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Chapter 2: His call as a prophet: The vision told Ez to stand on
his feet. Son of man, it said, I am sending you to Israel, a
nation of rebels. The picture is dismal. Already in Dt. 8.4-6:"Do
not say to yourselves....'It is because of my righteousness that
God has brought me to possess the land...it is because of the
wickedness of these nations that God is going to drive them out
before you....you are a stubborn people." And yet, in Dt 7.8:
"...it is because the Lord loves you" that He will give you this
land.

The first thing to notice is that the Lord loves them in spite of
their being so rebellious. He will soon speak at more length of
their rebelliousness. How then can He love them?. The answer is
that love is not a feeling, it is to will good to another for the
other's sake. He therefore willed them good, which is first
described as the land. Later, near the end of the OT period it
will be reinterpreted as eternal salvation.

There is something somewhat similar in the NT. In 1 Cor St. Paul
argued at length to try to get them out of their pride in being in
a special faction within the church, and, we may assume, pride in
getting into the Church--unlike those pagans! So Paul at the end
of 1 Cor 1 tells them, in effect: Look at your community! Not many
rich, not many noble, not many wise or learned. Rather, God has
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the strong. Then
it will be clear it is His power and goodness, not their good
qualities - though Paul does not accuse them of being as
rebellious as Israel.

In the book of Jonah we find a similar thought. Jonah was sent to
the pagan city of Nineveh. If a prophet was sent in OT times to
Israel, he was lucky to get out alive. But the pagan Assyrians
welcomed the prophet, did penance at once. In a fourth century
<Mekillta de Rabbi Ishmael> (tr. J. Lauterbach, Jewish Publication
Society I.p.7) Jonah is pictured as saying to himself: "Since the
gentiles are more inclined to repent, I might be causing Israel to
be condemned [by going to Nineveh]." They knew they were worse
than the pagans.

In the NT we see he same sort of picture. In the parable of the
goods Samaritan (Lk 10.30-37) two officers of the People of God
coldly pass by the wounded man. But a Samaritan takes care of him
most generously.

Similarly, when ten lepers were healed by Jesus, only one came
back to say thanks--and he was a Samaritan. In Mt.11.21 Jesus is
vexed at the hardness of Chorozain and Bethsaida: "If the wonders
done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have
repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes."

Is there a hint in all of this that the holy people of God are in
general less open to God's graces than pagans?

In a large family, if most of the children have normal health, but
one is sickly, it is the sickly one who gets the extra care. He
needs it so much more.

So God told Ezekiel not to be rebellious. He would give Ezekiel a
scroll with lamentations and woe written on it to eat. He must eat
it.

Did Ezekiel physically eat a scroll? Much harder to do than for a
modern book--and even if Ezekiel had a lot of Taco sauce. Most
likely this is a symbolic way of saying: God is now filling you
with His spirit and His thoughts, with the result that later, even
if Ezekiel did not have a special vision each time, he could
rightly say: Thus says the Lord!