstasy. It is claimed that some of the actions could not have been performed without a miracle, and if we admit that some of these were not literally accomplished, what reason have we for believing that any of them were? Dr. Davidson declares: “The prophet no more drew a sketch of Jerusalem upon a brick than he was carried by the hair of his head from the Chebar to Palestine. The symbols stood actually before his imagination, and the narration of them to the people would convey the same instruction as the actual representation of them (Ezekiel 4:3; Ezekiel 11:25).” But does it follow that because some symbolic actions were seen by the prophet in vision that therefore no symbolic actions were ever performed by him before the people? It ought not to be surprising if one who was so often in prophetic ecstasy should fail to discriminate perfectly in his narrative between the actions literally performed and those which he saw in vision. Most of the symbolic actions might easily have been performed, and if the prophet were made dumb (iii, 26), these would seem to be the only way in which he could have preached to the people. By using symbolic actions he was only following the example of many prophets (1 Kings 22:11; Jeremiah 27:2).