Every true prophet is a forerunner of Jesus Christ. We do not detract from the work of the Saviour - we magnify it - when we discern that the same kind of work (though not equal in measure or effectiveness) had been done by the prophets. Ezekiel was called of God, not only to teach heavenly doctrine, but also to suffer for the people. "Thou shalt bear their iniquities." No one can be a faithful servant of God who does not suffer for the cause he serves. Suffering is the badge of a Divine commission.

I. EVERY PROPHET IS A VICAR. He represents God before the people; he represents the people before God. In his whole person, action, suffering, mission, he is a type of Jesus Christ. When men will not listen to his words, he is commanded to speak to them by deeds. The life of the prophet is a prophecy. Ezekiel deals with these captives as with sullen children. To the ignorant he became as ignorant. He condescended to their low estate. Being made dumb by reason of their perversity, he pursues his heavenly task in another way - he teaches them by pictures, object lesson and deed symbol. It is "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." So long as there remains an avenue to the heart, God will not abandon men.

II. HIS SUFFERING IS VICARIOUS. This prophet was not himself free from sin, and suffering was its effect. Yet the suffering described in this chapter is wholly vicarious. What was justly due to others was laid upon him by God. "I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity." Yet this was impossible without the prophet's willing consent. In proportion as the prophet's mind had expanded under the Divine afflatus, be had considered and comprehended the magnitude of Israel's sin. Their past and their present iniquity was clear and vivid to his mind. He saw its extent and aggravation. He perceived the moral turpitude. He felt its baseness and criminality. He foresaw its bitter fruits. The burden of a nation's sift pressed upon his conscience. He drew it in upon himself and confessed it before God. But, further, Ezekiel represented in himself the severity of Divine judgment - God's sense of sin. Hence he was required to lie upon one side for the space of three hundred and ninety days - a pain to himself, a passive rebuke to the people, in order to represent in visible form God's indignation. Yet there was pictured forth also Divine compassion. Just severity was alleviated; there was but a day for a year. Jerusalem was sacrificed, but it was in order that the people might be saved. Not an item was overlooked by God. The proportionate guilt of Israel and Judah was vividly symbolized in the several acts of the prophet. The one end sought was - repentance.

III. HIS ACTION IS VICARIOUS. The prophet was a Hebrew, a priest; he loved Jerusalem. Possibly affection was bestowed on the city, which belonged alone to God. For Ezekiel to represent the Babylonian invaders, for him to invest the city with fire and sword, this must have been gall and wormwood. Yet, in vision, he had eaten the roll of God's behests, had digested and assimilated the knowledge of his will. Therefore, in his vicarious character, he has to set his face against the city as the impersonation of the foe; he has to "make bare his arm" to typify the resolute energy of the spoiler. Be the effect upon the Jewish chiefs, already in captivity, what it may; be the effect to exasperate feeling against the prophet or to produce repentance; the prophet is constrained to fulfil his task by a Divine necessity. "Bands are upon him."

IV. HIS ENDURANCE OF RIDICULE IS VICARIOUS. We can well suppose that many who visited Ezekiel in his dwelling would fail to perceive the propriety or utility of this long and irksome penance. They would sneer and laugh at this toy siege, at this childish exposure of an outstretched arm, at this constant recumbence on one side. Be it so; the prophet continues his task unmoved. "The foolishness of God is wiser than men." Littleness and greatness are matters about which men egregiously err. Ezekiel, in his humiliation, was as magnanimous and noble an actor in life's drama as Elijah on Carmel vindicating in solitary sublimity Jehovah's power. What could be baser to the vulgar eye of the world than to bear a felon's cross through the streets, and then to hang in nakedness and pain thereon? "But God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty... and things which are not, to bring to nought things which are." Like his Divine Master, Ezekiel "despised the shame." - D.

In this chapter there begins a series of symbols utterly impossible of modern interpretation. This ministry of symbolism has still a place in all progressive civilisation. Every age, of course, necessitates its own emblems and types, its own apocalypse of wonders and signs, but the meaning of the whole is that God has yet something to be revealed which cannot at the moment be expressed in plain language. If we could see into the inner meaning of many of the controversies in which we are engaged, we should see there many a divinely drawn symbol, curious outlines of thought, parables not yet ripe enough for words. How manifold is human life! How innumerable are the workers who are toiling at the evolution of the Divine purpose in things! One man can understand nothing but what he calls bare facts and hard realities; he has only a hand to handle, he has not the interior touch that can feel things ere yet they have taken shape. Another is always on the outlook for what pleases the eye; he delights in form and colour and symmetry, and glows almost with thankfulness as he beholds the shapeliness of things, and traces in them a subtle geometry. Another man gets behind all this, and hears voices, and sees sights excluded from the natural senses; he looks upon symbolism, upon the ministry of suggestion and dream and vision; he sees best in the darkness; the night is his day; in the great cloud he sees the ever-working God, and in the infinite stillness of religious solitude he hears, rather in echoes than in words, what he is called upon to tell the age in which he lives. Here again his difficulty increases, for although he can see with perfect plainness men, and can understand quite intelligibly all the mysteries which pass before his imagination and before his spiritual eyes, yet he has to find words that will fit the new and exciting occasion; and there are no fit words, so sometimes he is driven to make a language of his own, and hence we come upon strangeness of expression, eccentricity of thought, weirdness in quest and sympathy, — a most marvellous and tumultuous life; a great struggle after rhythm and rest, and fullest disclosure of inner realities, often ending in bitter disappointment, so that the prophet's eloquence dissolves in tears, and the man who thought he had a glorious message to deliver is broken down in humiliation when he hears the poor thunder of his own inadequate articulation. He has his "tile" and his iron pan; he lays upon his left side, and upon his right side; he takes unto him wheat and barley, beans, and lentils; he weighs out his bread, and measures out his water, and bakes "barley cakes" by a curious manufacture; and yet when it is all over he cannot tell to others in delicate enough language, or with sufficiency of illustration, what he knows to be a Divine and eternal word.

(J. Parker, D. D.)