at Tel Aviv.” This is not the modern city of Tel Aviv in Israel, which was founded in 1909, but an area in the vicinity of the Chebar canal near Nippur in Babylonia.

“I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days.” God had called Ezekiel to speak to the children of Israel there in the captivity with them, but Ezekiel was so stunned by the revelation he received, and overwhelmed, and perhaps not knowing exactly where to start, that he sat for seven days without saying anything. God had told Ezekiel to speak (Ezek. 3:4, 11), but after seven days Ezekiel had said nothing. God’s patience with Ezekiel wore out and He gave Ezekiel another revelation (Ezek. 3:16), and this one was a stern warning that God made Ezekiel a watchman, and if he did not speak the message that God had for the children of Israel then God would hold Ezekiel accountable for their blood (Ezek. 3:16-19). We tend to think of prophets as ready and willing to speak the words of the Lord no matter what the cost, but that kind of spiritual maturity and warrior-mindedness took growing up in the things of God, it did not come right away. God had to get angry at Moses before he would stop making excuses instead of obeying God (Exod. 4:13-17).