The opening of the book of Ezekiel contains a grammatical oddity that the Mekhilta refuses to ignore. The phrase "the word of the Lord was, was" (hayoh hayah) uses the verb twice, a redundancy that would be unusual in ordinary Hebrew. Some interpreters took the doubling as mere stylistic emphasis. But the rabbis of the Mekhilta saw something far more significant.
The first "was" refers to a revelation that took place in the land of Israel. The second "was" refers to a revelation outside the land, in Babylonia where Ezekiel lived in exile. God spoke to the prophet in both places, and the Torah recorded both speakings in a single doubled verb.
This interpretation addresses one of the great theological tensions of the exile: can God speak to prophets outside the Holy Land? Some traditions held that prophecy was restricted to the land of Israel, that the divine presence did not rest on prophets in foreign territory. The Mekhilta's reading pushes back against that restriction. The doubled verb proves that God's word reached Ezekiel in both locations. The exile did not silence heaven. Babylonia was not beyond the reach of divine communication.
For a community that had lost its Temple and its homeland, this was not a minor grammatical point. It was a lifeline. If God could speak "was, was," in two lands simultaneously, then no exile was too distant, no diaspora too scattered, to be beyond the reach of revelation.