“Shut” in the privacy of his own chamber he is to receive a message from Yahweh. This “shutting up,” however, and the “bands” (Ezekiel 3:25, used figuratively) were signs of the manner in which Ezekiel’s countrymen would close their ears, hindering him as far as in them lay from delivering the message of the Lord.
With this verse commences a series of symbolic actions enjoined to the prophet in order to foretell the coming judgments of Jerusalem Ezekiel 4; Ezekiel 5. Generally speaking symbolic actions were either literal and public, or figurative and private. In the latter case they impressed upon the prophet’s mind the truth which he was to enforce upon others by the description of the action as by a figure. Difficulties have arisen, because interpreters have not chosen to recognize the figurative as well as the literal mode of prophesying. Hence, some, who would have all literal, have had to accept the most strange and unnecessary actions as real; while others, who would have all figurative, have had arbitrarily to explain away the most plain historical statement. There may be a difference of opinion as to which class one or other figure may belong; but after all, the determination is not important, the whole value of the parabolic figure residing in the lesson which it is intended to convey.