Now 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.
God had made Ezekiel silent toward his own people. Here that silence breaks: God's hand came on him the evening before a refugee arrived with news that Jerusalem had fallen.
A silence that was itself a message
The silence was not a medical problem. God imposed it, and He had a reason.
W. T. P. WolstonThey were so rebellious that they were not to be warned. God would make his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth to enforce his silence. He would no longer plead with them in love, as He had done through Jeremiah, until He opened his mouth again.
Silent about Israel, not about everyone
But Ezekiel did not stop prophesying. The silence had one target.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinIn chapter 24:27, God gave Ezekiel a promise. When the man who escaped the fall of Jerusalem arrived, the prophet would no longer be mute. This muteness clearly does not mean he was silent all the time and never said a word. He prophesied what we read in chapters 25-32. He was to be silent concerning Israel. The chapters in between, before the messenger came, concern other nations. And now that promised messenger arrived, and God opened his mouth again to prophesy about Israel.
The hinge of the whole book
The timing was not random. God waited until judgment was finished, then opened a mouth that had something other than judgment to say.
Numerical Bible NotesThe siege lasted nearly a year and a half, and then came the message that the city was taken. On that day, when at last it was all over and nobody could keep up a false hope any longer, God would open the prophet's mouth. He would speak, and no longer be mute... When judgment has had its way, and God's holiness is fully vindicated, the prophet's mouth is to be opened again. This time it speaks not judgment, but the blessing to come. In His unchanging goodness God still keeps that blessing in store for them, however much their persistent wrongdoing has delayed it.
Righteousness clears the way for grace
Why did God wait for the city to fall before speaking of grace? Good news needs solid ground under it.
Numerical Bible NotesGod then opens the prophet's mouth again, because there is grace to announce. But the fitting introduction to that grace is His declaration that His righteous ways have not changed. The fall of the city shows the people now fully under judgment. Their false confidences are exposed... There are no true shepherds among the people, only shepherds who are not merely useless but false. So God must raise up the one Shepherd who can truly represent Him in His care for the weak and scattered remnant who will still remain — chosen wholly by grace, thrown entirely on Him, and lost apart from grace altogether.
The first words of the reopened mouth
The first words after the silence were not comfort. Talk of faith comes easily to people whose hearts are somewhere else.
William KellyIf the text is correct (some copies read differently), the news of Jerusalem's fall was long in reaching the prophet. Then he opened his mouth, long closed, and gave a solemn warning of further judgment. He warned them all the more because they pretended to take up the language of faith while their heart was far from the Lord. Grace is enough for anyone and for every circumstance. But grace never comes apart from the faith that gives glory to God, as it did in Abraham.
A door left open to the individual
With the nation under sentence, God turns to the single person.
J. N. DarbyIn view of these judgments, God establishes an entirely new principle. Each person's own conduct becomes the ground of God's dealings, in contrast with the consequences of national sin. So the door was still fully open to individual repentance. It rested on a testimony that applied to each person, whatever the national judgment might be.
Summary
- Silence — God imposed the silence. It was not a defect. It meant He had stopped pleading with a people who would not listen.
- Limited — He was silent about Israel only. He still prophesied about the surrounding nations.
- Broken — The fall of Jerusalem released the prophet's tongue. When judgment had done its work and no false hope was left, God opened his mouth.
- Righteousness — God announces grace only after He declares His righteous ways unchanged and exposes every false confidence.
- Opened — The opened mouth brings blessing still held in store, and a Shepherd for the scattered. The door stands open to anyone who turns, whatever the nation's sentence.