Ezekiel As A Watchman

Without contradicting anything about the personal responsibility for an individual's own sins (Deuteronomy 24:16, Ezekiel 14:12-20, 18:1-20, and so on), The 33rd chapter of Ezekiel starts with emphasis on how the watchman of a land is guilty if they see the "the sword" approaching and do not sound the warning, though the inhabitants are allowed to die by God for their sin (33:6).  The watchman is still held accountable for their blood because he did not do anything in an attempt to save lives.  If the trumpet is sounded as a warning and a person does not save themselves by fleeing, despite being able to, their blood is on their own head (33:1-5).  Yahweh uses the watchman and their obligation to warn people as analogies for Ezekiel's own obligation to dissuade wicked people from their ways, lest they die for/in their sins (33:7-9).

This subsequent portion of the chapter is really a reiteration of what God tells Ezekiel in 3:6-21, where God says that if he promises that a wicked person will die, and Ezekiel does not try to warn them, they will die as they deserve, but God will hold Ezekiel accountable for their blood.  Alternatively, if Ezekiel warns the wicked person and he or she does not relent, they will die as they deserve, and Ezekiel will have saved himself.  The wicked person is still guilty for their own wrongs in either case, but in one scenario, Ezekiel has failed to take the prescribed precautions to save their life, and thus he is also guilty of his own offense.  He must speak on God's behalf whether they listen or not (Ezekiel 2:7).

No, we are not all obligated to warn others of their blunders to the same extent as this.  Few, if any of us, are prophets in the Biblical sense.  I would have no way to demonstrate that someone else who claims so really is a prophet even if it was the case, nor would anyone be able to demonstrate this to me just by claiming it.  Regardless, God specifically says he has made Ezekiel a watchman for Israel at a given time in history (3:17).  I am not a watchman for any group, or at least I could have no way of knowing this.  No such person needs to fret about going out of their way to warn other random people of their sins and their deserved fate of death (Deuteronomy 30:11-15, Ezekiel 18:4, Romans 6:23) through constant interjections.

All the same, it is vital that God will hold people, in select cases where he has appointed them to be watchpersons, accountable for the death of the target audience if the former individuals do not obey in delivering the warning.  They cannot make others continue to sin, but they can neglect their obligation to figuratively blow the trumpet.  Similarly, those who are teachers will be judged more strictly (James 3:1), not because an individual sin committed by them is worse than the same sin committed by someone else, but because they were actively trying to lead people, to influence them.  It is always a person's own fault for looking to a teacher figure rather than to truth itself, but the teacher must be careful to align with the truth in what they communicate.

According to Ezekiel 3, 33, and James 3 altogether, God does in one sense hold specific individuals accountable, because of the role they have, for the death of the wicked whom they spurred onward or refrained from correcting or warning.  Ezekiel's status as a divinely appointed watchman of Israel also emphasizes Yahweh's mercy.  If he killed the wicked without warning them through a prophet, there would not be injustice, for the wicked person still deserves to die.  However, he did not have to do such a thing.  It is a mercy, an undeserved postponement or avenue of escape for those who already deserve death.  Ezekiel's call as a watchman, then, involves both justice and mercy in non-contradictory ways.