2 Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and tell them, When I bring the sword on a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and set him for their watchman;
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Son of man - if the people of the land take a man - The first ten verses of this chapter are the same with Ezekiel 3:17-22; and to what is said there on this most important and awful subject I must refer the reader. Here the People choose the watchman; there, the Lord appoints him. When God chooses, the people should approve.
Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say to them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their territory, and set him for their (a) watchman:
(a) He shows that the people ought to continually have governors and teachers who may have a care over them, and to warn them ever of the dangers which are at hand.
Son of man, speak to the children of thy people,.... The Jews, of whom the prophet was; and designs those who were with him in the captivity; and who, having behaved so ill, the Lord will not own them for his people, but calls them the prophet's people, and the children of them:
and say unto them, when I bring the sword upon a land; a foreign enemy with an army to invade it, or any other judgment; for there is no public calamity whatever that comes upon a people, but what is by the order, direction, or permission of the Lord. The Targum is,
"those that kill with the sword;''
an army of men that enter into a land sword in hand, with an intent to conquer and destroy: if the people of the land take a man of their coasts: that lives upon their borders, and so is acquainted with all the places where it is most likely an enemy should enter; or a man out of the midst of them, as the Targum; so this phrase sometimes signifies, Genesis 47:2, one of their own people, who might be thought to have their good and safety at heart, and might be trusted:
and set him for their watchman: on some place of eminence; on the walls, or in a tower of a frontier town, from whence he might descry the enemy coming at a distance.
RENEWAL OF EZEKIEL'S COMMISSION, NOW THAT HE IS AGAIN TO ADDRESS HIS COUNTRYMEN, AND IN A NEW TONE. (Ezekiel. 33:1-33)
to the children of thy people--whom he had been forbidden to address from Ezekiel 24:26-27, till Jerusalem was overthrown, and the "escaped" came with tidings of the judgment being completed. So now, in Ezekiel 33:21, the tidings of the fact having arrived, he opens his heretofore closed lips to the Jews. In the interval he had prophesied as to foreign nations. The former part of the chapter, at Ezekiel. 33:2-20, seems to have been imparted to Ezekiel on the evening previous (Ezekiel 33:22), being a preparation for the latter part (Ezekiel 33:23-33) imparted after the tidings had come. This accounts for the first part standing without intimation of the date, which was properly reserved for the latter part, to which the former was the anticipatory introduction [FAIRBAIRN].
watchman-- Ezekiel 33:1-9 exhibit Ezekiel's office as a spiritual watchman; so in Ezekiel 3:16-21; only here the duties of the earthly watchman (compare 2-Samuel 18:24-25; 2-Kings 9:17) are detailed first, and then the application is made to the spiritual watchman's duty (compare Isaiah 21:6-10; Hosea 9:8; Habakkuk 2:1). "A man of their coasts" is a man specially chosen for the office out of their whole number. So Judges 18:2, "five men from their coasts"; also the Hebrew of Genesis 47:2; implying the care needed in the choice of the watchman, the spiritual as well as the temporal (Acts 1:21-22, Acts 1:24-26; 1-Timothy 5:22).
*More commentary available at chapter level.