Catholic Commentary
Ezekiel Raised Up by the Spirit
1He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.”2The Spirit entered into me when he spoke to me, and set me on my feet; and I heard him who spoke to me.
Ezekiel 2:1–2 describes God commanding the prophet to stand and then empowering him with the divine Spirit to receive the prophetic word. The passage establishes that Ezekiel's ability to stand upright and hear God's message depends entirely on the simultaneous action of the Spirit accompanying the spoken word.
The Spirit doesn't whisper to the prostrate—He lifts you to your feet so you can actually hear Him.
Catholic tradition illuminates these verses in several complementary ways.
The Spirit and the Word as Inseparable. The Catechism teaches that "the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the prophets, makes us hear the Father's Word" (CCC 692), and that Sacred Scripture was written under the Holy Spirit's inspiration (CCC 105). Ezekiel 2:1–2 dramatizes this truth: the ruach enters Ezekiel at the precise moment the divine word is spoken, illustrating that in the prophetic act, pneumatology and the theology of the Word are inseparable. The Second Vatican Council's Dei Verbum §9 speaks of Scripture and Tradition flowing "from the same divine wellspring" — a wellspring whose movement here is vividly enacted in the joint action of Word and Spirit.
"Son of Man" in Catholic Christological Tradition. St. Jerome and St. Gregory the Great both noted that while ben-adam in Ezekiel underscores human fragility, the title achieves its fullest meaning in Christ. Gregory's Homilies on Ezekiel (I.2) reads Ezekiel's commissioning as a type of the Incarnate Word, who uniquely bears both the divine glory (1:26–28) and authentic humanity. The Catechism (CCC 440) links Jesus' own preference for "Son of Man" to this Danielic and prophetic heritage.
The Spirit Raising the Fallen. St. Cyril of Alexandria and the broader patristic tradition read the Spirit's act of setting Ezekiel on his feet as a type of baptismal regeneration: fallen humanity, unable to stand before God, is raised by the Holy Spirit to a new, empowered life. This is consonant with CCC 1266, which speaks of Baptism as conferring the capacity to "live and act under the prompting of the Holy Spirit."
The sequence in these two verses — fall, call, Spirit, stand, hear — is not only Ezekiel's biography; it is a template for every Catholic's encounter with God. Many contemporary Catholics experience a kind of spiritual prostration: overwhelmed by suffering, moral failure, cultural noise, or simply the enormity of God. The temptation is to remain face-down — paralyzed by unworthiness or numbness. Ezekiel 2:1–2 insists that God's first word to the overwhelmed person is not condemnation but commission: stand up, I will speak with you.
Concretely, this passage challenges Catholics who approach Scripture, the sacraments, or prayer in a purely passive or merely habitual way. The Spirit enters Ezekiel precisely so that he can hear — attentive, upright, oriented. For the Catholic today, this means approaching lectio divina, Sunday Mass, or Eucharistic adoration with the conscious prayer: "Let your Spirit enter me, that I may truly hear." The ruach is not withheld; the question is whether we ask, and whether we stand up to receive the word when it comes.
Commentary
Ezekiel 2:1 — "Son of man, stand on your feet"
This command comes immediately after Ezekiel's vision of the divine chariot (the merkabah, 1:4–28) and his falling on his face before the "appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD" (1:28). The command to stand is therefore not merely postural — it is a restoration of the prophet to a posture of receptive dignity. God does not leave Ezekiel prostrate; He summons him into an encounter of active listening. The Hebrew ben-adam ("son of man") appears here for the first time in Ezekiel, where it will recur over ninety times — making it the most distinctive divine address in the entire prophetic literature. It is simultaneously an assertion of Ezekiel's radical humanity and creatureliness before the divine majesty (contrast the glory of 1:26–28 with the frailty of dust-born adam) and a commissioning title, identifying him as God's chosen emissary standing in the divine presence on behalf of Israel. The address does not diminish Ezekiel; it defines his mission. God chooses to speak with him — the preposition is relational — not merely at him.
Ezekiel 2:2 — "The Spirit entered into me when he spoke to me"
The Hebrew ruach (spirit/wind/breath) here enters Ezekiel precisely as the divine word is spoken. This simultaneity is theologically charged: the Word and the Spirit work together. The Spirit does not come in silence but accompanies the divine address, empowering the prophet to receive it bodily — "set me on my feet." Ezekiel's rising is not a act of his own will recovering from awe; it is entirely the work of the ruach. This preserves the prophetic pattern found throughout Scripture: the prophet is passive in his empowerment and active only in obedience. Having been set on his feet, Ezekiel hears — his restored upright posture is the condition for hearing. The verse ends with the remarkable phrase "him who spoke to me," returning to the speaker of verse 1 and forming a tight literary inclusio: the whole action of rising and hearing is framed by the word of God.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
In the allegorical sense, this passage prefigures the Incarnation and Pentecost. The Spirit entering into a human being to empower mission, the voice from above commissioning a servant, and the representative address ("son of man") all find their fullness in Christ, the definitive ben-adam (cf. Dn 7:13), upon whom the Spirit descends and in whom the Word of God becomes flesh. In the sense, the sequence — prostration, divine call, Spirit, standing, hearing — maps the shape of the spiritual life: authentic prayer begins in humility, is answered by grace, and issues in attentive receptivity to God's word. In the sense, being raised by the Spirit to hear God prefigures the resurrection, when the dead will be raised to behold God face to face.