We begin the study of Sefer Yechezkel. Before the first chapter stands the introduction of the Malbim, in which he details the nature of the book, his approach to its commentary, and how this book differs from the other books of the Prophets. As is his way, the Malbim's introductions are magnificent and their poetic prose is sublime, and at times the material can feel somewhat demanding for the student. Anyone who finds it difficult may skip directly to Chapter 1. Yet whoever delves into it will find in this introduction a foundation for understanding the entire progression of the book.
The Foundations Already Stated in the Introduction to Yeshayahu
The Malbim opens by noting that he has already set forth his approach in his introductions to his commentary on Sefer Yeshayahu, where he built a "palace of silver and an exalted wall" regarding the sacred scriptures that are delivered in the manner of poetry and lofty rhetoric. However, those principles are not unique to Sefer Yeshayahu alone: they are firmly established foundations, reliable laws, and overarching rules that encompass all the words of the Prophets and the Writings. Therefore, he sees no need to repeat them here, and whoever wishes may consult his words there. The reason is simple: all of them share one language, and one spirit stirs within them - a holy, resolute, and exalted spirit, mighty and awe-inspiring. That same spirit of prophecy from Hashem hovers over all of them, and therefore any rule established there applies equally to the other books.
Three Pillars of Iron
This spirit, the Malbim explains, observes three conditions - and these are the three foundations to which the Malbim returns repeatedly throughout his commentaries. The first condition: in the words of the living God, we never find duplication of meaning through different words (kefel inyan be-milot shonot). The phrase "repetition of an idea in different words" is very common among other commentators; both the Radak and the Metzudos used it frequently, but the Malbim rejected it entirely. His argument is that it is inconceivable that a prophet, whose words are measured, counted, and imparted by Hashem, would speak empty words merely for the sake of poetic flourish. If there were no necessity to repeat, he would not have repeated. After all, Chazal expound even regarding the casual conversation of Torah scholars that "its leaf does not wither" - meaning that even the leaves, which are not the fruit itself, require careful scrutiny. How much more so with the words of a prophet: when he repeats his words, we must understand what this repetition conveys beyond what was said before, as every single expression bears a new and distinct meaning.
The second condition: we find in them no words or expressions placed by chance, without specific intent. If the prophet wrote a particular word, it stands there deliberately to teach us something. The third condition concerns the passage as a whole: we find in them no statement devoid of an exalted concept. In prophecy there is no incidental anecdote; the prophet does not share personal experiences, nor does he insert two or three verses in the middle of a prophecy about what he went through. If there is a statement the prophet wrote down for us, it contains a sublime teaching that we must strive to uncover and contemplate.
These three, says the Malbim, are three iron pillars upon which whoever desires to understand the mysteries of sacred scripture may lean and never falter; he shall hold fast to them and be supported, and then he will rise and be heartened. They place the diadem and the testimony upon the books of God, and they are the sign and wonder that the voice of the living God speaks out of the fire through the mouths of His prophets and holy ones. When a human being speaks, one might say that he repeated an idea in different words for rhetorical elegance, since human speech is not exact; but when the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks - "Once has God spoken, twice have I heard this" - one must be precise with every single word. It is enough to observe how closely commentators examine every word of the Rambam, and what mounds of halachot are derived from an extra letter or an omitted letter. The Rambam himself writes: examine my words with great precision, for it is no empty thing, and everything I wrote was composed with precise intention. If this is true of the Rambam's writings, what can be said of the words of the Prophets?
The Malbim adds: "And the offspring born of their holy spirit" - Hashem endowed them with wisdom and understanding, good insight, and sacred knowledge, so that all who see them recognize that they are the blessed seed of Hashem. His meaning is that the insights born of the prophet's words are, so to speak, his children. Look closely at what emerges from their mouth and what is derived from their words, and you will see holy, wondrous, and faithful truths. All of this he explained at length in his introduction to Sefer Yeshayahu, which serves as a comprehensive introduction to all the sacred books written in poetic and figurative style.
The Style of Yechezkel - Distinct from All His Fellow Prophets
Here the Malbim turns to speak specifically about our prophet. The style of this mighty seer, holy to his God, is vastly different and separated from the style of his fellow prophets, an immense and profound distinction. One sees in him a great difference from what we found in Yeshayahu and Yirmiyahu. He is not like them, soaring on the peaks of exalted rhetoric and taking flight upon joyous wings to the heights of heaven. In short: while the other prophets spoke in a richly poetic and lofty register, Yechezkel speaks at eye level - not in elevated poetic rhetoric nor in the veiled language of song, but in far simpler and more direct language.
The reason for this is that the heavens were opened to him "in a weary land," in Babylonia, at a time when Hashem's skies in His holy heights donned gloom and darkness, when darkness covered the earth and thick fog enveloped the cherished land - Eretz Yisrael in its destruction and exile. Out of the tempest and the cloud he saw divine visions, and he beheld the chashmal from the midst of the fire. Yeshayahu and Yirmiyahu prophesied while the Jewish people were still dwelling on their land, whereas Yechezkel prophesied when he was already in exile, by the Kevar River. Therefore, the daughters of his poetic expression do not give birth to creatures of freedom - his rhetoric is not like the sparrow that flies high and far; the spirit of his lips does not breathe life into children of abstract logic; the power of his discourse does not fashion mouth, tongue, and speech for subtle conceptual musings; the maidens of song do not pluck the strings of his lute, and the daughters of melody do not come out to meet him in joyous dance.
By the Rivers of Babylon
And why is this so? Because his prophecy was uttered by the rivers of Babylon. Notice the poetic language Malbim himself employs: the rivers of Babylon became mighty seas from the streams of tears of the oppressed - the Jewish people sat there and wept, and the streams of their tears turned the rivers of Babylon into mighty seas. There, together with the singers of Hashem's Sanctuary, "upon the willows in its midst they hung their lyres." The singers, the Kohanim and the Levi'im, hung up their lyres; this was no longer a place for song, for "how shall we sing Hashem's song on foreign soil?" There, their lyres turned to mourning and their flutes to the sound of weepers, their songs to lamentation, and the sweet singers fell silent. Therefore, not with might nor with power, neither with poetry nor with ornate rhetoric, will our prophet-seer speak to us.
Rather, "as a man speaks to his friend" - clearly and not in riddles, dripping sweet honey of pleasant words, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Upright, clear, and straightforward words; his waters do not rush turbulently, nor are they sharp or overly deep, yet they are living waters, flowing, cool, and streaming from the springs of wise lips, reviving a weary soul and comforting a grieving spirit.
The Well Left Untouched
Here, Malbim adds a parenthetical observation regarding the biblical critics - those non-Jews, and following in their footsteps Jews as well, primarily from Germany, who took the Scriptures and sought to dismantle them: claiming this part was written by so-and-so, that part by someone else, and other notions that have no place among us. We do not criticize the Bible; we study the Bible. As has often been noted, they are called "biblical critics" (in Hebrew, mevakrim, which also means visitors) because they generally just paid a brief visit, never studying the Scripture with genuine depth. Malbim writes in a magnificent turn of phrase: they did not call this well Esek (contention), because they did not contend with it. Those commentators and critics of the recent generation busied themselves with the Book of Iyov and Yeshayahu and the other wells of holy water emerging from the Sanctuary; some of them arrived at "Marah" and cast their bitter wood into it, making the water bitter, while others stopped them up and filled them with dirt.
Yet the waters of the well of this prophet of ours - no human foot has muddied them, and the foot of no expositor, critic, or researcher has fouled them; they did not trample or foul them with their feet, and so its waters remained quiet, tranquil, flowing as smoothly as oil. And if fishermen stood by its swamps and marshes that are not healed, and their nobles sent their youth for water - their vessels returned empty, ashamed and disgraced, for they came to cisterns and found no water. In other words, their interpretations are entirely different from the commentary Malbim is about to present before us.
The Unique Difficulty of Sefer Yechezkel: Repetition of Themes and Restatement of Passages
Nevertheless, Malbim writes, after weighing the words of our book on the scales and balances of judgment that I have established, examining them to their ultimate end and assessing whether they are built to their proper design - a soul eager to find words of delight, yearning to discern understanding in upright writing and words of truth, will not find sufficient satisfaction in the commentaries of those who preceded me. Indeed, in this book there is no abundance of duplicate words and parallel phrasing in varied terms, as found in Yeshayahu and others who were elevated by the spirit of poetry and ornate prose; yet on the other hand, throughout the entire book there abounds a repetition of themes and restatements of passages. In whatever passage you choose to read carefully from beginning to end, you will find its themes repeated and tripled, its words multiplied and reiterated, and the text seems empty of all intellectual substance - long-windedness and superfluous words without purpose. It might appear to us, Heaven forbid, as if they were not filled with wise-hearted insight and sublime concepts, as befits the words of the Living God, where everything formed by the breath of His mouth is full of wisdom, knowledge, and boundless understanding.
When Rhetoric Masks an Absence of Content
And why is this difficulty not so prominent in other books, whereas here it surfaces so clearly? Malbim explains: because other works feature elaborate verbiage and rhetoric, and rhetoric conceals a lack of content. A politician can speak for an entire hour, and if you ask afterward what he said, you cannot repeat a single point. It is like an old marketing trick for selling expired chicken: what did they do to it? They coated it with heavy spices to mask the flavor, and a person would say, "What well-seasoned chicken!" In the same way, when someone wants to sell something devoid of substance, they add many spices and embellishments, and no one notices the lack of content.
In Malbim's words: "Upon the nakedness of the core they drape the fine garments of linguistic beauty, and over the blemishes of deficiency they spread a blanket of pleasant logic." The inside is bare, so they dress it in splendid cloaks of eloquent language to conceal the nakedness. For rhetoric has always sought to blind the onlooker's eye with its radiant splendor, casting a shroud of darkness over emptiness and lack, wearing a disguise, and with smooth lips seducing the listener's heart so he will not tire of the long-windedness and verbosity. Needless to say, Malbim is not referring, Heaven forbid, to Yeshayahu and Yirmeyahu, which are certainly replete with deep content as we have seen in his commentary, but rather to the approach of the critics and the poetry of the nations. To the listener, it seems as though he is strolling through a paradise full of flowers and roses, yet he finds no fruit for food and no leaf for healing - there is no true nourishment in it. Only outward noise and superficial glory, lacking substance and inner vitality.
An Empty Vessel or a Full Vessel
Not so one who studies this book, in which the splendor of poetry does not officiate, and upon which the ornament of lofty rhetoric was not placed. Adi means an ornament, and the ornament of ornate prose was not laid upon this book. And if we were to imagine that its interior is also empty and void of substance, its value in our eyes compared to the other books - banded with the silver of rhetoric and inlaid with the gold of song - would be like the value of an empty earthenware vessel to a potter compared to vessels of silver and gold. For a person can take pleasure in an exquisite, precious object that is pleasing to the eye even if it contains nothing, since the outward beauty itself holds value. But in the case of an earthen jug filled with wine - once its contents are emptied, its vessel too is shattered. An ordinary, inexpensive earthenware vessel derives its entire worth from the wine within it; pour out the wine, and there is nothing left to do with it but shatter it. For what use is a vessel when there is no desire for the vessel itself, nor for what is inside it? The point is clear: if there is neither external beauty nor internal depth, there is nothing here at all. And since Sefer Yechezkel lacks the external garnish of lofty rhetoric, it must inherently possess profound inner depth and substance, for otherwise it would have no purpose at all.
"Superfluous Speech Is Not Fitting for a Fool"
The Malbim concludes: superfluous speech is not fitting even for a churl - it is unbefitting even for an ordinary person to speak redundantly, and all the more so for one who speaks with a noble spirit, to whom the value of language and spoken words is precious. The Sages are concise in their speech: whoever can express his idea in two words says two words and moves on. Look at the phrasing of the Ibn Ezra and the early commentators - two or three words; and look at the glosses of the Vilna Gaon on the Shulchan Aruch, where he was exceedingly concise, and how many entire books were written just to understand his words. And "mere talk of the lips" hints at the verse, "and mere talk of the lips leads only to loss" (Mishlei 14:23) - verbosity is a defect. Therefore, every discerning person must wonder: how could a person of spirit, when the divine spirit rests upon him, utter a mighty wind and words of wind, filling his belly with the east wind, uttering words of no profit? "Words of wind" means empty words. Would he repeat the exact same idea four times, when the repetition seems entirely superfluous and does nothing to advance our understanding of the matter?
In Summary:
In his introduction, the Malbim lays down three iron pillars for understanding prophetic words: there is no repetition of meaning in different words, no word is placed by chance, and no statement is devoid of an exalted concept. Sefer Yechezkel is different from the other prophetic books: it was delivered in exile, by the rivers of Babylon, out of storm, cloud, and gloom. Therefore, it contains no towering rhetoric or poetic grandeur, but rather straightforward, simple, and clear speech, like a person speaking to his friend. Precisely for this reason, the difficulty of duplicated ideas and repeated statements stands out even more, as there is no poetic splendor to mask them. And from this comes the inverse proof: since it lacks ornamental exteriors, it must be entirely core and inner essence, and we must delve and contemplate to discover its depth. This is the well whose waters no investigator or scholar has muddied; its waters are calm and at rest, flowing smoothly like oil - and from it we will drink in our study, with the help of Hashem.