Ezekiel 4:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Take thee a tile— A slate. See Jeremiah 1:11; Jeremiah 13:4. Maimonides, not attending to the primitive mode of information made use of by Ezekiel here, by Jeremiah in the passages referred to, and by several other of the prophets, is much scandalised at several of these actions, unbecoming, as he supposed, the dignity of the prophetical office: and is therefore for resolving them in general into supernatural visions, impressed on the imagination of the prophet; and this because some few of them, perhaps, may admit of such an interpretation. His reasoning on this head is to the following effect: As the prophet thought that in a vision, ch. Ezekiel 8:8-9 he was commanded to dig in the wall, that he might enter and see what was doing within; and that he did dig, and entered through a hole, and saw what was to be seen; so likewise when he was commanded in the present passage to take a tile, and in ch. 5 to take him a sharp razor, we should conclude that both these actions were merely supernatural visions; it arguing an impeachment of the divine wisdom to employ his ministers in actions of so low a kind. But here, says Bishop Warburton, the author's reasoning is defective, because what Ezekiel saw, in the chambers of imagery, ch. 8 was in a vision; therefore, says Maimonides, his delineation of the plan of the siege, and his shaving his beard, chap. 4 and 5 were likewise in vision. But to make this inference logical, it is necessary that the circumstances in the viiith, and those in the ivth and vth Chapter s, be shewn to be specifically the same. Examine them, and they are found to be very different. That in the viiith was to shew the prophet the excessive idolatry of Jerusalem, by a sight of the very idolatry itself. Those in the ivth and vth were to convey the will of God by the prophet to the people in a symbolic action. Now in the first place the information was properly in vision, and fully answered the purpose, namely, the prophet's information; but in the latter a vision had been improper, for a vision to the prophet was of itself no information to the people. See the Divine Legation, vol. 3: and, for more on the subject of these prophetic actions, the note on chap. Ezekiel 12:3.