And I will make - Rather, Then will I "make." One action is the consequence of the other. Because the people would silence the prophet, God to punish them will close his mouth (compare Isaiah 6:9; Matthew 13:14).

I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth - I will not give thee any message to deliver to them. They are so rebellious, it is useless to give them farther warning.

And I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth,

that thou shall be dumb,.... Which is to be understood not literally, as if he was really struck dumb, as Zechariah was; see Ezekiel 4:9; but that such silence should be charged upon him by the Lord, that he should be as if his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, as Kimchi interprets it, and as if he was a dumb man: and so the Septuagint version renders it, "I will bind thy tongue"; lay an embargo upon it, that is, it shall be silent; and this sense is confirmed by what follows:

and shall not be to them a reprover; which was in judgment to them, and a giving them up to their own hearts' lusts; for, though reproofs were disagreeable to them, and they chose to be without them, yet they were necessary for them, and might have been useful to them; but they provoking the Lord, he takes away his word from them, and commands his prophet to be silent, and let them alone, to go on in their sins without control; which was a sore judgment upon them:

for they are a rebellious house; See Gill on Ezekiel 2:5.

And I will make thy tongue {q} cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house.

(q) Which declares the terrible plague of the Lord, when God stops the mouths of his ministers and that all such are the rods of his vengeance that do it.

3:26 I - I will make thee as dumb as if thy tongue clave to the roof of thy mouth.

a reprover: Heb. a man reproving

26. I will make my tongue . dumb-Israel had rejected the prophets; therefore God deprives Israel of the prophets and of His word-God's sorest judgment (1Sa 7:2; Am 8:11, 12).

3:22-27 Let us own ourselves for ever indebted to the mediation of Christ, for the blessed intercourse between God and man; and a true believer will say, I am never less alone than when thus alone. When the Lord opened Ezekiel's mouth, he was to deliver his message boldly, to place life and death, the blessing and the curse, before the people, and leave them to their choice.