3 Then He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” 2 So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. 3 He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your [a]body with this scroll which I am giving you.” Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.
4 Then He said to me, “Son of man, [b]go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them. 5 For you are not being sent to a people of [c]unintelligible speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel, 6 nor to many peoples of [d]unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. [e]But I have sent you to them [f]who should listen to you; 7 yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, since they are not willing to listen to Me. Surely the whole house of Israel is [g]stubborn and obstinate. 8 Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. 9 Like [h]emery harder than flint I have made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house.” 10 Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, take into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and listen [i]closely. 11 [j]Go to the exiles, to the sons of your people, and speak to them and tell them, whether they listen or [k]not, ‘Thus says the Lord [l]God.’”
12 Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard a great rumbling sound behind me, “Blessed be the glory of the Lord [m]in His place.” 13 And I heard the sound of the wings of the living beings touching one another and the sound of the wheels beside them, even a great rumbling sound. 14 So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away; and I went embittered in the rage of my spirit, and the hand of the Lord was strong on me. 15 Then I came to the exiles who lived beside the river Chebar at Tel-abib, and I sat there seven days where they were living, causing consternation among them.
Well, that must have been a nice surprise. I know I would have gritted my teeth a bit and braced myself for the bitter taste of eating that scroll. Lo and behold, it was sweet as honey, whew! Yet it seems like God was just getting warmed up, as He gives Ezekiel these next words (vv. 4-11) as a lovely bit of encouragement. Rather, God tells Ezekiel that it isn’t going to be very fruitful at all.
These people are not a foreign people like the prophet Jonah had to deal with. Nope, just his own fellow Israelites, they spoke the same language, and ought to have welcomed a prophet from God. But God doesn’t want Ezekiel to have any false expectations, so He warns him that they’ll be stubborn and obstinate. To cope with that, God is going to give him a forehead of emery (or corundum).
Now, for those who are unaware (like I was), corundum is second only to diamond in hardness, rating at a whopping 9 out of 10 on the Mohs scale. Either way, this isn’t starting off very well. The people will be hard, Ezekiel will be as stubborn (maybe more), but the job must be done, “whether they listen or not.” We see unsurprisingly in v. 15 that Ezekiel causes much consternation among the exiles for seven days.
Yup, off to a roaring start! But why? Why would God ask Ezekiel to deliver messages to such a stubborn group of people? Jeremiah and Isaiah had similar tasks, thankless, and dangerous even. At times, God calls us also to similar tasks, and we might think we’re preaching to the wind as our words are whisked away with no effect.
However, God sees the hearts, and He knew it wouldn’t always be this way. It was like the sower Jesus described, scattering seed all over the place. Some fell on rocky ground, some among the weeds, some snatched up by the birds. But some, those are the ones, that grew up and yielded a harvest, as the seed found fertile soil.
Though it seemed hopeless, not all the people were so hard, and they would grow less so over the years of captivity. Then they would remember the word of God that Ezekiel delivered, and then they would repent. God had seventy years to woo His people back, and He wasn’t wasting any time. Therein also lies the second reason…
Hard as their hearts were, diamond is 3x stronger than corumund, and much more enduring is the love of God. He would not abandon His people to their stubborn ways, but continued to send messengers throughout their captivity. God’s love endures today, and so He asks us also to scatter seed. It may seem indiscriminate, but so it must be, for only God knows their hearts.
We look at appearances and think, “Oh that person looks like they want to know God…” or “Yikes, that person looks pretty hard and hopeless!” As someone reminded me the other day, “I may look hard, but I’m really not…” If we never take the chance, how will they ever get to know the love of God. So scatter the seed, let His love overflow your cup. Don’t try to pick and choose, but let it go free, to find the ones whom God is calling.