4 And he said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. 5 For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel— 6 not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. 7 But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. 8 Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. 9 Like emery harder than flint have I made your forehead. Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.” 10 Moreover, he said to me, “Son of man, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart, and hear with your ears. 11 And go to the exiles, to your people, and speak to them and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God’, whether they hear or refuse to hear.”
12 Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great earthquake: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from its place!” 13 It was the sound of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, and the sound of a great earthquake.14 The Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the Lord being strong upon me.
At first glance what is said in 5 might seem to suggest that the commission God had given Ezekiel was not an over-hard one since it was not as if he would have the burden of learning a strange language before communicating his message. But in fact the opposite is the case. The point that is being made is that a heathen nation, of strange language, might well have listened to the message and responded in obedience to it (cf the message of the book of Jonah) whereas Israel, who had had all the privileges of the covenant had so perversely hardened themselves against God that nothing could now penetrate their minds and hearts. This bears witness to the fact that it is often much harder to communicate the gospel to a people who share common interests and common ties and bonds with ourselves than to a people outside, more difficult to speak to our own kith and kin than to strangers. In 7, Israel's unwillingness to listen is again emphasised, but the important thing is not that they should or should not listen, but that they should know that a prophet has been in their midst (cf 2:5). In 8, the language is similar to that in 2:3ff, but whereas the earlier verses speak of Ezekiel's commissioning and call, here it is his equipment for his task by God. We shall see in the chapters that follow how abundantly this word was fulfilled to Ezekiel, because throughout the prophecy we see a man quite unbending and quite unmovable. In 12-14 the prophet is once again caught up in the visionary experience related in the first chapter. We should realise that this also represents the divine enabling for the ongoing task: his ministry is to be understood in terms of being caught up into the divine purposes, and if a man is so caught up in the vision of the power and glory of God, he is going to be able for anything. This is the basic need and requirement of any true prophet of the Lord. But there is something else to he said about these last verses, and it will occupy our thoughts in the next Note.