Ezekiel 12:21

Study note

Setting — Yahweh addresses Ezekiel immediately after pronouncing total desolation on the land and before confronting the people's false proverb about delayed fulfillment. The moment marks a formal divine interruption in the prophetic sequence.

The words — וַיְהִי (va-yehi) "and it came" and דְבַר־יְהוָה (devar-Yahweh) "word of Yahweh" form the standard prophetic introduction marking the origin of the message.

The thread — This formula appears in Ezek 12:20 as the closing declaration and in Ezek 12:22 as the opening address, structuring the transition from judgment to proverb refutation. It functions as a recurring literary marker throughout the book.

Why it lands — It requires the reader to treat the following statement as a direct divine utterance rather than a human opinion or uncertain prediction. Immediate attention to the message is mandatory.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.