Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 22:18

Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they [are] brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are [even] the dross of silver.

18. dross of silver ] In construction “silver” is in apposition with dross. For the figure cf. Isa 1:22; Isa 48:10; Jer 6:28-30; Mal 3:2-3.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Eze 22:18

Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross.

Sins deteriorating power

Stand in fancy in one of the fights of the old civil war. The Royalists are fighting desperately, and are winning apace; but I hear a cry from the other side that Cromwells Ironsides are coming. Now we shall see some fighting. Oliver and his men are lions. But lo! I see that the fellows who come up hang fire, and are afraid to rush into the thick of the fight; surely these are not Cromwells Ironsides, and yonder captain is not old Nell? I do not believe it; it cannot be. Why, if they were what they profess to be, they would have broken the ranks of those perfumed cavaliers long ago, and have made them fly before them like chaff before the wind. So when I hear men say, Here is a body of Christians. What! those Christians? Those cowardly people, who hardly dare speak a word for Jesus! Those covetous people, who give a few cheese parings to His cause! Those inconsistent people, whom you would not know to be Christian professors if they did not label themselves! What! such beings followers of a crucified Saviour! The world sneers at such pretensions, and well it may. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 18. The house of Israel is to me become dross] They are all like base metal-brass, tin, iron, and lead alloyed together with silver. Ye must be put in the furnace, and subjected to the most intense fire, till your impurities are consumed away. No ordinary means will avail any thing; the most violent must be resorted to.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Not a few among many, but universally the whole house of Israel, the seed of him that was a prince with God, the covenant people of God, are strangely degenerate and corrupted, as if purer and richer metals should by worse and worse turn to dross.

All they, from the king to the peasant, the priests, and prophets, and people, are brass; impudent in sin;

and tin; hypocrites, and mixed as tin; and iron; hard, cruel, and oppressive as iron; and lead; stupid and senseless as lead. Though I rather think this particular accommodating these metals somewhat too curious, I judge the prophet chargeth them with a continued degeneracy from bad to worse, by this gradation.

In the midst of the furnace; the afflictions I have laid upon them have not bettered them, they retain their corruptions and vices. While they kept covenant, adhered to my law, kept my worship pure, and loved mercy, did justly, walked humbly with their God, they were as silver; now they are degenerated, and are but the

dross of silver, vile of price, and of little use.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

18. dross . . . brassIsraelhas become a worthless compound of the dross of silver (implying notmerely corruption, but degeneracy from good to bad, Isa1:22, especially offensive) and of the baser metals. Hence thepeople must be thrown into the furnace of judgment, that the bad maybe consumed, and the good separated (Jer 6:29;Jer 6:30).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross,…. Vile, despicable, useless, and unprofitable; to which the wicked of the earth are compared, Ps 119:119 and here the Lord’s professing people, they differing nothing from them, being sadly degenerated; formerly they were as silver, and so they might be reckoned among themselves; but to God, who is omniscient, the searcher of the hearts and reins, who saw all their actions, and knew the spring of them, in his sight they were as dross:

all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace: or “crucible” f; where they are put together, in order to be set in the furnace, and melted down. It is not usual to put so many different metals together for melting, but separately; but here it seems to intend a mixture of them all together; and so the Targum and Septuagint render it,

“all they as brass, c. are mixed”

several metals of the baser sort are here mentioned, by a gradation from the better to the worse; tin being not so good as brass, and iron of less value than either, and lead than any of them. Some think the different characters of the people are here described; impudent persons by “brass”; hypocrites by “tin”; cruel and savage ones by “iron”; and such as were sottish and stupid by “lead”; or, as others, covetous ones:

they are even the dross of silver; once they were like silver, precious and valuable, while they retained the true religion, and the worship of God, and behaved agreeably to their character in the performance of all good works, and were in outward flourishing circumstances; but now degenerated from the pure worship of God, and sunk into idolatry and wickedness, and become poor and miserable.

f “catinus”, Junius and Tremellius, Polanus, Grotius, Cocceius, Starckius.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(18) Become dross.The second prophecy (Eze. 22:17-22) is occupied with a figure taken from the refining of silver, which is a favourite one with the prophets (see Isa. 1:25; Jer. 6:29; Zec. 13:9; Mal. 3:3). The peculiar appropriateness of this figure has been often noted in the fact that the completion of the process of refining silver in the furnace was determined by the parting of the floating dross and the reflection of the image of the refiner from its molten surface. This figure, while setting forth the punishment of Israel, shows clearly that this punishment was for the purpose of purification.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

ISRAEL IN THE ASSYRIAN FURNACE, Eze 22:18-22.

In this new prophecy Israel is compared with the ore in a smelting furnace. This ore looks now perfectly worthless. Once it was good silver ore, but now it is only the “dross” of silver. That some silver is expected as the resultant of the fiery test is hinted here and clearly expressed elsewhere (Eze 22:15; Eze 18:27; compare 1Pe 1:7). Again and again the purpose of this punishment is declared to be, not the nation’s destruction, but its purification. Yet as the furnace is supposed to be set up “in the midst of Jerusalem” (Eze 22:19), it may be that only the Jerusalemites, who are elsewhere considered as hopelessly unrepentant, are thought of in this connection, and not the remnant purified in the Babylonian fires. (See notes Eze 24:1-14; Eze 9:8; Eze 11:16; Eze 11:21, etc.) For the use of this same figure by other prophets see Mal 3:2-3; Isa 1:22; Jer 6:30.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Eze 22:18-21. The house of Israel, &c. The house of Israel is to me become all of them alloy; brass, and tin, and iron, and lead in the midst of the furnace: alloy of silver are they. Eze 22:19. Because ye are all run into alloy, therefore, behold, I will amass you together in the midst of Jerusalem. Eze 22:20. As they amass, &c. so will I amass you in mine anger and in my fury, and will put you in, and melt you. Eze 22:21. Yea, I will amass you together, &c. God’s vengeance is often compared to fire; but here it is so in a literal sense, for both city and temple were reduced to ashes.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Eze 22:18 Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they [are] brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are [even] the dross of silver.

Ver. 18. The house of Israel is to me become dross. ] Recrementum argenti; offal stuff. Silver they were once, but now nothing less. Haec ad nos quoque transferenda sunt. This is even our case; we are quite degenerate, and altogether unlike our zealous progenitors.

“ Heu! pietas ubi prisca! profana O tempora! Mundi

Faex, vesper, prope nox! O Mora! Christe veni. ”

All they are brass. ] See on Isa 1:22 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)