How do you know who the teacher is? By who shows up first. Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 4:2 offers a second riff on Psalm 18:36's line about divine humility, and this one turns on a small detail in the book of Ezekiel.

The ordinary protocol

R. Simeon ben Zera began with how human teachers behave. A student says: "Rabbi, teach me one chapter." The teacher replies: "Go on ahead — meet me at such and such a place." The student walks to the appointed location. The teacher arrives later. Deference runs downhill. The junior waits for the senior.

What the Holy One did with Ezekiel

Now look at Ezekiel 3:22. God tells the prophet: "Go out into the plain, and I will speak with you." Ezekiel obeys. And when he arrives, the next verse is shocking: "Then I arose and went out to the plain; and, lo, there was the glory of the Lord" (Ezekiel 3:23).

God was already there.

The student was told to come. He came. And the Master was waiting for him. R. Simeon reads this as a deliberate inversion of the expected hierarchy. Human etiquette makes the lesser wait for the greater. Divine humility makes the Greater wait for the lesser.

The implication for every prophet

Ezekiel, a priest exiled to Babylon in 597 BCE, was meeting his God not in the Temple but on a dirt plain outside his refugee settlement. The text could have presented God as descending from on high after Ezekiel arrived. Instead, it presents God as already present — as if the plain had been hallowed before the prophet ever got there.

The midrash's message is both personal and theological. The Holy One does not stand on ceremony. When you are told to meet God, God is already on the way — has, in fact, already arrived. The only question is whether the student will show up.

Humility as presence

This teaching continues a chain of midrashim in Bereshit 4 that all pivot on the same verse: "Your humility has magnified me" (Psalms 18:36). Each rabbi finds a different scene where God's willingness to lower Himself produces human greatness. Here, the humility is spatial. God arrives early. God waits for the prophet. The universe bends toward the one who is coming.

The takeaway: when you are called by God, you are never the first one there. The plain is already occupied. Your only job is to keep walking.