21In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, a fugitive from Jerusalem came to me and said, “The city has been struck down.” 22Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me the evening before the fugitive came; and he had opened my mouth by the time the man came to me in the morning, so my mouth was opened, and I was no longer mute.
23The word of the Lord came to me: 24“Son of man, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land; but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.’ 25Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord God: You eat flesh with the blood and lift up your eyes to your idols and shed blood; shall you then possess the land? 26You rely on the sword, you commit abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife; shall you then possess the land? 27Say this to them, Thus says the Lord God: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and whoever is in the open field I will give to the beasts to be devoured, and those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die by pestilence. 28And I will make the land a desolation and a waste, and her proud might shall come to an end, and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that none will pass through. 29Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I have made the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations that they have committed.
30“As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ 31And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain. 32And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. 33When this comes—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”
---
During the 21 months or so of the siege of Jerusalem there was no further word from the Lord following the announcement that the siege had begun, and the people were kept waiting, as it were, with bated breath. The silence is broken, and news comes from Jerusalem to say that the city is ruined. But, as we see from 22, the night before this news came Ezekiel had a strange experience. The hand of the Lord was upon him and his mouth was opened. He therefore knew that something decisive had happened (in 3:26 Ezekiel was told he would be dumb, but that the day would come when God would open his mouth - this, as we see in 24:26, 27, would be when the news of the fall of the city came). Here, then, we have the fulfilment of that word, in the strange and unusual spiritual awareness that came upon him, the night before the news of the city's destruction came. This kind of awareness is something that God sometimes gives; we do not think it is something that we should always have, or that we can always have, in prayer; but sometimes it is given. It is not something weird, but belongs to authentic spiritual experience. And in that experience Ezekiel was conscious of the restraint upon his lips being removed, and he knew that a messenger would come in the morning to say that the city was in ruins. Such is the meaning here.