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id="breadcrumbs"><a href="http://biblehub.com">Bible</a> > <a href="http://biblehub.com/commentaries/">Commentaries</a> > Ezekiel 3:9</div><div id="anc"><iframe src="/anc.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><div id="anc2"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><iframe src="/anc2.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></td></tr></table><div id="movebox2"><table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><div id="topheading"><a href="../ezekiel/3-8.htm" title="Ezekiel 3:8">◄</a> Ezekiel 3:9 <a href="../ezekiel/3-10.htm" title="Ezekiel 3:10">►</a></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center" class="maintable2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><div id="topverse">As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they <i>be</i> a rebellious house.</div><div id="jump">Jump to: <a href="/commentaries/barnes/ezekiel/3.htm" title="Barnes' Notes">Barnes</a> • <a href="/commentaries/benson/ezekiel/3.htm" title="Benson Commentary">Benson</a> • <a href="/commentaries/illustrator/ezekiel/3.htm" title="Biblical Illustrator">BI</a> • <a href="/commentaries/calvin/ezekiel/3.htm" title="Calvin's Commentaries">Calvin</a> • <a href="/commentaries/cambridge/ezekiel/3.htm" title="Cambridge Bible">Cambridge</a> • <a href="/commentaries/clarke/ezekiel/3.htm" title="Clarke's Commentary">Clarke</a> • <a href="/commentaries/darby/ezekiel/3.htm" title="Darby's Bible Synopsis">Darby</a> • <a href="/commentaries/ellicott/ezekiel/3.htm" title="Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers">Ellicott</a> • <a href="/commentaries/expositors/ezekiel/3.htm" title="Expositor's Bible">Expositor's</a> • <a href="/commentaries/edt/ezekiel/3.htm" title="Expositor's Dictionary">Exp Dct</a> • <a 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Notes">WES</a> • <a href="#tsk" title="Treasury of Scripture Knowledge">TSK</a></div><div id="leftbox"><div class="padleft"><div class="comtype">EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)</div><div class="vheading2"><a href="/commentaries/ellicott/ezekiel/3.htm">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</a></div>(9) <span class= "bld">An adamant harder than flint.</span>—<span class= "ital">Adamant </span>is the diamond, as it is translated (<a href="/jeremiah/17-1.htm" title="The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven on the table of their heart, and on the horns of your altars;">Jeremiah 17:1</a>). The people were as hard as flint, but as the diamond cuts flint, so Ezekiel’s words should be made by the Divine power to cut through all their resistance. Armed with this strength, he need not fear their obduracy, however great.<p><a name="mhc" id="mhc"></a><div class="vheading2"><a href="/commentaries/mhc/ezekiel/3.htm">Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary</a></div>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.<a name="bar" id="bar"></a><div class="vheading2"><a href="/commentaries/barnes/ezekiel/3.htm">Barnes' Notes on the Bible</a></div>Adamant - Or, diamond <a href="http://biblehub.com/jeremiah/17-1.htm">Jeremiah 17:1</a>, which was employed to cut flint. Ezekiel's firmness being that of a diamond, he should cut a stroke home to the hardened hearts of a rebellious people. For "though" read "for." <a name="jfb" id="jfb"></a><div class="vheading2"><a href="/commentaries/jfb/ezekiel/3.htm">Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary</a></div>9. As … flint—so Messiah the antitype (Isa 50:7; compare Jer 1:8, 17).<div class="vheading2"><a href="/commentaries/poole/ezekiel/3.htm">Matthew Poole's Commentary</a></div> If their foreheads be hard and cutting as the flint, if they wound the soft and tender, if they sparkle with fire against those of harder metal; yet be not afraid, I have made thee as the adamant, harder than flint, able to cut and to break it. But what if there should be allusion to the Talmudic rabbinical tradition about their supposed worm <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">shamir, </span> the word here used; if the tradition be as old as Ezekiel’s time, it will carry some probability with it. This <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">schamir</span> they say was a worm, which by secret virtue would, when applied, cut or form hard stones, and divide the greatest; that Moses used it to prepare the precious stones for the breastplate, and Solomon, they say, used it to fit the stones without hammer for the temple. Well then, Ezekiel, fear not, thou shalt be a <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">schamir</span> to the Jews in captivity, and fit some of them to be either rich ornaments in the breastplate, or beautiful stones in the temple; go about thy work, it shall not be, though it seem, successless. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Fear them not; </span> let no prevailing fear take thee quite off from thy work; let not any lesser surprises and sudden discomposures of mind, when thou appearest before them, unfit thee for this work I set thee about. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">A rebellious house; </span> as a house that is rebellion itself. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><a name="gil" id="gil"></a><div class="vheading2"><a href="/commentaries/gill/ezekiel/3.htm">Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible</a></div>As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead,.... Or, "than a rock" (o); the "adamant" has its name in Greek, because it cannot be conquered or subdued, neither by the hammer, nor by fire; the one cannot break, nor this other consume it; land it is called "shamir" in Hebrew, from its preserving itself from both; it will cut iron in pieces, which is harder than stone, and therefore must be harder than that. Bochart takes it to be the same with "smiris", a hard stone, which jewellers use to polish their gems with; see <a href="/jeremiah/17-1.htm">Jeremiah 17:1</a>. The design of the simile is to set forth the courage and fortitude of mind the prophet was endowed with, in order to face an impudent and hardhearted people; <p>fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house; See Gill on <a href="/ezekiel/2-6.htm">Ezekiel 2:6</a>. <p>(o) "rupe", Junius & Tremellius, Polanus, Piscator; "prae rupe", Cocceius; "ex rupe", Starckius; "prae petra", Montanus. <a name="gsb" id="gsb"></a><div class="vheading2"><a href="/commentaries/gsb/ezekiel/3.htm">Geneva Study Bible</a></div><span class="cverse2">As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.</span></div></div><div id="centbox"><div class="padcent"><div class="comtype">EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)</div><div class="vheading2"><a href="/commentaries/cambridge/ezekiel/3.htm">Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges</a></div><span class="bld">9</span>. <span class="ital">harder than flint</span>] Cf. <a href="/jeremiah/5-3.htm" title="O LORD, are not your eyes on the truth? you have stricken them, but they have not grieved; you have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.">Jeremiah 5:3</a>, “they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.”<span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="ital">though they</span> be <span class="ital">a rebellious</span>] Rather: <span class="bld">for they are.</span> See ch. <a href="/ezekiel/2-6.htm" title="And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with you, and you do dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.">Ezekiel 2:6</a>. What gave the prophet invincible courage in the face of the opposition of the people was in the main the assurance that he was sent of God, that God was with him, and that his word was given him to speak. Comp. <a href="/isaiah/50-7.htm" title="For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.">Isaiah 50:7</a>, “For the Lord Jehovah will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded; therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.”<span class="p"><br /><br /></span><a name="pul" id="pul"></a><div class="vheading2"><a href="/commentaries/pulpit/ezekiel/3.htm">Pulpit Commentary</a></div><span class="cmt_sub_title">Verse 9.</span> - <span class="cmt_word">Adamant</span>. The Hebrew word <span class="accented">shemir</span> is used in <a href="/jeremiah/17-1.htm">Jeremiah 17:1</a> (where the Authorized Version gives "diamond" for a stone used in engraving on gems. In <a href="/zechariah/7-12.htm">Zechariah 7:12</a> it appears, as it does here, as a type of exceeding hardness. It is not found elsewhere in the Old Testament. It is commonly identified with the stone known as <span class="accented">corundum</span>, which appears in some of its forms as the sapphire and the Oriental ruby, and also as the stone the powder of which is used as emery. The special point of the comparison is, of course, that the adamant was actually used to cut either flint itself or stones as hard as flint. <span class="cmt_word">Neither be dismayed at their looks.</span> The words indicate the extreme sensitiveness of the prophet's natural temperament. He had shrunk not only from the threats and revilings of the rebellious house, but even from their scowls of hatred. Ezekiel 3:9<a name="kad" id="kad"></a><div class="vheading2"><a href="/commentaries/kad/ezekiel/3.htm">Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament</a></div>After the Lord had pointed out to the prophet the difficulties of the call laid upon him, He prepared him for the performance of his office, by inspiring him with the divine word which he is to announce. - <a href="/ezekiel/2-8.htm">Ezekiel 2:8</a>. And thou, son of man, hear what I say to thee, Be not stiff-necked like the stiff-necked race; open thy mouth, and eat what I give unto thee. <a href="/ezekiel/2-9.htm">Ezekiel 2:9</a>. Then I saw, and, lo, a hand outstretched towards me; and, lo, in the same a roll of a book. <a href="/ezekiel/2-10.htm">Ezekiel 2:10</a>. And He spread it out before me; the same was written upon the front and back: and there were written upon it lamentations, and sighing, and woe. <a href="/ezekiel/3-1.htm">Ezekiel 3:1</a>. And He said to me: Son of man, what thou findest eat; eat the roll, and go and speak to the house of Israel. <a href="/ezekiel/3-2.htm">Ezekiel 3:2</a>. Then opened I my mouth, and He gave me this roll to eat. <a href="/ezekiel/3-3.htm">Ezekiel 3:3</a>. And said to me: Son of man, feed thy belly, and fill thy body with this roll which I give thee. And I ate it, and it was in my mouth as honey and sweetness. - The prophet is to announce to the people of Israel only that which the Lord inspires him to announce. This thought is embodied in symbol, in such a way that an outstretched hand reaches to him a book, which he is to swallow, and which also, at God's command, he does swallow; cf. <a href="/revelation/10-9.htm">Revelation 10:9</a>. This roll was inscribed on both sides with lamentations, sighing, and woe (הי is either abbreviated from נהי, not equals אי, or as Ewald, 101c, thinks, is only a more distinct form of הוי or הו). The meaning is not, that upon the roll was inscribed a multitude of mournful expressions of every kind, but that there was written upon it all that the prophet was to announce, and what we now read in his book. These contents were of a mournful nature, for they related to the destruction of the kingdom, the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple. That Ezekiel may look over the contents, the roll is spread out before his eyes, and then handed to him to be eaten, with the words, "Go and speak to the children of Israel," i.e., announce to the children of Israel what you have received into yourself, or as it is termed in <a href="http://biblehub.com/ezekiel/3-4.htm">Ezekiel 3:4</a>, דּברי, "my words." The words in <a href="/ezekiel/3-3.htm">Ezekiel 3:3</a> were spoken by God while handing to the prophet the roll to be eaten. He is not merely to eat, i.e., take it into his mouth, but he is to fill his body and belly therewith, i.e., he is to receive into his innermost being the word of God presented to him, to change it, as it were, into sap and blood. Whilst eating it, it was sweet in his mouth. The sweet taste must not, with Kliefoth, be explained away into a sweet "after-taste," and made to bear this reference, that the destruction of Jerusalem would be followed by a more glorious restoration. The roll, inscribed with lamentation, sorrow, and woe, tasted to him sweetly, because its contents was God's word, which sufficed for the joy and gladness of his heart (<a href="/jeremiah/15-16.htm">Jeremiah 15:16</a>); for it is "infinitely sweet and lovely to be the organ and spokesman of the Omnipotent," and even the most painful of divine truths possess to a spiritually-minded man a joyful and quickening side (Hengstenberg on <a href="/revelation/10-9.htm">Revelation 10:9</a>). To this it is added, that the divine penal judgments reveal not only the holiness and righteousness of God, but also prepare the way for the revelation of salvation, and minister to the saving of the soul.<div class="vheading2">Links</div><a href="/interlinear/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 Interlinear</a><br /><a href="/texts/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 Parallel Texts</a><br /><span class="p"><br /><br /></span><a href="/niv/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 NIV</a><br /><a href="/nlt/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 NLT</a><br /><a href="/esv/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 ESV</a><br /><a href="/nasb/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 NASB</a><br /><a href="/kjv/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 KJV</a><span class="p"><br /><br /></span><a href="http://bibleapps.com/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 Bible Apps</a><br /><a href="/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 Parallel</a><br /><a href="http://bibliaparalela.com/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 Biblia Paralela</a><br /><a href="http://holybible.com.cn/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 Chinese Bible</a><br /><a href="http://saintebible.com/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 French Bible</a><br /><a href="http://bibeltext.com/ezekiel/3-9.htm">Ezekiel 3:9 German Bible</a><span class="p"><br /><br /></span><a href="/">Bible Hub</a><br /></div></div></td></tr></table></div><div id="mdd"><div align="center"><div class="bot2"><table align="center" width="100%"><tr><td align="center"><div align="center"> <script id="3d27ed63fc4348d5b062c4527ae09445"> (new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=51ce25d5-1a8c-424a-8695-4bd48c750f35&cid=3a9f82d0-4344-4f8d-ac0c-e1a0eb43a405'; </script> <script id="b817b7107f1d4a7997da1b3c33457e03"> (new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=cb0edd8b-b416-47eb-8c6d-3cc96561f7e8&cid=3a9f82d0-4344-4f8d-ac0c-e1a0eb43a405'; </script><br /><br />  <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-2'> </div><br /><br />  <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-0' style='max-width: 300px;'> </div><br /><br />  <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-3'> </div><br /><br />  <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-1' style='max-width: 300px;'> </div><br /><br />  <div align="center" id='div-gpt-ad-1531425649696-0'> </div><br /><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:inline-block;width:200px;height:200px" data-ad-client="ca-pub-3753401421161123" data-ad-slot="3592799687"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script><br /><br /> </div> <div id="left"><a href="../ezekiel/3-8.htm" onmouseover='lft.src="/leftgif.png"' onmouseout='lft.src="/left.png"' title="Ezekiel 3:8"><img src="/left.png" name="lft" border="0" alt="Ezekiel 3:8" /></a></div><div id="right"><a href="../ezekiel/3-10.htm" onmouseover='rght.src="/rightgif.png"' onmouseout='rght.src="/right.png"' title="Ezekiel 3:10"><img src="/right.png" name="rght" border="0" alt="Ezekiel 3:10" /></a></div><div id="botleft"><a href="#" onmouseover='botleft.src="/botleftgif.png"' onmouseout='botleft.src="/botleft.png"' title="Top of Page"><img src="/botleft.png" name="botleft" border="0" alt="Top of Page" /></a></div><div id="botright"><a href="#" onmouseover='botright.src="/botrightgif.png"' onmouseout='botright.src="/botright.png"' title="Top of Page"><img src="/botright.png" name="botright" border="0" alt="Top of Page" /></a></div> <div id="bot"><iframe width="100%" height="1500" scrolling="no" src="/botmenubhnew2.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></td></tr></table></div></body></html>