Pulpit Commentary
Verse 3. - It was in my mouth as honey, etc. The words remind us of Psalm 19:10; Proverbs 24:13; and again of those of Jeremiah in the darkest hour of his ministry (Jeremiah 15:16).
They are reproduced yet more closely by St. John (Revelation 10:9).
There is, after the first terror is over, an infinite sweetness in the thought of being a fellow worker with God, of speaking his words and not our own.
In the case of St. John, the first sweetness was changed to bitterness as soon as he had eaten it; and this is, perhaps, implied here also in ver. 14. The first ecstatic joy passed away, and the former sense of the awfulness of the work returned.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
3:1-11 Ezekiel was to receive the truths of God as the food for his soul, and to feed upon them by faith, and he would be strengthened. Gracious souls can receive those truths of God with delight, which speak terror to the wicked. He must speak all that, and that only, which God spake to him. How can we better speak God's mind than with his words? If disappointed as to his people, he must not be offended. The Ninevites were wrought upon by Jonah's preaching, when Israel was unhumbled and unreformed. We must leave this unto the Divine sovereignty, and say, Lord, thy judgments are a great deep. They will not regard the word of the prophet, for they will not regard the rod of God. Christ promises to strengthen him. He must continue earnest in preaching, whatever the success might be.
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