Open Thy Mouth and Eat

The Lord said to Ezekiel, “But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee.” Ezekiel continued, “And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein” (Ezekiel 2:8-9). Upon the roll was written the word of God with lamentations for the people, and the Lord said again to his prophet, “Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel.” So that is what Ezekiel did: “So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll. And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness” (Ezekiel 3:1-3). I love that imagery—we are to so internalize the word of God that it is as if we eat it. The Come, Follow Me manual puts it this way: “Ezekiel was invited to symbolically ‘eat’ God’s word—to fill himself with it.” And it also asks us this question: “How will you fill yourself with God’s word this week?” Each day we should seek to symbolically eat the word of God, to fill ourselves with His messages and His spirit found therein. Just as we don’t generally forget to eat because our bodies remind us that we need food—even if we ate yesterday—so too should our spirits remind us each day that we need the spiritual nourishment that comes from the word of God. Nephi put it beautifully this way: “Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:20). We are to figuratively feast on the words of the Lord and we will be led back to the Father.  

             We find a similar image about eating the word of the Lord in the book of Revelation. John recorded, “The voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter” (Revelation 10:8-10). Again the prophet was given a book and commanded to eat, and it was as sweet as honey in his mouth. The bitterness that came thereafter was perhaps due to the prophecies of destruction it contained. In modern revelation we have this explanation about this image: “Q. What are we to understand by the little book which was eaten by John, as mentioned in the 10th chapter of Revelation? A. We are to understand that it was a mission, and an ordinance, for him to gather the tribes of Israel; behold, this is Elias, who, as it is written, must come and restore all things” (Doctrine and Covenants 77:14). I love that the book was for him a mission; John came to understand the mission that the Lord had for him to gather the tribes of Israel in his eating of the book. Ezekiel likewise seemed to have gained his mission in the eating of the book, for the verse after he ate it we read, “And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them” (Ezekiel 3:4). The book taught him what he was to take to the people as a prophet, and his ministry began as their watchman on the tower. Surely the same is for us: as we earnestly study the scriptures, as we internalize them and ponder them and memorize them, we will find our specific mission in life and responsibilities that the Lord has uniquely for us. As His words become as honey for their sweetness, we will learn through the Spirit what He would have us do and what we are to accomplish in our lives.