Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)

For: Sunday, July 5, 2009

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

From: Ezekiel 2:2-5

The Prophet’s mission
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[2] And when he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me upon my 
feet; and I heard him speaking to me.  [3] And he said to me, "Son of man, I
send you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels, who have rebelled against
me; they and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day.  [4]
The  people also are impudent and stubborn:  I send you to them; and you shall
say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God.'  [5] And whether they ear or refuse to
hear (for  they are a rebellious house) they will know that there has been a pro-
phet among  them.

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Commentary: 

2:1-3:3.  The vision by the river Chebar is all about the grandeur and glory of God,
who is sovereign over all things; whereas the account given of the call of Ezekiel
tells us about the prophet and about the people of Israel, for whom the message
is meant.  The prophet is described as a son of man, whom the Spirit moves, a
prophet among the people; and they are a rebellious people.  The account takes
the form of an address by the Lord containing a command to pass his word on
to the people (2: 1-7) and a symbolic action in which Ezekiel eats the scroll gi-
ven to him by God (2:8-3:3).

2:1. “Son of man”: this title is used repeatedly in these opening chapters. It oc-
curs later on, too, more than ninety times; but it has special significance here,
which is the first time it is used.  Because Ezekiel is living in exile in a foreign
and therefore unclean country, he cannot be given grand titles. He is an ordinary
mortal, one creature among many, on an infinitely lower level than the Lord; one
more among his people, like them an exile, a person brought low, but also some-
one who has hope in his heart.  St Gregory the Great explains the title like this:
“He is brought up often into heaven and his soul rejoices at great and beautiful
mysteries which remain invisible to us. But it is fitting that he be called "son of
man" while he contemplates those hidden wonders, so that he will not forget
who he is or glory in the splendour that has been revealed to him” ("Homiliae in
Ezechielem prophetam", 1, 12, 22).

2:2.  “The Spirit set me upon my feet”.  In the vision of God’s glory, the word
“spirit” has three meanings.  It is a natural thing -- a stormy wind, breath, spirit
(1:4; cf. 13:11).  From this comes the second meaning:  "spirit" is an inner,
superhuman strength which guides the actions of living creatures and cherubim,
deciding when they should move and where they should go (cf. 1:12, 20, 21).
But in the account of the call of Ezekiel, “spirit” has a third meaning:  it is life-
force, reminiscent of the “breath of life” that God breathed into man at the mo-
ment of creation (cf. Gen 2:7); this meaning will be seen more clearly in the vi-
sion of the bones brought back to life (cf. 37:5, 6, 8, 10).  As a life-force, every
time that the spirit affects Ezekiel, it is to ‘‘set him on his feet’’ (cf. 2:1; 3:20),
to “lift him up’’ (cf. 3:12, 14, 24), so that he is better able to hear the word of
God and to see what is happening in the temple of Jerusalem cf. 8:3; 11:1; 43:
5) or in Babylon (cf. 11:24).  It is therefore an inner energy that transforms the
prophet and helps him to hear or see things that he could not if left on his own,
for he is a mere “son of man”.

2:3.  Israel is a “nation of rebels” or, as it is put a little further on in the text, a “re-
bellious house” (2:8).  The book defines the people of Israel in this negative way
(cf. 2:5, 6, 8; 3:9) because it sums up the sinful history of their forebears and their
own hostility towards God.  Their rebelliousness involves arrogance towards God,
rejection of his commandments, and refusal to listen to what he says. It makes
them stubborn:  one can even see it in their faces. Time and again Ezekiel tells
them that their sin is grave, for they have freely chosen to adopt this attitude.
They “will not listen to you”, the Lord says to Ezekiel, “for they are not willing to
listen to me” (3:7).  Precisely because sin requires a free act of the will, the pro-
phet puts special emphasis on personal responsibility.  Each individual will be
punished for his or her sins, not for those of their forebears (cf. 18:1 32). Be-
cause the people are so rebellious, God wants the prophet to he especially do-
cile: “Do not be rebellious” (2:8).  The Lord asks him to listen carefully to the
word of God and to accept it joyfully.  The gesture of eating the scroll shows
what docility requires.  Even though the scroll contains “words of lamentation
and mourning and woe” (2:10), the prophet will find it “sweet as honey” when he
does what he is told.

2:4.  “Thus says the Lord God”:  this makes it clear that the prophet is not speak-
ing on his own behalf.  It is usually termed a “messenger formula” (words a mes-
senger uses to preface his message), and occurs often in other prophetical
books, particularly Isaiah and Jeremiah.  However, in Ezekiel, where it appears
almost 130 times, the name of God is reinforced (“Lord God”), to signal the infinite
majesty of the Lord who speaks with full authority.  The people’s stubbornness in
rejecting God’s word is an act of rebellion, and the docility shown by the prophet
is an almost obligatory act of submission.  Ezekiel never resists the voice of the
Lord, never raises any personal objection or difficulty unlike Isaiah and Jeremiah.
On the contrary, knowing that he is passing on a divine message, not inventing
one of his own, he must do this bravely, and never flag, even if the people refuse
to listen (cf. 2:6-7; 3:11).  “True prophets are those who say the words that God
has spoken to them; the prophet of God is the one who delivers the words of
God to men who cannot or do not deserve to understand God himself” (St Augus-
tine, "Quaestiones in Heptateuchum", 2, 17).

2:5.  “They will know that there has been a prophet among them”:  a formal con-
firmation that Ezekiel is indeed a prophet.  At a time when there was no king (for
he was the prisoner of Nebuchadnezzar) and no temple (for it had been profaned
and destroyed) and no social or religious institutions among the Jews, prophets
acquired increased status.  The prophet was God’s only representative among
the people; he was the only one with authority to demand that they listen to his
message.

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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries".  Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.  We encourage readers to purchase
The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ."  --  St Jerome

"The Father uttered one Word; that Word is His Son, and He utters Him forever
in everlasting silence: and in silence the soul has to hear it.
   --  St John of the Cross