The general conception is clearly set forth in the figure of the watchman, with which the chapter opens (vv. 1‐9). The duties of the watchman are simple, but responsible. He is set apart in a time of public danger to warn the city of the approach of an enemy. The citizens trust him and go about their ordinary occupations in security so long as the trumpet is not sounded. Should he sleep at his post or neglect to give the signal, men are caught unprepared and lives are lost through his fault. Their blood is required at the watchman’s hand. If, on the other hand, he gives the alarm as soon as he sees the sword coming, and any man disregards the warning and is cut down in his iniquity, his blood is upon his own head. Nothing could be clearer than this. Office always involves responsibility, and no responsibility could be greater than that of a watchman in time of invasion. Those who suffer are in either case the citizens whom the sword cuts off; but it makes all the difference in the world whether the blame of their death rests on themselves for their foolhardiness or on the watchman for his unfaithfulness. Such then, as Ezekiel goes on to explain, is his own position as a prophet. The prophet is one who sees further into the spiritual issues of things than other men, and discovers the coming calamity which is to them invisible. We must notice that a background of danger is presupposed. In what form it was to come is not indicated; but Ezekiel knows that judgment follows hard at the heels of sin, and seeing sin in his fellow‐men he knows that their state is one of spiritual peril. The prophet’s course therefore is clear. His business is to announce as in trumpet tones the doom that hangs over every man who persists in his wickedness, to re‐echo the divine sentence which he alone may have heard, “O wicked man, thou shalt surely die.” And again the main question is one of responsibility. The watchman cannot ensure the safety of every citizen, because any man may refuse to take the warning he gives. No more can the prophet ensure the salvation of all his hearers, for each one is free to accept or despise the message. But whether men hear or whether they forbear, it is of the utmost moment for himself that that warning should be faithfully proclaimed and that he should thus “deliver his soul.” Ezekiel seems to feel that it is only by frankly accepting the responsibility which thus devolves on himself that he can hope to impress on his hearers the responsibility that rests on them for the use they make of his message.