Again, in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “Son of man, write the name of the day, this same day. The king of Babylon drew close to Jerusalem this same day.
Utter a parable to the rebellious house, and tell them, ‘The Lord Yahweh says, “Put the cauldron on the fire. Put it on, and also pour water into it.
Gather its pieces into it, even every good piece: the thigh and the shoulder. Fill it with the choice bones.
Take the choice of the flock, and also a pile of wood for the bones under the cauldron. Make it boil well. Yes, let its bones be boiled within it.”
“ ‘Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Woe to the bloody city, to the cauldron whose rust is in it, and whose rust hasn’t gone out of it! Take out of it piece after piece. No lot is fallen on it.
“ ‘ “For her blood is in the middle of her. She set it on the bare rock. She didn’t pour it on the ground, to cover it with dust.
That it may cause wrath to come up to take vengeance, I have set her blood on the bare rock, that it should not be covered.”
“ ‘Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Woe to the bloody city! I also will make the pile great.
Heap on the wood. Make the fire hot. Boil the meat well. Make the broth thick, and let the bones be burned.
Then set it empty on its coals, that it may be hot, and its bronze may burn, and that its filthiness may be molten in it, that its rust may be consumed.
She is weary with toil; yet her great rust, rust by fire, doesn’t leave her.
“ ‘ “In your filthiness is lewdness. Because I have cleansed you and you weren’t cleansed, you won’t be cleansed from your filthiness any more, until I have caused my wrath toward you to rest.
I, Yahweh, have spoken it. It will happen, and I will do it. I won’t go back. I won’t spare. I won’t repent. According to your ways, and according to your doings, they will judge you,” says the Lord Yahweh.’ ”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Of Jeconiah’s captivity, and of the reign of Zedekiah,…
Of Jeconiah’s captivity, and of the reign of Zedekiah, 2 Kings 25:1.
Called Tebeth, which containeth part of December and part of January: in the which month and day Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–14 Eze 24:1 Again in the ninth year, in the…
Eze 24:1 Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth [day] of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. Again in the ninth year.] Of Jehoiakim’s captivity, {Eze 1:2} three years before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.
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 vv1–14 In the ninth year of the captivity of Jeconiah,…
In the ninth year of the captivity of Jeconiah, and those that were carried away with him; it falls in also with the year of Zedekiah’s reign, though the prophet, and the captives now in Babylon, reckon not by this, but by the former.
The tenth month; which answers to part of December and January.
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The tenth day; about our 29th of December, when the winter was well over with them.
Came unto me; the prophet was now in Babylon many leagues from Jerusalem.
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 notice God gives to Ezekiel in Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar's laying siege to Jerusalem, just at the time when he was doing it (Eze 24:2): "Son of man, take notice, the king of Babylon, who is now abroad with his army, thou knowest not where, set himself against Jerusalem this same day." It was many miles, it was many days' journey, from Jerusalem to Babylon. Perhaps the last intelligence they had from the army was that the design was upon Rabbath of the children of Ammon and that the campaign was to be opened with the siege of that city. But God knew, and could tell the prophet, "This day, at this time, Jerusalem is invested, and the Chaldean army has sat down before it." Note, As all times, so all places, even the most remote, are present with God and under his view. He tells the prophet, that the prophet might tell the people, that so when it proved to be punctually true, as they would find by the public intelligence in a little time, it might be a confirmation of the prophet's mission, and they might infer that, since he was right in his news, he was so in his predictions, for he owed both to the same correspondence he had with Heaven.
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II. The notice which he orders him to take of it. He must enter it in his book, memorandum, that in the ninth year of Jehoiachin's captivity (for thence Ezekiel dated, Eze 1:2, which was also the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, for he began to reign when Jehoiachin was carried off), in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, the king of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem; and the date here agrees exactly with the date in the history, Kg2 25:1. See how God reveals things to his servants the prophets, especially those things which serve to confirm their word, and so to confirm their own faith. Note, It is good to keep an exact account of the date of remarkable occurrences, which may sometimes contribute to the manifesting of God's glory so much the more in them, and the explaining and confirming of scripture prophecies. Known unto God are all his works.
III. The notice which he orders him to give to the people thereupon, the purport of which is that this siege of Jerusalem, now begun, will infallibly end in the ruin of it. This he must say to the rebellious house, to those of them that were in Babylon, to be by them communicated to those that were yet in their own land. A rebellious house will soon be a ruinous house.
1. He must show them this by a sign; for that stupid people needed to be taught as children are. The comparison made use of is that of a boiling pot. This agrees with Jeremiah's vision many years before, when he first began to be a prophet, and probably was designed to put them in mind of that (Jer 1:13, I see a seething pot, with the face towards the north; and the explanation of it, Eze 24:15, makes it to signify the besieging of Jerusalem by the northern nations); and, as this comparison is intended to confirm Jeremiah's vision, so also to confront the vain confidence of the princes of Jerusalem, who had said (Jer 11:3), This city is the caldron and we are the flesh, meaning, "We are as safe here as if we were surrounded with walls of brass." "Well," says God, "it shall be so; you shall be boiled in Jerusalem, as the flesh in the caldron, boiled to pieces; let the pot be set on with water in it (Eze 24:4); let it be filled with the flesh of the choice of the flock (Eze 24:5), with the choice pieces (Eze 24:4), and the marrow-bones, and let the other bones serve for fuel, that, one way or other, either in the pot or under it, the whole beast may be made use of." A fire of bones, though it be a slow fire (for the siege was to be long), is yet a sure and lasting fire; such was God's wrath against them, and not like the crackling of thorns under a pot, which has noise and blaze, but no intense heat. Those that from all parts of the country fled into Jerusalem for safety would be sadly disappointed when the siege laid to it would soon make the place too hot for them; and yet there was not getting out of it, but they must be forced to abide by it, as the flesh in a boiling pot.
2. He must give them a comment upon this sign. It is to be construed as a woe to the bloody city, Eze 24:6. And again (Eze 24:9), being bloody, let it go to pot, to be boiled; that is the fittest place for it. Let us here see,
(1.) What is the course God takes with it. Jerusalem, during the siege, is like a pot boiling over the fire, all in a heat, all in a hurry. [1.] Care is taken to keep a good fire under the pot, which signifies the closeness of the siege, and the many vigorous attacks made upon the city by the besiegers, and especially the continued wrath of God burning against them (Eze 24:9): I will make the pile for fire great. Commission is given to the Chaldeans (Eze 24:10) to heap on wood, and kindle the fire, to make Jerusalem more and more hot to the inhabitants. Note, The fire which God kindles for the consuming of impenitent sinners shall never abate, much less go out, for want of fuel. Tophet has fire and much wood, Isa 30:33. [2.] The meat, as it is boiled, is taken out, and given to the Chaldeans for them to feast upon. "Consume the flesh; let it be thoroughly boiled, boiled to rags. Spice it well, and make it savoury, for those that will fees sweetly upon it. Let the bones be burnt." either the bones under the pot ("let them be consumed with the other fuel") or, as some think, the bones in the pot - "let it boil so furiously that not only the flesh may be sodden, but even the bones softened; let all the inhabitants of Jerusalem be by sickness, sword, and famine, reduced to the extremity of misery." And then (Eze 24:6), "Bring it out piece by piece; let every man be delivered into the enemy's hand, to be either put to the sword or made a prisoner. Let them be an easy prey to them, and let the Chaldeans fall upon them as eagerly as a hungry man does upon a good dish of meat when it is set before him. Let no lot fall upon it; every piece in the pot shall be fetched out and devoured, first or last, and therefore it is no matter for casting lots which shall be fetched out first." It was a very severe military execution when David measured Joab with two lines to put to death and one full line to keep alive, Sa2 8:2. But here is no line, no lot of mercy, made use of; all goes one way, and that is to destruction. [3.] When all the broth is boiled away the pot is set empty upon the coals, that it may burn too, which signifies the setting of the city on fire, Eze 24:11. The scum of the meat, or (as some translate it) the rust of the meat, has so got into the pot that there is no making it clean by washing or scouring it, and therefore it must be done by fire; so let the filthiness be burnt out of it, or, rather, melted in it and burnt with it. Let the vipers and their nest be consumed together.
(2.) What is the quarrel God has with it. He would not take these severe methods with Jerusalem but that he is provoked to it; she deserves to be thus dealt with, for, [1.] It is a bloody city (Eze 24:7, Eze 24:8): Her blood is in the midst of her. Many a barbarous murder has been committed in the very heart of the city; nay, and they have a disposition to cruelty in their hearts; they inwardly delight in blood-shed, and so it is in the midst of them. Nay, they commit their murders in the face of the sun, and openly and impudently avow them, in defiance of the justice both of God and man. She did not pour out the blood she shed upon the ground, to cover it with dust, as being ashamed of the sin or afraid of the punishment. She did not look upon it as a filthy thing, proper to be concealed (Deu 23:13), much less dangerous. Nay, she poured out the innocent blood she shed upon a rock, where it would not soak in, upon the top of a rock, in despite of divine views and vengeance. They shed innocent blood under colour of justice; so that they gloried in it, as if they had done God and the country good service, so put it, as it were, on the top of a rock. Or it may refer to the sacrificing of their children on their high places, perhaps on the top of rocks. Now thus they caused fury to come up and take vengeance, Eze 24:8. It could not be avoided but that God must in anger visit for these things; his soul must be avenged on such a nation as this. It is absolutely necessary that such a bloody city as this should have blood given her to drink, for she is worthy, for the vindicating of the honour of divine justice. And, the crime having been public and notorious, it is fit that the punishment should be so too: I have set her blood on the top of a rock. Jerusalem was to be made an example, and therefore was made a spectacle, to the world; God dealt with her according to the law of retaliation. It is fit that those who sin before all should be rebuked before all; and that the reputation of those should not be consulted by the concealment of their punishment who were so impudent as not to desire the concealment of their sin. [2.] It is a filthy city. Great notice is taken, in this explanation of the comparison, of the scum of this pot, which signifies the sin of Jerusalem, working up and appearing when the judgments of God were upon her. It is the pot whose scum is therein and has not gone out of it, Eze 24:6. The great scum that went not forth out of her (Eze 24:12), that stuck to the pot when all was boiled away, and was molten in it (Eze 24:11), some of this runs over into the fire (Eze 24:12), inflames that, and makes it burn the more furiously, but it shall all be consumed at last, Eze 24:11. When the hand of God had gone out against them, instead of humbling themselves under it, repenting and reforming, and accepting the punishment of their iniquity, they grew more impudent and outrageous in sin, quarrelled with God, persecuted his prophets, were fierce to one another, enraged to the last degree against the Chaldeans, snarled at the stone, gnawed their chain, and were like a wild bull in a net. This as their scum; in their distress they trespassed yet more against the Lord, like that king Ahaz, Ch2 28:22. There is little hope of those who are made worse by that which should make them better, whose corruptions are excited an exasperated by those rebukes both of the word and of the providence of God which were designed for the suppressing and subduing of them, or of those whose scum boiled up once in convictions, and confessions of sin, as if it would be taken off by reformation, but afterwards returned again, in a revolt from their good overtures; and the heart that seemed softened is hardened again. This was Jerusalem's case: She has wearied with lies, wearied her God with purposes and promises of amendment, which she never stood to, wearied herself with her carnal confidences, which have all deceived her, Eze 24:12. Note, Those that follow after lying vanities weary themselves with the pursuit. Now see her doom, Eze 24:13, Eze 24:14. Because she is incurably wicked she is abandoned to ruin, without remedy. First, Methods and means of reformation had been tried in vain (Eze 24:13): "In thy filthiness is lewdness; thou hast become obstinate and impudent in it; thou hast got a habit of it, which is confirmed by frequent acts. In thy filthiness thee is a rooted lewdness; as appears by this, I have purged thee and thou wast not purged. I have given thee medicine, but it has done thee no good. I have used the means of cleansing thee, but they have been ineffectual; the intention of them has not been answered." Note, It is sad to think how many there are on whom ordinances and providences are all lost. Secondly, It is therefore resolved that no more such methods shall be sued: Thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more. The fire shall no longer be a refining fire, but a consuming fire, and therefore shall not be mitigated and shortened, as it has been, but shall be continued in extremity, till it has done its destroying work. Note, Those that will not be healed are justly given up and their case adjudged desperate. There is a day coming when it will be said, He that is filthy, let him be filthy still. Thirdly, Nothing remains then but to bring them to utter ruin: I will cause my fury to rest upon thee. This is the same with what is said of the later Jews, that wrath has come upon them to the uttermost, Th1 2:16. They deserve it: According to thy doings they shall judge thee, Eze 24:14. And God will do it. The sentence is bound on with repeated ratifications, that they might be awakened to see how certain their ruin was: "I the Lord have spoken it, who am able to make good what I have spoken; it shall come to pass, nothing shall prevent it, for I will do it myself, I will not go back upon any entreaties; the decree has gone forth, and I will not spare in compassion to them, neither will I repent." He will neither change his mind nor his way. Hereby the prophet was forbidden to interceded for them, and they were forbidden to flatter themselves with hopes of an escape. God hath said it, and he will do it. Note, The declarations of God's wrath against sinners are as inviolable as the assurances he has given of favour to his people; and the case of such is sad indeed, who have brought it to this issue, that either God must be false or they must be damned.
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 vv1–14 Again, in the ninth year,.... Of Jehoiachin's captivity, from…
Again, in the ninth year,.... Of Jehoiachin's captivity, from which the dates of Ezekiel are, and of Zedekiah's reign, which commenced together:
in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month; the month Tebet, which answers to part of our December, and part of January; so that it was at the latter end of December when this prophecy was given out; at which time Jerusalem was besieged by the king of Babylon, even in the winter season:
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the word of the Lord came unto me, saying; 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, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13 By the sign of flesh boiling in a pot…
By the sign of flesh boiling in a pot are shewed, the miseries of Jerusalem during the siege, ver. 1-14. By the sign of Ezekiel's not mourning for his wife is shewed, that the approaching calamities would be to great to be lamented, ver. 15- 27.
In the ninth year - Of Zedekiah's reign. Came unto me - The prophet was now in Babylon.
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, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13 The prophet now informs those of the captivity of…
CHAPTER XXIV
The prophet now informs those of the captivity of the very day
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on which Nebuchadnezzar was to lay siege to Jerusalem,
(compare Jer 52:4,)
and describes the fate of that city and its inhabitants by a
very apt similitude, 1-14.
As another sign of the greatness of those calamities the
prophet is forbidden to mourn for his wife, of whom he is to be
deprived; intimating thereby that the sufferings of the Jews
should be so astonishing as to surpass all expressions of
grief; and that private sorrow however affectionate and tender
the object, ought to be absorbed in the public calamities,
15-18.
The prophet, having farther expressed his prediction in plain
terms, intimates that he was to speak to them no more till they
should have the news of these prophecies having been fulfilled,
19-27.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIV
Verse 1. The ninth year] This prophecy was given in the ninth year of Zedekiah, about Thursday, the thirtieth of January, A.M. 3414; the very day in which the king of Babylon commenced the siege of Jerusalem.
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, 3, 6, 9, 12 Eze 24:1-2. Again, in the ninth year — Namely,…
Eze 24:1-2. Again, in the ninth year — Namely, of Jehoiachin’s captivity, and of Zedekiah’s reign; the word of the Lord came unto me — Namely, in Chaldea, where the prophet now was, and where, as the words here evidently imply, God gave him notice, though many hundreds of miles distant from Jerusalem, of Nebuchadnezzar’s beginning to lay siege to that city, just at the time when he began to do it. Saying, The king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem — Hebrew, סמךְ אל ירושׁלים, hath set himself, or, as Buxtorf renders it, accedit, vel appropinquat, comes, or approaches, to Jerusalem, בעצם היום הזה, this self-same day — Namely, this day that I now speak to thee. Write thee the name of the day, &c. — Make a memorial of the day, and of my having this day informed thee of this great event; and signify it to the people, that when they shall receive intelligence from Judea of the siege having been begun this day, according to thy information, it may be a confirmation of the truth of thy mission, and of the certainty of the fulfilment of all thy predictions. This was about two years before the taking of Jerusalem: see 2Ki 25:1; Jer 39:1; and Jer 52:4.
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, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 The prophecies in this chapter were delivered two years…
The prophecies in this chapter were delivered two years and five months after those of the previous section Eze 20:1. The day mentioned here was the very day on which Nebuchadnezzar completed his arrangements for the siege, and closed in the city (marginal references). After the captivity this day was regularly observed as a fast day Zec 8:19.
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, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13 Month; January 30, the year of the world 3414.…
Month; January 30, the year of the world 3414. (Usher) --- Ezechiel was then in Mesopotamia, when the news of the siege commencing on that very day, should arrive; it would make a great impression upon the people, so that they would have confidence in him, (Calmet) as the certainty of the prediction would appear, 4 Kings xxv. 1. (Worthington)
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 12. The Marking down of the Event that has…
12. The Marking down of the Event that has taken place (the Symbolical Discourse and the Virtual Sign) (Ezekiel 24.)
1And the word of Jehovah came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth [day] of the month, saying, 2Son of man, write [register] thee the name of the day, this same day; the king of Babylon has assailed Jerusalem on this same day. 3And utter a parable against the house of rebelliousness, and say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Set on a caldron, 4set it on, and also pour water into it. Gather its pieces into it, every good piece, thigh and shoulder; fill [it] with the choice of the bones. 5Take the choice of the flock, and also a wood-pile under it for the bones; let it boil and boil, 6so that its bones be sodden in the midst of it. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Woe to the bloody city ! the caldron in [on] which its rust is, and whose rust hath not gone out of it! piece for piece bring it out; no lot has fallen upon it. 7For her blood is in the midst of her; on the bare rock she has put it; she poured it not upon the earth, that it might be covered with 8dust. To make fury to ascend, to execute vengeance, I have put her blood on the bare rock, that it should not be covered. 9Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Woe to the bloody city ! also I will make the pile great. 10Heap on wood, kindle the fire, make ready the flesh, and let the fat be 11melted, and let the bones be burned up. And set it empty upon its coals, that it may be hot, and its brass glow, and its uncleanness in the midst of it 12be melted, and that its rust should cease. It has wearied labours, and its much rust went not forth from it; into the fire its rust ! 13In thy filthiness is lewdness; because I purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt no 14more be purged from thy filthiness until I cause My fury to rest on thee. I, Jehovah, have spoken; it comes, and I do; I will not slacken, nor spare, nor repent; according to thy ways, and according to thy works, they shall Judges 15 thee: sentence of the Lord Jehovah.—And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 16Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke; and thou shalt not mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears 17flow. Groan, be still, make not mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thy head about thee, and put thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not the beard, 18and eat not the bread of men. And I spake to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded. 19And the people said to me, Wilt thou not tell us what this [imports] 20to us that thou doest [it] ? And I said to them, The word of Jehovah came 21to me, saying, Say to the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will profane My sanctuary, the pride of your strength, the desire of your eyes, and the pity of your soul, and your sons and your daughters whom ye have left shall fall by the sword. 22And ye shall do as I have done; ye shall not cover the beard, and the bread of men ye shall not eat. 23And your tires shall be upon your heads, and your shoes on your feet; ye shall not mourn nor weep; and ye shall pine away in your iniquities, and sigh one 24to another. And Ezekiel is unto you for a portent; according to all that he hath done shall ye do; when it cometh, then ye shall know that I am the 25Lord Jehovah. And thou, son of man, shall it not be, in the day when I take from them their stronghold, the delight of their glory, the desire of their 26eyes, and the wish of their souls, their sons and their daughters; That in that day he that is escaped shall come to thee, to cause the ears to hear it? 27On that day thy mouth shall be opened [at the same time] with him that is escaped, and thou shalt speak, and shalt be no more dumb; and thou shalt be to them for a portent; and they shall know that I am Jehovah.
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Eze_24:4. Sept.: ... ἐκσεσαρκισμενα ἐκ των ὀστεων—Vulg.: … electa et ossibus plena—
Eze_24:5. ὑκοκαιε τα ὀστα ὑποκατω αὐτων—compone strues ossium—
Eze_24:10. Some codices read: יחדו, adunentur.
Eze_24:12. Vulg.: Multo labore sudalum est … neque per ignem.
Eze_24:13. … κ. τι ἐσται ἐαν μη καθαρισθης ἐτι ἑως—Immunditia tua execrabilis, quia … et non … Sed nec mundaberis prius—
Eze_24:14. … Δια τουτο ἐγω κρινω σε κατα τα αἱμκτα σου, κ. κατα τα ἐνθυμηματα σου κρινω σε, ἡ ἀκαθκθκρτος, ἡ ὀνομαστπ κ. πολλη του παραπικραινειν. All the ancient versions read: שפטתיך.
Eze_24:16. ἐν παραταξει.
Eze_24:17. Στεναγμος αἱματος, ὀσφυος πενθους ἐσται αὑτη … ἑν τοις ποσιν σου· οὐ μη παρακληθης ἐν χειλεσιν αὐτων—
Eze_24:18. Κ. … το πρωι ὁν τροπον ἐνετειλατο μοι, κ. ἀπεθανεν—
Eze_24:19. ויאמר, Sept.: κ. εἰπεν … ὁ λαος—For אשר ,כי is read.
Eze_24:22. … ἀπο στοματος αὐτων οὐ μη παρακληθησεσθε—
Eze_24:23. … κ. παρακαλεσετε ἑκαστος τ. ἀδελφον—
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
The threatened judgment of Jerusalem and Judah is now a fact. The whole previous preparation for it, and therewith the first part of the book—the prophecy of judgment—close with this chapter. Looking back from this point, the detailed division with respect to the symbolism of numbers which was stated in the Introduction justifies itself. 1. Under the divine mission of the prophet (Eze_1:1 to Eze_3:11) there was shown first of all, in the two sections (Ezekiel 1. and Eze_2:1 to Eze_3:11), the mutual opposition between God and the people. 2. The first carrying out of his divine commission (Eze_3:12 to Eze_7:27) fell, through the determining influence of the more special relation to God, into the three sections (Eze_3:12-27; Eze_4:1 to Eze_5:17; Eze_6:7.). 3. The succeeding instances of his fulfilment of his commission (Ezekiel 8-24), on the other hand, in passing over to the subject of the secularized people, made the number four significant in the first section (Ezekiel 8-11.), the two of contrast in the second (Eze_12:1-20), and—as this whole third division, like the second, is also governed by the number three—after prominence had been given to the fact that the people of God had become like the world, and after their opposition to Jehovah had been emphasized afresh, there followed, in the third section of the third division of this first part of the book, twelve sub-sections, according to the number of the tribes of the whole people, with a notification, in the eleventh of these, that Judah and Israel were parted from each other, Eze_12:21 to Eze_24:27.
Eze_24:1-2. The Accomplished Fact
Eze_24:1. To the accomplished fact corresponds the date, with which are to be compared the previously-mentioned dates, Ezekiel 1, 8, 20, and therewith 2Ki_25:1; Jer_52:4; Jer_39:1; Zec_8:19. The synagogue still observes the day as a fast.
Eze_24:2. After formal prominence has been given to the day by Ezekiel’s being required to write down not only its name, but the day itself (עֶצֶם, comp. Eze_2:3), its historical substance, or that which happened in it, is stated as the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. סָמַךְ is: to lie hard upon (Psa_88:7), as כָּבַד is used in Psa_32:4 of the hand of God.
Eze_24:3-14. The Symbolical Discourse
Eze_24:3. As what follows is expressly denoted as a מָשָׁלִ (comp. at Eze_12:22; Eze_17:2), and the caldron is merely that of Eze_11:3, of course no external symbolical action is to be supposed here, but thereby the supposition of such action in the other passages is made all the more probable (comp. Eze_12:4-5.). Comp. besides, Eze_2:5, etc.—The repeated demand, expressing urgent haste, set on, is at the same time sarcastic; fetch their caldron (Eze_11:3): Nebuchadnezzar has planted himself before their walls; presently it may become apparent how far their proverb was a true word. The “pouring in” of the water will, as it were, prevent a possible oversight by which the caldron could be injured. Don’t forget the water; the next and chief concernment is with the inhabitants. They are the pieces, Eze_24:4. It is possible that there is an allusion in אֱסֹף (“to sweep together,” comp. therewith Eze_22:19) to those who fled before the Chaldeans from the country into the city, and in נָתַח (“to cut in pieces ”) to the sword which hung threateningly over all. The —ָה relates to those who come into consideration (Eze_21:17) for the caldron (Jerusalem). They are described as the marrow and strength of the population, as the best who are still in the land, as the choice even of the bones. Many interpreters distinguish the people of quality, the wealthy, the princes, the king, as the bones. It is perhaps more correct to regard the expression as hinting at the high opinion of themselves, entertained by the natives of Jerusalem (Eze_11:15).
Eze_24:5 specifies the whole by the choice of the flock, to wit, sheep or goats, of which those pieces are made; and then mentions the fuel, דּוּר, a round piled-up heap, composed of wood (like strues), as is evident from the connection, and especially from Eze_24:10, so that the genitive, as is also immediately explained, betokens the destination; for as the bones likewise (which were even brought for the special purpose) are to be sodden, the wood-pile under the caldron (with reference to the investment of the city round about) must therefore be requisite. [Fairbairn translates the clause in Eze_24:5 : “and also pile the bones under it,” and adds in explanation: “What the prophet means is, that the best, the fleshiest parts, full of the strongest bones, representing the most exalted and powerful among the people, were to be put within the pot and boiled; but that the rest, the very poorest, were not to escape: these, the mere bones as it were, were to be thrown as a pile beneath, suffering first, and, by increasing the fire, hastening on the destruction of the others. דּוּר is properly a noun, a pile; literally: And also let there be a pile of the bones underneath. The expression cannot signify, with Häv., a pile of wood for the bones; for דּוּר is simply a pile, not a pile of wood, and when coupled with bones can only mean a heap of these.”—W. F.] רֶתַּח, “the boiling,” found here only, and that in a plural form, strengthens the idea of the verb in this interest. בָּשַׁל=“to be cooked.”
Eze_24:6 introduces with לָכֵן the explanation, but at the same time a something additional, a new element. In the previous part of the similitude, the fate of the city is symbolized with regard to those who are present in Jerusalem; the actual fact of the commencement of the siege by the Chaldeans (Eze_24:2) is also brought into view—therefore woe, etc. (Eze_16:23)—ch, 22:2. The mention of the blood leads to the new feature in the amplification of the similitude, namely, the rust, חֶלְאָה, by which can be meant a stain made by burning, or, still better, the rust-stain formed on metal by the influence of damp, whereby it is eaten away; comp. Jam_5:3; the ruddy colour being well adapted to represent blood. [Homer sometimes nods. Who ever heard before of the “ruddy colour” of verdigris !? Schroeder must have forgotten that “the caldron” is a caldron of brass.—W. F.] Thus judgment is motived by the guilt of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The destruction from without merely completed that which had begun long before, from within. That such rust is not done away, means that the shed blood having remained unavenged (Eze_24:7), punishment must therefore be executed on the inhabitants of Jerusalem as a body (Deu_21:7-8).—The siege is not a testing which leads to repentance, so that Eze_11:3 sq. could be fulfilled, but, as Ewald also understands the passage: “the pieces as many as there are pieces,” in other words, the inhabitants without distinction or exception shall be fetched out; and as the blood-rust adheres properly to the inhabitants, and only in the figure to the caldron, which however is also employed figuratively in relation to them, so —ָהּ doubtless refers in point of fact to the inhabitants; but it can be referred, so far as the figure is concerned, to the caldron, i.e. the city, although the most natural method would be to refer it to the rust, with which also harmonises the verb, which is twice used in regard to it—יָצְאָה and הוֹצִיאָהּ. The rust thus goes out of the caldron, only when all the inhabitants go out at the same time, which may either be when they are led captive or when they are destroyed. The statement as to there being no lot only confirms this result; comp. 1Sa_14:42; Joh_1:7. Under Jehoiakim and along with Jehoiachin, the choice of the people had been carried away.
Eze_24:7 passes from the figure to the reality, namely, to the city, as representing the inhabitants, and states to what extent the rust continues unremoved (Eze_22:13; Eze_23:37). Comp. Lam_4:12 sq. Hengst.: Judicial murders perpetrated by the dominant party, e.g. Jer_26:20 sq. צְחִיחַ (צָחַח), from the idea of solidity rather than of dryness, which would have made it drink in that which was poured out; either the smooth and non-porous, or the glancing white rock is meant. [Ew. obscures the simple line of thought by taking the close of Eze_24:6 interrogatively: “Is not the lot fallen upon it, because her blood was in the midst of it?” and still more by reading, with the Sept., the first person: “Upon the sunniest rock have I placed,” etc.] The shed blood is nothing hidden,—nothing which is covered over with dust (Lev_17:13), but, Eze_24:8, notorious wickedness, which is made manifest under the rule of Divine Providence, and which calls down the vengeance of God, Gen_4:10-11; Job_16:18; Isa_26:21. “God would make sin manifest, so that His judgment might be recognised as righteous” (Häv.). Jerusalem was distinguished by the openness and audacity with which it sinned; but the upshot of it all was simply, the bringing near of its judgment. The bold openness of the blood-shedding provoked the fury; the fact of its having remained unpunished provoked the vengeance of God.
Eze_24:9, like Eze_24:6, explanation, and a new, third element. As the prophet in the similitude (Eze_24:5), so also Jehovah in fact. Or גַּם־ִאנִי now adds to the permitting of guilt to become ripe, the corresponding execution of punishment (Eze_16:43). As God takes the matter in hand, מְדוּרָה alternates with דּוּר (Eze_24:5), Isa_30:33. But as the similitude is to be carried still farther, the prophet, Eze_24:10, is enjoined to carry out the divine purpose (Eze_11:6; Eze_21:20). As to the fire, comp. Eze_5:4; Eze_10:2; Eze_15:7.—With הָתֵם, from תָּמַם, comp. Eze_22:15.—רָקַח can mean: “to spice;” Hengst.: “put in the spice” (sarcastic), which, however, fits into the connection with difficulty. The word means properly: to make soft. Keil: to thoroughly boil the broth. Others, from its also meaning: “to make ointment,” translate it by: “stir the mixture.”
Eze_24:11. The new element. We know from Eze_10:2; Eze_1:13, what its coals are. That the caldron, i.e. the city, is also overtaken by the judgment, is a fact so natural, that Keil, in opposition to Hitzig, required to point for proof merely to Eze_23:25; Eze_16:41. The empty caldron, moreover, points back to Eze_24:6, as Eze_24:9 to Eze_24:5, so that with the renewed reference to the rust, the similitude is rounded to a conclusion. Its uncleanness is its rust,—the blood-guilt, in which are especially included the polluting Moloch-offerings, Eze_22:3-4; Eze_22:15; Eze_22:21-22. As that which is before the inhabitants is not a time of testing, so that which the city is to experience is not the burning out of evil, or purification.
Eze_24:12. תְּאֻנִים הֶלְאָת Gesen. translates: “With hard labour it (the caldron) wearies me.” Many render the close of the verse: “in the fire,” or: “through the fire its rust.” Fruitless efforts (comp. Eze_24:13) at purification are meant. According to Hitz.: “through such extreme heat to remove the rust” (Jer_6:29); so that a pause of expectation requires to be imagined between Eze_24:11-12, which, however, is arbitrarily assumed. J. D. Mich.: “When verdigris has eaten very deeply into it, copper is made red-hot in the fire, and cooled in water, when the rust falls off in scales, etc. It can be partially dissolved by the application of vinegar. Only one must not think of a melting away of the rust by the fire, since in that case the copper would necessarily be melted along with it. Also through the mere heating the greater part can be loosened, so that it can be rubbed off.” Hengst. mentions the severe labour of the true servant of the Lord, Isa_49:4. [Dutch Annotations: “She hath wearied (me with) vanities, making such a continual stir by her idolatries, heathenish covenants, intestine oppression, lying, hypocrisy, and all manner of wicked devices, whereby she would underprop her ruinous condition and keep off threatened destruction, instead of repenting and turning unto me, whereunto I exhorted them by my prophet with such patience and forbearance, and admonished them so faithfully and frequently with sore threatenings, that I am even grown weary of it, they being not (in the least) bettered, but grown still more obstinate and hardened thereby.”—W. F.] While the much rust is destined for the fire, so that the caldron, in contrast to it, does not come into account, the fate of the caldron at the same time becomes evident.
Eze_24:13, departing from the figure, addresses Jerusalem. Hitz.: “on account of thy unchaste uncleanness.” So also most interpreters. The degeneracy of the people is described as one in which the death-deserving crime of lewdness forms the characteristic element.
[Henderson: “The impurity of the inhabitants of Jerusalem was of the most atrocious character. זִמָּה, crime, deliberate wickedness, is a term employed to denote a criminal act, perpetrated on set purpose. Root, זָמַם, to think, devise, purpose; mostly used in a bad sense. Jehovah had used a variety of means, both physical and moral, to restore them to purity, but they had produced no effect. It remained now only for the Chaldeans to do their work. The decree was irrevocable, and the execution inevitable.”—W. F.]
Comp. Eze_23:44; Eze_23:48; Eze_16:27; Eze_16:42, etc. (Lev_18:20.) While they degenerated to such an extent, both politically and religiously, they withdrew themselves from the influence of the efforts made by Jehovah, who by word (promise and threatening) and deed (chastisements and deliverances) was all the while bent on the purifying of Israel. All promulgation of law was designed to effect the separation of the people from the heathen world, and their purification from innate corruption (2Ch_36:15). The judgment which has overtaken them brings to an end these fruitless efforts for their purification, and every prospect of their being cleansed. Henceforth—that is the immediate future of Israel—the fury of God rests on them. Comp. at Eze_5:13 (Jer_13:27; Isa_4:4).
Eze_24:14. The close of the symbolical discourse. Comp. Eze_23:34; Eze_5:13.—Eze_21:12.—Eze_17:24.—Eze_7:3; Eze_7:8; Eze_7:27.—פָּרַע, either with reference to persons: to let the guilty go free (Gesen.), or in a neuter sense, which is the preciser idea: to depart from My word through a procedure not conformable to it—(Eze_20:44.) Eze_23:24; Eze_23:45.—The words which are here added by the Sept. (were they following a different version?) are inserted by Hitz. and Ew. as conformable to the text.
ADDITIONAL NOTE ON Eze_24:6-14
[“After having briefly given the ground of the parabolical description, the prophet proceeds, in Eze_24:6-14, to make special and pointed application of it. His leading object is to show that it was the excessive and inveterate wickedness of the people which provoked, and even rendered necessary, the severe dealing to which they were subjected.
“All measures of a less extreme kind had been tried in vain; those were now exhausted: and as the iniquity appeared to be entwined with the whole fabric and constitution of things, nothing remained but to subject all to the crucible of a severe and overwhelming catastrophe. This is represented by keeping the caldron on the fire till its contents were stewed away, and the very bones burnt. And as if even this were not enough, as if something more were necessary to avenge and purge out such scandalous wickedness, the caldron itself must be kept hot and burning till the pollution should be thoroughly consumed out of it. The wicked city must be laid in ruins. It is the very same thought which occurs in Isa_4:4, where the filth of the daughters of Zion is said to be washed away, and the blood of Jerusalem to be purged from the midst of it by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning; only, after the manner of our prophet, the image is extended to many minute and particular details. In plain terms, the Lord was no longer going to deal with them by half-measures; their condition called for the greatest degree of severity compatible with their preservation as a distinct and separate people, and so the indignation of the Lord was to rest on them till a separation was effected between them and sin.”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 261, 262.—W. F.]
Eze_24:15-27. The Virtual Sign (the Silence of Ezekiel)
Eze_24:16. מַחְמַד׳, what the eyes desire, 1Ki_20:6, what they rest on with affection.—מַגֵּפָה, from נָגַף, to smite, can be: overthrow, calamity, and means here sudden death. So much the more natural would those gestures and expressions of feeling be which were forbidden to him.
סְפֹּד is almost always used of lamentation for the dead. Even the tears which were so natural (thy), not to speak of “weeping,” were not allowed to him, 1Co_7:29.
Eze_24:17. The feeling of grief God does not forbid, only its loud, outward expression; the pain felt in regard to a private experience shall be dumb, just as the universal experience symbolized by it must absorb every private sorrow. The opposite of the mourning which was made for the dead (מֵתִים is placed expressively at the beginning of the clause) is described in detail. פְּאֵר is a “head-ornament” (Isa_61:3) in general (Eze_24:23), not exclusively that of the priest; people laid it aside in times of mourning, and went bareheaded—comp. however, Deu_14:1; strewed ashes upon their heads, Lam_2:10; went barefooted, 2Sa_15:30; covered, as did lepers, the lower part of their face, Mic_3:7—the beard, as man’s adornment; obtained food from other people, as from neighbours, who sent it to the house, in contradistinction to the food prepared by themselves at other times, Jer_16:7.
Eze_24:18. As Ezekiel spake to the exiles in the morning, namely, Eze_24:3 sq., and his wife died in the evening, the directions which he received for his behaviour in regard to this event, and which he complied with on the morning after the death, were communicated to him on the same day with the symbolical discourse. [Hengst. refers the “speaking” to the communication of the divine command to the people, and makes the prophet appear before them on the succeeding morning with the intelligence that his wife had died the previous evening, when he acted in the already mentioned symbolical manner.]
Eze_24:19 (Eze_12:9) assumes that the death of the prophet’s wife has become known to the people, since their question is occasioned by the inconsistency of his behaviour with that fact. As it is inexplicable when considered in relation to himself, the inquiry as to its bearing on them springs to their lips.—כִּי either stands for אֲשֶׁר, or is to be explained thus: For thou doest it for us; in relation to thyself thou wouldst necessarily have acted otherwise. [The expressions which Hengst. has not hesitated to employ may be quoted on account of their singularity: “The prophet appears merely as a holy actor” (!); “We have to do with a mere figure,” with a “fact of the holy phantasy;” Ezekiel may have had “no wife at all,” etc.]
Eze_24:20. The explanation of his conduct follows, as he was divinely commissioned to give it,
Eze_24:21—namely, that what had happened to himself, whereby he is placed before them in a more impressive manner as the representative of the house of Israel, as the exiles’ “companion in tribulation,” was a type of that which was about to happen to them. As the expressions show, the wife of Ezekiel must typify the temple; her death represents especially its desecration, when Jehovah allows it to fall into the hands of the heathen (Eze_7:22), whereby the symbol of his marriage-relation to Israel, the dwelling together, disappears. If this relation between the wife and the temple is established—comp. Eze_24:16—by the expression: מַחְמַד עֵינֵיכֶם, then the temple on its part symbolizes all the possessions and power of Israel. To its existence in their midst they appealed against their brethren, Eze_11:15; and to this they trusted amid all their wickedness and apostasy, Eze_8:6; Jer_7:4. Pride of your strength,—since they took pride in it as their strength. Comp. Lev_26:19.—Note the alliteration in מַחְמַל and מַחְמַד; according to Hengst.: “the sympathy of your soul,” since the soul that is inwardly united with it suffers with it(?); Gesen.: “what your soul desires, loves.” The following would correspond better with its signification elsewhere (Eze_7:4), namely: that your soul would spare,—pledging life itself for it. (Dutch Trans.: the sparing of your souls.)—In the symbolical significance of Ezekiel’s wife for Israel, next to the special relation to the temple, the people come into consideration,—the sons and daughters; in the symbol, sudden death; as to the people, death by violence. (Hitz.: “On the occasion of the expatriation, many parents may have been obliged to leave their children with relatives, from their being of too tender age to accompany them.” Perhaps also they could be left behind in expectation of better times.)
Eze_24:22. In regard to both the relations referred to, the exiles addressed shall imitate Ezekiel; comp. Eze_24:17.
Eze_24:23. Eze_24:17; Eze_24:16. The direct application of what has gone before, which is made by the prophet to his companions in exile, gives a symbolical character to what has been said, which becomes all the clearer, as what is exactly meant is immediately expressed, namely: Ye shall pine away in your iniquities, etc. (Eze_4:17), which, describes a state of inward and personal woe which is destitute of all comfort (Isa_50:1; Isa_59:2).—נָהַם is the pressing out of the breath in lowing and also in roaring; here it corresponds to what is said of Ezekiel in Eze_24:17,—a sighing with groans, and that of the one to the other, instead of the former mutual interchange of complaints, wishes, and hopes. [Häv. and others understand it as: pain and sorrow on account of sin, which is said neither here nor in Lev_26:39; Eich.: dull indifference at the downfall of Jerusalem in consequence of the misery of banishment; Ew.: a stupified, unrepentant state of mind; many: fear and shame before the Chaldeans among whom they dwelt. Hitz. makes them growl one to another like bears, discontentedly seeking the source of their misfortune in others instead of in themselves; Hengst.: despair.] As, in the prophet’s case, the misfortune of his wife’s death disappears in the deep shadows of the overthrow of Jerusalem and Judah, so all the personal feelings of the exiles shall be absorbed in this destruction of the last remnant of the kingdom and city. One and another shall be benumbed with pain, so that no comfort shall come from any quarter; on the contrary, a desolating feeling of guilt shall be general,—such shall be their knowledge of the Lord.
Eze_24:24. Comp. at Eze_12:6.
Eze_24:14.—ָהּ is referred by many to Eze_24:26. The introduction of Ezekiel’s name completes the personal type.
[“It appears to us almost unaccountable how any person of ordinary discernment should understand the prophet here to mean, that those Jews were to receive the coming catastrophe in a callous and indifferent manner, sullenly yielding to their fate, but without any sensible movement of the springs of sorrow and regret. Yet such is the view taken of the passage by some leading commentators abroad (in particular, by Eichhorn, Ewald, Hitzig), although the express declaration at the close, and the whole character of the representation, plainly lead to an opposite conclusion. In the typical part of the delineation, it was not because the prophet was insensible to the loss he sustained by the death of his wife that he was to abstain from the habiliments and usages of mourning; but because there was another source of grief behind, of which this was but the sign and presage, and in itself so much greater and more appalling, that his spirit, instead of venting itself in expressions of sorrow at the immediate and ostensible calamity, was rather to brood in silent agony and concern over the more distressing evil it foreshadowed. And in like manner with the people, when all their fond hopes and visions were finally exploded—when the destruction of their beautiful temple and the slaughter of their sons and daughters came home to them as dreadful realities, they could only refrain from bewailing the loss of what had so deep a hold on their desires and affections, by having come to discern in this the sign of what was still greatly more dreadful and appalling. And what might that be but the blood-stained guilt of their iniquities, which had brought on the catastrophe? Had it been that portion of the people who dwelt at Jerusalem that the prophet here more immediately referred to, there might have been some room for supposing (with Pradus and others) that he pointed merely to the overawing terror of the enemy, and to the breathless horror and astonishment connected with the capture of the city, when he spake of such an arrest being laid on the common outgoings of grief. But it is the captives at Chebar of whom he more immediately speaks, who, he well knew, would be living in outward quiet, far removed from the scene of uproar and destruction. It could not, in their case, be the presence of a Babylonian host, or the turmoil and consternation caused by the success of the Babylonian arms, which should check the customary expressions of grief; it would be the overwhelming sense that should then break in upon them of the iniquities to which they had clung with such fatal perverseness, absorbing their spirits, and turning their moanings into a new and higher direction. The agonies of bereavement would be in a manner lost under the self-inflicted pains of contrition and remorse (comp. Eze_7:16).
“Yet, while this seems obviously the meaning of the prophet’s announcement,—of the not mourning in one way, and still pining away with distress and sorrow in another,—the description must be understood with certain qualifications, and indeed is to be viewed as the somewhat ideal delineation of a state of things that should be found, rather than the exact and literal description of what was actually to take place. The representation would otherwise stand in palpable contrariety, as well with undoubted facts as with statements elsewhere made both by Ezekiel and by his great contemporary in Judea. That many, on the fall of Jerusalem, did really exhibit the usual signs of mourning, and give the fullest vent to their feelings of distress, may be inferred with the utmost certainty from what is written in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, where we read of all the common symptoms and appliances of grief: ‘elders sitting upon the ground, casting dust upon their heads, girding themselves with sackcloth;’ and the prophet himself—though he had been told not to lament or bemoan (Eze_16:5)—weeping till ‘his eyes failed with tears, and his liver was poured on the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of his people.’ Nay, while Ezekiel here speaks as if all the indications of mourning should be restrained at the destruction of Jerusalem, he had previously spoken of the people being so filled with distress on account of it, that ‘they should gird themselves with sackcloth, and have baldness upon their heads’ (Eze_7:18), and had himself also been instructed to howl and cry in contemplation of the approaching troubles (Eze_21:12). There can be no doubt also, on the other side, that the conscience of sin, however powerfully it might work in some bosoms, and absorb other feelings, would be very far from being universally felt as it ought to have been. The prophets were by no means disposed to cherish exaggerated views on the subject. Jeremiah had even spoken of the people carrying their iniquities with them into other lands, and there serving other gods day and night (Eze_16:13). And Ezekiel himself, in Ezekiel 20, represents them as still needing, after they had been all scattered among the nations, to be brought as into the wilderness, that they might there be dealt with for iniquities not yet forsaken, and purged from still remaining abominations.
“It is clear, therefore, that the description in the passage before us must not be understood in the absolute sense, as if it were intended to portray what was certainly to be realized among the people at large on the taking of Jerusalem. It is what should have been realized in all; but what, in point of fact, was to have its realization only in part. The people should, on the occurrence of such a fearful catastrophe, have sunk under an overpowering sense of their guilt and folly, and, like the prophet, turned the tide of their grief and mourning rather against the gigantic evil that lay behind, seen only in the chambers of imagery, than what outwardly appeared; they should have bewailed the enormous sins that had provoked the righteous displeasure of God, rather than the present troubles in which that displeasure had taken effect. Their sorrow should have chiefly flowed in this more inward and spiritual direction, for it was here pre-eminently that the evil stood. And such, undoubtedly, was the case with the better and more enlightened portion of the people; but many still cleaved to their idols, and would not receive the instruction given them, either by the prophet’s parabolical example, or by the reality of God’s afflicting dispensations.”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 266–268.—W. F.]
Eze_24:25. The prominence given to the person of the prophet leads now to the announcement of a sign which is to be given him hereafter, and to the giving of an instruction for his procedure thereupon. And thou, etc. The statement is interrogative in its form, but assumes an affirmative answer. It is equivalent to: I ask thee, shall it, can it be otherwise? The time is expressed as a definite day. A year and a half elapsed before then, Eze_33:21; comp. Jeremiah 52.—The delight of their glory means: that in whose glory they delighted, Eze_24:21.—The wish of their souls, that to which they looked with longing and yearning. According to others: “the burden of their souls,” namely, that which oppresses them. The sons and daughters are named along with the temple, without a connecting word, but as in Eze_24:21.
Eze_24:26. The escaped is a definite person. [According to Hengst.: an ideal person, comprehending in himself the whole host of those carried away; others: a fugitive, one of their number.] As an eyewitness of what had been passed through, he will place the fact before the exiles as one which cannot be doubted.
Eze_24:27. As he (which is also a virtual sign, namely, for the prophet) opens his mouth, Ezekiel does the same, who consequently has had to keep silence up to that time. The opening of the prophet’s mouth at the same time with that of the fugitive takes place in Ezekiel 33; comp. Eze_24:21-22. The word of Jehovah, however, comes to the prophet in the interval, Ezekiel 25-32. As these prophecies are directed against non-Israelites, the silence of the prophet, which is introduced with Ezekiel 24, must be regarded as relative, and be understood in reference to his discourses to Israel only: to them he will not speak in the present period; he will do so only (Ezekiel 33) when, with the renewal of his divine mission, a “new period for prophetic speech” (Hengst.) shall open, comprehending the second part of his book. Comp. at Eze_29:21. As, now, this second part, containing the prophecies of divine compassion, sets itself over against the first part which contains the prophecies of judgment, and the retrospective reference of Eze_24:27 (Eze_33:22) to Eze_3:26-27 is unmistakeable (comp. there); so Ezekiel’s becoming dumb can be taken in relation to prophesying of mercy as distinguished from prophesying of judgment, so that the meaning would be: Thou shalt then speak of mercy, and no more of judgment, which has become an accomplished fact. But therewith the prophet’s becoming dumb appears as a becoming silent touching mercy, and as a speaking concerning judgment, just as speaking, of this nature, was characteristic of the first part of the book; so that the dumbness of Ezekiel affects, in the first place, the period up to the appearance of the fugitive from Jerusalem with the news of its downfall; but further, on its close, looks back on the whole period of the first part of the book, which it concludes. Thus it is evidently to be understood as a prophetic dumbness, not as silence in a general sense. The prophet speaks of judgment to foreign peoples, during the time which is to be assumed from our chapter, exactly as in the first part of the book,—the time of his silence as to mercy, he spoke to Israel. Thus his becoming silent is here also a virtual sign to Israel, just as it was so at an earlier time, Eze_3:26-27.—Through all this speech and silence (thus many refer it to the whole activity of the prophet), and in other ways, he is shown to have been a significant symbol to his fellow-countrymen. [Dutch Annotations: In that day, etc.; “As if God should say, Thou hast now sufficiently foretold my people of the miseries that are at hand, be now silent for a while till all things be clearly fulfilled and plain before their eyes; then shalt thou speak to them again for their comfort and instruction, that thou mayest thus be unto them and to My whole church in sundry ways a wonderful token of great things to come.”—W. F.] Hengst.: “When the eye-witnesses report that all has happened as announced by him, he will become to them an object of wonder, they will recognise the Lord behind the son of man.” It is more natural, however, to regard it as a simple repetition of Eze_24:24, as Ezekiel’s dull pain (Eze_24:17) prefigured not merely the feeling and behaviour of the exiles, but also God’s pain: it could be regarded, if one might so speak, as a striking symbol of the silence of the Judge in regard to Israel, after the sentence had been passed, which is now being executed,—of His still continued silence towards His people concerning mercy.
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. With the prediction of our chapter, Comp. Doct. Reflec. on Ezekiel 12. No. 4. “This discourse is peculiarly important,” says Häv., “owing to the definiteness of its prediction.” “The place on the Chebar where the prophet lived was distant from Jerusalem more than a hundred German miles; it was therefore impossible for Ezekiel to know by human means that the siege of Jerusalem had commenced on that very day; and when it was afterwards ascertained that the prediction had exactly corresponded with fact, it would be regarded as an invincible proof of his divine mission” (J. D. Mich.). Ew. makes the prophet act on that day “in an altogether animated way, as if the siege of the distant city had been set in array against himself.” He supposes also that the anticipation of soon losing his wife by a sudden stroke was a “presentiment.” Umbreit interprets the matter in almost the same way, by regarding the wife of the prophet as “prostrated by a severe illness,” so that he foresaw her speedy death. Hitz. admits that “anything fortuitous is not to be imagined; and all the less, from the fact that we have here nothing to do with premonition, since the certainty of the tone, and the definiteness with which Ezekiel speaks of the subject, must rest on a proper knowledge of the fact.” With his decision in favour of a vaticinium post eventum, not only the prophetic, but also the moral character of Ezekiel falls to the ground.
2. “The earth drinks in the blood which is righteously shed, or covers it, so that it is not avenged on him who shed it; on the other hand, it is said of the blood which is to be avenged, that the earth covers it not, or discloses it in its season, Job_16:18; Isa_26:21” (Cocc.).
3. [“As to the principle of dealing, there is no essential difference between what God did then with Israel, and what He still does with those who stand in a similar relation to Him, and pursue a similar course. Where there is the profession of a belief in God’s word, and a regard to God’s authority, though intermingled with much that is false in sentiment, or unrighteous in conduct, there must still be dealings of severity and rebuke, to bring the professor, if possible, to a sense of his sinfulness, and lead him to renounce it; but, failing this, to vindicate concerning him the righteousness of God, and leave him without excuse if his iniquity should prove his ruin. In the case of sincere, God-fearing people, the severity exercised will always be attended with salutary results; for they have the root of the matter in them, and are sure to profit by the chastening of the Lord. But with those who have the profession only, without the principle of true godliness, the iniquity is clung to in spite of all the severity that is exercised, until the wrath falls on them to the uttermost. There is enough in New Testament Scripture, and the experience of men under the present dispensation, to warrant us to expect so far a similarity in God’s method of procedure to the representation here given of His conduct toward Israel. But, on the other hand, a difference may also be expected, in so far as His dealings now, in accordance with the genius of the new dispensation, respect men more as individuals, less as public communities, and bear more immediately upon their inward state and spiritual relations. He who would regard aright the operations of the Lord’s hand, and profit by the corrections of His rod of chastisement, must keep a watchful eye upon the things that concern his own experience and history. There may be signs of the divine displeasure sufficient to startle the tender conscience, and call for deep humiliation of spirit, while nothing appears outwardly wrong, and all may even wear a smiling aspect as far as regards social and public relations. Should there be a restraining of divine grace within, an absence of spiritual refreshment, a felt discomfort of mind, or an obvious withdrawal of spiritual privileges, there is beyond doubt the commencement of a work of judgment; and if such marks of God’s displeasure are slighted, others of a more severe and alarming kind may assuredly be looked for. But as men’s tempers and circumstances in life are infinitely varied, so there is a corresponding variety in the methods employed by God to check the risings of sin, and expel its poison from the heart. And it is the part of spiritual wisdom to seek for the wakeful ear and the discerning eye, which may enable one to catch even the earliest intimations of God’s displeasure, and so improve these as to render unnecessary the heavier visitations of wrath.”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 262, 263.—W. F.]
4. Hengst., in denying the reality of the death of Ezekiel’s wife, states the proposition that “a moral relation like marriage cannot be degraded to a mere mode of representation;” as if this would less be the case if we had before us “only a vividly drawn figure!” This death is just as little a “mere mode of representation” as anything else which, ordained by God, happens specially to His children and servants. But the moral significance of the event for Ezekiel was altogether subordinate to the prophet’s significance for the people. That which was merely purifying trial to him was to be punishment to them. “He endures,” says Schmieder, “the pain, like other sufferings of his prophetic office, as the servant and instrument of God for Israel, in order to lead the people to saving repentance.” “God by no means spares His servants, and they endure willingly, because they know that the Lord in His own time makes all things work together for good, and because they are always ready to offer up to Him in love and confidence whatever He requires.” We must not forget that Ezekiel was set as a “portent” for the people; comp. at Ezekiel 4 (Doct. Reflec. 4), Ezekiel 12. Thus, according to the individuality of his official position, for which his loving sympathy with his people is the psychological medium, he is a type in virtue of a personal symbolical substitution or representation. Ezekiel prefigures, in a most painful domestic experience, the judicial punishment which is ordained of God for the people, with whom he is joined by personal sympathy, as well as by the fact of being equally an exile. It might be said that a Messianic element here makes itself apparent in the prophet. The symbolism of marriage in relation to Christ and the Church (Eph_5:32) harmonizes with this theological explanation of the case. Consider, besides, the reference to Jeremiah 16, on which Hävernick lays stress.
5. The instructions received by Ezekiel in connection with the death of his wife are very remarkable. They suggest various inferences, both as to his own character as the servant of God, and as to the nature of the prophetic office. While the prophet was frequently one of the most gifted, and always one of the most honoured of men, he was at the same time one of the most severely tried. Like all places of honour in the kingdom of God, the position of a prophet involved the bearing of burdens which were exceptionally heavy. The closeness of his fellowship with God had two sides—a dark as well as a bright. For his high degree in the kingdom of God he had to pay a great price, by being preeminently a cross-bearer. He was taught, and often by painful experiences, that it was necessary to “count all things but loss” for God; “to hate father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also,” in order to fulfil the duties of his high office. Only in so far as he had learned this truth did he attain to the character of the ideal prophet. A perpetual spiritual law was enunciated by our Lord, when He said, at least in effect, to the ambitious sons of Zebedee, that drinking of His cup and being baptized with His baptism, were the conditions of occupying places of honour in His kingdom. This law held in the Old Testament period no less than in the New. The man who was distinguished from his fellows by receiving power to inherit all the ages, to dip into the future and comprehend the near and the remote in a single gaze of his divinely opened eye, to understand and proclaim the eternal moral principles according to which God determines the order of world-history, to be, in short, a prophet, was also distinguished from them by profounder experience of sorrow, suffering, and self-abnegation. The words which were spoken by God in reference to Paul, when he was about to be introduced to the apostolic office, might have been applied, with scarcely a verbal change, to Ezekiel, or to any of the ancient prophets, when they were called to their life-work: “He is a chosen vessel unto Me to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel; … I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”
Self-consecration was an essential condition to the proper fulfilment of the duties of the prophetic ministry. The prophet was required to devote to God the energies of his mind and soul, the treasures of his heart,—all that he prized most; for God regarded them as His own, and might use any, or all of them, as instruments for the carrying on of His work. The tasks which God enjoined presupposed this complete surrender on the part of His servants. Their accomplishment would have been impossible otherwise. The prophet was often asked to do things difficult, disagreeable, or even unnatural, in order that effect might be given to his divine message. For, when the spoken word was not regarded as sufficient, it was supplemented by the acted word or the symbol, in the choosing of which, regard was had, not to the comfort, convenience, or private feelings of him whose duty it was to set the symbol forth, but only to its power to teach and impress. Often, indeed, the symbols chosen were of such a kind that the employment of them did not necessarily involve self-denial; but the case was altered, when acts and experiences of the private life of the prophet which touched his deepest feelings, were regulated and controlled so as to transform him into a personal symbol. Thus, for the sake of perfecting him as a teacher by signs, Hosea was commanded to form peculiar domestic ties, to which natural feeling would have disinclined him. And whatever view be held as to the Divine intention in taking away Ezekiel’s wife by a stroke, her death was used as a symbol of a great public calamity, whose character was further symbolized, by the prophet’s deportment under his affliction, in which he was influenced by a regard to his mission only. When he went forth to the people on the morning after his bereavement, he could have said in a double sense, “The burden of the Lord.”
The fact of God imposing upon Ezekiel the command to repress all signs of feeling, and, notwithstanding the suddenness and severity of the stroke, to be calm and self-controlled, proves that the servant of God must lead a life of self-sacrifice, that individual feeling must be merged in the higher claims of duty; while the promptness and perfection of his obedience show how well he had learned to subordinate all things to the fulfilment of his ministry, and how all-absorbing was his desire to arouse his people to a sense of things spiritual and divine. That the affliction which came upon him was most crushing, may be inferred from the nature of the case and from the narrative. To one who could be described as “the desire of thine eyes,” the prophet must have been knit in tenderest love, and he would feel the bereavement all the more because his nature was intense and lonely, his soul, one which dwelt apart. Deep must have been the sense of desolation which filled his heart, when he knew that he was to be for ever deprived of the sympathy which was so grateful because so rare, so helpful because so loving, and so trusted because it had never failed. But the manner in which God communicates His purpose, and the use which He asks the prophet to make of the bereavement, assume his possession of the intensest spirituality of mind and devotion to his prophetic mission. The bereavement is regarded entirely as to its possible bearing on public utility, and not once as to its bearing on private happiness. The prophet’s private feelings are ignored, except in so far as their natural expression is forbidden; God foretells him of his affliction, not so much that he may be prepared to bear, as that he may be prepared to use it for the fulfilment of his ministry. No compensation for the desolation of his human heart is hinted at except this—that he shall enjoy, on account of his affliction, the opportunity of preaching by new symbols of unusual impressiveness—of becoming himself an eloquent symbol. What he suffers as a man may be counterbalanced by what he shall accomplish as a prophet. For the anguish of bereavement, for the pain of self-repression, of abstinence from every expression of grief, from even the sweet solace of tears, he may find some compensation in being enabled, by means of his own circumstances, to place the future before the minds of his people, in a way fitted to make them realize the coming woe, and to arouse them to repentance. His great sorrow hidden in his heart, Ezekiel, the servant of God, proceeds to the work which God gave him to do. The shadows which appeared to rest on his soul proceeded, less from the recollection of his own bereavement, than from foresight of the calamities of his people. His private sorrow seemed to be overlaid by an anticipation of the greater sorrow which was to affect them. His manner seemed to say, “Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” As he was a “portent” to Israel, so, by his beautiful, self-forgetting devotion to prophetic duty, which was made possible to him, not merely by the grace of God which accompanied the command of God, but also by the powerful sympathies of his own sanctified nature, Ezekiel is an example to the servants of God in every age.—W. F.]
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze_24:1 sq. “Ch. 24 is to be regarded as a farewell” (Hengst.).—One goes on speaking till the last moment. “As the hour for bringing help to the pious is fixed, so also is the hour for executing God’s vengeance on the wicked” (Stck.).—“This happened in our month of December” (L.).—That which is carried out at Jerusalem is written down at Babylon.—“He who is condemned to death knows not the day, which his Judge, however, knows well” (Stck.).—Our calendar should be a very different one were the days noted according to God’s bidding.
Eze_24:3. “God loves to say to man what He means to say to him by means of intelligible figures; therefore preachers should avoid obscuring His word with ambiguities” (L.).—In the wrath of God, because it is His despised love, as in the love of God, there are intensity and vehemence.—In the time of God’s judgment all the excuses of men will fall to the ground.
Eze_24:4. God is already gathering to His judgment-seat those whom He will judge.
Eze_24:5. Divine punishment overpowers even the strongest.—Even the best is not too good for God’s chastisements.
Eze_24:6 sq. Man’s sentence and God’s sentence upon cities.—A woe follows on shed blood.—The rust on the caldron.—“Sin is the rust which cleaves to us all ” (Stck.).
Eze_24:7. “On account of the blood of Christ, shed at Golgotha, Titus at length burned the city” (à Lap.).
Eze_24:8. God’s leading and governing apparent amid the sins of men.
Eze_24:9 sq. The ascending climax in the judgments of God.—He who will not hear must feel.—“God easily finds wood in abundance” (Stck.).—The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment.—“An evil. conscience is a small caldron above a great fire” (à Lap.).—OEzekiel 24:12. God’s fruitless efforts, what an awful prelude !—The abuse of divine grace.—“Thus also it was not cleansed by Christ, who had wearied Himself in labours for Jerusalem even to hot tears” (Jerome).
Eze_24:15 sq. God takes away,—this should never be forgotten in any case of bereavement.—The Lord has taken away,—Job’s words, Ezekiel’s experience. “God wills that we should give up, at His command, all that is dear to us in this world” (Tüb. Bib.).—Not lost, but gone before. “Righteous people are often snatched away from the evil to come” (L.).—The children of God are not therefore insensate stones, but they desire to observe the God-appointed limits in their grief.—The Jews laid great stress on pomp in their mourning; and with how many Christians that is the whole or the principal part of mourning !—“No one should do as Ezekiel did unless commanded by God” (Stck.).
Eze_24:18 sq. “In all things, even in what is hard for us, we should obey the divine command” (Tüb. Bib.).—“That which is impossible to our own natural power can become possible through the power of grace. Obey, then, even when it seems impossible to thee, and believe that the needed help will be given thee” (St.).
Eze_24:20 sq. “Oh, the punishment, when God Himself profanes His sanctuary, and takes away the light of true religion!” (Tüb. Bib.)—Sorrow without comfort is great sorrow.
Eze_24:24. “Preachers of repentance must be signs to the unrepentant, and teach them not only with words, but also with their whole life” (Cr.).
Eze_24:26. The lame post from Jerusalem.—“Carnally-secure men believe a human messenger sooner than a messenger of God” (Stck.).—Who believes our preaching?—“Now the thunders of God’s judgment began to speak” (Hengst.).
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 vv2–14 set himself--laid siege; "lay against."
set himself--laid siege; "lay against."
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, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 Jeremiah had called Jerusalem a “seething pot,” and counseled…
PARABLE OF THE RUSTED POT, 1-14.
Jeremiah had called Jerusalem a “seething pot,” and counseled submission to Babylon. But the Egyptian party had retorted that even if the city were a caldron it was a safer place than the Babylonian fires outside. Ezekiel had examined this reply (Eze_11:3-11), declaring that the prophecy concerning Judah’s captivity must be fulfilled, and therefore the iron walls could protect none but the dead. Three years passed, and on the very day (Eze_24:1-2; Jer_39:1; 2Ki_25:12) in which Nebuchadnezzar begins his long prophesied siege of the city Ezekiel again takes up the familiar parable of “the pot” (Eze_24:3). The day of the month is emphasized because it proves Ezekiel’s prophetic knowledge of what was happening at a distance. Critics who do not believe in true prophetic foreknowledge are compelled to say, with Toy, “The date was added later by the prophet.”
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, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 1. The same date of the commencement of the…
1. The same date of the commencement of the siege is given 2Ki_25:1; Jer_52:4. In later times the day was kept as a fast, Zec_8:19.
1–14. The rusted caldron set on the fire
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(1) Eze_24:1-5. A caldron is to be set on the fire, filled with water, pieces of flesh cast into it and fuel piled under it that it may boil furiously. The caldron is Jerusalem; the pieces of flesh the inhabitants; the fire and boiling the siege with its terrible severities. The pieces of flesh shall be pulled out of the caldron indiscriminately, symbol of the universal dispersion when the siege is over.
(2) Eze_24:6-8. Explanation: these sufferings are judgments for the sins of the city, its bloodshed and uncleanness, which are public and open. This blood and filthiness cleaves to it like rust to a caldron.
(3) Eze_24:9-14. Rising anew into tones of menace the divine voice commands that the caldron be set empty upon the coals that its rust and foulness may be molten and consumed. This must signify the ruin in which the city shall long lie, and the dispersion in which her inhabitants shall pine away, till her warfare be accomplished and her iniquity pardoned.
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, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 (1) In the tenth day of the month.—Jehoiachin’s captivity…
(1) In the tenth day of the month.—Jehoiachin’s captivity (by which all these prophecies are dated) coincided with Zedekiah’s reign. The date here given is therefore the same as in Jer_39:1; Jer_52:4; 2Ki_25:1, and was afterwards observed by the Jews as a fast (Zec_8:19). It was doubtless the day on which the investment of the city was completed.
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, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 In the ninth year. We pass from the date…
In the ninth year. We pass from the date of Eze_20:1 (B.C. 593) to B.C. 590, and the very day is identified with that on which the army of Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem. (Jer_39:1; 2Ki_25:1-12) To the prophet"s vision all that was passing there was as plain as though he saw it with his own eyes. The siege lasted for about two years. The punishments threatened in Eze 23, had at last come near. We may probably infer that a considerable interval of silence had followed on the Aholah and Aholibah discourse. Now the time had come to break that silence, and it was broken, after the prophet"s manner, by a parable. In the "rebellious house" we find, as in Eze_2:3 and elsewhere, primarily Ezekiel"s immediate hearers, secondarily the whole house of Israel as represented by them.
HOMILETICS.
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Vers. 1-5. The seething-pot.
I THE VESSEL. Jerusalem is compared to a seething-pot. The character of the city had certain points of resemblance.
1. Unity. All the parts are thrown into one vessel. There was a common life in the one city. All classes shared a common fortune. They who are united in sin will be united in doom.
2. Vain protection. The heat of the fire came through the vessel. The wails of Jerusalem did not save the doomed city. No earthly shelter will protect the guilty from the wrath of God.
3. Fatal imprisonment. The miserable inhabitants of Jerusalem were shut up to the horrible fate of a besieged city. There is no escape from the scene of Divine judgment. Indeed, the sufferings of a siege are worse than those of the open battle-field. They who hold out against God will be more miserably punished than those who meet him early.
II THE CONTENTS OF THE VESSEL.
1. Flesh. The various joints of the butchered animal are flung into the seething-pot. They represent the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The punishment of sin falls on the persons of the sinners. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." There is something humiliating in this comparison with mere joints of meat. The doomed sinner is in a degraded condition. His higher spiritual nature has been neglected and well-nigh lost. He appears as "flesh," and, having sunk into the lower life of flesh, he must expect to receive the treatment of flesh. Sowing to the flesh, he reaps corruption. (Gal_6:8)
2. The choice parts. "The choice bones" are to be thrown into the seething-pot. The princes of Judah share the fate of their city; they are even selected for exceptional indignity and suffering. No earthly rank or wealth will save from the just punishment of sin. On the contrary, if large privileges have been abused, and high duties neglected, the penalty will be all the heavier.
III THE FIRE. The seething-pot is to be put on a fire. Sin is punished by burning wrath.
1. Suffering. The symbol of fire certainly suggests pain, although we may dismiss the gross mediaeval picture of actual physical flames belching forth from some subterranean volcano.
2. Destruction. The fire is to go on beyond its wonted task till all the water is dried up and the contents of the vessel are burnt. This is the final issue of the penalties of sin. At first they come in suffering. But if there is no amendment, and the lessons of chastisement are not taken to heart, the broad road leads to destruction, (Mat_7:13) and "the wages of sin is death". (Rom_6:23)
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Vers. 1-14. The consuming cauldron.
The threatened judgment has at last descended upon the guilty city; and Ezekiel, far away in the land of the Captivity, sees in vision, and declares to his fellow-captives by a parable, the siege of Jerusalem now actually taking place. As in so many parts of his prophecies, Ezekiel reveals by symbol that which he has to communicate. Opinions differ as to whether the cauldron was actually filled with the joints of animals and was actually heated by a fire. But the familiar operation, whether literally performed or merely imagined and described, served vividly to portray to the mind the calamities which were befalling the doomed metropolis.
I THE SIN OF THE CITY. As described in this passage, the errors of Jerusalem may be classified under three headings.
1. Lies. By which we must understand the corruption, the deceits and frauds, the political insincerity, which had eaten away the very heart of the citizens.
2. Lewdness. Or the prevalence of sensual sins and of carnal luxury, opposed to that purity and simplicity of domestic life in which the moral health of a nation ever consists.
3. Blood-guiltiness. Or violence and murder, which at this time were rife in Jerusalem, each man seeking his own interests, even at the expense of the life of his neighbors. These three classes of iniquity are chosen by the prophet as peculiarly heinous and obtrusive, not as exhausting, but simply as exemplifying, the city"s sinfulness.
II THE JUDGMENT OF THE CITY. As the flesh and bones are placed in the cauldron, and boiled and seethed by the fire being applied beneath, so the inhabitants of Jerusalem are enclosed within the walls, the besieging army surrounds them, and the citizens are abandoned to all the privations and fears and sufferings, and finally to the destruction, incident to so miserable a condition. The instrument of chastisement is appointed to be the nation into whose idolatries Judah had been seduced, the nation whose protection might for a time have availed to avert further evils, had not the catastrophe been hastened by the treachery and rebellion of prince and people. The Divine Judge never lacks instruments for the carrying out of his own purposes. "Heap on wood; kindle the fire!
III THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CITY. Previous punishment has been of the nature of chastisement, of correction; this is of the nature of consuming. All the calamities which have come upon Jerusalem have failed to produce true repentance and radical reformation; it remains now to execute the threats and to complete the ruin foretold. The language coming from the Almighty Ruler, who had taken Jerusalem under his especial patronage and care, is frightful indeed. "I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent; according to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord God." It is evident that the purpose of God is this that the era of rebellion shall come to an end, that there must be a break in the continuity of the national life, that a future revival must be a new beginning unaffected for evil by the habits and traditions of the past. To this end the people and all their ways and practices, all their rebellions and idolatries, all their oppressions and immoralities, must first be cast into the cauldron of judgment, and many must be consumed and destroyed. T.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-14. The interior mechanism of war.
The prophet is commissioned to employ another homely metaphor. The patience and ingenuity of God"s love are inexhaustible. The homeliest imagery is employed with a view to vivid and abiding impression. Here it is shown that behind all the machinery and circumstance of war, a hand Divine directs and overrules. A moral force resides within the material and human agency.
I THE NECESSITY FOR THE SCOURGE. The necessity arose from the excessive criminality of the Jewish people.
1. They are described as a house of rebellion." The authority of Jehovah was trampled in the dust.
2. Jerusalem was a city of blood. Justice was so grossly administered that the guilty escaped; the innocent were judicially murdered.
3. Sin assumed the most flagrant forms. "In thy filthiness is lewdness." All restraint to vice was cast off. All moral vigor was eaten out with self-indulgence.
4. There had been wanton abuse of Gods corrective methods. "I purged thee, and thou wast not purged." Costly remedies had been wasted and scorned. The hand of the great Physician had been withstood. This is the culmination of guilt. The condition of such is hopeless.
II THE CERTAINTY OF THE SCOURGE. "I the Lord have spoken: it shall come, and I will do it." The event was based upon the word of God, and God"s word is the forthputting of his will. He puts himself into his speech. Fulfillment of his word is not only invariable as law; fulfillment is a necessity. But further, the scourge had already come. By prophetic inspiration Ezekiel knew that on that identical day on which he spoke to the people in Chaldea, Nebuchadnezzar lay siege to Jerusalem. The verification of this fact would impart a weight of authority to Ezekiel"s mission as a prophet of Jehovah. It was now too late to evade, by repentance, the scourge. Still, the moral lesson would be healthful. It is never unseasonable to be assured of the righteous faithfulness of God.
III THE SEVERITY OF THE SCOURGE. The truth intended to be conveyed by this singular and striking figure is that of entire and indiscriminate destruction. Chastise-meats less drastic in their nature had been tried in vain; and, as the evil seemed to be ingrained in the very nature of the body politic, no other measure was availing than overwhelming disaster. This is represented by keeping the cauldron on the fire till its contents were evaporated. To men this punishment appears severe, but to those intelligences who stand near God"s throne the punishment does not appear such an evil as does the sin. No punishment is equal to the hatred of man"s heart toward God. Calamity that is external to the man is not such a curse as the sin in the soul. This inward canker is the heaviest of all catastrophes.
IV THE THOROUGHNESS OF THE SCOURGE. "I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent, saith the Lord" (Ver. 14). Every piece of flesh was to be brought out for the foe; no exemption was to be allowed. Even the scum was to be consumed. The very rust upon the cauldron was to be burnt off. In other words, the city itself was to be destroyed as well as the inhabitants the institutions, political and religious, as well as nobles and priests. God"s cleansing will be thorough. In God"s esteem there are no small sins. Only give them time, and small sins become great. Therefore, no sin must be spared. God is represented, in one place, as "searching Jerusalem with candles" in order to discover her secret sins. Over the gateway of the new Jerusalem it shall be written, "Nothing that is defiled, or that worketh abomination, can enter herein!" And unless sin be separated from us, we and our sins must be destroyed together. Light and darkness cannot dwell in the same room at the same moment; nor can sin and holiness. The God of righteousness will exterminate sin root and branch.
V THE HIDDEN HAND THAT WIELDS THE SCOURGE. Ordinary observers of the invasion of Judaea, and of the overthrow of Jerusalem, saw only the activity of man. To them it would seem only a human quarrel. Human ambition on the one side, and violation of treaties upon the other, appeared as the immediate causes of the war. To military captains, I dare say the probability of success was on the side of the besieged. The wails were strong and high; the natural ramparts were almost inaccessible; the gates had withstood many a foe. Yet there was a factor in that martial business that was not apparent. The mightiest agent was out of sight. All the forces of righteousness were on the side of Nebuchadnezzar. He had been commissioned to this undertaking by the invincible God. At what point, or in what way, the directing and controlling will of Jehovah acted upon the mind of the Babylonian king, we cannot say. But that God did move him to this undertaking, and did give him success, is a plain fact. Even men of the world are the sword in the hand of God. D.
HOMILIES BY W. JONES
Vers. 1-14. The parable of the cauldron; or, the judgment upon Jerusalem.
in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came unto me," etc. The interpretation of the chief features of this parable is not difficult. "The cauldron is Jerusalem. The flesh and the bones that are put therein are the Jews, the ordinary inhabitants of the city and the fugitives from the country. The fire is the fire of war. Water is poured into the cauldron, because in the first place only the inhabitants are regarded, not the city as such. Afterwards, where the cauldron only is intended, it is set on empty (Ver. 11). The bones, in Ver. 4, in contradistinction to the pieces of flesh, are those who lend support to the body of the state the authorities, with the king at their head" (Hengstenberg). The precise meaning of one clause is controverted. "Burn also the bones under it" (Ver. 5) Revised Version, "Pile also the bones under it." The interpretation of Fairbairn appears to us to be correct, "What the prophet means is that the best, the fleshiest parts, full of the strongest bones, representing the most exalted and powerful among the people, were to be put within the pot and boiled; but that the rest, the very poorest, were not to escape: these, the mere bones as it were, were to be thrown as a pile beneath, suffering first, and, by increasing the fire, hastening on the destruction of the others." A remarkable confirmation and illustration of this interpretation is quoted in the "Speaker"s Commentary " from Livingstone"s "Last Journal:" "When we first steamed up the river Shire, our fuel ran out in the elephant marsh where no trees exist. Coming to a spot where an elephant had been slaughtered, I at once took the bones on board, and these, with the bones of a second elephant, enabled us to steam briskly up to where wood abounded. The Scythians, according to Herodotus, used the bones of the animal sacrificed to boil the flesh; the Guachos of South America do the same when they have no fuel; the ox thus boils himself." The parable and its interpretation as given by Ezekiel suggest the following observations.
I THE TIME FOR THE EXECUTION OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS MAY SEEM TO MEN TO BE LONG DELAYED, BUT ITS ARRIVAL IS CERTAIN. (Vers. 1, 2.) This judgment against Jerusalem had been spoken of by the prophets for a long time. The people of that city had refused to believe in its approach; but now it has actually commenced.
King of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day." But notice:
1. The minuteness of the Divine knowledge of the beginning of the judgment. "In the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month," etc.. (Vers. 1, 2; and cf. 2Ki_25:1) The very day, yea, the hour and the moment, when Nebuchadnezzar began the siege were known unto God. Nothing is hidden from him (cf. 2Ki_19:27; Psa_139:1-4; Mat_9:4; Joh_2:24, Joh_2:25; Heb_4:13)
2. The communication of this knowledge to Ezekiel. Here on a particular day, which is clearly specified and set down in writing, the prophet announced to his fellow-exiles that Nebuchadnezzar had begun to besiege Jerusalem. "The place on the Chebar where the prophet lived," says J. D. Michaelis, "was distant from Jerusalem more than a hundred German miles; it was therefore impossible for Ezekiel to know by human means that the siege of Jerusalem had commenced on that day; and when it was afterwards ascertained that the prediction had exactly corresponded with fact, it would be regarded as an invincible proof of his Divine mission.
3. The mixture record of the fact. "Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this selfsame day." When this prophecy was found to be exactly true, the record of it would rebuke the people for their unbelief of the prophet, and witness to the Divine inspiration and authority with which he spake. But to revert to our main point, the apparent delay of a Divine judgment does not affect its certainty. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." God"s visitation because of persistent sin is certain, and it will take place at the precise time appointed by God. With what remarkable iteration and emphasis is this awful certainty expressed in the fourteenth verse! "I the Lord have spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent". (cf. Num_23:19; 1Sa_15:29) God"s threatenings of punishment will as surely be fulfilled as his promises of blessing.
II IN THE EXECUTION OF HIS JUDGMENTS GOD IS NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS. "Set on the cauldron, set it on, and also pour water into it; gather" the pieces thereof into it, even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulder"; fill it with the choice bones. Take the choice of the flock." Thus the prophet teaches that the great ones of Judah and Jerusalem the king, the princes, the nobles would suffer in this judgment. There is another expression which points to the same conclusion: "No lot is fallen upon it" (Ver. 6). In former visitations some had been taken captive and others left. So it was when Jehoiakim and when Jehoiachin were taken away. (2Ki 24; 2Ch_36:1-10) But in this case the judgment was to fall upon all without distinction. "There is no respect of persons with God." He is a Respecter of character, but not of persons. No outward rank or riches, no distinctions of place or power, nor anything in man"s secular circumstances or condition, can exempt him from the stroke of God"s anger in the day when he visits a people for their sins.
III WHEN WICKEDNESS HAS BECOME FLAGRANT, THE DIVINE JUDGMENT WILL BE NOT LESS CONSPICUOUS. "For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the bare rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust; that it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance, I have set her blood upon the bare rock, that it should not be covered." Blood upon the bare rock is here mentioned in contradistinction to blood shed upon the earth, which is absorbed by it, or which is covered and concealed with dust. There is, perhaps, as Hengstenberg suggests, a reference to the judicial murders which were perpetrated in Jerusalem, of which that of the Prophet Urijah is an example. (Jer_26:10-23) But there certainly is set forth the notorious wickedness of the people of Jerusalem and Judah. They were "distinguished by the openness and audacity with which they sinned." The conspicuousness of their wickedness would manifest the righteousness of the judgment of God; and it would lead to an equal conspicuousness in the infliction of that judgment. She had poured out blood "upon the bare rock, and God would "set her blood upon the bare rock." In the administration of the Divine government there is a close relation and proportion between sin and its punishment. "It is fit," says Matthew Henry, "that those who sin before all should be rebuked before all, and that the reputation of those should not be consulted by the concealment of their punishment who were so impudent as not to desire the concealment of their sin.
IV WHEN WICKEDNESS HAS BECOME UTTERLY INVETERATE, THE TIME FOR THE EXECUTION OF JUDGMENT HAS COME. Several things in the text indicate the inveteracy of the wickedness of the people. The scum or rust of the cauldron was not cleansed (Vers. 6, 12); so the cauldron shall be put empty upon the fire, that the rust may be burnt away (Ver. 11). J.D. Michaelis explains this verse: "When verdigris has eaten very deeply into it, copper is made red-hot in the fire, and cooled in water, when the rust falls off in scales. It can be partially dissolved by the application of vinegar. Only one must not think of a melting away of the rust by the fire, since in that case the copper would necessarily be melted along with it. Also through the mere heating the greater part can be loosened, so that it can be rubbed off." But here it seems that both the cauldron and the rust are to be consumed; both Jerusalem and its guilty inhabitants are to be destroyed. Nothing will avail to cleanse them but the fierce fires of stern retribution. Another evidence of the exceeding wickedness of the people is the application to them of the word translated "lewdness." hMzi means "deliberate wickedness," wickedness meditated and planned. For such willful and studied evil-doing there remained but judgment. "All measures of a less extreme kind," says Fairbairn, "had been tried in vain; those were non-exhausted; and as the iniquity appeared to be entwined with the whole fabric and constitution of things, nothing remained but to subject all to the crucible of a severe and overwhelming catastrophe. This is represented by keeping the cauldron on the fire till its contents were stewed away, and the very bones burnt. And as if even this were not enough, as if something more were necessary to avenge and purge out such scandalous wickedness, the cauldron itself must be kept hot and burning till the pollution should be thoroughly consumed out of it. The wicked city must be laid in ruins (cf. Isa_4:4) In plain terms, the Lord was no longer going to deal with them by half-measures; their condition called for the greatest degree of severity compatible with their preservation as a distinct and separate people, and so the indignation of the Lord was to rest on them till a separation was effected between them and sin.
V THAT THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD ARE RETRIBUTORY IN THEIR CHARACTER. "According to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord God." (We have already noticed this aspect of the Divine judgments in our treatment of. W.J. (Eze_7:3, 4 9:10 16:43)
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, 13 Set on a pot.
Eze_24:1-14
Set on a pot.
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The boiling cauldron: the doings and doom of a wicked city
I. The sins of any city are an offence to God.
1. Seen by Him. The whole city in its greed for gain, its intemperance, its hollowness, its lust.
2. Seen by Him with anger. He is a Moral Governor, and has the moral nature that breaks into the sunlight of a smile on goodness, and gathers into the thunder cloud of a frown upon wickedness.
II. The sins of any city will ensure its doom.
1. History illustrates this. The cities of the plain, the dynasties of the old world.
2. Prophecy predicts this.
3. The law of causation involves this. The disease of sin naturally works the death of destruction.
III. The sins of any city concern every individual inhabitant.
1. They bring sorrow on all.
2. They give a mission to all. Hence learn--
(1) Seek to evangelise the entire city to save it.
(2) Seek to convert individuals, that at least they may be saved. (Urijah R. Thomas.)
The boiling cauldron
1. Those who profess a true religion and possess a bad character defile their creed by their character. The youth who belongs to an honourable family and lives a vicious life brings the very name of his family into ill-repute. The man who calls himself a Christian, and lives an un-Christlike life, defiles the name he bears.
2. The possession of a correct creed will not preserve a nation or an individual from moral degeneration unless it has its outcome in a life in accordance with it. The child who has a Bible given to it by his father may treasure the book carefully and boast of his possession. But the mere holding of the book will not save him from going down in the scale of morality. To do this he must translate the law of God into life, and thus create a new thing in the earth--a holy character which is all his own, and which he would not inherit from his parent.
3. There are higher claims than those springing from human relationships. The man who descends into the depths of a coal mine to rescue another who is perishing, while his wife stands at the pits mouth, beseeching him not to venture his life, recognises this law. So does the citizen soldier who leaves his home and family to fight for the oppressed, and the doctor who from choice follows the army on campaign to relieve the sufferings of the wounded. (A London Minister.)
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 vv1, 3 THE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM PREDICTED, BOTH IN PARABLE…
THE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM PREDICTED, BOTH IN PARABLE AND BY SIGN (Chap. 24)
(Eze_24:1-2)
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EXEGETICAL NOTES.—“On the day on which the King of Babylon commenced the siege and blockade of Jerusalem, this event was revealed by God to Ezekiel on the Chaboras (Eze_24:1-2); and he was commanded to predict to the people through the medium of a parable the fate of the city and its inhabitants (Eze_24:3-14). God then foretold to him the death of his own wife, and commanded him to show no sign of mourning on account of it. His wife died the following evening, and he did as he was commanded. When he was asked by the people the reason of this he explained to them that what he was doing was symbolical of the way in which they were to act when Jerusalem fell (Eze_24:15-24). The fall would be announced to the prophet by a fugitive, and then he would no longer remain mute, but would speak to the people again (Eze_24:25-27). Apart, therefore, from the last three verses, this chapter contains the words of God, the first of which unfolds in a parable the approaching calamities, and the result of the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans (Eze_24:1-14); whilst the second typifies by means of a sign the pain and mourning of Israel, namely, of the exiles at the destruction of the city with its sanctuary and its inhabitants. These two words of God, being connected together by their contents, were addressed to the prophet on the same day, and that, as the introduction (Eze_24:1-2) expressly observes, the day on which the siege of Jerusalem by the King of Babylon began.”—(Keil.)
Eze_24:1. “The ninth year.” The date is taken from the commencement of of Jehoiachin’s captivity, which would fix the time when the word of the Lord came to the prophet as B.C. 590.” ‘In the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month.” This day was afterwards kept as a fast, and is still observed as such by the synagogue.
Eze_24:2. “Write thee the name of the day.” “The prophet is to write down the day, as a man does with remarkable days, in order not to forget the date. The object, to make use of this afterwards in proof of his prophetic office, needed to be more definitely noticed.”—(Hengstenberg). “The prophet is specially charged to write down the particular day on which he delivered his message, and to announce it as that on which Nebuchadnezzar had commenced his attack on Jerusalem. As he was at the time at the distance of more than four hundred miles from that city, it was not to be supposed that the intelligence could have reached him by any human means. When, therefore, the captives afterwards received the information, they had, on comparing the dates, an infallible proof of the Divine inspiration of the prophet.”—(Henderson). “Set himself against Jerusalem.” The Hebrew word signifies to lie hard upon (Psa_87:7). It is sometimes used to describe the investing of a city with an army. In the afflictions of the righteous God is said to lay on a heavy hand (Psa_32:4). The sacrificer laid his hand upon the victim (Exo_29:19); and the witnesses were ordered to lay their hand on a blasphemer before the was stoned (Lev_24:4), so in great judgments God lays on His hand.
HOMILETICS
THE LAST WARNING OF JUDGMENT
Ezekiel had uttered many warnings before, and he still goes on speaking up to the very moment of judgment. This illustrates:—
I. The Prophet’s faithfulness. Amidst every discouragement he is still resolved to deliver the message of God. He will utter God’s last word, though it comes too late to arrest judgment. The true prophet must speak the word which is given him, and leave the results with Him who sent him.
II. The Prophet’s inspiration. Ezekiel was four hundred miles from Jerusalem, and yet he tells his fellow-captives that the siege was begun at that very moment at which he was speaking. This was a clear proof that the prophet’s mind was enlightened by that Sovereign Intelligence which sees and knows all things. He could not possibly know this event by human means. Therefore his assertion, that the siege was then commencing while he was speaking, must have been the result of supernatural knowledge. If any one maintains that this was a prophecy after the event, he must be prepared to accept the conclusion that both Ezekiel’s prophetic and moral characters fall to the ground.
III. The solemnity of the prophet’s last word. In this chapter he takes his farewell of his nation. We are reminded of Our Lord’s parting words to Jerusalem, “Behold your house is left unto you desolate” (St. Mat_23:38). When the prophets of God speak no more to nations, or to individual men, then the day of their visitation is over and the time of judgment has come.
IV. The solemn importance of God’s notes of time, in the life of nations, and of men. There are times and events in the lives of nations which historians may note down as the most important. But what different rates of importance are to be assigned to these as God views them! And so it is in regard to the lives of individual men. How different would be the calendar of our lives if we marked the times and events of it at God’s bidding! “We are generally ignorant of the real significance of events, which we think we understand. Almost every person can recollect one or more instances, where the whole aftercurrent of his life was turned by some single word, or some incident so trivial as scarcely to fix his notice at the time. On the other hand, many great crises of danger, many high and stirring occasions, in which, at the time, his total being was absorbed, have passed by, leaving no trace of effect on his permanent interests, and have wellnigh vanished from his memory. The conversation of the stage-coach is often preparing results which the solemn assembly and the most imposing and eloquent rites will fail to produce. What countryman, knowing the dairyman’s daughter, could have suspected that she was living to a mightier purpose and result than almost any person in the church of God, however eminent? The outward of occasions and duties is, in fact, almost no index of their importance; and our judgments concerning what is great and small are without any certain validity. These terms, as we use them, are, in fact, only words of outward description, not words of definite measurement.”—(Bushwell).
1. The Lord can make known what men do, to whom He pleases and at what distance soever. Nebuchaduezzar and his forces were in Judea, sitting down before Jerusalem, and this the Lord revealed to Ezekiel, being in Babylon. It was declared to Elisha, whither the king of Syria would march, and where he would pitch his camp. (2Ki_6:9-10.) The death of Herod, in Judea, was discovered to Joseph, being in Egypt. (Mat_2:19-20.) And when Moses was in Midian, the Lord told him that all the men were dead in Egypt, which sought his life. (Exo_4:19.)
2. There are some things and times the Lord would hace his people take special notice of, and keep the chronology thereof. Ezekiel must write the year, the month, and day of Jerusalem’s beseiging. When God hath been upon executing great judgments, or showing great mercies, the days and months have been recorded. The day and month of Noah’s entrance into the ark, and of his coming out again, are mentioned. (Gen_7:11; Gen_8:14; Gen_8:16.) The time of the Jews going out of Egypt you have punctually set down. (Exo_12:41-42); so the time of their passing over Jordan (Jos_4:19); of Solomon’s building the temple (2Ch_3:2); of Haman’s plot to destroy the Jews (Est_3:8; Est_3:13.) This shows that these events were not casual, that the wisdom and power of God were interested in them, whoever were the instruments.”—(Greenhill.)
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.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Section 5 (Eze 24:1-27).
Section 5 (Eze 24:1-27).
The judgment reached.
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In the last chapter of this series, which comes evidently as an appendix to what has gone before, we find the judgment now reached. The king of Babylon has drawn near to Jerusalem, and with this, when fully ascertained, prophetic communications cease for the present. The events speak for themselves, and to God’s voice in them they have now to listen.
There are two parts in the chapter. The first announces, before the people could have any message of it to reach them, that the siege has begun while the second shows us what is implied in this -the divine sundering of the tie between Jehovah and the people, as figured in the death of the prophet’s wife. These two parts are in a certain sense, and in a most touching manner, in contrast with one another, as we shall see when we examine them.
1. We are now in the second year from the last communication, and in the ninth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity. The number speaks of divine manifestation, God manifesting Himself now, alas, in the very cloud which hides Him from the people but the cloud is that which their sins have raised, and God is manifest in necessary judgment. Thus also the tenth month the tenth day of the month, speaks. The word of Jehovah conies to Ezekiel on that day, bidding him to write down the name of the day, with the assurance that the king of Babylon has drawn near to Jerusalem on that self-same day.
And now the taunt about the caldron is to be answered in the event. Jerusalem is indeed to be their caldron in which they are to be subjected to the fire of divine wrath: "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Set on the caldron, set it on, and also pour water into it. Gather the pieces thereof into it, every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder fill it with the choice bones. Take the choice of the flock, and make also a pile of bones underneath it. Make it boil well yea, let the bones thereof be boiled in the midst of it." This then was to be the issue of every controversy with God, of which there was ample necessity. The city itself was a caldron whose rust was in it, and could not be scoured out. The whole, therefore, is visited. No lot has fallen upon it for the sparing of any. She had taken life -that life which God had ordained to be sacred, even where rightly taken, when the blood was to be poured out to Him. It had not been poured out it remained to defile her nay, she had set it upon the bare rock in open view: "She poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust." Thus it cried openly for vengeance, and God had set her blood upon the bare rock, in His turn, that it should not be covered. The very city emptied of its inhabitants must go down in the fire of His anger: "Set it empty upon the coals thereof, that it may be hot, and the brass thereof may burn, that the filthiness thereof may be molten in it and its rust may cease. It has exhausted labor, yet its great rust goeth not forth out of it. Let its rust be in the fire." Thus after all possible pains taken with her, such pains as God Himself might take, she was not cleansed. Here then was the only possible end inexorable, unsparing judgment was alone sufficient for such a case: "According to thy ways and according to thy doings shall they judge thee, saith the Lord Jehovah."
2. We have now a parable of another nature, which seems to bear a double significance; one open, and one hidden. Jerusalem is gone in judgment. The city is gone, and the sanctuary with it -the sanctuary so necessary for the nation as a whole, where alone the blood of sacrifice could be offered to God. Thus the destruction of the sanctuary was the end of all relationship. What could remain between a holy God and a people for whose sins no atonement could be made? This is the overwhelming calamity which, as to the people, might well make every other of comparatively small account. The voice of lamentation itself was hushed in this silence of despair. "And the word of Jehovah came unto me saying, Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke, yet thou shalt not mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down." It is not that grief is forbidden, but the expression of it. He is to be in this expressionless grief a sign to the people: "Sigh in silence, make no mourning for the dead, bind thy turban upon thee, and put thy sandals upon thy feet, and cover not the beard, and eat not the bread of men. And I spake unto the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded."
In contrast with the loud lamentation customary in such cases, for which they even hired mourners, this conduct calls for explanation: "The people said unto me, Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us which thou doest? Then I said unto them, The word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Say unto the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes and the pity of your soul, and your sons and your daughters whom ye have left behind shall fall by the sword." It is the mourning for these last that is to cease in view of the mourning which can have no sufficient expression.
Yet, after all, it is not they who can feel these things according to the divine account of them. They might be overwhelmed by the calamity, but were to pine away in iniquities yet unrepented of. This is why, as it seems, the full meaning as to what Ezekiel is called to do does not come out. The loss of their sons and daughters, with all its severity, cannot answer to this breaking of a marriage-tie under which Ezekiel suffers. For that, we have to think of the sanctuary itself gone, which was the pledge and seal of the tie, which spoke of the Lord’s presence with them, and gave the people access to Himself; that tie being broken, it might well swallow up all others.
But this does not put the prophet’s parabolic action in its full meaning before us. Ezekiel himself is plainly here, as elsewhere, the representative of God to the people, as the prophet in fact always was. It is to be noted that the stroke falls not upon the people, but upon the prophet himself. Nor is it inflicted as a judgment, as far as he is concerned. With the prophet there is no divorce from God by it; on the contrary, just at this time he stands before the people fully as the representative of God Himself, speaking and acting in His name. We have to take the prophet here as really representing the One for whom he stands. Thus it is not obscurely intimated that the prophet’s sorrow is the sorrow of God Himself. The affliction is on His part, not on man’s side. Yet it is an affliction which can find no expression in the midst of a people obdurate as these are. It is their sin which has wrought their calamity. It is their sin in which they still pine away; feeling, no doubt, certain effects of it, but not the iniquity itself. He who has inflicted it is He who feels what He has inflicted. It is the sundering of His own relationship with a people whom He had taken up to manifest His love to them and to bring them near to Himself in such a way as all their history indicates. Yet He has been compelled to give them up. The tie, in fact, is broken, for we are not thinking here of purposes to be fulfilled in the end, but of present relationship, and these ended for the nation as such. Yet He who in all their affliction has ever been afflicted, can give no expression to it. It is the shadow of judgment which is necessarily over them all and which hinders this expression.
Yet how wonderful in its pathos is this unexpressed, inexpressible sorrow with which all this part of the prophecy closes! God will not, as it were, permit it all to end in judgment merely, without bringing us to His side in this matter, if we have heart for it, and showing us how truly His heart remains unchanged, and how thoroughly the divorce which He has given, as He says in Hosea, is not on His side but on theirs. Nothing can divorce His heart from the objects of His love, and if He has to act in a way apparently most contradictory to this, faith may yet penetrate the disguise and realize the love unchangeable throughout it all. This is what seems to be the meaning here -the meaning upon His side; the worthy end to which we have been looking.
The prophetic communication to the people closes here for the time. The last act of the judgment which is now about to take place is to be waited for until the message shall come which speaks of its full accomplishment. For nearly a year and a half the siege lasted, and then came the message that the city was taken. In that day, when at last all was over, and no false hope could any longer be maintained, the prophet’s mouth would be opened. He would speak, and no more be dumb. This we shall find accordingly in the third division of these prophecies. When judgment has had its way, and God’s holiness is fully vindicated, the prophet’s mouth is to be opened, not in judgment once more, but in the announcement of blessing to come of blessing which, in God’s unrepenting goodness, is still reserved for them, however much their persistent iniquity has delayed the fulfilment of it.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Allegory of the Boiling Caldron. Ezekiel's Bereavement and…
The Allegory of the Boiling Caldron. Ezekiel's Bereavement and Significant Silence
This prophecy is dated on the day on which the siege of Jerusalem began. Ezekiel is commanded by God to note the date, and to speak to the exiles a final parable of the city's coming fate. Jerusalem is a rusty pot filled with water and meat and set upon a fire. The meat is well boiled, and brought out piece by piece at random. The empty pot is then set back on the fire that the rust may be burned away. The rust denotes Jerusalem's impurity and bloodshed. The boiling is the siege, and the emptying of the pot the captivity. The heating of the empty pot symbolises the burning of the city at the end of the siege (Eze_24:1-14).
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Ezekiel spoke this message in the morning, and his wife died on the evening of the same day, but in obedience to a divine command he indulged in no sign of mourning. His silent sorrow was an emblem of the stupor into which the exiles would be cast when they should hear of the fall of Jerusalem. When the survivors of the siege should reach BabyIonia, however, Ezekiel's silence would be at an end (Eze_24:15-27).
1. The ninth year.. the tenth month] January-February, 587 b.c. For the date see 2Ki_25:1; Jer_39:1; Jer_52:4.
3. Pot] RV 'caldron': so in Eze_24:6.
5. Burn.. the bones, etc.] We must read either with RV 'pile.. the bones under it '(the flesh), or. 'burn.. the wood under it '(the caldron). The bones were in the pot, not below it.
6. Scum] RV 'rust': so in Eze_24:11, Eze_24:12. Let no lot fall] The meat was, to be taken out indiscriminately.
7. The top of a rock] RV 'the bare rock.' Jerusalem's bloodshed was open and unconcealed.
8. I have set] What was mere shameless wickedness on Jerusalem's part was yet the working out of God's purpose of judgment.
10. Kindle] RV 'make hot.'
Consume] RV 'boil well.' Spice it well] RV 'make thick the broth.' Burned] not in the fire, but singed in the pot by the intense heat of the cooking.
12. With lies, and] RV 'with toil, yet.'
13. Caused.. to rest] RV 'satisfied.'
17. Loosening the head-dress, baring the feet, and covering the lips, were signs of mourning (Lev_10:6; 2Sa_15:30).
22. The bread of men] probably food offered by sympathising friends. See Jer_16:7 (RV).
23. Pine.. mourn (RV 'moan')] The sorrow of the exiles for the fate of Jerusalem would be tearless and inarticulate, like Ezekiel's sorrow for his wife.
27. See Jer_33:22.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 14 tenth month
tenth month
i.e. January.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Eze 24:1-27. The exact date is given by the…
Eze 24:1-27. The exact date is given by the prophet. It was the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year. What happened also on that date we find recorded in 2Ki 25:1: “And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, came, he and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it; and they built forts against it round about.” How did Ezekiel know about all this? It was the Lord who gave him this information and led him to record the date. This is the statement of the second verse: “Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this selfsame day, the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day.” What does higher criticism have to say to this? We quote a recent commentator: “These verses (2) force on us in the clearest fashion the dilemma--either Ezekiel was a deliberate deceiver or he was possessed of some kind of a second sight!” What about divine revelation? This the “learned” men refuse to think even possible. The boiling pot announced is the symbol of Jerusalem.
Eze 24:15-18 announce the death of Ezekiel’s wife, and he is commanded not to mourn or weep; all the customary signs of grief are forbidden him. While he faithfully delivered the message in the morning, even his wife was taken from his side. Death had dissolved the marriage union and taken from the prophet the beloved wife. Even so the relationship between Jehovah and Jerusalem was now completely to be severed. The question of the people and the answer is found in Eze 24:19-27. Read Eze 24:26-27 and compare with Eze 33:21-22.
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 Vision of the Boiling Caldron
Vision of the Boiling Caldron
v. 1. Again, in the ninth year, in the tenth month, namely, after the deportation of Jehoiachin and the accession of Zedekiah, in the tenth day of the month, the exact fixing of the day emphasizing the divinity of Ezekiel’s mission, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
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v. 2. Son of man, write thee the name of the day, as a significant date, one prominent in the history of the Jewish race, even of this same day; the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day, the siege of the Jewish capital thus being begun and Ezekiel being informed of this fact by revelation of God.
v. 3. And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, literally, "the house of rebelliousness," for the exiled Jews were, on the whole, still filled with stubborn resentment, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Set on a pot, a large caldron for cooking over an open fire, set it on and also pour water into it, their own proverb, 11:3, thereby proving awfully true, but in an entirely different sense from that intended by them;
v. 4. gather the pieces thereof into it, those which properly belong into such a caldron for specified purposes. even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones, those having a good amount of flesh adhering to them.
v. 5. Take the choice of the flock, of all small cattle, and burn also the bones under it, literally, "a rounded heap of kindling-wood under it for the bones," which may indicate that dry bones were mingled with the pieces of wood beneath the caldron, and make it boil well and let them seethe the bones of it therein. Thus Jerusalem, as the caldron, was placed over the fire of a fierce war and siege, by which the inhabitants of the city would be sodden to pieces, the poorest suffering first, but the wealthier inhabitants likewise enduring destruction, though by a slower process. These facts are now stated in explicit terms.
v. 6. Wherefore, thus saith the Lord God, Woe to the bloody city, to the city whose blood-guiltiness is so great, to the pot whose scum is therein, like spots of rust that cannot be removed, and whose scum is not gone out of it, the reference being to the people’s all-pervading wickedness. Bring it out piece by piece, in a slow judgment and process of destruction; let no lot fall upon it, or, "not has fallen upon it the lot," in which case there might be some chance of deliverance and salvation.
v. 7. For her blood, that shed in the wickedness of her murderous actions, is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock, on the bare rock, shamelessly exposing her wickedness before the eyes of all men; she poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust, thereby openly challenging the wrath and vengeance of God,
v. 8. that it might, in bringing near the judgment of God, cause fury to come up to take vengeance, or, "to make fury to ascend, to execute vengeance. " I have set her blood upon the top of a rock, on the bare, exposed rock, so as to make it conspicuous before the eyes of all men, that it should not be covered.
v. 9. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, in introducing another element pertaining to the execution of His wrath, Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile for fire great, so as to consume Jerusalem with siege and destruction.
v. 10. Heap on wood, so the prophet is bidden, kindle the fire, in a mighty heaping of materials for the city’s destruction, consume the flesh, so that it would be cooked to pieces, and spice it well, literally, "let the mixture seethe," and let the bones be burned, so that they would be softened into one mass with the flesh, a heavy broth or thick mixture, which could then be dumped out.
v. 11. Then set it empty upon the coals thereof that the brass of it may be hot and may burn, glowing in white heat, and that the filthiness of it, the remnants of the broth clinging to its sides, may be molten in it, that the scum of it, the rust of the people’s wickedness, may be consumed, burned away by the heat of the fire.
v. 12. She, that is, Jerusalem, hath wearied herself with lies, literally, "it has caused labors to grow weary," that is, all the Lord’s efforts in the interest of the city had been in vain, and her great scum went not forth out of her, the wickedness being ingrained, as it were; her scum shall be in the fire, or, "Into the fire with her scum!" Everything else having failed, the wrath of the Lord would now burn, with nothing to hold back.
v. 13. In thy filthiness is lewdness, an abomination in the sight of the Lord. Because I have purged thee, making the most earnest efforts to cleanse the people from their wickedness, and thou wast not purged, resisting every effort of the Lord’s mercy, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more till I have caused My fury to rest upon thee, in the punishment which Jerusalem so richly deserved.
v. 14. I, the Lord, have spoken it; it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, not show a weak lenience, neither will I spare, neither will I repent, as an overindulgent father might be inclined to do; according to thy ways and according to thy doings, in exact agreement with her behavior and deeds, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord God. Note the heaping of synonymous expressions to emphasize the certainty of the approaching judgment. If men persist in wickedness in spite of better knowledge and warning, the Lord punishes them by letting their hearts be hardened in this wickedness and then bringing destruction upon them.
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, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh speaks to Ezekiel.
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The word of Yahweh came
This is an idiom that is used to introduce something that God told his prophets or his people. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 3:16. AT: "Yahweh spoke this message" or "Yahweh spoke these words" (See: Idiom)
in the ninth year
"in year 9." This refers to how long they had been in exile under King Jehoiachin. AT: "in the ninth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin" (See: Ordinal Numbers and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
the tenth month, and on the tenth day of the month
"the tenth day of the tenth month" or "the 10th day of the 10th month." This is the tenth month of the Hebrew calendar. The tenth day is near the beginning of January on Western calendars. (See: Hebrew Months and Ordinal Numbers)
Son of man
"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity." God calls Ezekiel this to emphasize that Ezekiel is only a human being. God is eternal and powerful, but humans are not. AT: "Mortal person" or "Human"
the king of Babylon has besieged
The army of Babylon is referred to by its leader. AT: "the army of the king of Babylon has besieged" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
word of God
year
day
Son of Man
name
king
Babylon
siege
Jerusalem
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, 2, 3, 6, 9, 13 24:1-14 At first sight, the picture of a cooking…
24:1-14 At first sight, the picture of a cooking pot is positive, conjuring expectations of good food and fellowship. Various choice pieces of a sacrificial animal had been gathered, a fire was kindled underneath the pot, and the contents were brought to a simmer. However, as in many parables, there is a sting in the tail of the story. What ought to have been a tasty meal had become a foul, profane mess. The choice pieces of meat that had gone in were uniformly corrupt when they came out. The pot represented Jerusalem (24:9); its contents would be burned and destroyed.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.