would
be without heir, or future, in the family history. So following meant
going yet deeper into the inner personal life, for the sake of God's plan.
This giant's strength is revealed in nothing more than in his tear-wet
laments over his people. And he gave all this strength to following. He
said "Yes" to God's need and request, though it must have taken his very
life to say it.

But _Ezekiel_ was asked to do something even beyond this. He was the
messenger of God to the colony of Hebrew exiles in Assyria. His accounts
of the visions of God reveal a remarkable power of detailed description,
and a remarkably strong mentality. Strange to say, these people in
captivity are yet harder to reach than were their fathers in their native
land. Yet, not strange, for the human heart is the same when it won't open
to the purifying of the upper currents of air. Here the man himself
literally became the message. He actually lay upon his left side for
thirteen months and then on his right side for six weeks longer.

During all that time he ate food that was particularly repugnant, and it
was carefully weighed out, and the water as carefully measured out for
his use. He had to rise, no doubt, for various reasons, but the bulk of
the time for nearly fifteen months he lay out where all could see him. His
fellow-exiles, I suppose, looked and wondered, laughed and gossiped
perhaps, and then as time wore on, they thought and thought more, and were
awed as they began slowly to take in the meaning of this strange message
of God. Thereafter Ezekiel was the leader, to whose house the leaders of
the colony came, and to whose words they intently listened.

But there was a yet deeper meaning to following than we have found yet. It
is a meaning that awes one's heart into amazed silence. He was married.
His wife is spoken of very tenderly as "the desire of thine eyes." He was
told that she would be taken away out of his life. She would die. That was
the great thing. Then he was not to mourn outwardly for her; this was the
second thing. He was to be before the people as though the greatest sorrow
of his life had not happened. Is it any wonder the people came astonished
to know what this meant? The simple brevity with which he tells of the
occurrence takes hold of one's heart. "So I spake unto the people in the
morning; and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was
commanded."[119] There was no questioning, no hesitancy of action, but