Ezekiel 4:1

Take thee. It has been a moot point with students of prophecy as to whether the strange events in this chapter were visible and outward acts or merely vivid presentations seen by the prophet in vision, later to be spoken to the people. Among the reasons listed for believing that these events were enacted visibly in the sight of the people are the following: (1) they were to be for a sign to the house of Israel (v. 3); (2) there were similar incidents in the experiences of other prophets when the acts were evidently external — Zedekiah’s horns of iron (1 Kings 22:11); Isaiah’s walking “naked and barefoot” for three years (see on Isa. 20:3); Jeremiah’s yokes of wood (Jer. 27:2); and Hosea’s marriage to the harlot (Hosea 1:3). Ezekiel’s carrying out his belongings in the sight of the people and digging through the wall (Ezek. 12:2-7) is plainly a visible enactment presaging the coming siege. Such graphic presentations doubtless were intended to arrest attention, for images to the eye commonly make deeper impressions upon the mind than words can. Similar pictorial devices are still used today in the practice of the sacraments. The object is to impress divine truths more vividly.

Tile. Or, “brick,” as the Heb. lebenah is translated elsewhere (Gen. 11:3; Ex. 1:14; etc.). Bricks were anciently used for inscriptions, and many such specimens have been discovered.