Moreover the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me to the east gate of Yahweh’s house, which looks eastward. Behold, twenty-five men were at the door of the gate; and I saw among them Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. He said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity, and who give wicked counsel in this city; who say, ‘The time is not near to build houses. This is the cauldron, and we are the meat.’ Therefore prophesy against them. Prophesy, son of man.”
Yahweh’s Spirit fell on me, and he said to me, “Speak, ‘Yahweh says: “Thus you have said, house of Israel; for I know the things that come into your mind. You have multiplied your slain in this city, and you have filled its streets with the slain.
“ ‘Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Your slain whom you have laid in the middle of it, they are the meat, and this is the cauldron; but you will be brought out of the middle of it. You have feared the sword; and I will bring the sword on you,” says the Lord Yahweh. “I will bring you out of the middle of it, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you. You will fall by the sword. I will judge you in the border of Israel. Then you will know that I am Yahweh. This will not be your cauldron, neither will you be the meat in the middle of it. I will judge you in the border of Israel. You will know that I am Yahweh, for you have not walked in my statutes, You have not executed my ordinances, but have done after the ordinances of the nations that are around you.” ’ ”
When I prophesied, Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then I fell down on my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, “Ah Lord Yahweh! Will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel?”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 13 Here the Prophet admonishes the people that perverse leaders…
Here the Prophet admonishes the people that perverse leaders would be the cause of their destruction. For if the blind lead the blind both will fall into the ditch (Matthew 15:14; Luke 6:39.) Since, therefore, the elders of the city were such wicked apostates, they drew with them the whole body of the people into the same ruin. Now, therefore, the Prophet shows that the state of the city was so corrupt that no hope of pardon remained, since those who ought to be the eyes of the whole people were involved in darkness. But he names the five and twenty seniors Whence it is probable, that this number was chosen in the midst of confusion, or that a definite number is put for an indefinite; and I rather embrace this second view. Whatever it is, it implies that those who held the reins of government were impious despisers of God, and hence it is not surprising that impiety and defection from God and his law had begun to increase among the whole people. But we must remark the Prophet’s intention. For common soldiers are accustomed to consider their commanders as a shield, as we this day see in the Papacy. For this is their last refuge, since they think themselves guilty of no fault when they obey their holy Mother Church. Such also formerly was the obstinacy of the people.
Lastly, men always throw off all blame from themselves, under pretense of error or ignorance. Hence the Prophet now shows that the city was not free from God’s wrath, since it was corrupted by its leaders and rulers; nay, that this was a cause of its destruction, since the people were too easily led astray by perverse examples. Meanwhile, we must notice the Prophet’s freedom, because he here fearlessly attacks the most noble princes. He was, indeed, out of danger, because he was an exile: but it seems that he was at Jerusalem when he uttered this prophecy. He shows, therefore, his strength of mind, since he does not spare the nobles. Hence this useful doctrine is collected, that those who excel in reputation and rank are not free from blame if they conduct themselves wickedly, as we see happens in the Papacy. For, as to the Pope himself, it is in his power to condemn the whole world, while he exempts himself from all blame. And as to the Bishops, now twenty or thirty witnesses are required, and afterwards even seventy: hence one of those horned beasts could not be convinced, unless the whole people should rise up: so also it was formerly. But here the Prophet shows, that however eminent are those who are endued with power over the people, yet they are not sacred nor absolved from all law by any peculiar privilege, since God freely judges them by his Spirit, and reproves them by his Prophets. Lastly, if we wish to discharge our duty rightly, especially when it consists of the office of teaching, we should avoid all respect of persons, for those who boast that they excel others are yet subject to the censures of God. For this reason it follows —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv3, 7, 9, 10, 13 Thus the wicked derided the Prophets, as though they…
Thus the wicked derided the Prophets, as though they preached but errors, and therefore gave themselves still to their pleasures.
We shall not be pulled out of Jerusalem, till the hour of our death come, as the flesh is not taken out of the caldron till it be sod.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–13 Eze 11:1 Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and…
Eze 11:1 Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the LORD’S house, which looketh eastward: and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.
Ver. 1. Moreover the Spirit lifted me up.] The same Spirit of God that lifted up and acted the living weights and the wheels; like as the same breath causeth the diverse sounds in the organs.
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Unto the east gate.] Of the outward court. {Eze 10:19}
Five and twenty men.] Proceres populi, the senators of the city, with their prefect or president. The like number is now at Rome, and likewise at London; an alderman in each of the twenty-four wards, and a mayor. See Rev 4:4.
Among whom I saw Jaazaniah.] I saw them, and knew them by name; but for no good.
“ Iudex locusta civitatis est malus. ” - Scaliger.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–13 The spirit; the Spirit of God, as Eze 2…
The spirit; the Spirit of God, as Eze 2 2.
Lifted me up; as at first, so still it supports him, and removes him from place to place.
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The east gate: either of the east gates, whether that which leads into the first court, or into the second court, or into the house of the Lord, may be here understood, though probably this last. For this number you find, Eze 8:16. If you will suppose the prophet was brought to the east gate, where the glory of the Lord, now departing, was gone up from the temple, it is much the same.
Which looketh eastward: a pleonasm, or redundance of expression.
Five and twenty men: some inquire whether these were the same with those twenty-five Eze 8:16. To me it is most likely they were, for in that same place we find them, and likely about the same work, worshipping eastward. Nor are the two arguments urged by some conclusive against it, nay, one of the two is plain for it, viz. that quoted from Eze 8:16.
Among whom; as forward ringleaders and chief among them.
Jaazaniah: this man by his father’s name added appears to be another, not he that is mentioned Eze 8:11.
Pelatiah, named here for no good quality, but for that dreadful sudden death whereby he became a warning to others.
Princes of the people; either as public officers, or as heads of their families.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 We have here,
We have here,
I. The great security of the prince's of Jerusalem, notwithstanding the judgements of God that were upon them, The prophet was brought, in vision, to the gate of the temple where these princes sat in council upon the present arduous affairs of the city: The Spirit lifted me up, and brought me to the east gate of the Lord's house, and behold twenty-five men were there. See how obsequious the prophet was to the Spirit's orders and how observant of all the discoveries that were made to him. It should seem, these twenty-five men were not the same with those twenty-five whom we saw at the door of the temple, worshipping towards the east (Eze 8:16); those seen to have been priests or Levites, for they were between the porch and the altar, but these were princes sitting in the gate of the Lord's house, to try causes (Jer 26:10), and they are here charged, not with corruptions in worship, but with mal-administration in the government; two of them are named, because they were the most active leading men, and perhaps because the prophet knew them, though he had been some years absent - Pelatiah and Jaazaniah, not that mentioned Eze 8:11, for he was the son of Shaphan, this is the son of Azur. Some tell us that Jerusalem was divided into twenty-four wards, and that these were the governors or aldermen of those wards, with their mayor or president. Now observe, 1. The general character which God gives of these men to the prophet (Eze 11:2): "These are the men that devise mischief; under pretence of concerting measures for the public safety they harden people in their sins, and take off their fear of God's judgements which they are threatened with by the prophets; they gave wicked counsel in this city, counselling them to restrain and silence the prophets, to rebel against the king of Babylon, and to resolve upon holding the city out to the last extremity." Note, It is bad with a people when the things that belong to their peace are hidden from the eyes of those who are entrusted with their counsels. And, when mischief is done, God knows at whose door to lay it, and, in the day of discovery and recompence, will be sure to lay it at the right door, and will say, These are the men that devised it, though they are great men, and pass for wise men, and must not now be contradicted or controlled. 2. The particular charge exhibited against them in proof of this character. They are indicted for words spoken at their council-board, which he that stands in the congregation of the mighty would take cognizance of (Eze 11:3); they said to this effect, "It is not near; the destruction of our city, that has been so often threatened by the prophets, is not near, not so near as they talk of." They are conscious to themselves of such an enmity to reformation that they cannot but conclude it will come at last; but they have such an opinion of God's patience (though they have long abused it) that they are willing to hope it will not come this great while. Note, Where Satan cannot persuade men to look upon the judgement to come as a thing doubtful and uncertain, yet he gains his point by persuading them to look upon it as a thing at a distance, so that it loses its force: if it be sure, yet it is not near; whereas, in truth, the Judge stands before the door. Now, if the destruction is not near, they conclude, Let us build houses; let us count upon a continuance, for this city is the caldron and we are the flesh. This seems to be a proverbial expression, signifying no more than this, "We are as safe in this city as flesh in a boiling pot; the walls of the city shall be to us as walls of brass, and shall receive no more damage from the besiegers about it than the cauldron does from the fire under it. Those that think to force us out of our city into captivity shall find it to be as much at their peril as it would be to take the flesh out of a boiling pot with their hands." This appears to be the meaning of it, by the answer God gives to it (Eze 11:9): "I will bring you out of the midst of the city, where you think yourselves safe, and then it will appear (Eze 11:11) that this is not your caldron, neither are you the flesh." Perhaps it has a particular reference to the flesh of the peace-offerings, which it was so great an offence for the priests themselves to take out of the caldron while it was in seething (as we find Sa1 2:13, Sa1 2:14), and then it intimates that they were the more secure because Jerusalem was the holy city, and they thought themselves a holy people in it, not to be meddled with. Some think this was a banter upon Jeremiah, who in one of his first visions saw Jerusalem represented by a seething pot, Jer 1:13. "Now," say they, in a way of jest and ridicule, "if it be a seething pot, we are as the flesh in it, and who dares meddle with us?" Thus they continued mocking the messengers of the Lord, even while they suffered for so doing; but be you not mockers, lest your bands be made strong. Those hearts are indeed which are made more secure by those words of God which were designed for warning to them.
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II. The method taken to awaken them out of their security. One would think that the providences of God which related to them were enough to startle them; but, to help them to understand and improve those, the word of God is sent to them to give them warning (Eze 11:4): Therefore prophesy against them, and try to undeceive them; prophesy, O son of man! upon these dead and dry bones. Note, The greatest kindness ministers can do to secure sinners is to preach against them, and to show them their misery and danger, though they are ever so unwilling to see them. We then act most for them when we appear most against them. But the prophet, being at a loss what to say to men that were hardened in sin, and that bade defiance to the judgments of God, the Spirit of the Lord fell upon him, to make him full of power and courage, and said unto him, Speak. Note, When sinners are flattering themselves into their own ruin it is time to speak, and to tell them that they shall have no peace if they go on. Ministers are sometimes so bashful and timorous, and so much at a loss, that they must be put on to speak, and to speak boldly. But he that commands the prophet to speak gives him instructions what to say; and he must address himself to them as the house of Israel (Eze 11:5), for not the princes only, but all the people, were concerned to know the truth of their cause, to know the worst of it. They are the house of Israel, and therefore the God of Israel is concerned, in kindness to them, to give them warning; and they are concerned in duty to him to take the warning. And what is it that the must say to them in God's name? 1. Let them know that the God of heaven takes notice of the vain confidences with which they support themselves (Eze 11:5): "I know the things which come into your minds every one of them, what secret reasons you have for these resolutions, and what you aim at in putting so good a face upon a matter you know to be bad." Note, God perfectly knows not only the things that come out of our mouths, but the things that come into our minds, not only all we say, but all we think; even those thoughts that are most suddenly darted into our minds, and that as suddenly slip out of them again, so that we ourselves are scarcely aware of them, yet God knows them. He knows us better than we know ourselves; he understands our thoughts afar off. The consideration of this should oblige us to keep our hearts with all diligence, that no vain thoughts come into them or lodge within them. 2. Let them know that those who advised the people to stand it out should be accounted before God the murderers of all who had fallen, or should yet fall, in Jerusalem, by the sword of the Chaldeans; and those slain were the only ones that should remain in the city, as the flesh in the caldron. "You have multiplied your slain in the city, not only those whom you have by the sword of justice unjustly put to death under colour of law, but those whom you have by your wilfulness and pride unwisely exposed to the sword of war, though you were told by the prophets that you should certainly go by the worst. Thus you, with your stubborn humour, have filled the streets of Jerusalem with the slain," Eze 11:6. Note, Those who are either unrighteous or imprudent in beginning or carrying on a war bring upon themselves a great deal of the guilt of blood; and those who are slain in the battles or sieges which they, by such a reasonable peace as the war aimed at, might have prevented, will be called their slain. Now these slain are the only flesh that shall be left in this caldron, Eze 11:7. There shall none remain to keep possession of the city but those that are buried in it. There shall be no inhabitants of Jerusalem but the inhabitants of the graves there, no freemen of the city but the free among the dead. 3. Let them know that, how impregnable soever they thought their city to be, they should be forced out of it, either driven to flight or dragged into captivity: I will bring you forth out of the midst of it, whether you will or no, Eze 11:7, Eze 11:9. They had provoked God to forsake the city, and thought they should do well enough by their own policy and strength when he was gone; but God will make them know that there is no peace to those that have left their God. If they have by their sins driven God from his house, he will soon by his judgments drive them from theirs; and it will be found that those are least safe that are most secure: "This city shall not be your caldron, neither shall you be the flesh; you shall not soak away in it as you promise yourselves, and die in your nest; you think yourself safe in the midst thereof, but you shall not be long there." 4. Let them know that when God has got them out of the midst of Jerusalem he will pursue them with his judgments wherever he finds them, the judgments which they thought to shelter themselves from by keeping close in Jerusalem. They feared the sword if they should go out to the Chaldeans, and therefore would abide in their caldron, but, says God, I will bring a sword upon you (Eze 11:8) and you shall fall by the sword, Eze 11:10. Note, The fear of the wicked shall come upon him. And there is no fence against the judgments of God when they come with commission, no, not in walls of brass. They were afraid of trusting to the mercy of strangers. "But," says God, "I will deliver you into the hands of strangers, whose resentments you shall feel, since you were not willing to lie at their mercy." See Jer 38:17, Jer 38:18. They thought to escape the judgments of God, but God says that he will execute judgments upon them; and whereas they resolved, if they must be judged, that it should be in Jerusalem, God tells them (Eze 11:10 and again Eze 11:11) that he will judge them in the borders of Israel, which was fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar slew all the nobles of Judah at Riblah in the land of Hamath, on the utmost border of the land of Canaan. Note, Those who have taken ever so deep root in the place where they live cannot be sure that in that place they shall die. 5. Let them know that all this is the due punishment of their sin, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God against them: You shall know that I am the Lord, Eze 11:10 and again Eze 11:12. Those shall be made to know by the sword of the Lord who would not be taught by his word what a hatred he has to sin, and what a fearful thing it is for impenitent sinners to fall into his hands. I will execute judgments, and then you shall know that I am the Lord, for the Lord is known by the judgments which he executes upon those that have not walked in his statutes. Hereby it is known that he made the law, because he punishes the breach of it. I will execute judgments among you (says God) because you have not executed my judgments, Eze 11:12. Note, The executing of the judgments of God's mouth by us, in a uniform steady course of obedience to his law, is the only way to prevent the executing of the judgments of his hand upon us in our ruin and confusion. One way or other. God's judgments will be executed; the law will take place either in its precept or in its penalty. If we do not give honour to God by executing his judgments as he has commanded, he will get him honour upon us by executing his judgments as he has threatened; and thus we shall know that he is the Lord, the sovereign Lord of all, that will not be mocked. And observe, When they cast off God's statutes, and walked not in them, they did after the manners of the heathen that were round about them, and introduced into their worship all their impure, ridiculous, and barbarous usages. When men leave the settled rule of divine institutions, they wander endlessly. Justly therefore was this made the reason why they should keep God's ordinances, that they might not commit the abominable customs of the heathen, Lev 18:30.
III. This awakening word is here immediately followed by an awakening providence, Eze 11:13. Here we may observe, 1. With what power Ezekiel prophesied, or, rather, what a divine power went along with it: It came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died; he was mentioned (Eze 11:1) as a principal man among the twenty-five princes that made all the mischief in Jerusalem. It should seem, this was done in vision now, as the slaying of the ancient men (Eze 9:6) upon occasion of which Ezekiel prayed (Eze 11:8) as he did here; but it was an assurance that when this prophecy should be published it should be done in fact. The death of Pelatiah was an earnest of the complete accomplishment of this prophecy. Note, God is pleased often-times to single out some sinners, and to make them monuments of his justice, for warning to others of what is coming; and some that thought themselves very safe and snatched away suddenly, and drop down dead in an instant, as Ananias and Sapphira at Peter's feet when he prophesied. 2. With what pity Ezekiel prayed. Thought the sudden death of Pelatiah was a confirmation of Ezekiel's prophecy, and really an honour to him, yet he was in deep concern about it, and laid it to heart as if he had been his relation or friend: He fell on his face and cried with a loud voice, as one in earnest, "Ah! Lord God, wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel? Many are swept away by the judgments we have been under; and shall the remnant which have escaped the sword die thus by the immediate hand of heaven? Then thou wilt indeed make a full end." Perhaps it was Ezekiel's infirmity to bewail the death of this wicked prince thus, as it was Samuel's to mourn so long for Saul; but thus he showed how far he was from desiring the woeful day he foretold. David lamented the sickness of those that hated and persecuted him. And we ought to be much affected with the sudden death of others, yea, though they are wicked.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–13 Moreover, the spirit lifted me up,.... From the inner…
Moreover, the spirit lifted me up,.... From the inner court of the temple, where the prophet was, according to the last account of him, Eze 8:16; it was the same Spirit that took him by the lock of his head, and lifted him up, as in Eze 8:3; and perhaps in the same manner:
and brought me unto the east gate of the Lord's house, which looketh eastward; where were the cherubim, and the wheels, and the glory of God above them, Eze 10:19;
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and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; not the same as in Eze 8:16; for they were in a different place, between the porch and the altar; and about different service, they were worshipping there; and seem to be men of a different order, priests; whereas these were at the door of the eastern gate, sitting as a court of judicature, and were civil magistrates; though Jarchi and Kimchi take them to be the same. Some say Jerusalem was divided into twenty four parishes, districts, or wards, and everyone had its own head, ruler, and governor; and that there was one who was the president over them all, like the mayor and aldermen of a city;
among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur; not the same that is mentioned in Eze 8:11; he was the son of Shaphan, this of Azur; he was one of the seventy of the ancients of Israel, this one of the twenty five heads or rulers of the people; he seems to have been a prince; by having a censer in his hand, this was a priest: the Septuagint and Arabic versions call him Jechoniah:
and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah; these two are mentioned by name, as being principal men, and well known by the prophet; and the latter is observed more especially for what befell him, hereafter related:
princes of the people; men who were entrusted with power and authority to exercise the laws of the nation; and who should have been reformers of the people, and ought to have given them good advice, and set them good examples; whereas they were the reverse, as follows:
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13 God's message of wrath to those who remained secure…
God's message of wrath to those who remained secure at Jerusalem, ver. 1-13. A message of comfort to the dejected captives at Babylon, ver. 14-21. The glory of God removes farther, ver. 22, 23. The vision disappears, of which Ezekiel gives an account, ver. 24, 25.
Jaazaniah - Not him that is mentioned chap. viii, 11. Pelatiah - Named here for that dreadful sudden death, whereby he became a warning to others.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7, 9, 11, 13 This chapter denounces the judgments of God against those
CHAPTER XI
This chapter denounces the judgments of God against those
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wicked persons who remained in Jerusalem and made a mock of
the types and predictions of the prophets, 1-13;
compare Eze 11:3 with Jer 1:13.
God promises to favour those who were gone into captivity, and
intimates their restoration from the Babylonish yoke, 14-21.
Then the shechinah, or symbol of the Divine Presence, is
represented forsaking the city, as in the foregoing chapter it
did the temple, 22, 23;
and the prophet returns in vision to the place from which he
set out, (Eze 8:1. &c.,)
in order to communicate his instructions to his brethren of the
captivity, 24, 25.
NOTES ON CHAP. XI
Verse 1. At the door of the gate five and twenty men] The same persons, no doubt, who appear, Eze 8:16, worshipping the sun.
Jaazaniah the son of Azur] In Eze 8:16, we find a Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. If Shaphan was also called Azur, they may be the same person. But it is most likely that there were two of this name, and both chiefs among the people.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 6, 8, 13 Eze 11:1-3. Moreover the spirit lifted me up —…
Eze 11:1-3. Moreover the spirit lifted me up — It seems it should rather have been rendered, And the spirit had lifted me up, for here he appears to go back to speak about those twenty-five men of whom he made mention Eze 7:16, but had broken off from speaking of them to speak of things of greater importance; but he now returns to them again. And brought me unto the east gate — Caused me to see those parts in my vision just as if I had been there. And behold at the door five and twenty men — The same who are represented in Eze 8:16, as worshipping the sun. They were princes of the people — That is, most probably, members of the great sanhedrim: compare Jer 26:10. Among whom I saw Pelatiah, &c. — Named here for that dreadful, sudden death, whereby he became a warning to others. Then said he unto me — Namely, the divine appearance which was before my eyes. These are the men that give wicked counsel — They probably advised and encouraged the people to use the Chaldean rites of worship, in order to please and gain the favour of that nation. Or, they persuaded the Jews that they had no reason to fear future trouble or mischief from the Chaldeans, and therefore rendered them secure in their sins. Which say, It is not near — The threatened danger and ruin by the Chaldeans. These were such as put the evil day far from them, as is said Amo 6:3, and so went on securely in building houses, and making such like improvements. This city is the caldron, and we be the flesh — Jeremiah had foretold the destruction of Jerusalem under the figure of a seething-pot, or caldron, Jer 1:13. And Ezekiel himself uses the same metaphor, Eze 24:3-4, &c. So these scoffers made use of the same expression on purpose to deride the menaces of the prophets; as if they had said, If this city be a caldron, we are well content to be the flesh that is boiled in it. “We will share all fates with her, we will either be preserved or perish with her.” So Michaelis, who thinks the words are a proverb.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7, 10, 13 The gate - The gate of the templecourt. The…
The gate - The gate of the templecourt. The gate was the place of judgment.
Five and twenty men - Not the same men as in Eze 8:16. There they were representatives of the “priests,” here of the “princes.” The number is, no doubt, symbolic, made up, probably, of 24 men and the king. The number 24 points to the tribes of undivided Israel.
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Jaazaniah ... Pelatiah - We know nothing more of these men. The former name was probably common at that time Eze 8:11. In these two names there is an allusion to the false hopes which they upheld. “Jaazaniah” (Yah (weh) listeneth) “son of Azur” (the Helper); “Pelatiah” (Yah (weh) rescues) “son of Benaiah” (Yah (weh) builds). In the latter case, death Eze 11:13 turned the allusion into bitter irony.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13 Me. The prophet in Chaldea, saw in spirit what…
Me. The prophet in Chaldea, saw in spirit what was doing at Jerusalem. (Worthington) --- Men. Magistrates. (Prado.) (Tirinus) (Menochius) --- Jezonias, perhaps mentioned [in] chap. viii. 11. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 4. The Leaders of the People (Ch. 11.)
4. The Leaders of the People (Ch. 11.)
1And the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the gate of the house of Jehovah, the east one, which looketh eastward; and behold, in [at] the opening of the gate five-and-twenty men; and I saw in their midst Jaazaniah the 2son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, the rulers of the people. And He said unto me, Son of man, these [are] the men that devise mischief, and 3that counsel evil counsel in this city; That say, [it is] not “near,” “building 4of houses”; it [is] the caldron, and we [are] the flesh. Therefore prophesy upon them, prophesy, son of man. 5And the Spirit of Jehovah fell upon me, and He said unto me, Say, Thus saith Jehovah: Thus said ye, O house of 6Israel, and the things which rise up in your spirit, I know it. Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, and filled its streets with slain. 7Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Your slain, whom ye have laid in its midst [the city’s], they [are] the flesh, while it [is] the caldron, and one brings you 8forth out of its midst. A sword ye feared; and I cause a sword to come 9upon you: sentence of the Lord Jehovah. And I bring you forth out of its midst, and give you into the hands of strangers, and execute judgments on 10[among] you. By the sword shall ye fall; on Israel’s border will I judge you; 11and ye know that I am Jehovah. It will not be the caldron for you, so that 12ye should be the flesh in its midst; on Israel’s border will I judge you. And ye know that I am Jehovah, ye that walked not in My statutes, neither executed My judgments, and [but] did after the judgments of the heathen which were round about you. 13And it came to pass, as I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died; and I fell upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah, Lord Jehovah! art thou making an utter end of the 14remnant of Israel? And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying: 15Son of man, thy brethren, thy brethren [are] the men represented by thee as kinsman, and [yea] the whole house of Israel, it wholly, to [of] whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem say, Be far from Jehovah; unto us was it—the land —given for a possession. 16Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because I removed them to a distance among the heathen, and because I scattered them in the countries, I become [became] to them for a sanctuary for a little in the countries whither they came. 17Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, And I gather you out of the nations, and assemble you out of the countries in which you were scattered, and give you the land of Israel. 18And they come thither, and they take away all its detestable things and all 19its abominations out of it. And I give them one heart, and a new spirit will I give in your inward part, and I take away the heart of stone out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh. 20That they may walk in My statutes, and keep My judgments, and do them, and may be to Me for a people, and 21I may be to them for a God. And [as for them] whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, their way give I 22upon their head: sentence of the Lord Jehovah. And the cherubim lifted up their wings, and the wheels [were] beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel over them above. 23And the glory of Jehovah rose up from over the midst of the city, and stood over the mountain which is on the east of 24the city. And the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me to the land of the Chaldeans, to the exiles, in the vision, in the Spirit of God; and the vision 25which I had seen rose up from above me. And I spake to the exiles all the words of Jehovah which He showed me.
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Eze_11:1. Sept.: ... τ. ἀφηγουμενους του λαον.
Eze_11:3. …οὐχι προσφατως ὠκοδομηνται αἰ οἰκιαι;—Nonne dudum ædificatæ sunt domus?
Eze_11:7. Anoth. read.: אוציא. Sept.: Κ. ὑμας ἐξαξω—and all the Versions.
Eze_11:13. כהנ׳; anoth. read.: בהנבאי.
Eze_11:15. The second אחיך is omitted by some Codd., Sept., and Arab.—Sept.: ... και οἱ ἀνδρες τ. αἰχμαλωσιας σου... κ. πκς... συντετελεσται, οἱς εἰπαν—
Eze_11:16. …εἰς ἁγιασμα μικρον—in sanctificationem modicam—
Eze_11:17. …αν̓τους—
Eze_11:19. …καρδιαν ἑτεραν κ. πνευμα καινον... ἐν αὐτοις—(Anoth. read.: לב חדש–.ונתתי לבם, Syr.—בקרבהם, בקרבם, Syr., Sept., Arab., Chald., Vulg.—לכם, מבשרכם, in some Codices.)
Eze_11:21. instead of ואל־לב, there is a reading ואל כל.
Eze_11:24. …κ. ἀνεβην ἀπο της ὁρχσεως—
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
The execution of judgment on the guilty inhabitants of Jerusalem is followed, as a second act, by the fire of wrath on the city, in connection with the departure of Jehovah from, the temple (Ezekiel 10). The vision is brought to a close by means of a striking occurrence. But, as in Ezekiel 9 in the midst of destruction there was at the same time the exercise of forbearance, so here also comfort and promise are joined with it. In the outset we have in Eze_11:1 (comp. at Eze_3:12; Eze_3:14; Eze_8:3) a new ecstatic commencement as regards the prophet. The locality to which (from where it is not said, and Eze_8:16 is not the rule for it; comp. on the other hand, Eze_10:5) he is transported is that mentioned in Eze_10:19. As in Eze_8:16 we have קֵדְמָה from קֵדֶם, so here קָדִימָה from קָדִים. The express repetition of the quarter of the heavens has something which points to Eze_8:16, without thereby identifying the five-and-twenty here with those mentioned there; it is only the similar turning away from the God of Israel towards an east, rich in hope, as they imagine, that can be hinted at therein. Comp. on Eze_8:16. “At the opening of the temple” is not=at the opening of the gate. Moreover, those mentioned in Eze_8:16 cannot (in accordance with Eze_9:6 sq.) be conceived of as any longer alive. The Jaazaniah (יַאֲזַנְַיָהוּ=יַאֲזַנְיָה) in their midst, who is first mentioned by name, accords in name and appositional statement with Eze_8:11 : “and Jaazaniah … standing in their midst,” but without the possibility of their being the same person, as their fathers are different; only their parallel disposition (we shall be able here also to notice it) might have been meant to be hinted at. There is some allusion to Ezekiel 8 in the expression. We know nothing more otherwise, either of the first named or of the second. [Hengstenberg extracts symbolically from the names of the men themselves and of their fathers the concentration of their thoughts: “all was full of joyous music to them.” “God-hears, the son of the Helper, and God-helps, the son of God-builds,” are to him “excellent names for men who promise themselves salvation without repentance, the direct opposite of the name Jeremiah: God-casts-down.”] The fact that the two who are named are designated as “princes of the people,” as it is commonly translated, does not at the same time assign this position to the remaining twenty-three, as the expositors admit; on the contrary, they appear thereby to be distinguished above the rest of the men; and the reason for it seems to be given in their importance, which immediately follows (Eze_11:2). The שָׂרֵי הָעָם, however, are by no means נְשִׂאֵי הָעֵדָה; but the more general meaning of שַׂר admits of the sense demagogues, those having sway over the people, rather than of elders (זְקֵנִים), or presidents of parts of the city, or members of the Sanhedrim, or presidents of the classes of priests, or of our thinking of the twelve princes of tribes and the twelve royal officials (colonels), with the king himself (Klief.) or commander-in-chief of the army. In their quality as bearing sway over the people they come into consideration, not as representing the civil authority of Israel, as those in Eze_8:16 represent the spiritual chiefs of the covenant-people (Keil.). In this way, also, it might be explained why the two are mentioned by name. The number given (25) may be intended to express a parallel with Eze_8:16, just as a parallelizing tendency to Ezekiel 8 seems to belong to the expression here at the close of the vision. With the patriarchically representative constitution of Israel, where the influence of the elders and heads of families easily pervaded the whole nation (Saalschütz, Archäol. ii. 432, § 4), the two individuals named may nevertheless also be, if not princes of tribes, yet elders of the people, although they are not here designated as such officially. It is no ordinary sitting of a college, as Hitzig alleges, but an assemblage of persons like-minded (officials, notables, individuals out of the mass) that is represented; perhaps, however, in order to represent the “house of Israel” (Eze_11:5) amply, designedly in the form of two for every tribe, and one more besides.
Eze_11:2. Son of man, Eze_2:1.—אָוֶן, with no fixed boundary between cause and effect, stretching from the moral to the physical, from the subjective to the objective,—mischief, as it results from injustice. Their evil counsel turns out ill. Their manner of speaking in Eze_11:3 is the popular-rhetorical, which makes an impression on the sensuous mass by its striking, figurative character, and is easily remembered. How they think, and what corresponding counsel they give, is shown first of all by the statement: It is not near, building of houses,—their reply, namely, to the prophets of this period, who supplement one another, Ezekiel and Jeremiah. The distinctive expression in the case of the former—comp. Ezekiel 7, especially Eze_11:7-8 (עָתַּה מִקָּרוֹב)—is met by the bold denial לֹא בְקָרוֹב, and at the same time, בְּנוֹ בָּתִּים (building of houses) ridicules the letter of Jeremiah to the exiles (Eze_29:5), beginning with בְּנוּ בָתִּים (“build ye houses”), which threatened those at Jerusalem with sword, famine, and pestilence, etc. [Other explanations of these words are either hardly justifiable linguistically,—such as Luther’s, those of the Sept. and Vulg. (Ewald takes לֹא as a question, Gram. 324a),—or give a far-fetched sense, such as Hitzig’s.] Positively their meaning is expressed to this effect, that Jerusalem will keep its inhabitants, as the caldron keeps the flesh; and therefore their counsel is, to remain and to trust to the secure walls, instead of trusting the word of the prophets. [According to Hävernick, with allusion to Jer_1:13; according to Kliefoth, alluding to Jeremiah 19?] Bunsen: “We sit here in Jerusalem warm and protected, like the flesh in the caldron.”
Their reply to the prophetic word is answered in Eze_11:4 : therefore—the repeated prophesy; and in Eze_11:5 we have Ezekiel’s immediate carrying out of the command in virtue of the divine equipment; comp. Eze_8:1. The Spirit, instead of the hand of Jehovah, because of the revelation in word (אֱמֹר). Jehovah knows what rises up in their spirit (Eze_20:32), as His Spirit also goes forth to meet their spirit. Thus there is a return to their saying. [־יהָ refers to מַעֲלוֹת (Deu_31:21; Hos_5:3; Psa_139:2; Joh_2:25), or it is a collective feminine.] The expression: house of Israel, emphasizes almost ironically the contrast of what they pretended, what they also ought to be. Their mischievous devising, their bad counsel (Eze_11:2), is set before their eyes in Eze_11:6 in its ultimate effect in actual fact, by means of the result to which it will lead when they are brought forth (Eze_11:7). Not that their deeds hitherto are to show the wickedness of their plots,—neither from “the epoch of Jeconiah” (Hitz.), nor, in accordance with a more general interpretation, of murder in a refined and gross sense (Häv.),—which would lie outside the context, but the slain (הַלָל, properly: “to pierce through,” as happens in the case of those who are put to the sword) are those to be slain by the Chaldeans, already slain from the standpoint taken up in the discourse of God. They are by their wicked counsels the authors of their death (Hengst.). חָלָל, comp. Eze_6:7; Ew. Gram. 278a.
Eze_11:7. A retributive (לָכֵן) interpretation of their proverb in accordance with such a result of their counsel. It is fulfilled, but how? Not for themselves. Inasmuch as they—in contrast with their remaining in the city, which they have strongly asserted (Eze_11:3)—are brought forth, they remain alive, as distinguished from those slain as the result of their counsel. Yet comp. Eze_5:2. (Like the Sept. and Vulg. [Eng. Vers. also], Ewald reads אוֹצִיא instead. of הוֹצִיא.) [J. D. Mich.: “Many citizens misled by you shall perish in the city, for whom it will be the caldron, and they the flesh which is cooked therein; only ye yourselves shall not be the flesh in this caldron, but shall be dragged forth and cut in pieces elsewhere.”]
Eze_11:8. From fear of those who are able to kill the body (Mat_10:28), but not from fear of God (otherwise they would have hearkened to the word of His prophets), they took the walls of Jerusalem as a “caldron,” which was to enclose them securely as the “flesh.” (“Ye would not give yourselves up to the Babylonians, as Jeremiah advised you, because ye were afraid of being put to death by them,” etc., a Lap. “Their revolt from the Chaldean king, the coalition and Egypt, will not save them from the sword of Babylon, on the contrary will bring it upon them,” Hengst.) Eze_6:3. Comp. also at Eze_5:11.
Eze_11:9. Now comes the question how it will be with the bringing of them forth (Eze_11:7). First of all, Jehovah (not Babylon, as it may appear outwardly) is He that brings them forth. Then farther, there is along with that His design, His aim; comp. Eze_7:21; Eze_5:10; Eze_5:15.
Eze_11:10. Eze_5:12. Comp. the fulfilment, 2Ki_25:18 sq.; Jer_39:6; Jer_52:10; Jer_52:24 sq.—עַל־גְּבוּל, or אֶל גְּ׳, in Eze_11:11 (Ew. Gram. 351a), removes the judgment not merely outside Jerusalem, which was to be a “caldron” for them, but outside Israel, which they have represented so badly (Eze_11:5).
Eze_11:12 explains more definitely what is meant by the experimental knowledge of Jehovah in Eze_11:10,—that where they have not made themselves known before the heathen as Israel by doing what is right, He will make Himself known to them as Jehovah by means of His judgment, which deprives them of city and land. Comp. Eze_6:7; Eze_6:13; Eze_5:7.
The sudden dying of Pelatiah takes place literally within the sphere of the vision merely, although in his case there may have been a corresponding reality at the same time, or at least about this time. As the prophet had to predict to the individual in question, as well as to his fellows, their being brought forth out of Jerusalem for judgment by the sword, but not their immediate death (Eze_11:4 sq.), this incident, whose awful character (Act_5:5) is attested to us by the impression upon Ezekiel, symbolizes prophetically the certainty in actual fact of the judgment of death on the others also (comp. besides, Jer_28:17). And so Ezekiel sees them all already dead, and Eze_9:8 repeats itself. Comp. there. Just as there, so here also it is the portion of the people still remaining at Jerusalem, in the land of Israel, and the standpoint of feeling is likewise (as against Hengst.) that of the exiles. For כָּלָה עשֶֹׁה, comp. Jer_4:27; Jer_5:10; Jer_5:18; Eze_20:17. According to Hävern.: a juridical term for the carrying out of the final sentence. [Hävern. and Hengst. find an allusion besides to the name of the individual in question,—that the “help of Jehovah” is at an end, that with him, as it were, all salvation for Judah fell to the ground (?).]
But while Eze_9:9 sq. emphasized guilt only, and God’s justice only as confronting it, Eze_11:14 introduces, and that solemnly, God’s mercy.—Still Eze_11:15 does not on that account form any “antithesis” (as Hävernick), but rather confirms what is announced in Eze_9:9. For those in reference to whom remark will be made, and not merely of their being spared, but more positively even of their being preserved in an extraordinary manner, are different from those for whom Ezekiel interceded. He did so from a brotherly heart, and, because speaking from the standpoint of feeling of the exiles, characterized these also at the same time, in accordance with Jeremiah 24. Thy brethren, thy brethren, namely, those who are so in truth, and not merely according to the flesh (Mat_12:48; Rom_9:3). The repetition in the first place lays emphasis on this, but then farther, at the same time, puts in his right place the prophet of the glory of God in the midst of the exile, as we have seen Ezekiel to be (see the Introd.) in this his calling. For the designation of the exiles as “men of thy גְּאֻלָּה” (predicate, not subject) is not=thy kinsmen (Gesen.), which after such emphasizing would be equivalent to a weakening of the idea, but it reminds the prophet of his duty. [The Sept. read גּוֹלָתֶךָ.] גְּאֻלָּה embraces the whole duty of the גֹּאֵל (the brother or nearest kinsman): redemption of goods and property, of liberty and life, the avenging of blood, the marriage obligation, and thus the entire representation of, giving of assistance to, and attorneyship for him who was reduced to poverty, slain, or dead. The expression: and the whole house of Israel, just as little adds “the laity” (Hitzig) to the others, as by the expression: the men, etc., is meant the priests only, as Hävernick also understands, in accordance with his view of the twenty-five in Eze_11:1; but the discourse sets over against the title (Eze_11:5) the thing itself, over against the name the reality, and at the same time deals with the (as in Eze_9:8, so here in Eze_11:13) so-called “remnant of Israel,” inasmuch as, corresponding to the repetition (“thy brethren,” etc.) at the beginning of our verse, the whole house of Israel (Eze_9:8), by being repeated through means of: it wholly, is made emphatic. (Eze_20:40; Rom_11:26.) Hengst.: “The contrast is, of course, such only on the whole; otherwise Jeremiah even would be no true Israelite. According to Ezekiel 9., even in Jerusalem there is an election under the Lord’s sheltering protection, although it cannot prevent the downfall of the city; and according to Ezekiel 14. there is also among the exiles much refuse.” [Joh_1:47 (Ezekiel 48.); Rom_2:28-29; Rom_9:6; Jer_7:4; 1Ti_3:15; 1Co_3:9.] The idea which is expressed by כֻּלֹּה stands forth still more prominently by means of the contrast, so far as appearances go, to which those who are still for the moment the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Eze_12:19) give expression, in accordance with their Pharisaic, hypocritical self-exaltation. Their characteristic dictum is quoted. For the imperative רַחְַקוּ, comp. on Eze_8:6 and Joh_9:22. What they themselves are inwardly in reality, the appearance of that—its outward realization—they cast to those in exile. “They fall into a kind of holy zeal. In this position which they assumed toward their brethren, they themselves bear witness that they are not in the true sense brethren” (Hengst.).—לְמוֹרָשָׁה, Exo_6:8.
Over against such a saying (Eze_11:15) on their part, Eze_11:16 places the retributive saying of Jehovah: Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord, etc. And what is retribution towards Jerusalem is at the same time promise towards the exile. But there are two things said and therewith promised by God. The first, which is in reply to that saying: “Be far from Jehovah” (Eze_11:15), which made a declamatory use of their being outwardly far from the temple at Jerusalem, is the declaration so rich in promise: I become a sanctuary to them,—a thought which must from the first in Ezekiel 1, along with other things, have been indicated by the vision at the river Chebar, but which especially the vision in Ezekiel 8 sq. has brought as a compensation for the symbol of the presence in the outward temple of Jerusalem. The older Jewish expositors think of the synagogues. כִּי, not before the direct speech, like: Yea, etc., and therefore impressively repeated (Hitz.); but in fact granting the reality, although tracing it back to Jehovah expressly, it begins like a protasis which gives the reason, or at least in the sense of: “if,” “although,” or the like, [מִקְדָּשׁ, according to Gesen. “asylum,” which is too narrow.] מְעַט, either the length of time, or in the sense of measure (in some measure), which does not suit the context so well, and a promise of God, as here, still less.—(Isa_8:14; Joh_2:19; Rev_21:22.)
The second answer to the saying of the inhabitants of Jerusalem has reference to the statement: “to us was the land given” (Eze_11:15). Hence Eze_11:17, with therefore, parallel to Eze_11:16, and continuing the promise by means of וְ, in the oratio directa. I gather you (Jer_23:3)—comp. Joh_11:52—for which the return from Babylon was merely the outward substratum. In how spiritual a sense the return is conceived, namely, as at the same time an inward return to Jehovah (Jer_24:7), and therefore into the land promised by Him, is shown immediately by Eze_11:18. And they, etc., i.e. the parties addressed, the parties mentioned. The history of the Jews after the exile proves the purification of Palestine from the previous idolatry (Eze_5:11).—To the gathering corresponds the divine bestowal in Eze_11:19, just as it explains the reformation (Eze_11:18). [Hitzig: אַחֵר, “another” heart, like the Sept.] The one heart (Act_4:32) and the new spirit in the inward part are parallel. The old spirit which ruled them inwardly did not permit the harmony and concord which now ensue. But with the gift of a new spirit, the heart of stone, the unnatural element, is at the same time removed out of the flesh, and the natural element—an heart of flesh—is given. It is therefore no antithesis of Holy Spirit and flesh, as elsewhere,—not the contrast of nature and grace, but “a new spirit” and the opposite of the “one heart” that is to be given, i.e. the old spirit, that confront each other,—nature and the unnatural. The manner of expression is peculiar to Ezekiel. As they take away (הֵסִירוּ) all the detestable things and abominations out of the land, so Jehovah takes away (הֲסרֹתִי) the heart of stone out of their flesh. The “stony heart” stands in relation to the idols; so also the “heart of flesh,” “the new spirit,” the “one heart,” stands in relation to the only true God (1Ki_18:21; Psa_86:11; Jam_1:8; Jam_4:8). Comp. the opposite in Eze_11:21. [Commonly the heart of flesh is taken as a soft heart, receptive of the impressions of divine grace, and the stony heart as the human heart in its natural condition.] Comp. Eze_36:26; Jer_31:33; Jer_32:39; Psa_51:12 [10]. Israel, by her apostate, polytheistic conduct, has fallen entirely out of what was natural to her as a people,—that she should be the people of the one true God, the people of His holy law. This unnatural element of her conduct as a nation is to cease by means of the divine gift and working, and so לְמַעַן in Eze_11:20 fits in quite simply as defining the purpose. Comp. besides, Eze_11:12.
Eze_11:21. In contrast, either those at Jerusalem who have filled the land with their idolatry (Eze_11:18), or those among the people of God to be restored who shall prove worthless (comp. Eze_14:3), or the latter as well as the former. (In a grammatical point of view, comp. Ew. Gr. 333, p. 820.) Just as one may take up idols into his heart, so a heart may be ascribed to them. It is only the practical side of his becoming one with them, so that one is represented as one heart (Eze_11:19) and one soul with them, when his heart walketh after their heart, instead of walking in Jehovah’s statutes (Eze_11:20). Comp. besides on Eze_9:10.
Eze_11:22. The closing scene of the vision of Ezekiel 8-11 Comp. the previous scenes connected with the movement and departure of the glory of God out of the most holy place of the temple, as equivalent to and parallel with the vision of glory in Eze_1:1-28; Eze_8:4; Eze_9:3; Eze_10:3-4; Eze_10:18-19.—Comp. Eze_10:19.
Eze_11:23. The expression: from over the midst of the city, points at the same time to this circumstance, that the execution of judgment and the exercise of forbearance within the city (Ezekiel 9), as well as the throwing of the coals of fire over the city (Eze_10:2), were a manifestation of glory. The position in Eze_10:19; Eze_11:1 (“inasmuch as the city stretches to the north and south beyond the temple,” Hitz.), indicates also the middle of the city. Such an abandonment of the temple, therefore, is at the same time an abandonment of the city (Hos_5:15). While the vision still lasts, the glory of Jehovah stands over the Mount of Olives (2Sa_15:30; Zec_14:4), as is the view of ancient and modern expositors alike. Its situation and height are suitable (“the commanding point in reference to Jerusalem, which is overlooked from it in its whole extent,” Hengst.). (Comp. Luk_19:37; Luk_19:41 sq., luke 21:37, luke 22:39; Act_1:12.) Comp. Eze_43:2. Whether for the purpose of there presiding over the judgment on Jerusalem and the temple, or whether for the purpose of going back from thence to heaven, it is not said. This is objectively the end of the vision, but likewise subjectively as regards the prophet, Eze_11:24; comp. on Eze_11:1, Eze_8:1; Eze_1:1; Eze_3:11 (Act_10:16). The fulness of the description lays emphasis on the divine superhuman as well as non-human character of the revelation made to him, with a view specially to those to whom he in Eze_11:25 communicates it. דִּבְרֵי, as throughout Holy Scripture. Yet the word, in a pre-eminent sense (John 1), is finally the deed, the Word of God κατ̓ ἐξοχην.
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. Demagogism in Israel is characterized in Numbers 16 as a laying stress on the universal priesthood of Israel, as opposed to the special office of Moses and Aaron. In our chapter its seductive skill in words is turned against the prophets of the period, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, inasmuch as the popular orators harangue their public on the possession of Jerusalem and the dwelling in the promised land. If, therefore, in Numbers 16 the argument is borrowed from the idea of Israel,—what she is to be according to Exo_19:6,—it is argued in our case from the existing reality of Jewish affairs at the moment; hence, in comparison, also a degenerate demagogism, just as everything in Israel’s case points downwards. Perhaps we may compare the relation of social demagogism to the old republican demagogism, which latter at least still inscribed the ideas, liberty, equality, fraternity, on its red banner, while socialism agitates merely in reference to the actual relations of society for the moment.
2. Hävernick admits the “remarkable literal fulfilment” of Eze_11:9-11, but refuses, on the other hand, with Grotius, to understand them as “a prediction.” The idea of the threatening in our prophet here “lies much deeper, in the nature of the subject itself; the extent of its application accordingly is also much wider.” Hengstenberg remarks: “The prophecy cannot have been framed merely after the event; Ezekiel laid his book before his contemporaries, who were able to put him right. And the guarantee for the predictions which were fulfilled in the lifetime of the prophet lies in those which did not come to be fulfilled till long after his death. The confidence of Ezekiel is a sufficient proof that there is a supernatural element,” etc. Certainly neither the canon of Nitzsch, that the prediction must not destroy the history, nor the limitation of Tholuck, that the detailed prediction must not be expressed before the subjects who are actors in the history, can suffice for regulating the prophetic gift of divination. Alike the psychologico-anthropological and the specifically theological elements are deprived of an adequate scientific basis.
3. “It is lamentable if we must gain the knowledge of God (Eze_11:10; Eze_11:12) by our own destruction—if He in whom we live, and move, and have our being, is known only by the strokes which break our own head. The knowledge has in this case, moreover, no moral import. It is a mere passive knowledge, forced also upon the ungodly, unconnected with repentance” (Hengst.).
4. Although the prospect which the divine promise (Eze_11:16 sq.) opens up regarding the captives of Israel is expressed everywhere in forms of Old Testament life as it appears under the law, yet the New Testament background, the “Messianic salvation” (Ewald), shows itself behind it. The realization of the covenant into which God entered with Israel for the human race, that they should be to Him a people and He should be to them a God, remains a theme down even to Rev_21:3. With this the fulfilment also coincides, as it brought the return from the exile. The exiles were gathered out of their banishment to be a people again, and that on the “recovered soil of Israel,” under Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah; just as those who had continued to dwell in the heathen countries solemnly professed by their visits to the feasts at Jerusalem (Acts 2.) that they belonged to the nation of the Jews. The reformation of the religious condition was an energetic one, as directed against the heathenish lusts after idolatry on every hand which prevailed before the exile. Comp. also the period of the Maccabees. Monotheism became the purifying fundamental dogma of the Jewish nation. And there was also developed a scrupulous legality, down even to Pharisaism, in the trivial actions of life. It was “a new spirit,” and proved to be in general, and in comparison with the previous “stony heart,” which God’s judgment had broken in pieces, an “heart of flesh;” but yet it was merely an heart of flesh. The New Testament interpretation must not as a matter of course be put upon Eze_11:19 sq., as is done by Cocceius and the most of believing expositors. The prophetic words do not affirm this; but the prospect into the New Covenant does not open till at the close, where God gives the assurance that He will make Himself known as their God to those who have become His people. For this took place when He εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθε, Joh_1:11. Only ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτὸν, ἔδωχεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν κ. τ. λ. (Eze_11:12). The renewal for that is not contained in Eze_11:19 sq. Cocceius, indeed, interprets מִקְדָשׁ מְעַט (Eze_11:16) by: sanctuarium paucorum, i.e. Deum per inhabitationem suam in aliquibus, paucis, eos sanctificare, and finds therein the antithesis to Isa_53:12 and Rom_8:29!
5. What the vision of the glory of Jehovah which Ezekiel had at the Chebar already signified, but still more in accordance with its supplementary confirmation as well as renewal by means of Ezekiel 8 sq., that obtains in the statement: “I become to them for a sanctuary” (and that not merely in a rhetorical sense, as it may be understood in Isa_8:14, and hence as an emblem of protection and also of blessing), its retrospective, but, at the same time, preparatory (as regards Ezekiel 40 sq.) expression, and, in general, one that is predictive and rich in promise. The saying in Eze_11:15 does not indeed affirm anything expressly of the temple, but would make the presence of Jehovah be decided as a matter of fact by the possession of the land. But so much the more does the divine reply, in contrast with the material possession of the land, draw attention to the “sanctuary,” by means of which Jehovah’s presence in the land is brought about, and in which one is able to draw near to Jehovah (קָרַב, as opposed to רחַק). Since, then, Jehovah promises to be to them a sanctuary, i.e. a temple in this connection, the priestly-prophetic office of Ezekiel is brought specially to light, by means of which the exiles approach God, and God makes Himself known to them, and in addition to which there is the glorifying of the name of Jehovah in and through Daniel; but along with that in general, there is promised a presence of God in spirit and in truth, as Joh_4:20 sq. expresses it in respect of worship. Thus the exile might be to the Jews a school as regards the indwelling of the Word in flesh among men full of grace and truth, as regards the revelation of glory as of the Only-Begotten (Joh_1:14), as regards the temple which appeared in Jesus Christ (Joh_2:19 sq.).
[“The dispersion, besides being a just chastisement on account of sin, and a salutary discipline to lead the heart of the people back to God, had an important end to accomplish as a preparatory movement in Providence for opening the way for Messiah’s kingdom. It was very far from being an unmixed evil. As a mere external arrangement, it was destined to be of great service in diffusing the knowledge of God, and providing materials for the first foundations of the Christian Church, by giving the bearers of God’s truth a place and an influence in many of the most commanding positions in the heathen world. But still more important and necessary was the end it had to serve, in spiritualizing the views of the better part of the Jews themselves, and training them to the knowledge and service of God, without the help of a material temple and an earthly kingdom. Practically it had the effect of indefinitely widening the bounds of Canaan, or of giving to the world at large somewhat of its distinctive characteristics, since the devout worshipper at Babylon, Alexandria, Rome, or wherever he might be placed, found himself a partaker of God’s presence and blessing as well as in Jerusalem. What a mighty advance did the kingdom of God thus make toward the possession of the world! And in rendering the dispersion of His people instrumental to the attainment of such a result, how strikingly did the Lord manifest His power to overrule a present evil for the accomplishment of an ultimate good! Nor were it, perhaps, too much to say, having respect to the issues of things, that the dispersion of the Israelites among the nations was fraught with as much blessing for the Church and the world as even their original settlement in Canaan.”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, p. 114.—W. F.]
“For a little,” it is said in Eze_11:16, Jehovah Himself will be a sanctuary; in view of the destiny of the Jewish people, the state in exile could only be of a provisional character, only preparatory. For salvation is of the Jews, and the destiny of the people—and this must be upon its own soil—is the building of the temple of the kingdom of God (Ezekiel 40. sq.). Palestine became the cradle of the incarnation of God in Christ, and thus of the Church on earth. But now, when the exile of the Jews has become a long period, the Jews must have fallen out with their destiny, as in such a case they have neither recognised their temple in Christ, nor built themselves as a people for a temple of God (Eph_2:21; 1Co_3:16 sq.; 2Co_6:16; comp. Joh_17:19 sq.).
6. “How different the Babylonian exile from the present! In the latter case, no proof of the presence of God; the people can keep only feasts of commemoration, and dream of the future; between the distant past and the distant future an immense empty space, a complete Sahara. In the former case, for him who looks more deeply, in the deepest humiliation there are everywhere traces of the loving care of God, pledges of the enduring election, of the future glorification” (Hengst.).
7. As against Keil, who quotes Hengstenberg for his view, we must assert that the passage Deu_30:6 does not lie at the foundation of the promise in Eze_11:19, as was held already by Cocceius, who quoted in addition Col_2:11 sq., and the Epistle to the Hebrews. The “one” heart can only mean in the case of the individual a united heart,—a heart, therefore, which does not in its thoughts go from one thing to another, which does not through its lusts scatter itself on outward things, but is held together by the fear of God in its bent towards Him; which comes to the same thing as לְב שָׁלֵם, i.e. a whole heart, not divided between God and any other (Deu_6:5; Deu_10:12). But here it is the people as a whole and generally that are spoken of. Their σκληρο-καρδία is well known (Mat_19:8); it has come to light by means of their history, that even the best, the noblest of this people shared in it (Mar_16:14). We call attention to the passages in our prophet, Eze_2:4; Eze_3:7. Comp. Isa_48:4 (and this, too, with reference to idolatry); Jer_5:3. They have hardened themselves in such a way (Deu_10:16, like Pharaoh under the plagues) in opposition to the law, that God’s law, which was written on tables of stone, is written as it were, with its penalties and its curse, upon stony Israel. But whatever their hardness may be, there is confronted with it (Deu_9:27) what they are in Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; in other words, that they are as flesh, that is their nature, and hence to be the Lord’s servant. And that God says He will give back, restoring what originally belonged to their nature (“an heart of flesh”), in contrast with the unnatural and that which is against nature which has grown up in them (“the heart of stone”). Comp. on the other hand, Joh_1:13.
8. There is generally more said than ought to be said according to God’s word, that “in its natural state man’s heart” is “hard as a stone” (Hengst., Keil). It becomes the “heart of stone” only by hardening. By nature it is rather “an heart of flesh,” which grace confronts with spirit of Spirit (Joh_3:6). Even in the case of Pharaoh there comes forth on repeated occasions the fleshy element of his heart (Exo_8:4; Exo_8:21; Exo_8:24 [ Exo_8:8; Exo_8:25; Exo_8:28], Exo_9:27, etc.). And with the fleshy state of the heart manifold gifts of God are conceivable, as was the case with Israel from their fathers (hereditary blessing).
9. The “heart of stone,” which has become such by hardening, God breaks in pieces. Thus it happened to Pharaoh. He does not break it; in that case it must have been an “heart of flesh.” But this is done in Zec_12:10. Or, as in our chapter, God takes away the “heart of stone,” and gives “an heart of flesh.” The keeping apart of flesh and stone is as important as that of flesh and spirit.
10. “In a threatening (Eze_11:21) the whole terminates in a remarkable way. The idols are in themselves dead—mere reflexes and objective representations of the popular spirit; but even as such they exercise an enormous power over individuals. What power has Mammon now, as a Jewish (?) national god, over Jewish minds, although he is in himself a mere shadow?—Jehovah even may be an idol. With the idol-images the idols themselves do not yet disappear from a land”(Hengst.).“Little children, keep yourselves from idols,” the disciple of love still says to us (Umbr.).
11. The Messianic significance of the Mount of Olives, which is not denied by the Jews even, has its Christological fulfilment in the Gospels; but in addition, the whole movement of the glory of Jehovah in Ezekiel 10, 11 has its meaning for the life of the Son of God in the flesh. Jerome remarks: “By degrees the glory of the Lord takes its departure from Jerusalem. After it leaves the temple, it stands first on the threshold, thereafter at the entrance of the east gate, finally over the Mount of Olives, whence the Saviour ascends to the Father.” Comp. the beginning in Luk_2:46, the continuation in Joh_2:14 sq., along with the New Testament passages already quoted in the exposition; and for the end, still farther, Mat_21:12 sq., Mat_24:1 sq. (Mat_27:5; Mat_27:51). One might say, Ezekiel has seen beforehand the life of Jesus in its elements of judgment in reference to the Jewish people.
12. Baumgarten (The Acts of the Apostles, on Ezekiel 1, Clark’s Trans.) remarks on the glory of Jehovah in relation to the Mount of Olives: “It was therefore a departure, and yet a remaining in the neighbourhood; if the outward protection and blessing of Jehovah should be withdrawn from His people, the invisible power of His Spirit will remain near them, and perhaps manifest itself the more gloriously. It is the very same Ezekiel, who has afterwards brought vividly before us this side of promise and hope even in the departure of the glory of Jehovah; it is just Ezekiel who has beheld, represented, and described in the most impressive way the awakening, creative power of the Spirit of Jehovah for the whole nation of Israel (Ezekiel 37.). In like manner, Jesus, in whom dwelleth the divine glory bodily, withdraws from the Jews (Joh_8:21); but His standing on the Mount of Olives is a sign that He remains invisibly and blessedly near them, Act_3:26.”
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze_11:1-3. “Do thou also give thyself up to the drawing of the Spirit of God. Wherever He may lead thee, it will be to a joyful end at last. But beware of the leading of the evil spirit” (Starck).—When those who bear sway over the people are not able even to master their own wicked thoughts and words, but rather strive against God’s thoughts and words, it must certainly turn out ill both for themselves and for the people. The beautiful names of such leaders avail nothing, just as little as the voice of the people is, as is said, the voice of God, unless it be that God’s judgment is made known by it.—“We learn from this chapter how great a blessing from God it is for a people to have pious leaders.”—“That the prophet names only two may show us how it is the few who draw so many after them: so it is in the senates of princes, so it is in the free states” (Luther).—Thus God reveals the thoughts of men, 2Co_5:10.
Eze_11:3. “They allude to Jer_1:13, and insinuate that the prophet contradicts himself. What! thou threatenest us with captivity, and yet thou sayest this city is the caldron, and the Chaldeans will be the fire! If it is God’s pleasure to cook us, then we shall remain in the caldron! Just as abandoned and profane men are always in quest of subtleties wherewith they may put down the heavenly doctrine, so they turned what was said by the prophets into the opposite: Well, then, we shall be thoroughly cooked, and shall therefore remain in Jerusalem onwards to extreme age” (Calv.).—“Impenitent sinners delight themselves in their sins, and do not suffer themselves, in the midst of their ungodly conduct, to dream of anything but pure good fortune, Jer_5:12” (O.).—“In this way reason is accustomed always to drive all judgments out of the mind, or to comfort itself with the thought how it is quite able to withstand them by means of the flesh” (Berl. Bib.).—“Now-a-days still there are certain men who love to make the word of God contradict itself” (Luther).
Eze_11:4. They are against the prophets, and therefore prophecy is against them, and that without regard of their persons, or of the multitude at their back. Our prophet mentions the ringleaders even by name. How indelicate! how imprudent! how defiant! Is it not? But with God’s word at our back, we have the Almighty Himself at our back, and God’s servants are neither to be dumb dogs nor flatterers of men.—“Son of man” the prophet remains notwithstanding; his is the weakness, the power is God’s.—“God does not suffer Himself to be mocked, Gal_6:7” (Starck).
Eze_11:5. “It is not the commissioned servants that speak, but the Spirit of their Father, Mat_10:20. He is the Preacher, they are merely the voice, Joh_1:23” (Berl. Bib.).—What rises up out of the heart of man (Mat_15:18-19) is of such a nature, that God must put a bridle on it; and this is just God’s bridle, that the darkness is dragged to the light, and reproved by the light, Eph_5:13.—“It is of no use, therefore, to make a show in the theatre of the world, even if the matter obtains the applause of men, because it goes at last before the heavenly tribunal, where God alone will be Judge. He knows our thoughts, and will not accept our subterfuges, nor allow Himself to be mocked by our subtleties. What men have held to be the highest wisdom, God will show them to be a vain conceit, and worthless” (Calv.).
Eze_11:6 sq. God is in word and deed a righteous Judge. To that very point to which the counsel of the ungodly brings those who follow them, God brings the ungodly themselves in the end. He judges them according to their words, although not as they mean them.—The irony in the divine retribution.—The “caldron,” the coffin.—The “flesh” is slaughtered; the “caldron” broken in pieces.—The retribution of God (1) attaches itself to the form of the sin, but (2) changes the substance of the sin into the substance of the punishment.
Eze_11:8. “The sword, therefore, does not come by chance where it comes, but God’s hand is in the matter” (Berl. Bib.).
Eze_11:9-12. “He who will not bend his heart before God must bend his head to strangers” (Starck).—“They had not chosen to know God from His word, and so they were now to learn to know Him, according to His word, from His works. If God’s law does not enlighten so as to impart a knowledge that is saving, then must God’s righteousness in judgment enlighten so as to impart a knowledge which is not saving” (Luther).
Eze_11:13-14. “If one will not listen to words, then God must speak by means of examples, which in that case call to us, Luk_13:3; Luk_13:5” (Berl. Bib.).—“A sudden death in the case of the ungodly is the most terrible thing that can happen, 1 Thessalonians 5. To the pious, on the other hand, who are always living in sight of death, even the most sudden death does not come unexpected” (Luth.).—“Although the pious do not find fault with God’s sentence, yet they look on the ruin of the ungodly with a sigh” (O.).—“When an angry father is going about in the house with a rod, even a dutiful child is afraid, falls at his feet, and pleads for his brothers and sisters: this a believer also does for the ungodly when God punishes them, Exodus 32.” (Starke).
Eze_11:15. It is not the word “brother” that is of consequence, but what the word expresses, and therefore it is repeated; and just as little is it the dwelling together that is of consequence, but their being one with each other (Eze_11:19) is the reality of brotherhood.—1Jn_5:16 : There is a sin unto death, for which one is not to pray.—What the inhabitants of Jerusalem say reminds one of the manner of speaking of many in the “only-saving” Church, as well as of many who fancy that they are “the community of the faithful.”—Comp. the Pharisee, Luk_18:11.—But the meek shall inherit the land, Matthew 5.—“There is a passage here which is worth noting, that we may learn not to estimate the state of the Church according to the common judgment of men, nor according to the glitter, which for the most part dazzles the eyes of the simple. For thus it comes about that we suppose we have found the Church where there is no Church, and are in despair when it does not present itself before our eyes. Rather are we to hold fast by this, that frequently the Church is preserved in a wonderful way in secret; and farther, that members of the Church are not those puffed-up people who impose upon fools, but rather the common people, whom no one regards” (Calv.).
Eze_11:16. The exile a Jewish school, in which the Jews (1) may learn the spirit of the temple, (2) may be prepared for the Spirit of Christ, (3) might have been educated in the spirit of true Christianity.
Eze_11:17-20. True return home is return to the true God.
Eze_11:18. “The true cleansing of the Church has taken place under the New Covenant; the perfect cleansing will take place on the day of harvest, at the last judgment.”—“True reformation of life must show itself by earnest hatred of what is evil, Psa_119:128” (Starck).
Eze_11:19-20. “To the one heart belonged the outward union of the tribes under one name (Jews), the unity of endeavour on the part of all to return to Canaan, the unity in the doctrine of Moses, their unanimity against all idolatry, etc. From the stone we may take the following properties: that it is hard, deaf, fixed, etc. The flesh, on the other hand, is soft, moveable, receives impressions, feels pain and blows” (Starck).—The grace of God makes man again natural, human; before he is unnatural, inhuman.—“For true Christianity it is not enough to perform this and that other act of outward worship, at times even to do what is good, but one must become another man” (Starke).—“It is not merely gross idolatry that is to be rejected, but everything that is at variance with the word of God” (Luther).
Eze_11:21. “The walk after the heart of the idols stands opposed to the walk after the heart of God” (Hengst.).—“The fountain of all evil is to be sought nowhere else but in the innermost depth of the heart, Mat_15:19” (Starke).
Eze_11:22. Jesus lifts up His hands (Luk_24:50), and departs in the act of blessing; here, on the other hand, the uplifted wings announced the outpouring of the curse. The Mount of Olives on both occasions, the contrast and the predictive type.—The life of Jesus in decisive moments, and the glory of the Lord in Ezekiel.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–13 he--the Lord sitting on the cherubim (Eze 10:2).
he--the Lord sitting on the cherubim (Eze 10:2).
wicked counsel--in opposition to the prophets of God (Eze 11:3).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 THE POLITICAL LEADERS OF THE PEOPLE GIVE WICKED COUNSEL,…
THE POLITICAL LEADERS OF THE PEOPLE GIVE WICKED COUNSEL, AND ARE INVOLVED IN THE CITY’S RUIN, Eze_11:1-21.
1. The spirit lifted me — See notes Eze_3:12; Eze_3:14; Eze_8:3.
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Brought me unto the east gate — Jehovah and the chariot of his glory had previously removed to this place (Eze_10:18-19). This was probably the outer gate of the temple and faced the rising sun. The gate in oriental cities was the place of judgment.
Five and twenty men — Are these the twenty-five sun worshipers mentioned in Eze_8:16? No; these are not priests. These are the princes, or, literally, “captains,” of the people. The army and laity, as well as the priesthood, are now seen to be involved in rebellion against God. The number twenty-five may represent two from each tribe, or two from each division of the army, or two from each of the twelve regions of the city, led by the king or the general; or, being the usual symbolical number of solidarity, it may merely represent pictorially “the whole house of Israel” (Eze_11:5).
Jaazaniah… and Pelatiah — Jaazaniah is a different man from the one mentioned in Eze_8:11. These were no doubt men well known in Jerusalem and also to the exiles. Their names make the allusion peculiarly striking: Jaazaniah — “Jehovah listens” — son of Azur, “the helper”; Pelatiah — “God delivers” — son of Benaiah, “Jehovah builds”! No wonder Ezekiel became unpopular when he pointed out by name the chief leaders of Israel and exposed their wickedness. These men were probably regarded by many as the leaders of the patriotic party in Jerusalem. They believed the holy city could never be captured, and advised rebellion against Babylon and alliance with Egypt. (See chap. 17.) Ezekiel and Jeremiah and all others who prophesied the conquest of Jerusalem by Babylon were called false prophets (Jer_18:18; Mic_3:11), and were no doubt declared to be in the pay of the Babylonian court.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 1–12. The men that plot evil
1–12. The men that plot evil
1. The gate referred to is the outer eastern gate; the position taken up by the cherubim and glory was outside the temple precincts wholly. Jaazaniah and Pelatiah are named “princes of the people.” Possibly they were more prominent members of the ruling party. It is the manner of the prophet to introduce elements of reality into his symbolical pictures (cf. ch. Eze_24:16 seq.), and it is unnecessary to regard these two personages as fictitious or seek for some symbolical meaning in their names. A different Jaazaniah was mentioned in ch. Eze_8:11. The twenty-five men here are not to be identified with those in ch. Eze_8:16; they are rulers and leaders of the people (Eze_11:2).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 13 (1) Brought me unto the east gate of the…
(1) Brought me unto the east gate of the Lord’s house.—This is the same place, the main outer entrance to the whole Temple enclosure, to which the prophet had seen the cherubim go (Eze_10:19). It is not expressly said where he was brought from; but the last place mentioned was the court of the priests (Eze_8:16), and so far the vision appears to be consecutive. Standing in that innermost court, he had seen the Divine presence go forth to the outer entrance; and he also is now transported thither.
Here he sees twenty-five men, the same number whom he had seen worshipping the sun in the inner court. They appear, however, to have been priests, while these seem to be secular leaders. Hence they are generally supposed to be a different set of men. It is nevertheless by no means impossible that they may be the same idolatrous priests, who, by prostituting their holy office to idolatry, gained an ascendancy over a sinful people. Otherwise, the number twenty-five may represent the king, with two princes from each of the twelve tribes; or is possibly a number without any other especial significance than as representing a considerable array of the most prominent people of the nation. Two of these are mentioned by name. If the Jaazaniah here is the same with the Jaazaniah of Eze_8:11, it settles the point that the men here are not to be understood of the priests, since he there represented a different class (see Note on Eze_8:11). The names are significant: Jaazaniah = Jehovah hears, son of Azur = the helper; Pelatiah = God rescues, son of Benaiah =Jehovah builds. Names of this sort were common enough among the Jews, but they seem here intended to bring out the false hopes with which the people beguiled themselves; and in view of this, the sudden death of Pelatiah (verse. 13) was particularly impressive. These princes were active in misleading the people to their destruction.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13 Moreover the Spirit lifted me up, etc. It is…
Moreover the Spirit lifted me up, etc. It is noticeable that the position to which Ezekiel was thus transported in his vision from his place in the inner court, (Eze_8:14) was identical with that which he had just seen occupied by the cherub chariot before its departure. (Eze_10:19) What he is about to see will throw light on the significance of their departure. The gate is probably, here as there, that of the court of the temple. Five and twenty men. The number at first reminds us of the worshippers of the sun, in Eze_8:16; but that, as we saw, was probably a company of priests. On the other hand, the two who are named are styled princes of the people, which suggests a lay rather than a priestly status, and they are seen in a different locality. Conjectures as to the significance of the number vary.
(1) Two from each tribe of Israel, with the king at their head.
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(2) Two from each of the twelve divisions of the army, each containing twenty-four thousand men. (1Ch_27:1-15)
(3) Representatives of twelve regions of the city a kind of municipal council, with their president. Possibly, after all, the number was used more or less vaguely a "round" number, as we say (Smend). It is probably safe, however, to think of them as representing the lay element of authority. Nothing is known further as to the persons named. Jaazaniah is distinguished by his parentage from his namesake of Eze_8:11 and Jer_35:3. Both were probably familiar to those for whom Ezekiel wrote, as leaders of the party that was "always devising mischief," in opposition, i.e., to Jeremiah and the true prophets. Possibly the meanings of the names Jaazaniah (equivalent to "God hearkens") the son of Azur (equivalent to "The Helper"), Pelatiah (equivalent to "God rescues") the son of Benaiah (equivalent to "God builds"), are chosen as with a grim irony. The name of Azur meets us in Jer_28:1 as that of the fatherof the false prophet Hananiah. The death of Pelatiah was probably a historical event to which the prophet pointed as a warning to those who, either at Jerusalem or among the exiles, were speaking as he spoke.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-13. The summary punishment of official guilt.
As a rule, God is extremely patient towards human rebellion. He reproves and remonstrates and warns long before the executioner appears. Yet sometimes he departs from this course, by a summary act of vengeance. The penalty that follows some crimes is swift and sudden. The Chaldean nobles who laid an impious snare for Daniel were soon overtaken with judgment. When Herod accepted the profane flattery of his courtiers, he was soon consumed with inward disease. Ananias and Sapphira had scarcely completed their falsehood when the sword of the executioner fell upon them. At times God starts out of his secret place, and suddenly vindicates his outraged majesty.
I MARK THE FLAGRANCY OF SIN IN PRIESTS AND PEOPLE. In all probability these twenty-five men were the heads, or princes, over the twenty-four courses of the priests, while Jaazaniah and Pelatiah may have held a yet higher rank in the temple. It may be that Pelatiah was high priest or ruler of the temple. Certain it is that they were "princes of the people.
1. Their position was one of vast influence. Their opinions would be accepted as the opinions of the people. Their example would be widely imitated. To a large extent, they would influence the life and conduct of the population. As they had the privilege of access to God, and possessed the means of knowing his will, the people would, as a matter of course, look to them for guidance. Profanity or infidelity among the chief priests would speedily infect the Hebrew flock. Hence, for others sakes, it behoved them to be prudent, devout, and circumspect.
2. Thy had turned Divine warning into ridicule. This seems the only satisfactory way of explaining their boast, "We dwell securely." "This city is the cauldron, and we are the flesh." Jeremiah, who still dwelt in Jerusalem, had seen, in a vision from God, "a seething pot, and its mouth was towards the north." The heads of the priestly order had parodied this, had treated it as an image of self- security, instead of as an omen of danger. As if they had said, "Be it so! This city, with its bastions and gates, impregnable as brass or iron, is a cauldron, and as the flesh is safe in the cauldrons, equally so are we!" They laughed at every intimation of danger. In the teeth of a hundred warnings, in the teeth of a score of defeats and overthrows, they persisted in a conviction of safety. Like fools of other nations, they "made a mock at sin.
3. This senseless hardihood led to aggravated crime. One sin soon breeds a thousand others. They, who had the administration of justice, abused their office, and ruled with a sword of terror. Either by excessive lenity, in not repressing crime; or else by excessive tyranny, human life was held cheaply in the city. Death was a common occurrence, and excited no horror. Civic strifes abounded. The number of the slain increased, and these princes were responsible for the foul deed. They were the persons who "had filled the streets with the slain." The stains of human blood were upon their skirts.
4. The exact measure of their sin was known. Not an item in their evil deeds was unknown nor unregistered. They had tried to conceal their misdeeds, had endeavoured to minimize their offences, were attempting to persuade themselves that Jehovah did not trouble about such matters. But imagine their surprise and confusion when every iota of offence, ay, and every secret evil thought, was fully laid out in the bill of attainder. The amount and degree of each man"s guilt is allotted with scrupulous exactness.
II OBSERVE THE PROPHET"S COMMISSION. Ezekiel was employed by God to convey the last remonstrance to these princes.
1. , Elevation of mind is needed to fit men for reproving sin. "The Spirit lifted me up." We live, for the most part, on such a low level of spiritual feeling, that we must be "lifted up" in order to see the real wickedness of sin, in order successfully to remonstrate with sinners. Nothing can really "lift us up" to a nobler life but the power of the Holy Ghost.
2. Knowledge is given to men for use. No sooner was it revealed to the prophet who were the ringleaders in the nation"s sin, than at once the Spirit said to him, "Prophesy against them, O son of man." Here is work for man which the cherubim cannot do. It is the prerogative of man that he can gain access to the understanding, the judgment, the reason, the feeling, of his fellow man. Therefore God uses men to convey his messages of grace and admonition to guilty men. All the knowledge of Divine things which we have is given us for the advantage of all. "No man liveth unto himself.
3. Divine command and Divine strength are given at one and the same time. When the voice said to Ezekiel, "Speak!" "the Spirit of the Lord fell upon him." Duty and ability always go together. God has Never given to man a command which he was unable to obey. When God said to Moses, "Go forward!" God knew that the sea would divide at the fitting time. When Jesus said to the man with a withered band, "Stretch it forth!" he knew that along with the effort would be imparted new strength. Some duties may appear formidable to a man who forgets the promised cooperation of Divine grace. But whenever a spirit of faith possesses a man, he can say, like Paul, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." In a very terse prayer did an ancient Father in the Church express this truth, "Give: and then commuted what thou wilt.
4. The plainest reproof is the greatest kindness to men. Every accusation of God is laid by the prophet before these guilty men. It is a false friendship that conceals any part of the truth from our fellows, especially from relatives and kindred. Smooth words are not always the coin of affection. We read of one "whose words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords." Very wisely did David say, "Let the righteous reprove me; it shall be a kindness." It needs an abundance of wisdom, and a deep well spring of love, to speak the whole truth to an erring friend, if we would win him back to paths of virtue and piety. The centrifugal force of duty is often greater than the centripetal force of kindness. Had Eli been more firm and faithful with his sons, he might have saved the ark of God ay, the whole nation from disaster. We must "speak the whole truth in love.
III SEE THE ATTENDANT ENERGY OF GOD. "It came to pass when I prophesied, that Pelatiah died.
1. How foolish is carnal security. Walls that seem made of brass or granite are weaker than paste-board, unless they have God behind them. Foundations built by men are built on nothingness. Belshazzar conceived himself secure because the enormous walls of Babylon were about him; yet "in the selfsame night was Belshazzar slain." God"s weapons of offence can penetrate easily all the poor defences of men.
2. Man"s opportunity is brief. It is an act of mercy that God allows any opportunity for escape. Such favour is seldom ever shown by an earthly king. Yet sin so blinds men that they imagine the reprieve wilt last forever.t does not accord with God"s wise and gracious plans to announce when the reprieve shall absolutely close. Often it closes when least expected. The day of salvation is the passing moment the fleeting now.
3. The retribution of God is sometimes summary. Men often persuade themselves that some change of circumstance, some lengthened illness, will precede the final stroke. They lean upon a broken reed, an empty shadow. "God seeth not as man seeth." He had seen that Pelatiah had reached a climax of sin, had received this special messenger with haughty scorn, was hardening his heart under this new reproof of Ezekiel. Hence to lengthen out his day of grace was waste of mercy, was to encourage others in sin. Therefore it was better that the scene of trial should suddenly close. The Lord smote him that he died. "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
IV MARK THE BENEVOLENT SOLICITUDE OF GOD"S SERVANT. The sudden death of Pelatiah corroborated the truth (, f Ezekiel"s message, and vindicated his claim to be Jehovah"s servant; nevertheless, in this Ezekiel rejoiced not. He was more concerned for his Master"s glory than for his own, more anxious about Israel"s well being than his own advantage. He could consent to be set aside, exiled, slain, so long as Israel"s rower and fame could be restored. Such generosity of nature is the best qualification for a true servant of God. They who are most like God are the most fitted to do God"s work. Moses and Paul were eminent examples of this self-disinterestedness; best of all, Jesus the Son of God. D.
HOMILIES BY W. JONES Vers. 1-13. The presumptuous security of sinners exhibited and condemned.
the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the Lord"s house," etc.
I THE PRESUMPTUOUS AND FALSE SECURITY OF SINNERS EXHIBITED. (Vers. 1-3.) The twenty-live men here mentioned are not the same as those mentioned in Eze_8:16; for already they have been slain in vision. In both places the number is a round one. And in this place it is clear that they were leaders of the people; for they gave counsel unto them, and two princes of the people were in the midst of them. Their conduct shows to us:
1. Sinners boasting their security in defiance of the declarations of the Lord by his prophets. Some of the exiles in Babylon had looked forward to a speedy return to their own land. Jeremiah the prophet sent to them a letter to correct this error, saying, "Build ye houses, and dwell in them;" and assuring them that not until they had accomplished seventy years of exile would they be permitted to return to the land of their fathers. (Jer_29:1-14) In the same letter he threatened those that were loft at Jerusalem with "the sword, the famine, and the pestilence.". And these five and twenty men, in mockery of the words of the prophet, said, "It is not near to build houses." They encouraged themselves and others in the opinion that, however it might be with the captives in Babylon, they were safe enough in Jerusalem, and need not trouble themselves about building houses. Moreover, Jeremiah had seen in vision a seething pot, or cauldron, with its face toward the north, which symbolized the coming of the kingdoms of the north against Jerusalem and against the cities of Judah, and taking them. (Jer_1:13-16) And in derision of this prophecy these twenty-five men said," This is the cauldron, and we are the flesh." As the flesh within the cauldron is safe from the surrounding fire, so they regarded themselves as safe within their city wails, whatever forces may rage outside them. They deemed their position a secure one, and would trust to their city walls and defensive arrangements, rather than heed the words of the Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In most ages there have been presumptuous and profane scoffers at the threatenings of Divine judgments. (2Pe_3:3, 2Pe_3:4) And in our own age there are many who persist in sin, notwithstanding the warnings addressed to them in the sacred Scriptures. And if their own conscience also remonstrates with and warns them, they make light of its admonitions. They seem to think that they can sin on with impunity, that somehow they will escape the natural consequences of their trangressions. (cf. Jer_5:12)
2. Sinners in influential positions forming wicked plans and proffering wicked counsel, and so misleading others. "These are the men that devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in this city." They entered into political intrigues, and formed plans of resistance against the enemy in direct opposition to the will of God expressed by Jeremiah. (Jer_21:8-10 Jer_27:8-18 Jer_38:17-23) By following this course, these five and twenty men had brought calamity and slaughter upon many whom they had misled (ver. 6). Sin, mischievous in any one, is especially mischievous in those who, by reason of their position and influence, lead others astray. When leaders in society by evil and perilous examples, or politicians or statesmen by unwise or unrighteous speeches or measures, or authors by injurious books, mislead or corrupt others, it is unspeakably pernicious. Great is the responsibility attached to great influence, and great is the guilt when that influence is exerted for evil.
II THE PRESUMPTUOUS AND FALSE SECURITY OF SINNERS CONDEMNED. (Vers. 4-13.) Notice:
1. The Divine knowledge of their evil designs. "Thus saith the Lord; Thus have ye said, O house of Israel: for I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them;" or, as Hengstenberg translates, "And that which riseth up in your mind I know." To the Omniscient all their thoughts and purposes were fully known. (cf. Deu_31:21; Psa_139:1; Joh_2:24, Joh_2:25; Act_1:24; and see a homily on this verse which appears below)
2. The disastrous consequences of their evil designs. "Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain." At this time bloodshed and murder were terribly prevalent in Jerusalem, and were amongst the chief crimes mentioned by Ezekiel as calling for the Divine judgment upon the city and its guilty inhabitants. (cf. Eze_8:17 Eze_9:9) And in addition, "the slain" includes those who would be killed "by the Chaldeans, already slain from the standpoint taken up in the discourse of God." And they are said to be the slain of" the men that devise mischief," because their deaths were a consequence of their evil counsels. Who can gauge the miseries that arise in every age from the evil counsels of incompetent, unprincipled, or wicked leaders of men?
3. The fatal issue of their evil designs. (Vers. 8-13.) Here are several points which call for brief notice.
(1) The utter failure of their boasted security in the city. "I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you.
(2) Their slaughter in the execution of the just judgment of God. "Ye have feared the sword; and I will bring a sword upon you, saith the Lord God...Ye shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of Israel." And this prophecy was fulfilled with remarkable fidelity. After they had taken Jerusalem, the Chaldean army made prisoners of many of the chief men; they also captured King Zedekiah as he was endeavouring to escape by flight; and they carried them "to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, to Ribtah in the land of Hamath," on the northern border of Israel; and there the King of Babylon slew the princes and nobles of Judah, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in chains, to carry him to Babylon. (2Ki_25:18-21; Jer_39:4-7 Jer 52:8-1)
(3) Their recognition of Jehovah as the true and supreme God when it was too late. "And ye shall know that I am the Lord" (we have noticed these words in. (Eze_6:7, Eze_6:10) "It is lamentable," says Hengstenberg, "if we must gain the knowledge of God by our own destruction, if he in whom we live, and move, and are, is first recognized by the strokes which break our own head. The knowledge has here, moreover, no moral import. It is a mere passive knowledge, forced upon the ungodly, unconnected with repentance.
(4) The awful earnest of the fulfilment of the words of the prophet. "And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died." In vision Ezekiel beheld the death of Pelatiah; and it seems to us that he died, in fact when this prophecy was made known unto him. "This incident, whose awful character is attested to us by the impression upon Ezekiel, symbolizes prophetically the certainty in actual fact of the judgment of death on the others also." (cf. Jer_28:17) (Schroder). And so the issue of their presumptuous security and wicked counsel was to be their violent and ignominious death. We have in this an illustration of the issue of persistent wickedness. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." "The wages of sin is death." "Sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death.
III THE SORROW OF A GODLY MAN IN VIEW OF GOD"S JUDGMENTS UPON THE WICKED, "Then fell I down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah, Lord God! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?" To Ezekiel the death of Pelatiah was an awful pledge of the death of all the others against whom he had prophesied; and it so deeply affected his spirit as to cause him to cry out thus to God. (we have noticed these words on Eze_9:8) "Sudden or great judgments do put the saints and servants of God upon humble, earnest, and argumentative prayer. Humble, "Then fell! down upon my face;" earnest, "and cried with a loud voice;" argumentative, "Ah, Lord God! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel? (Greenhill).
CONCLUSION. Learn:
1. The peril of presumption in any course which is opposed to the will of God.
2. The great worth to a people of wise and upright leaders. W.J.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 12 Prophesy against them.
Eze_11:1-12
Prophesy against them.
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Evil in high places
The spirit told Ezekiel that the princes were the men that devised mischief and gave wicked counsels to the city. How often have we seen this prostitution of great mental power and great official authority through the service of evil! Imagine the picture of five-and-twenty men, the princes of Israel, all given over to the conception of evil policies and the execution of selfish designs! We shall miss the whole purpose of Divine revelation if we suppose that evil is local, or that it is confined to the ignorant and the poor. Evil is universal: it is in the thrones of the nations, as well as in the hovels and huts of poverty; the king has wandered as far from the standard of righteousness as has the meanest subject of his crown. Education when not sanctified is simply an instrument of evil. Great social station, when it is divorced from the action of a healthy conscience, only gives a man leverage, by the working of which he can do infinite social mischief. Moral security, therefore, is not in circumstances, but in character. When princes are right and just, wise and patriotic, it does not follow that the people will follow their example, or reproduce their excellences; but when the princes are of a contrary mind it is easy to imagine how their great influence may contribute vastly to the spread of wrong thinking and mischievous action. Religious apostasy means social anarchy. When the princes ceased to pray they ceased to regard human nature as of any value: slaughter became a pastime; heaps of slain men were passed by as mere commonplaces, and the whole city became as but a cauldron in which the flesh of men might be boiled. But God Himself says He will make this use of the city; He will make it a cauldron, and they who supposed it was a place of security shall find what uses providence can make of human arrangements. The Lord says that He is proceeding on account of the sins of the people, saying, I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them. The empire of the mind is supposed to be the exclusive property of the individual: what brother can take out of his brothers heart all the thoughts that live there? What man can read the mind of his dearest friend, and be as familiar with that friends motives as he is with that friends conduct? The mind can shut out the closest observer, yet the one observer that it cannot exclude is the living God. The things that come into the mind determine the real character of the mind of man, Conduct is but a short measure by which to estimate a mans character. (J. Parker, D. D.)
A vision of priesthoods
I. The destruction of a corrupt priesthood. The evil of the priesthood of that city and day is seen in this vision to consist in--
1. Their unhallowed designs and influence. The inventions of the genius of evil are, as they were then, often manifold and deep.
2. Their contempt of sacred things. They actually play about the cauldron that Jeremiah had seen in a vision of retribution. Familiarity with sacred things is perilous to men who lose true sacredness of living, for they are tempted to use their wit to cover their shallowness, with regard to themes wherein they should stand in awe and sin not.
3. Their false security. Their assertion about the Chaldean invasion, It is not near, illustrates the presumptuousness that ever marks mere professors of piety.
4. Their conformity to evil associations. Whereas the one consecrating cry of all true priesthoods is, Be ye separate, the histories of all corrupt priesthoods reveal a conformity to the world with which they have to do, that may well be charged against them in the words heard in the vision, Ye have done after the manner of the heathen.
5. Their liability to terrible retribution. The death of Pelatiah, at the very time when Ezekiel was pronouncing the doom of this priesthood, is an emblem of retribution history records, and prophecy predicts on all the false.
II. The indications of a man belonging to the true priesthood.
1. Open to Divine illumination. As Ezekiel was lifted up by the Spirit, and afterwards had that Spirit fall upon him--indicating, surely, special contact with the Divine; so there is the promise to every regenerate man that he shall see heavens opened.
2. Sensitive to impressions from human life. To be Divinely enlightened does not indicate that there will be any functionalism, any stoicism in the man.
3. A wide conscious brotherliness. The cry to the exile, thy brethren, thy brethren, indicated that not alone in the twenty-five who had fallen, but in the scattered throngs that would be gathered again, he recognised a brotherhood. So our Master has taught us, all ye are brethren.
4. Commissioned to proclaim inspiring promises. The priestly prophet was to utter as surely as was Isaiah, and every God-sent messenger, a comfort ye.
III. The formation of a true priesthood.
I. Divinely collected. God knew where the scattered were, and would gather them again. The eye of God resting alike on all classes and castes, churches and countries, discovers the genuine men. He has been a sanctuary for a little time to them in the midst of uncongenial pursuits, hostile circumstances, adverse experiences; but from every such Babylon of evil He will gather them for His sacred work.
2. Divinely regenerated. No words could more forcibly express a complete moral and spiritual reformation than the words in which the eternal Spirit of Goodness declares, I will put a new spirit within you, and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh.
3. Divinely adopted. They shall be My people, etc. (Urijah R. Thomas.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 (4.) THE CALAMITY THREATENED TO JERUSALEM (Chap. Eze_11:1-13)
(4.) THE CALAMITY THREATENED TO JERUSALEM (Chap. Eze_11:1-13)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—The movements of the Glory of the Lord are intermitted for a time. During that interval a new condition is entered into by Ezekiel. Hitherto, notwithstanding the unfolding of so many abominations before his eyes, and by which his heart must have been greatly distressed, his lips have been sealed in regard to any denunciation of them. Now, when the cherubic throne is hovering over the east gate, he is led to that spot and is empowered to utter a severe rebuke against the representatives of Jerusalem, and also to declare promises to the elders who represented the exiled.
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Eze_11:1. Ezekiel is placed by the spirit-power at the gate of the temple-court, under the Glory, “and, behold, in the opening of the gate twenty-five men.” This number makes us think of the twenty-five men mentioned in chap. Eze_8:16; but we cannot suppose them, as some do, to be the same. They were worshipping the sun, and we should conclude that they were slain by the watchers with the weapon of destruction. Besides, the standing-place of the twenty-five of chap. 8 indicated that they were priests. That is not indicated here, and we are rather led to believe, from the position of the present twenty-five, and from their characterisation (Eze_11:3), that they represent present civil authorities who were consulting with one another on matters of state; “and I saw in their midst Jaazaniah the son of Azur,” therefore not the elders of Israel he had previously seen (chap. Eze_8:11), “and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.” It is most likely that the two princes named were living in Jerusalem at that time, and noted as being leaders among the dominant party. Or they may have been singled out in order to point to the inconsistency between their names and the course they advocated. The Lord who hears (Jaazaniah) and who helps (Azur): the Lord who delivers (Pelatiah) and builds up (Benaiah); and they were departing from the Lord!
Eze_11:2-3. “These are the men that devise mischief and give evil counsel in this city;” they set up an opposition to God’s messages, and provoke His wrath. The gist of their opposition is stated; but the Hebrew construction does not favour the translation of the A. V. The curtness of the phraseology renders the meaning obscure. “Who say, Not in nearness [is] the building of houses, it [is] the caldron and we [are] the flesh.” Any interpretation must take account of this as the evil counsel, and that it was held to be audaciously iniquitous. It obviously refers to some circumstances of that period, and we may find them indicated in that prophecy of Jeremiah in which he instructed the captive Jews to build houses, &c. (chap. Eze_29:5). These princes scoffed at that message thus, “Those who are far off, in a land of exile, may take, if they please, the prophet’s advice and build houses for themselves there. That does not concern us here—it is too remote a district from ours. Let Jerusalem be a pot, which Jeremiah (chap. Eze_1:13) declares is to smoke and boil by the fury of a hostile invasion from the north, then we shall be the flesh within it; its strong fortifications and sure defences shall preserve us against any flame of war that may kindle around us. We have no occasion to be terrified or succumb to warnings.” So they rejected the ways of the Lord and trusted to their own devices; and would such a defiant spirit, on the part of those who were called to honour Him, be met by the Lord?
Eze_11:5. The impelling might of the Spirit moves Ezekiel to an utterance, “Thus saith the Lord, So ye say, O house of Israel, and what riseth up in your spirit, I know it.” Not only is He cognisant of their overt words and several plottings, but also of the real aims and wishes which underlie their proceedings, and holds them responsible (Eze_11:6) for the consequences resulting therefrom.
Eze_11:7. “Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Your slain, whom ye have placed in the midst of it, they are the flesh and it is the caldron.” Your slain are those who had been cut down through the outrages of the princes themselves (see chap. 24.), and also those who perished because of the wicked counsels whose effect had been to bring the Chaldean army against Jerusalem. “Ezekiel gives them back their own words, as containing an undoubted truth, but in a different sense from that in which they had used them.” There will be flesh protected in the caldron from the fire, but it will represent those who are slain. A grim satire: The dead are the safe! “And one shall bring you forth from its midst;” the princes and their abettors should not be defended in the city. They should be taken out of it to answer for their crimes.
Eze_11:9. “A sword ye have feared, and a sword will I make to come upon you, saith the Lord Jehovah.” They were in apprehension of the war which had been pressed on by the king of Babylon, and, contrary to the urgent representations of Jeremiah, made a coalition-with Egypt; yet, notwithstanding their schemings, “the hand of strangers,” the Chaldean forces, would perpetrate violent deeds under the impact of divine impulses.
Eze_11:11-12. The supposed security would be invaded: the city would not be a caldron for them; taken away from it, “on the frontier of Israel will I judge you;” they would be captives, and taken to the extremity of their land to undergo punishment. Jeremiah narrates (chap. Eze_39:4-5) how this threat was fulfilled in the bloody scenes at Ribla in Hamath on the northern border of Israel, and where, as an Assyrian tablet in the British Museum tells, the headquarters of Nebuchadnezzar were on this expedition. Like all other tribulations, this had for its ulterior end to work the conviction that the Lord was their only real king, “in whose statutes ye walked not, and whose judgments ye did not; but ye did according to the judgments of the nations round about you:” a difference from what was stated in chap. Eze_5:7, as to surrounding nations; but evidently referring here to such corrupt practices of their neighbours as they copied. The materials, out of which proceeded the destruction of the then existing Jewish government, are thus set forth, and, that destruction being so distinctly predicted, the people should learn that it was with the most perfect reason that God claimed for Himself the honour of supreme ruler. “It is lamentable if we must gain the knowledge of God by our own destruction,—if He, in whom we live and move and are, is first recognised by the strokes which break our own head” (Heng.)
Eze_11:13. A portentous event impresses the prophetic words. “And it came to pass that as I was prophesying Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, died.” Though this incident is still part of Ezekiel’s ecstasy, it is probable that one of the chief advisers of Jerusalem died about the time in some such awfully sudden manner and when surrounded by his fellows in the temple. The effect on the sensitive Seer is great, and suggests bitter and painful thoughts as to the slaughter of his people as happened previously (chap. Eze_9:8): “and I fell on my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah Lord Jehovah, dost Thou make an utter end of the remnant of Israel?” He speaks as if he had forgotten all grounds of hope, and as if the people in the capital were the real representatives of Israel in whose mournful fate all Israel would be overwhelmed and lost. He will learn that it is otherwise.
HOMILETICS
REFUGES OF LIES BROKEN UP
Under the boastings of its leading men the people of Jerusalem were living in fancied security. They had heard from Jeremiah the prophet announcements of coming woes; but they put far from themselves the evil day, and buoyed themselves up with the expectation that, even if it did come, they would escape its troubles. Theirs is a common state of mind in respect to the truths of God which are wished not to be true, and we need to stand in His light that we may be disabused of our hurtful errors. He aims to help us thereto by a procedure such as is disclosed in this paragraph. He shows that self-constituted refuges—
I. Are based on miscalculations. Men calculate that there is no necessity immediately to renounce past courses: the judge is not standing before the door; the call to watch for the Master’s coming can be trifled with for a while. Thus many vaguely feel, if they do not positively present excuses as to the incidence of a season of searching and decisive trial. They may walk on in darkness till that day overtakes them as a thief. For, as all events are uncertain, to risk the present space given for repentance is, it may be, to risk the building of a house without means to finish it, the being overwhelmed by ruin from which there will be no opportunity to escape. We can use “now” but not “then” to flee.
II. They are abortive before God. He knows all that comes into the heart, the mouth, the hands, and so is able to test the real character of each. The stand made by men in self-defence is untenable. Fancies will not shut out afflictions, spring up when they may. No causes, no secret purposes can be so encrusted that they will elude the penetration of the eyes that are as a flame of fire. To cherish hopes, apart from Christ, that we shall be preserved from future evils, is to cherish hopes on a quicksand over which the tidal wave is beginning to rise Sins make culprits, and the righteous Lord will not let one elude His sentence, whatever the rank, the numbers, the religious privileges be. Search lest thy refuge lie open to the flood of divine condemnation.
III. They are open to dislocations. One is from the word of the Lord. It came by prophets. It has come, in these last days, by a Son. We read, we hear what He hath spoken, and learn that the entire bearing of that word of the living God is to convict of sin and to bring to immediate faith in the Saviour from sin. Again and again were men urged to “Hear the Word of the Lord;” again and again are we urged now, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”
Another is from the action of human influences. The sword, captivity, spoiling of goods affected the contemporaries of Ezekiel: an ailment, an emigration, a pecuniary loss operate upon us. We shall miss the true reasons for such shakings of our usual affairs, if we do not trace in them the will of the righteous and loving Lord, who would show to us that we have been trusting in that which is of the flesh, who would draw us to plant our feet upon the Rock of ages. “I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their hearts, The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil” (Zep_1:12).
Thus are records made that the Lord sets His face against our doings that are not good, and that, whether they are to be classed under unfaithfulness to Him or unbrotherliness to men, He will expose them to utter collapse. No schemes, no confidences will be capable of resisting Him. “The Lord is known by the judgment that He executeth.”
Who will accept the decisions of the Holy One as to their hopes of safety coming storms? Who will forsake all and follow Christ? “If you would not be broken by His judgment, do not break His statutes; if you would secure your lives, walk in His laws.”
A VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH (Eze_11:13)
Painful associations were linked in with the sudden end of Pelatiah’s counsel and boastings. While the consensus of human testimony proves that such an immediate cessation of the activities of life is not considered as always stamped with the brand of punishment, it is always regarded as more or less of a calamity. Even they who know that the hand of the Good Shepherd is leading them into the unseen world, yet shrink from this manner of exit from the present world. The feeling is to be accounted for because of—
I. The general mysteriousness. There are no precise premonitions, no apparently gradual preparations. For though such a death must have been preceded by causes adequate to produce it, those causes, whether physical or mental, have not been credited with the deadly force which they exert. The death appears to be the bursting forth of a new and poignant energy, and our hearts are awed by the sad and startling memento which marks its route. Besides, the selection is utterly incomprehensible. Two men are given equal prominence in the course taken by Jerusalem, yet one expires in a moment, and the other still breathes the vital air. One of a family goes in an instant down to the grave, but all the other members go more or less slowly. We may be surprised at the falling of the lot, but we have no light as to its movements. Only this can we be sure of, that He who gave life takes it away in a method that is at once wise and good. “Blessed be the name of the Lord!”
II. The utter helplessness. No nursing, no skill can be made the least use of. We may cry for a parting word, a pressure, a look; but we cry with no result. We see the living now, in a moment we see they are not, and we can do nothing for them, we can only look. They pass altogether beyond our aid. They seem still beside us, but they have gone—where?
III. An indescribable contiguity of solemn spiritual conditions. Pelatiah is hearing the word of the Lord by Ezekiel, and in the very sound thereof hears the command of the King of terrors. Mercy and judgment stand hand in hand. The hearer becomes at once a dweller in “the silent land.” What will be learned there? The judgment of the All Holy, unaffected by any ignorance, misconception, shrinking! What if he be impenitent? What if his tongue be still vibrating with words in which he gave counsel against good? What if he has not cleansed his hands from the filth of dishonest gain or the blood of those he has injured? He is struck powerless. He is in face of iniquity at this step, he is confronted with its penalty at the next.
IV. A shock to natural feelings. Fear for oneself and pity for another cannot be restrained. Surprise and awe might have affected Pelatiah’s fellow-counsellors for a time. The effect was transient. They persisted in their wicked devices in the city; they acted in fatal correspondence thereto. Their seasonable impressions, like the morning cloud and early dew, soon vanished away. On the other hand men, with the love to God and man which stirred Ezekiel, pray that such a sudden stroke may not cut down those who are still in their trespasses; they ask for sparing mercy that such persons may be moved to work the works of God before the night cometh in which no man can work. How vain is prayer when the sinners prayed for will go on in evil ways! “How sad it is that the godly should be concerned for the coming doom of transgressors, and yet the transgressors themselves remain unmoved. Let believers imitate Ezekiel, and when judgments descend on some, ‘lift up their prayer for the remnant that is left’ ” (Fausset).
Wert thou this moment to go through the gates of death, wouldst thou go as one who had walked or had not walked thereto in the footprints of Jesus? “Watch, for ye know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man cometh.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 In trying to understand the great promise of the…
Eze 11:16
In trying to understand the great promise of the text, note—
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I. The idea of asylum and protection. "I will be as a little sanctuary." "I will be the shield and protector and sure refuge of trusting souls." Is not this what every awakened soul needs and seeks? Some safe, sure refuge from all that threatens, afflicts, alarms; from the thunders, loud or deep, of broken law; from the accusations of conscience, from the troubles of life, from the terrors of death—asylum from them all? A true and real relief in all soul-trouble—in anything that agitates a man’s deepest consciousness; in anything that touches the health, and so the safety of the soul, can be found only in one way—by moving Godwards, and entering, although it may be at first with fear and trembling, into the built and open sanctuary of His presence.
II. A sanctuary means, also, at least in the nomenclature of the Scriptures, a place of purification, where we may wash and be clean; and may so avail ourselves of the helps to goodness which are provided, that the rest of our time may be pure and holy. Our very words tell us this. "Sanctity;" "sanctification"—a sanctuary is not equal to its name if it does not promote these. Safety is a poor, even a mean, thing, if it be indeed conceivable, without purity.
III. A further idea in the word sanctuary is the idea of nourishment. A hospice for the entertainment of strangers, or any hospitable house, is never without bread. And will not God feed His refugees? Will He be a little sanctuary in which they may die? On His table there is bread enough and to spare.
IV. This is a text (1) for all our changes of place, for our journeys, for our absences. It is a text to take round the world with us if we are going. "I will be to them as a little sanctuary—" where?—"in the countries where they shall come." (2) In all states. For all times and for all troubles and for all needs, there is a present, gracious God, with all His grace also present, to heal, to help, to love unto the end.
A. Raleigh, The Little Sanctuary, p. 1.
References: Eze 11:19, Eze 11:20.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 156. Eze 11:21.—G. Gilfillan, The Dundee Pulpit, p. 161. Eze 12:6.—J. M. Whiton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 166. Eze 12:27.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx., No. 1164. Eze 13:7.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xi., p. 143. Eze 13:10.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 158. Eze 13:10, Eze 13:11.—C. J. Thompson, Penny Pulpit, No. 675; J. Baines, Sermons, p. 201. Eze 13:10-12.—Spurgeon, Ibid., vol. xiv., No. 816.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Doom of the Leaders of Jerusalem's wickedness. Comfort…
The Doom of the Leaders of Jerusalem's wickedness. Comfort for the Exiles
The slaughter in Ezekiel 9 was only the visionary rehearsal of a judgment still in the future. The vision now takes another turn, and shows the wicked inhabitants still alive. Ezekiel is brought to the outer eastern gate of the Temple where he finds a group of the leaders of Jerusalem's sinful policy, two of whom are mentioned by name (Eze_11:1-2). A proverb by which they express their light-hearted security is turned into a parable of the doom that awaits them (Eze_11:3-12). The warning is ratified by the sudden death of one of the leaders (Eze_11:13), after which a comforting message is spoken to the exiles whom the people of Jerusalem despised (Eze_11:14-21). The glorious symbol of God's presence then forsakes Jerusalem (Eze_11:22-23). The vision ends, and Ezekiel finds himself again in Babylonia, where he describes to the exiles all that he has seen (Eze_11:24-25).
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1. The east gate] the outer eastern gate, to which the chariot with the 'glory' upon it had already moved. At the door of the gate] just outside the Temple precincts. Jaazaniah.. and Pelatiah] men of whom nothing further is known. Jaazaniah is not the same as the Jaazaniah of Eze_8:11.
3. It is not near; let us build, etc.] or, as in RM, 'Is not the time near to build?' etc: an expression of security. This city is the caldron, etc.] The 'wicked counsel' of Eze_11:2 is usually understood to mean proposals of revolt from Babylon, which would involve the prospect of war and siege. In that case the proverb about the caldron and the flesh would express the plotters' trust in the strong fortifications of Jerusalem, which they hoped would save them from the 'fire' of Nebuchadnezzar's armies. This would be a grimly humorous way of describing the desperate course they were meditating. They expected, as we might say, to be in the frying-pan, but thought that it would at least save them from the fire. Another explanation is that the saying is a boast over the exiles, who had been taken away from Jerusalem, as the useless 'broth' is poured out of a pot when the cooking is over, leaving the valuable 'flesh' behind. This is more in line with the latter part of the chapter.
6. The wicked counsellors, whatever their policy may have been, had already put many of their fellow citizens unjustly to death.
7. The proverb would prove true in quite a different sense from that in which it was first used. The only flesh in the caldron would be that of the wicked leaders' victims. Those who thought they were the flesh would be taken out of the caldron and slain by strangers elsewhere.
10, 11. In the border of Israel] Instead of being safe in Jerusalem they would meet their fate far away from it, on the very outskirts of the land. Over seventy of those taken at the second captivity, including twelve prominent officials, were put to death by Nebuchadrezzar at Riblah, in the extreme N. of Palestine (2Ki_25:18-21; Jer_52:24-27).
13. The sudden death of Pelatiah may have been an actual occurrence, of which Ezekiel had heard, and which was reproduced in the vision. It may, however, have been an imaginary incident, symbolising the certainty and suddenness with which the prophecy of judgment on the wicked counsellors would be fulfilled. Then fell I down, etc.] As in Eze_9:8; Ezekiel was dismayed at the speedy execution of God's threatening, and besought God that the whole nation might not be destroyed. This time he received a comforting assurance that the exiles should be spared and restored, while the people of Jerusalem who despised them should perish.
15. Thy brethren.. all the house of Israel] The exiles of the first captivity are identified with the true Israel. Get you far from the Lord, etc.] The people of Jerusalem claimed that God was only among them, and that the exiles were banished from His presence. This was a different sentiment from that expressed in Eze_8:12. Unprincipled men can change their theology to suit their circumstances.
16. As a little sanctuary] RV 'a sanctuary for a little while.' God's presence and the privileges of the Temple were not confined to Jerusalem.
17. People] RV 'peoples.'
19. A promise of an inward change, which Ezekiel afterwards repeats and expands (Eze_18:31; Eze_36:25-27).
22, 23. The emblem of God's presence now leaves the holy city, which is abandoned to its fate. What the idolaters had said in unbelief (Eze_8:12) became a terrible truth.
23. The mountain.. on the east] the Mount of Olives. We cannot but think of Christ's words of doom, spoken from the same mountain, to the Jerusalem of His day (Luk_19:37, Luk_19:41-44).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Eze 11:1-25. The priests and the leaders of the…
Eze 11:1-25. The priests and the leaders of the nation were steeped in wickedness, defied God and the judgments His prophets had announced. They devised mischief (or iniquity) and gave wicked counsel. Their wicked counsel consisted in disobedience against Jehovah and His Word. In regard to the judgment they said, “It is not the time to build houses; this is the cauldron and we are the flesh.” They knew of Jeremiah’s letter which he had sent to the elders who were carried away captives. In that letter, Jeremiah, believing God’s Word concerning the long duration of the captivity, gave the advice, “Build ye houses and dwell in them” Jer 29:1-32. They ridiculed that divinely given advice. They still thought themselves safe in Jerusalem. The phrase “this is the cauldron” means the city of Jerusalem; and we are the “flesh” themselves. As the flesh in the cauldron is preserved from the fire by the cauldron itself, so they felt themselves secure in the doomed city. That these wicked leaders were still in the city shows that the judgment in chapter 9 was not a complete judgment. It began at the sanctuary, and the wicked worshippers Ezekiel saw in his vision were smitten first of all, while the man with the inkhorn marked the entire remnant for preservation. Then the Spirit fell upon Ezekiel and he uttered Jehovah’s message.
The message of judgment is followed by a message of mercy. Eze 11:14-21 are yet to be fulfilled in that nation. The final departure of the visible glory of the Lord concludes this chapter. It held its ascension from the Mount of Olives. From the same place, He who is the Lord of Glory and reveals the glory of the Lord, went back to the Father. And when He returns “His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives” Zec 14:1-21. It will be at that blessed time when Israel and Jerusalem will behold the return of the glory, which Ezekiel beheld departing from city and temple.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Judgment upon the Rulers
The Judgment upon the Rulers
v. 1. Moreover, the Spirit lifted me up and brought me unto the East Gate of the Lord’s house, which looketh eastward, where the entire vision had been placed, 10:19; and behold at the door of the gate, the large portal of the. Temple, five and twenty men, most likely not identical with those of 8:16; among whom I saw Jaazaniah, the son of Azur, and Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, princes of the people, men of influence in guiding the destinies of the people, if not members of the civil authorities.
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v. 2. Then said He unto me, Son of man, these are the men that devise mischief and give wicked counsel in this city, such as turns out ill and causes injustice to be done;
v. 3. which say, It is not near; let us build houses, literally, "not in near proximity building of houses," that is, the threatened ruin of the city is entirely out of the question, wherefore it is not necessary to worry about the building or the rebuilding of Jerusalem; this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh, that is, they considered themselves as safe and as protected in their city as the flesh is in the pot.
v. 4. Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man, the repetition giving added emphasis to tile Lord’s command.
v. 5. And the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me and said unto me, Speak, Thus saith the Lord, His very words being quoted, as throughout the inspired Scripture: Thus have ye said, O house of Israel, for I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them, the omniscient God reading their hearts and minds like an open book.
v. 6. Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, in the execution of innocent people as a result of their wicked judgments, and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain, by their unjust oppression of those unable to defend themselves against tyranny.
v. 7. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron, their blasphemous boast thus being interpreted in the Lord’s way and Jerusalem being called the flesh-pot of those whom they caused to be slain; but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it, the wicked transgressors themselves were to be dragged forth and cut in pieces elsewhere.
v. 8. Ye have feared the sword, for they had refused to follow the advice of Jeremiah to give themselves up to the Babylonians, since they were afraid of being put to death by them; and I will bring a sword upon you, saith the Lord God, to punish them in the very manner which they feared.
v. 9. And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, out of the city where they boastfully declared themselves safe, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you, in bringing upon them the punishment which they deserved.
v. 10. Ye shall fall by the sword, put to death by the invaders; I will judge you in the border of Israel, on the frontier, at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, Jer 52:24-27; and ye shall know that I am the Lord, convinced by this evidence of His avenging fury.
v. 11. The city shall not be your caldron, namely, in the sense in which they had spoken of it,
v. 5. neither shall ye be the flesh in the midst thereof, to be safe from destruction; but I will judge you in the border of Israel, far from the protection of time walls of the capital,
v. 12. and ye shall know that I am the Lord, by the judgments inflicted by Him; for ye have not walked in My statutes, or, "in whose statutes," in their special application to Israel’s case, "ye have not walked," neither executed My judgments, to lead their lives in agreement with his righteousness, but have done after the manners of the heathen that are round about you, in becoming guilty of the idolatry which was practiced by the Gentile nations. Cf.Ezekiel 5:7. The truth and power of this word was now brought out in a most impressive manner.
v. 13. And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, died, this substantiating the threatening prophecy uttered by inspiration of the Lord. Then fell I down upon my face, overcome by this evidence of the Lord’s avenging justice, and cried with a loud voice and said, Ah, Lord God! Wilt Thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel? The Lord’s children will intercede even for their enemies, hoping that there will always be some who will be saved from the general destruction. In this respect Abraham, who begged the Lord to desist from destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, is an outstanding example.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 5, 8, 11, 13 General Information:
General Information:
Ezekiel continues to tell about the vision that started in Ezekiel 8:1.
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to the eastern gate of Yahweh's house, facing east
This gate was part of the wall that surrounded the temple area. AT: "the gate on the eastern side of the wall surrounding Yahweh's house" or "the gate on the eastern wall of the temple courtyard"
Yahweh's house
See how you translated this phrase in Ezekiel 8:16.
behold
The word "behold" here alerts us to pay attention to the surprising information that follows.
twenty-five men
"25 men" (See: Numbers)
Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah
These are the names of men. (See: How to Translate Names)
among them
"among the twenty-five men"
translationWords
Holy Spirit
house of God
gate
people group
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 8, 13 11:1-11 Having given Ezekiel a glimpse of the divine…
11:1-11 Having given Ezekiel a glimpse of the divine perspective on Jerusalem, the Spirit brought him back to overhear the words of the city’s inhabitants. The wicked counselors asserted that though the assault by the Babylonians (the fire) was troublesome (hot), the defenses of the city (the iron pot) were sufficient to protect them (the meat). These counselors were telling people to build houses—on stolen land (see 11:15, 17)—in which they could live safely. God, however, was determined to judge the wicked.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.