Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 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,
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.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1 14. The rusted caldron set on the fire
(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.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Eze 24:1-14
Set on a pot.
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.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XXIV
The prophet now informs those of the captivity of the very day
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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
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 Zedekiahs 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.
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.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1, 2. Ezekiel proves his divinemission by announcing the very day, (“this same day”) ofthe beginning of the investment of the city by Nebuchadnezzar; “theninth year,” namely, of Jehoiachin’s captivity, “the tenthday of the tenth month”; though he was three hundred miles awayfrom Jerusalem among the captives at the Chebar (2Ki 25:1;Jer 39:1).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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:
the word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows:
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
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 and Eze 24:2); 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 two 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 and Eze 24:2) expressly observes, the day on which the siege of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon began.
And the word of Jehovah came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, saying, Eze 24:2. Son of man, write for thyself the name of the day, this same day! The king of Babylon has fallen upon Jerusalem this same day. – The date given, namely, the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year after the carrying away of Jehoiachin (Eze 1:2), or what is the same thing, of the reign of Zedekiah, who was appointed king in his stead, is mentioned in Jer 52:4; Jer 39:1, and 2Ki 25:1, as the day on which Nebuchadnezzar blockaded the city of Jerusalem by throwing up a rampart; and after the captivity this day was still kept as a fast-day in consequence (Zec 8:19). What was thus taking place at Jerusalem was revealed to Ezekiel on the Chaboras the very same day; and he was instructed to announce it to the exiles, “that they and the besieged might learn both from the time and the result, that the destruction of the city was not to be ascribed to chance or to the power of the Babylonians, but to the will of Him who had long ago foretold that, on account of the wickedness of the inhabitants, the city would be burned with fire; and that Ezekiel was a true prophet, because even when in Babylon, which was at so great a distance, he had known and had publicly announced the state of Jerusalem.” The definite character of this prediction cannot be changed into a vaticinium post eventum , either by arbitrary explanations of the words, or by the unfounded hypothesis proposed by Hitzig, that the day was not set down in this definite form till after the event. – Writing the name of the day is equivalent to making a note of the day. The reason for this is given in Eze 24:2, namely, because Nebuchadnezzar had fallen upon Jerusalem on that very day. signifies to support, hold up (his hand); and hence both here and in Psa 88:8 the meaning to press violently upon anything. The rendering “to draw near,” which has been forced upon the word from the Syriac (Ges., Winer, and others), cannot be sustained.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Parable of the Boiling Pot; The Explanation of the Parable. | B. C. 590. |
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, 2 Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day: the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day. 3 And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Set on a pot, set it on, and also pour water into it: 4 Gather the pieces thereof into it, even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones. 5 Take the choice of the flock, and burn also the bones under it, and make it boil well, and let them seethe the bones of it therein. 6 Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it. 7 For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust; 8 That it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance; I have set her blood upon the top of a rock, that it should not be covered. 9 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile for fire great. 10 Heap on wood, kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned. 11 Then set it empty upon the coals thereof, that the brass of it may be hot, and may burn, and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed. 12 She hath wearied herself with lies, and her great scum went not forth out of her: her scum shall be in the fire. 13 In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee. 14 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; according to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord GOD.
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 (v. 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.
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, ch. i. 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, 2 Kings xxv. 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. i. 13, I see a seething pot, with the face towards the north; and the explanation of it, v. 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 (ch. xi. 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 (v. 4); let it be filled with the flesh of the choice of the flock (v. 5), with the choice pieces (v. 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, v. 6. And again (v. 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 (v. 9): I will make the pile for fire great. Commission is given to the Chaldeans (v. 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. xxx. 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 (v. 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, 2 Sam. viii. 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, v. 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 (Deut. xxiii. 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, v. 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, v. 6. The great scum that went not forth out of her (v. 12), that stuck to the pot when all was boiled away, and was molten in it (v. 11), some of this runs over into the fire (v. 12), inflames that, and makes it burn the more furiously, but it shall all be consumed at last, v. 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, 2 Chron. xxviii. 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, v. 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 (v. 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, 1 Thess. ii. 16. They deserve it: According to thy doings they shall judge thee, v. 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.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
EZEKIEL – CHAPTER 24
THE BOILING POT PARABLE
Verses 1-14:
Verses 1, 2 call upon Ezekiel to prophesy further, as the son of man, that Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon should begin his siege of Jerusalem. It was identified as to begin on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of the reign of Jehoiachim’s captivity, about 590 B.C., though he was 300 miles from Jerusalem, 2Ki 25:1; Jer 39:1. This day was later observed as a day of fast by the Jews, and is still observed as such in their synagogues. The phrase “set himself against Jerusalem” indicates the laying on of an heavy hand of judgment, as used Lev 24:4.
Verse 3 directs Ezekiel to utter a parable or proverb to the people of Israel concerning Judah. He was directed of the Lord two times, to set on a pot or caldron and pour water into it, indicating intense urgency or haste. The pot or caldron was Jerusalem which was so foul that it poisoned or polluted all meat cast into it; The meat was the polluted people, Jer 1:13.
Verse 4 charges him to gather “the pieces” or inhabitants of Jerusalem into it. The phrase “thigh, shoulder, and choice bones” seem to represent the wealthy, the nobles, and the chief leaders of the people who were in the first to be boiled in the poison or polluted brew.
Verse 5 continues to direct him to take or pronounce judgment that should symbolize the taking of the choice of the flock of Judah (the political and religious leaders). They were to be stripped from the bones and their bones used for burning, fueling the pot of their boiling. The fire was the fire of the cruel Chaldean army, by which Jerusalem’s population was to be boiled away like flesh and bones.
Verse 6 expresses a Divine woe upon the bloody city of Jerusalem and her inhabitants, to the pot whose scum is on it, and has not gone out or been removed, v. 9; Eze 22:3; Eze 23:37. The scum represents the moral impurities of the city inhabitants. They were to be brought out of the pot, piece by piece, one by one. No lot was to be cast to save anyone from either death or captivity, 2Sa 8:2; Joe 3:3; Oba 1:11; Nah 3:10.
Verse 7 charges that her blood that was in her, blood shed by murder, was set upon the top of a rock; She did not even pour it out upon the ground, to cover its pollution with dust, as prescribed by her own law, Lev 17:13; Deu 12:16; Deu 12:24; See also Jer 26:20. Therefore her blood was to be ruthlessly poured out in judgment before all nations.
Verse 8 adds that because of Jerusalem’s lawless behavior God would cause the blood of her inhabitants to be poured out on the “top of a rock,” an high sunlight rock in view of all, that the heathen might see her humiliation for and in her sins, Num 32:24. The blood of her murderers cried out for vengeance, Gen 4:10-11.
Verse 9 continues to declare that “woe” is to be upon this bloody city. God declared that even He would make the pile of fire great, as a just retribution for their wanton sins, v. 6; Nah 3:1; Hab 2:12; Mat 7:2.
Verses 10,11 call for a thorough boiling and burning of the pot of Jerusalem. Wood was to be heaped on, kindled, and spiced well or shaken well to make it consume the flesh and burn the bones. Then the pot was to be set upon the coals empty, that the brass might burn hot, that the filth in it might be molten or burned away, that its sun might be consumed, a symbol of God’s purging the sins of His people there, Lev 14:34-35; Lev 18:25; Lev 27:28.
Verse 12 states that she (the pot, Jerusalem) had wearied herself with lies. And her scum, base, idolatrous immorality did not go from her. The more her prophets, priests, and ruling princes consorted with the heathen people and their gods, the more corrupt they became, Gal 6:7-8. Therefore God declared that only the fire could burn away her scum; All the labors and promises of false rulers and prophets, who told the people what they wanted to hear, could not sanctify the city, or make the pot clean, Mal 2:17.
Verse 13 then warns that there was filthiness in her lewdness. Because God had once purged her but she would not be (or exist as, remain) in a purged or holy state, Amo 4:6; Zec 3:2; Zec 3:7; Mat 23:37-38; Luk 13:7-9. God would not purge her because of her repentance any more, until she had been first burned in judgment by the Chaldeans. Then His fury over her would be brought to rest, as recounted, Eze 5:13; Eze 8:18; Eze 16:42.
Verse 14 affirms that the fire will burn and the pot will boil, by the irrevocable decree of God, against Jerusalem and her inhabitants, because of the high-crimes of her deliberate wickedness of both moral and physical nature, Num 23:18; 1Sa 15:29; Psa 33:9; Mat 24:35. It remained now only for the Chaldean armies to sweep down on the city to execute inevitable judgment by the direct will of God, Exo 20:1-5.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM PREDICTED, BOTH IN PARABLE AND BY SIGN (Chap. 24)
(Eze. 24:1-2)
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 Jehoiachins 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 Prophets faithfulness. Amidst every discouragement he is still resolved to deliver the message of God. He will utter Gods 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 Prophets 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 prophets 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 Ezekiels prophetic and moral characters fall to the ground.
III. The solemnity of the prophets last word. In this chapter he takes his farewell of his nation. We are reminded of Our Lords 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 Gods 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 Gods 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 dairymans 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 Jerusalems 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 Noahs 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 Solomons building the temple (2Ch. 3:2); of Hamans 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.)
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
A. The Parable of the Cooking Pot 24:114
TRANSLATION
(1) And the word of the LORD came unto me in the ninth year, the tenth month, the tenth day of the month, saying, (2) Son of man, write for yourself the name of the day, this very day; this very day the king of Babylon has leaned upon Jerusalem. (3) Utter a parable against this rebellious house, and say unto them; Thus says the Lord GOD: Set on the pot, set it on, and pour water into it. (4) Gather into it the pieces belonging to it, every good piece the thigh and the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones. (5) Take the choice of the flock, and also pile the bones under it; boil it well, that its bones may boil in the midst of it. (6) Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose filth is in it, and whose filth has not gone out of it! Bring it out piece by piece; no lot is fallen upon it. (7) For her blood is in the midst of her; upon the bare rock she set it; she did not pour it out upon the ground to cover it with dust; (8) to cause fury to go up, that vengeance might be taken, I have set the blood upon a bare rock, that it should not be covered. (9) Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the bloody city; I also will make the pile great, (10) heaping on the wood, kindling the fire that the flesh may be consumed; and preparing the mixture that the bones may be burned; (11) then I will set it empty upon its coals, that it may be hot, and the bottom of it burn, that its impurity may be melted in it, that its filth may be consumed. (12) She has wearied (Me) with toil; yet its great filth shall not go out from it; its filth shall be in the fire, (13) Because of your filthy lewdness, because I purged you, and you were not purged from your uncleanness, you shall not be purged from your uncleanness anymore until I have satisfied My wrath on You. (14) I the LORD have spoken it; it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, nor will I have pity, nor will I repent; according to your ways and according to your deeds they shall judge you (oracle of the Lord GOD).
COMMENTS
On that fateful day Ezekiel set forth a parable concerning Jerusalem. The inhabitants of Jerusalem had previously used the image of a caldron to support their delusion of invincibility (cf. Eze. 11:3). Now Ezekiel gives the true interpretation to that image. A pot is filled with water and placed on the stove. This symbolizes the first stage of the siege of Jerusalem (Eze. 24:3).
The chunks of meat placed in the pot symbolize the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the fugitives from other towns who sought refuge there. The good pieces of meat and choice bones represent the civil and military leaders (Eze. 24:4) who come from the choice of the flock, i.e., the upper classes. Bones as well as meat the total population were to be placed in that pot, with the bones under the meat. Ezekiel is then to bring the pot to a boil until even the bones the toughest members of society are brought to a boil (Eze. 24:5). The boiling water points to the destructive turbulence of the Babylonian siege.
The prophet drops the symbolism in verse six and sets his message in plain prose. He pronounces a woe on the bloody city of Jerusalem, the pot whose filth had never been removed. The reference is to the bloodstains of the innocent who had been murdered in Jerusalem. Piece by piece the chunks of meat in that pot would be removed. By this the prophet means that the destruction of the city and the deportation of the inhabitants would take place in stages. No lot is fallen on the content of that pot, i.e., the deportation would be indiscriminate (Eze. 24:6).
Openly and unashamedly crimes had been committed in Jerusalem. Evidence of bloodshed could be seen throughout the place. It was as though Jerusalem had smeared blood on a bare rock which was in plain view. The Law required animal blood to be poured to the ground and covered with dust (cf. Lev. 17:13). However no similar effort had been made to conceal the blood of humankind unjustly slain (Eze. 24:7). God would preserve those bloodstains in plain view that He might execute divine wrath on those responsible (Eze. 24:8).
A second time the sentence against Jerusalem is pronounced, They had piled one sin on top of another. God would now make the pile great, i.e., He would heap up the fuel for their punishment (Eze. 24:9). He would gather the wood, kindle the fire, and prepare the mixture of spices to be added when the meat had been sufficiently cooked. It was Gods purpose to consume the meat (population of Jerusalem) and burn the bones (leaders, especially military leaders) in that pot (Eze. 24:10). After the contents of that pot (Jerusalem) had been consumed God would see to it that the pot itself was melted down and the filth thus removed (Eze. 24:11). Thus Jerusalem would be purified by the conflagration. Efforts had been made from time to time to purge Jerusalem, but to no avail. God had become weary with these half-hearted and ineffective efforts. The uncleanness of the city could only be removed by the drastic process of melting down the caldron, i.e., destroying Jerusalem (Eze. 24:12). All efforts to reform the nation through prophetic admonition had failed. No further effort in that direction would be attempted. All that remained was for God to pour out His wrath and purge the place by total destruction (Eze. 24:13). Such is the irrevocable divine decree.[364] The Lord would hand them over to the Chaldeans who would execute a judgment upon Jerusalem which was appropriate to her sins (Eze. 24:14).
[364] The Hebrew uses the prophetic perfect, viewing the action as so certain it could be described as already completed.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
III. A SIGNIFICANT DATE 24:127
Chapter 24 begins with an important chronological note. According to verse one Nebuchadnezzar began his attack against Jerusalem in the ninth year (of Zedekiah), the tenth day of the tenth month.[363] The Jews commemorated this date for centuries by fasting (Zec. 8:19). Ezekiel was told to write the name of the day of the week and the day of the month (this very day). This written record was to be made so that later when the news filtered back to the captives in Babylon the genuine prophetic foresight of Ezekiel would be authenticated. Three things of importance happened in the ministry of Ezekiel at the same time the siege of Jerusalem was beginning several hundred miles away. Ezekiel delivered a proclamation in the form of a parable on that day (Eze. 24:1-14). On that very day Ezekiel lost his beloved wife (Eze. 24:15-24). Finally, the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem marked the end of Ezekiels divinely imposed dumbness (Eze. 24:25-27).
[363] The same date IS given in 2Ki. 25:1, and Jer. 52:4
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(1) In the tenth day of the month.Jehoiachins captivity (by which all these prophecies are dated) coincided with Zedekiahs 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.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
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.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Allegory of the Cauldron.
‘Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, write down yourself the name of the day, even of this selfsame day. The king of Babylon drew close to Jerusalem this selfsame day.” ’
This day was a momentous day, and Ezekiel was told to write it down so that it would be remembered. It was the day when the forces of Nebuchadnezzar appeared before Jerusalem and the long siege was began that would end in its destruction (Eze 33:21). It was in January 588 BC, in the ninth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity. Compare for this 2Ki 25:1; Jer 52:4.
Some cavil at the idea that Ezekiel could have this so clearly revealed to him when he was so far away, but such telepathic communication is well testified to elsewhere, and Ezekiel was particularly receptive to such revelations from God. When my uncle was in the trenches during the first world war my aunt (not his wife, he was only seventeen) woke the family, my mother among them, to say, ‘Jimmy’s dead’. And the telegram arrived shortly afterwards to say that he had been blown up that very night. Something within her had told her the tragic fact. And similar incidents have certainly been repeated again and again. How much more then could such a man, full of the Spirit of God, be aware of events happening far away.
When he informed those who came to hear him there would certainly be some doubt, but eventually messengers would arrive who would confirm the grim news. Then they knew that this man indeed spoke from God.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Vision of the Boiling Caldron
v. 1. Again, in the ninth year, in the tenth month, v. 2. Son of man, write thee the name of the day, v. 3. And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, v. 4. gather the pieces thereof into it, v. 5. Take the choice of the flock, v. 6. Wherefore, thus saith the Lord God, Woe to the bloody city, v. 7. For her blood, v. 8. that it might, v. 9. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, v. 10. Heap on wood, v. 11. Then set it empty upon the coals thereof that the brass of it may be hot and may burn, v. 12. She, v. 13. In thy filthiness is lewdness, v. 14. I, the Lord, have spoken it; it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Eze 24:1
In the ninth year. We pass from the date of Eze 20:1 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 23:1-49, 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.
Eze 24:3, Eze 24:4
Set on a pot, etc. The words contain an obvious reference to the imagery of Eze 11:3-7. The people had used that imagery either in the spirit of a false security or in the recklessness of despair. It is now the prophet’s work to remind them that the interpretation which he gave to their own comparison had proved to be the true one. The cauldron is the city, the fire is the invading army, the metal of the cauldron does not protect them. The pieces, the choice bones, were the princes and chief men of the people.
Eze 24:5
Burn also the bones under it; better, with the Vulgate and Revised Version, pile the bones. The bones of animals were often used as fuel. Currey quotes an interesting passage from Livingstone’s ‘Last Journal,’ 1. p. 347, narrating how, when the supply of ordinary fuel failed, he made his steamer work with the bones of elephants. See a like practice among the Scythians (Herod; 4.61).
Eze 24:6
Scum. The word is not found elsewhere. The Authorized Version follows the Vulgate. Keil and the Revised Version give “rust.” As the cauldron was of brass (Eze 24:11), this must have been the verdigris which was eating into the metal, and which even the blazing fire could not get rid of. The pieces that are to be brought out are the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who are to be carried into exile. There was to be “no lot cast,” as was often done with prisoners of war, taking every tenth man (decimating) of the captives for death or exile. All alike were doomed (Joe 3:3).
Eze 24:7
The parable is for a moment interrupted, and Jerusalem is the murderess who has shed blood, not where the earth might cover it (Job 16:18; Isa 26:21), but as on the top of a rock visible in the sight of all men.
Eze 24:9
We return to the image of the cauldron, and once again, as in Eze 24:6 and Eze 22:3 and Eze 23:37, we have the words which Nahum (Nah 3:1) had used of Nineveh applied to Jerusalem.
Eze 24:10
Spice it well; better, make thick the broth (Revised Version). The verb is used in Exo 30:33, Exo 30:35, of the concoction of the anointing oil, and the cognate adjective in Job 41:31 for the “boiling” of the water caused by the crocodile. We are reminded of the “bubble, bubble” of the witches’ cauldron in ‘Macbeth.’
Eze 24:11
Then set it empty upon the coals, etc. The empty cauldron is, of course, the city bereaved of its inhabitants. The fire must go on till the rust is consumed. There is, however, in spite of the seemingly terrible hopelessness of the sentence, a gleam of hope, as there had been in Eze 16:42. When the punishment had done its full work, then Jehovah might cause his fury to rest (Eze 16:13). Till then he declares, through the prophet, there will be no mitigation of the punishment. The word has gone forth, and there will be no change of purpose.
Eze 24:12
She hath wearied herself with lies, etc.; better, it (keeping to the image of the cauldron) is worn out with labors; sc. with the pains taken to cleanse it, and yet the rust remains. The fire must burn, the retributive judgment must continue, till the work is done.
Eze 24:15-17
Behold, I take away from thee, etc. The next word of the Lord, coming after an interval, is of an altogether exceptional character, as giving one solitary glimpse into the personal home life of the prophet. The lesson which the history teaches is, in substance, the same as that of Jer 16:5. The calamity that falls on the nation will swallow up all personal sorrow, but it is brought home to Ezekiel, who may have read those words with wonder, by a new and terrible experience. We are left to conjecture whether anything in the prophet’s home life furnished a starting-point for the terrible message that was now borne in upon his soul. Had his wife been ill before? or, as the words, with a stroke, suggest, did it fall on him, as a thunderbolt “out of the blue”? I mention, only to reject, the view that the wife’s death belongs as much to the category of symbolic visions as the boiling cauldron. To me such a view seems to indicate an incapacity for entering into a prophet’s life and calling as great as that which sees nothing but an allegory in the history of Gomer in Hos 2:1-23; Hos 3:1-5. We, who accept the Scripture record as we find it, may believe that Ezekiel was taught, as the earlier prophet, to interpret his work by his own personal experience. To Ezekiel himself the loss of one who is thus described as the desire (or, delight) of his eyes (the word is used of things in 1Ki 20:6, of young warriors in Lam 2:4, of sons and daughters in Verse 25), must have been, at first, as the crowning sorrow of his life; but the feelings of the patriot-prophet were stronger even than those of the husband, and his personal bereavement seemed as a small thing compared with the desolation of his country. He was to refrain from all conventional signs of mourning, from weeping and wailing, from the loud sighing (for forbear to cry, read, with the Revised Version, sigh, but not aloud), from the head covered or sprinkled with ashes (Isa 61:3), and from the bare feet (2Sa 15:30; Isa 20:2), from the covered lips (Le 13:45; Mic 3:7), which were “the trappings and the garb of woe” in such a case. Eat not the bread of men. The words point to the custom, more or less common in all nations and at all times, of a funeral feast, like the parentalia of the Romans. Wine also was commonly part of such a feast (Jer 16:7). The primary idea of the custom seems to have been that the mourner’s friends sent the materials for the feast as a token of their sympathy.
Eze 24:18
So I spake unto the people in the morning, etc. In yet another way the calling of the prophet superseded the natural impulses of the man. He knew that his wife’s hours were numbered, yet the day was spent, not in ministering at her deathbed, but in one last effort to impress the teachings of the time upon the seared consciences and hardened hearts of his countrymen and neighbors. I cannot help referring to the poem ‘Ezekiel,’ by B.M; published in 1871, as expressing the meaning of the history better than any commentary.
Eze 24:19
We must read between the lines what had passed in that eventful night of sorrow. The rumor must have spread among the exiles of Tel-Abib that the prophet had lost the wife whom he loved so tenderly. They were ready, we may imagine, to offer their consolations and their sympathy. And, behold, he appears as one on whom no special sorrow had fallen. But that strange outward hardness had the effect which it was meant to have. It roused them to ask questions, and it was one of the cases in which the prudens interrogatio, which if not in itself the dimidium seientiae, at least prepared the way for it. The form of their question implies that they had a forecast that the strange conduct was, in some way, connected with the prophet’s work. Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us?
Eze 24:21
The desire of your eyes. There is something exquisitely pathetic in the iteration of the phrase of Eze 24:17. To the priest Ezekiel himself, to the people whom he addressed, the temple was as dear as the wife to the husband. It was also “the pride of their power” (Revised Version), the “pity of their soul” (margin). The former phrase comes from Le Eze 26:19. When that temple should be profaned, when sons and daughters should fall by the sword, then they would do as the prophet had done. They would learn that there is a sorrow which is too deep for tears, something that passeth show. The state which the prophet describes is not one of callousness, or impenitence, or despair. The people shall mourn for their iniquities;” this will be the beginning of repentance. Le 26:39, 40 was obviously in the prophet’s thoughts. We note that Verse 24 is the one solitary passage since Eze 1:3 in which Ezekiel names himself. As single acts and gestures had before (Eze 4:1-12) been a sign of what was coming, so now the man himself was to be in that hour of bereavement.
Eze 24:26, Eze 24:27
Yet another sign was given, not to the people, but to the prophet himself. For the present there was to be the silence of unutterable sorrow, continuing, day after day, as there had been before (Eze 3:26). Then there should come a messenger from Jerusalem, reporting its capture and destruction, and then his mouth should be opened. The messenger does not come till nearly three years afterwards (Eze 33:21); and we must infer that there was no spoken message during the interval, but that from Eze 25:1 onward we have the written words of the Lord that came to him from time to time, not as messages to Israel, but as bearing on the fate of the surrounding nations. We have, i.e; what is, strictly speaking, a paten-thesis in the prophet’s work.
HOMILETICS.
Eze 24:1-5
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).
Eze 24:2
Memorable days.
Ezekiel was to take note of the day on which he received a message concerning the approaching ruin of Jerusalem, as it was to be on the anniversary of that day that the King of Babylon would besiege Jerusalem. Thus it would be seen that the prediction was strikingly fulfilled. This is one instance of the marking of memorable days.
I. THE OCCURRENCE OF MEMORABLE DAYS. In themselves all days may be equally sacred (Rom 14:5). Nevertheless, a difference of character, history, and associations will divide our days out into very various classes, and will mark some for especial interest. There are days that stand out in history like great promontories along the coast. We must all have lived through days the memory of which is burnt into our souls. There are the red-letter days, days of honor and gladness; and there are the black-letter days of calamity. Note some of the kinds of memorable days.
1. Days of warning. Such was the day of our text. We cannot afford to forget such days. They may occur but rarely; yet their influence should be permanent.
2. Days of blessing. If we have had times of exceptional prosperity, or occasions when we have been surprised with new and unexpected good, surely such happy seasons deserves to be chronicled. It is ungrateful to leave a blank in our diaries for those days.
3. Days of sorrow. These, too, may be days of blessing, though of blessing in disguise. It is not easy to forget such days, nor is it altogether desirable. The softened memory of past grief has a wholesome, subduing influence over the soul.
4. Days of revelation. The day to be noted by Ezekiel was of this character. We have no prophetic visions. But there may be days when God has seemed to draw especially near to us. Truth has then been most clear and faith most strong. The memory of such days is a help for the darker seasons of doubt and dreary solitude.
II. THE USE OF MEMORABLE DAYS.
1. To chronicle them. A diary of sentiments is not always a wholesome production; but a journal of events should be full of instruction. An almanac marked with anniversary dates is a constant reminder of the lessons of the past.
2. To study them. Dates are but sign-pests. They indicate events which require separate consideration. It is good sometimes to turn aside from the noisy scenes of the present and walk in the dim cloisters of the sweet, sad past, communing with bygone days and musing over the deeds of olden times. Our own rushing, heedless age would be the better for such meditations among the tombs, not to grow melancholy in the thought of death, but to learn wisdom in the lessons of the ages.
3. To avoid their errors. There are bad past days. Antiquity does not consecrate sin and folly.
4. To follow their good example. We have the whole roll of the world’s history from which to select instances of inspiring lives. The Christian year is sacred to the memory of a holy past, and its anniversaries revive the lessons of good examples; chiefly it repeatedly reminds us of the great events in the life of our Lord.
5. To be prepared for their recurrence. The day of prophecy was anticipatory of the Day of Judgment. Past days of judgment point to the future judgment. “Of that day and of that hour knoweth no one,” but the fulfillment of prophecy in the destruction of Jerusalem is a solemn warning of the sure fulfillment of predictions concerning the judgment on the whole world.
Eze 24:12
A weary task.
Jerusalem is represented as endeavoring to remove her own evil, but as growing weary in the fruitless task. The rust cannot be cleansed from the vessel.
I. IT ACTS LIKE RUST.
1. It comes from a corroding agent. Temptation bites into the yielding soul like an acid.
2. It reveals an inferior character. Brass and iron become rusty under circumstances which leave gold and silver untarnished. Readiness to yield to temptation is a sign that there is base metal in the soul.
3. It corrupts the very substance of the soul. Rust on metal is not like moss on stone, a mere excrescence and parasite growth. It is formed from the metal itself; it is a portion of it disintegrated and mixed with an alien body. Sin breaks down the fabric of the soul-life, and wears it away in a slow death.
4. It tarnishes the beauty of the soul. Rust is like ingrained dirt on the bright surface of the metal. The rusty mirror no longer reflects light. The sin-stained soul has lost its luster and ceases to reflect the light of heaven.
II. MEN TRY TO REMOVE THE RUST OF SIN. This is the task that the people of Jerusalem are supposed to have undertaken.
1. They turn from their past. The atmosphere which caused the rust is abandoned. The old days are to be forgotten; a new life is to be commenced.
2. They put their souls under discipline. The attempt is made to burn off the rust or to scour it away.
3. They offer compensation. New deeds of goodness are to supersede and atone for old deeds of sin.
4. They offer sacrifices of expiation. The history of religion is full of such sacrificessacrifices which constitute a leading element in the Old Testament economy.
III. THE ATTEMPT TO REMOVE THE RUST OF SIN IS A WEARY TASK.
1. New circumstances do not destroy old sins. Though the vessel be taken out of the damp atmosphere which first corroded it, it does not become bright. The rust is still on it. We may try to make amends in the future, but by such means we cannot get rid of the guilt and the consequences of the past.
2. Sin has eaten its way so deeply into the soul that no efforts of ours can remove it. It is not like dust that lies loosely on the surface; it has cut into our nature like rust. Our feeble self-discipline is ineffectual for removing so close-clinging an evil.
3. No compensation of good works nor expiatory sacrifices will remove this evil. “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin” (Heb 10:4). Such sacrifices can be but symbols at the best.
IV. CHRIST HAS ACCOMPLISHED THIS WEARY TASK.
1. He has made the great atonement with God. He is the one true Sacrifice for sin (Heb 10:14). Thus the way is now clear for the soul’s cleansing.
2. He removes the rust of sin from the soul. As “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world,” Christ not only brings pardon, he produces purity. His mighty arm scours the rust off the soul.
3. This was a weary task for Christ. Even he found it no easy work. It required the humiliation of Bethlehem, the agony of Gethsemane, and the death of Calvary. Christ toiled, suffered, and grew weary unto death in the awful task. Yet he persevered to the end.
4. Christ invites us to abandon our useless, weary task and come to him for cleansing. It is especially to those who labor and are heavy laden with sin that he gives his great invitation (Mat 11:28-30).
Eze 24:14
(first clause)
God true to his word.
“I the Lord have spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it.”
I. THE SUPPOSITION THAT GOD MAY NOT BE TRUE TO HIS WORD. Certain observations and considerations shelter that supposition.
1. The changefulness of life. It looks as though things fell out by chance. We do not discern regular, orderly movements in Divine providence.
2. The tardy fulfillment of threat and promise. Both are delayed. Then men lose hold of both, and regard them as inoperative.
3. A false idea of God‘s mercy. It is thought that God must be too kind to execute his awful threatenings of wrath.
4. Unbelief. This condition of the souls of men is at the root of the error, and it is only by its existence that other considerations are laid hold of and made occasions for doubting God’s certain performance of what he has foretold.
II. THE CERTAINTY THAT GOD WILL BE TRUE TO HIS WORD. This is based on important considerations.
1. The constancy of God. He is “the Eternal.” Men vary, but God is changeless. What he wills today, he wills forever.
2. The perfect knowledge of God. We may be forced to change our plans by reason of the discovery of new facts. A change in our circumstances may compel a change in our conduct. But God knows all things, and he has prevision of all future contingencies when he makes his promise. Of course, he acts in regard to changing events and the alteration of the characters of men. But these things are all foreknown, and where his action is concerned with them it is conditioned accordingly from the first. There is no surprise and consequent sudden turn.
3. The power of God. We may fail to keep our word from simple inability. A man may promise to pay a sum of money by a certain day, and, in the mean time, unforeseen misfortunes may rob him of the power to redeem his word. No such chances can happen with the Almighty.
4. The mercy of God. Archbishop Tillotson pointed out that God was not so bound to fulfill his threats as to keep his promises of grace, because men had a claim on the latter, but no one would claim the former. Nevertheless, it would not be merciful in God to torture us with warnings of a doom that was not impending. God does remit penalties. But then, from the first he has promised pardon to the penitent.
III. THE CONSEQUENCES OF GOD‘S BEING TRUE TO HIS WORD.
1. The vanity of unbelief. It may be with us as it was in the days of Noah (Mat 24:37-39). But the judgment will not be the less certain because we refuse to expect it.
2. The need of a sure refuge. God has threatened judgment against sin. He will be true to his word. Then we should be prepared to face the day of wrath. Our only refuge is to “flee from God to God.”
3. The assurance of true faith. God has given gracious promises of pardon to his returning children (e.g. Isa 1:18). He will certainly be as true to those promises as to any threatenings of wrath against the impenitent. The eternal constancy of God is a rock of refuge for his humble, repentant, trusting children.
Eze 24:16
The desire of thine eyes.
I. A PICTURE OF DOMESTIC LOVE. Ezekiel’s wife is called “the desire of his eyes.” God has ordained marriage, and the blessedness of the true union of husband and wife is from him. It is in itself good and a source of further blessings. It is not the doctrine of the Bible that monkish celibacy is more holy than homely wedded love.
1. The blessedness of wedded love is a solace in trouble. If Ezekiel had a wife who could be described in the language of our text, it must have been refreshing for him to turn from the rancor of Jewish enmity to the sympathy of a true woman. The home is a sacred refuge from the storms of the world.
2. Wedded love is a type of Divine love. The Church is the bride of the Lamb. God loves his people as a true husband loves his wife.
3. Such a great blessing should be tenderly guarded. Wedded love may be hurt by want of thought as much as by want of heart. Small kindnesses constitute much of the happiness of life, and small negligences may make its cup very bitter. It needs care lest the bloom of love be ruthlessly brushed aside.
II. A STROKE OF TEARFUL TROUBLE.
1. “The desire of his eyes“ is taken from Ezekiel. A prophet is not exempt from the greatest troubles that fall to the lot of men. Divine privileges do not save us from earthly sorrows. Love cannot hold the beloved forever. The pair who love much may yet be parted. This awful grief of widowhood may invade the happiest home. They who are never divided in love may yet be thrust asunder by “the dark divorce of death.”
2. This trouble comes by a sudden stroke. Sudden death seems to be best for the victim, for it spares all the agonies of a protracted illness, and all the horrors of the act of dying. But to those who are left it comes as an awful blow! Still, as such events do occur in the most affectionate and most peaceful households, we should do well to be prepared for them. The sweet summer garden of today may be a waste, howling wilderness tomorrow.
3. The trouble comes from God. Therefore it must be irresistible. On the other hand, it must be right. We cannot understand why so fearful a blow should fall. We can only say, “It is the Lord.”
III. A REQUIREMENT OF UNNATURAL RETICENCE. Ezekiel is not to “mourn nor weep.” Inwardly his grief cannot be stayed, for no man can escape from nature; but all outward signs of grief are to be suppressed. This is a hard requirement.
1. Public men must repress private emotion. Here is one of the penalties of a prominent position. The great duties must be performed as though nothing had happened. The leader of others must present a confident face to the foe, though his soul is wrung with despair. A smiling countenance must mask a breaking heart.
2. Private sorrow is buried in public calamity. The national disaster of Jerusalem is so huge that even the most terrible grief of sudden widowhood is not to be considered by the side of it. Grief is generally selfish; but what is one soul’s agony to the misery of mankind?
3. Divine judgments are not to be gainsaid. Ezekiel’s trouble is typical. Hengstenberg and others hold that he did not really lose his wifethat the story is but a parable. Even though we take it as history, we see that it is used as an illustration of the fate of the Jews. This was unanswerable. The penalty was deserved by the guilty nation. Guilt is silent. In all sorrow we have no right to reply to God. The psalmist says, “I was dumb” (Psa 39:2). Christ went to his cross in silence. “As a sheep,” etc. (Isa 53:7).
4. God has consolations for patient sorrow. Though the mourner is silent, God is not, and his voice whispers peace to all his trusting sons and daughters in their sorrow.
Eze 24:27
The dumb mouth opened.
I. THERE IS A TIME TO KEEP SILENCE. Ezekiel was not stricken dumb physically like Zacharias. He was silenced by circumstances and the will of God. Even a prophet may have to learn that “silence is golden.” Consider the indications of the time to keep silence.
1. When one has nothing to say. It is a great mistake to speak because one ought to say something instead of waiting till there is something to be said. Prophets have not always messages to deliver. Poets are not always inspired.
2. When men will not hear. Ezekiel’s repeated discourses, and even his striking illustrative actions, had beer treated with indifference by the Jews. It is useless to “cast pearls before swine.”
3. When events are speaking. God says, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psa 46:10). The awful voice of providence silences every utterance of man.
4. When we are called to reflect. We have too much talking and too little thinking. This is an age of expression. We have lost the art of reticence. The consequence is shallowness and instability. More silence would allow of a richer brooding thoughtfulness.
II. EVENTS OPEN THE MOUTH OF THE SILENT. Ezekiel was to be silent in the grief of his sudden widowhood, and the Jews would be silenced by the frightful calamities of the siege of Jerusalem. Afterwards the prophet’s lips would be unsealed, and he would be able to speak to better purpose. Events help to this result:
1. In suggesting topics. The truest thought is inspired by fact. New occurrences give rise to new lessons. The age of literature follows the age of action, and great books spring up in the soil that has been fertilized by great deeds. The facts of the gospel history are the chief topics for Christian preaching. The new scenes of the life of Christ and the Acts of the Apostles are the inspiration of all evangelistic speech.
2. In inclining men to listen. Ezekiel was silenced by indifference; he was to be rendered eloquent again by a newly awakened interest. Now, this change was to be brought about through the instrumentality of external events. Thus God breaks up the fallow ground and prepares the soil to receive the seed of the Word.
3. In inducing faith. This is the principal cause of the change in the present instance. The Jews had refused to believe Ezekiel. But when his words had been verified by the occurrence of the calamities he had predicted, the skeptical hearers would be forced to acknowledge that he was a true prophet. The fulfillments of Christ’s prophecy in the growth of the kingdom from the grain of mustard seed to the great tree should incline people to listen to Christian teaching with faith.
III. THE WISE TEACHER WILL SEIZE OPPORTUNITIES FOR SPEECH. His mission is to proclaim the will of his Master; and, though silence may be suitable on occasion, and room for thought is greatly to be desired, he must be on the watch for every opportunity of delivering his great message. It is a glorious time when inspired lips are unsealed. The mere babble of empty talk is not to be compared with such utterance. The Jews had it in the thunders of prophecy, and the early Christians in the gift of the cloven tongues. But every Christian teacher who has power to speak to his brother may receive Divine impulses which should give him words of helpfulness and healing. The great art is then to utter the word in seasonthe right word, to the right person, in the right spirit, at the right moment.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
Eze 24:1-14
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 thisthat 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.
Eze 24:13
Ineffectual discipline.
Men who are providentially entrusted with the care and training of the young, or with the probation of undisciplined members of society, often have reason to complain that their endeavors seem to be utter failures, that there is no response to the appeal which by language and by action they are constantly addressing to those who are placed beneath their charge. It is very instructive to all such to observe what was the result of Jehovah’s dealing with Judah and Jerusalem. It is not to be disputed that the results in question were perfectly known to the Omniscient before they came to pass. Yet it seemed good to him, in dealing with moral agents, to afford them the means of repentance, and to furnish them with inducements to repentance. Lamentable is the record of what without irreverence we may term the Divine experience: “I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged.”
I. DIVINE DISCIPLINE. There is presumed the need for such discipline. It is because the metal is mixed with dross that it is cast into the furnace. It is because the patient is sick that medicine is administered. It is because the wheat and the chaff are intermingled that the winnowing-fan is employed. And it is because the heart and life of the individual or the nation are contaminated with evil that the chastening hand of God intervenes to purge away the mischiefthe dross, the chaff. The means employed is usually affliction in some one or more of the many forms it assumes. One heart is reached in one way, another by a way altogether different; one nation is humbled by pestilence or famine, another by defeat in war and privation of territory.
II. THE MOTIVE AND PURPOSE OF DIVINE DISCIPLINE. To the careless observer it may seem as if such experiences as those described were evidences of malevolence in the Governor of the world. But in fact it is otherwise. “Whom he loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth.” The son does not always understand his father’s treatment of him, and does not always accept that treatment with submission and gratitude; neither does he always profit by it as he might do. Yet the treatment may be wise and well adapted for purposes alike of probation and of education; and the time may come when, looking back with enlarged experience and maturer judgment, he may approve his father’s action. So is it with God’s dealing with his great family. The Father of the spirits of all flesh has at heart the welfare of his offspring, his household. He knows that uninterrupted prosperity would not be beneficial, that many lessons could never be acquired amid circumstances of ease and enjoyment, that character could not by such experience be formed to ripeness and moral strength. It is through trials and afflictions that true men are fashioned. And the same is the case with nations. Israel had to wander and to fight in the wilderness. England has only reached her present position by means of many generations of conflict and many epochs of adversity. God has “purged” his people, not because he is indifferent to their sufferings, but because he is solicitous for their welfare, which only through sufferings can be achieved.
III. THE APPARENT FAILURE OF DIVINE DISCIPLINE. There is a pathetic tone in the assertion, “I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged.” The explanation of this failure is to be found in the mysterious fact of human liberty. An eminent philosopher has said that he would be content to be wound up like a clock every morning, if that would ensure his going right throughout the day. Determinism is mechanism; it reduces man to the level of a machine. But this is not the true, the Divine idea of man. God evidently designs to do something better with man than to constrain him. He even gives to man the prerogative of resisting the high motives which he in wisdom and mercy brings to bear upon him. And when he perceives that the purposes of discipline are not fulfilled, he laments, “I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged.” Yet it is not for us to say that even in such cases there has been real failure. Ends may be answered of which we cannot judge; good may be done which we cannot see; preparation may be making for advanced stages which we are now incapable of comprehending. Doubtless in many cases the “purging” which is ineffectual here and now will be brought about hereafter, and perhaps above. It is open to us to believe, with the poet-
“That nothing walks with aimless feet,
That not one life shall be destroyed
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God has made his work complete.”
T.
Eze 24:15-27
Speechless and tearless sorrow.
If the event here described really happened, and if the death of the prophet’s wife was a fact and not a mere vision or parable, at all events there is no reason to suppose that this death took place from other than natural causes. Foreseeing what would happen, the God of men and of nations used the affliction of his servant and turned it to account, making it the occasion and the means of spiritual instruction and impression for the benefit of the Hebrew community. The decease of Ezekiel’s wife symbolized the fate of the guilty Jerusalem. It was
I. SUDDEN AND UNEXPECTED. The Lord took away from the prophet the desire of his eyes “with a stroke.” How touching is the prophet’s record!”At even my wife died.” It is the simplicity of truth, the simplicity of submission, which speaks in this language. The terms Ezekiel employs show how great was his love and attachment to his wife; all the more was this sudden bereavement a shock of distress and anguish to him. Similarly swift was the stroke of retribution and ruin which came upon the Jewish metropolis. Notwithstanding repeated warnings and threatenings, the Israelites would not believe that their beloved Jerusalem, “the joy of the whole earth,” could fall before the mighty conqueror from the east. But their confidence was misplaced, and their pride was destined to humiliation. The death stroke came, and it came with the sharpness and suddenness which corresponded with the prophet’s bereavement.
II. SEVERE. No affliction which could befall Ezekiel could be so distressing and so crushing as the loss of his beloved wife. In this it was emblematical of the blow which was about to descend upon Jerusalem. “Behold,” said the Lord, “I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pitieth.” Patriotism, historical associations, religious pride, and other elements of feeling conspired to render their metropolis dear to the sons of Abraham; and its destruction and the dispersion of its citizens could not be contemplated by them without the liveliest emotions of anguish and anxiety. No heavier blow could fall up. on them than this. Distress, as of the bereaved and desolate, must needs take possession of every true Hebrew heart, when predictions of Divine wrath were fulfilled, when the heathen entered and possessed the sanctuary of Jehovah.
III. INEVITABLE AND IRREPARABLE. Life is in the hands of the Lord and Giver of life. When he recalls his gift, his creatures can do nothing but submit. So Ezekiel himself acknowledged and felt; it was God who deprived him of the desire of his eyes. The dead return not to their place, which knows them no more. This fact gives keenness to the sorrow, whilst it aids submission. Ezekiel’s fellow-countrymen were to learn that it was the Divine purpose to inflict upon Jerusalem the last indignity. No human power could avert, and no human power could repair, this evil, any more than such power could save or restore the life which the Creator resumed. A new career might indeed open up before the people of Israel, but the old career was closed peremptorily and irrecoverably.
IV. CRUSHING EVEN TO SILENCE. Ezekiel was bidden, when his bereavement came upon him, to refrain from weeping and mourning, and from all the outward signs of grief. Distressing and difficult as the command certainly was, it was obeyed. And the prophet’s obedience to it was significant. When the day of Judah’s trouble came, it came in such a manner and with such circumstances accompanying it that the survivors and spectators of the national calamity were rendered speechless through grief. Their experience reminds us of the memorable language of the psalmist, “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it.” There is a time to be silent. When the hand of God is heavy upon those who have resisted his laws and rebelled against his authority, they have nothing wherewith to answer their righteous Lord whom they have offended. It is for them to refrain from complaint, which in such a case would be merely blasphemy; it is for them to bow beneath the rod; it is for them, in silence and in speechless bitterness of heart, to repent of all their sins. It is the Lord: “Behold, here am I; let him do to me as seemeth good unto him.”T.
Eze 24:24
Ezekiel a sign.
This prophet was commissioned to utter many words and to perform many actions which were of the nature of signs to Israel. But in this verse, by God’s own instruction, Ezekiel is directed, not to show, but to be, a sign to the people. In his own person, in his own remarkable experience, he typified great truths.
I. IN THE AFFLICTION WHICH BEFELL HIM.
II. IN THE ANGUISH WHICH HE EXPERIENCED.
III. IN HIS SILENT SUBMISSION TO DIVINE APPOINTMENTS.
IV. IN HIS UNCOMPLAINING OBEDIENCE TO DIVINE BEHESTS.
V. IN HIS DESIRE AND RESOLUTION, BY ALL HIS EXPERIENCE AND ACTION, TO GLORIFY GOD.
APPLICATION. There are occasions when a good man can do little in the way of directly benefiting or influencing the ungodly by whom he may be surrounded. But even in such circumstances he may be a witness to God, and he may render service to his fellow-men, by his own life, and especially by his demeanor in times of affliction and trial.T.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES
Eze 24:1-14
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 God‘s 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’ (Verse 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 inhabitantsthe 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.
Eze 24:15-27
Graduated lessons.
Most important truths can only be learnt by a series of comparisons. We best know the magnitude of the sun by comparison with the moon and stars. We prize the fragrance of the rose by comparison with the perfume of other flowers. We learn the dignity and strength that belong to a man by passing through the stages of childhood and youth. God teaches us and trains us, not only through the understanding, but also through the feelings, affections, griefs, inward experiences. Every event that occurs is a lesson for the immortal life.
I. GRIEF FOR THE LOSS OF A WIFE IS NATURAL. A wife occupies a more central place in a man’s heart than any other among humankind. God himself has ordained that this mutual affection shall transcend all other. It is a relationship born of mutual choice. In proportion to this depth and intensity of affection is the sense of loss when death occurs. To suffer anguish of heart at such a time accords with the laws and instincts of nature. It is a loss not to be measured by words, and in proportion to the sense of loss is the abundance of the grief.
II. MAN‘S CAPACITY FOR FEELING GRIEF IS LIMITED. Every capacity of the soul of man has, on earth, limitation. Whether this will continue when released from the trammels of the flesh is not known. In all likelihood, capacity of mind and feeling will be enlarged, but will still be limited. If grief be indulged for minor losses, the soul will have no power of grief remaining for heavier demands. Therefore effort of will should be employed to restrain, and not to excite, our grief. Those who weep over imaginary sorrows portrayed in novels often become callous in the presence of real distress. The fountain of grief is exhausted.
III. REAL GRIEF SHOULD BE RESERVED FOR OUR HEAVIEST CALAMITIES. Because, if we allow the severest disasters to occur without an adequate sense of sorrow, we do our moral nature an injury; we do injury to others. We convey to men a wrong impression. We emphasize the less important matters. The result is that our nature gets out of harmony with God’s naturea disaster the heaviest of all. Then God’s lessons are lost upon us. We become incapable of receiving good. We are “past feeling.” To lose feeling is to lose enjoymentis to endure diminished life.
IV. SIN SO OUTWEIGHS ALL OTHER CALAMITIES THAT OUR CHIEF SORROW SHOULD RE RESERVED FOR SIN. God forbade Ezekiel to weep for the loss of his wife. He forbade the Hebrews to exhibit signs of mourning for the fall and ruin of their temple. “But,” he added” but ye shall pine away for your iniquities, and mourn one toward another.” All other disaster is external to a man. This disaster, sin, is internal and injures the very texture and fabric of his soul. This is without question “sorrow’s crown of sorrow.” A man belonging to the criminal class obtained an interview with a Christian gentleman. Replying to questions, the man told his sad historyhis gradual lapse into crime, his ultimate detection, Said he, “I have been twice in gaol; I have endured all kinds of misery; but I confess that my worst punishment is in being what I am now.” This is the cardinal truth set forth by Ezekielthat sin is the sum of all disasters, the quintessence of hell. Hatred of God is man’s curse.
V. A GOOD MAN IS A SIGN TO THE UNGODLY, OF UNSEEN REALITIES. “Thus Ezekiel is unto you a sign.” A sign is an index of unseen things. Smoke is the sign of fire. A sword is the sign of hostility. An English ensign is an index of the queen’s authority. A good man’s life is a” sign” or proof that there is a God, and that God is the Friend of man. The purity and piety of a good man is an index of the transforming grace of God. The peace in a good man’s heart is an index of the peace of Godthe peace of heaven. The obedience of a good man is an index of God’s gracious authority. The resignation of a good man under trouble is a sign of the superiority of heavenly good to earthly. Every good man is a sign and witness for God.D.
HOMILIES BY W. JONES
Eze 24:1-14
The parable of the cauldron; or, the judgment upon Jerusalem.
“Again 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 (Eze 24:11). The bones, in Eze 24:4, in contradistinction to the pieces of flesh, are those who lend support to the body of the statethe authorities, with the king at their head” (Hengstenberg). The precise meaning of one clause is controverted. “Burn also the bones under it” (Eze 24:5) 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. (Verses 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. “The 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. (Verses 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 Jerusalemthe king, the princes, the nobleswould suffer in this judgment. There is another expression which points to the same conclusion: “No lot is fallen upon it” (Verse 6). In former visitations some had been taken captive and others left. So it was when Jehoiakim and when Jehoiachin were taken away (2Ki 24:1-20.; 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 (Verses 6, 12); so the cauldron shall be put empty upon the fire, that the rust may be burnt away (Verse 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.” 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 Eze 7:3, Eze 7:4; Eze 9:10; Eze 16:43.)W.J.
Eze 24:15, Eze 24:16
A sudden and sorrowful bereavement.
“Also the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes,” etc. The death of the prophet’s wife is introduced here as a type of the calamities which were impending over Jerusalem and its inhabitants. We believe that her death was a fact, and not merely “a vividly drawn figure” designed to set forth the more impressively the overwhelming troubles which were coming upon the Jews. We may notice, in passing, that the fact that Ezekiel had a wife suggests the unscripturalness of the papal dogma of the celibacy of the clergy. Moses was most eminent as a prophet, and he was married (Exo 2:21, Exo 2:22). So also was his brother Aaron, the high priest. Samuel the seer and judge was married (1Sa 8:1, 1Sa 8:2); and St. Peter (Mat 8:14). St. Paul claimed for himself the “right to lead about a wife that is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas” (1Co 9:5). And he writes of the prohibition of marriage as a “doctrine of demons” (1Ti 4:1-3). Regarding the death of the wife of the prophet as a real actual occurrence, we propose to consider it at present apart from its typical significance. We notice
I. THE REMOVAL OF A BELOVED RELATIVE BY DEATH. “Son of man, behold, I take away the desire of thine eyes.” This undoubtedly refers to the wife of Ezekiel; and this mode of speaking of her indicates the high esteem and tender affection in which she was held by her husband. “A good wife,” says Jeremy Taylor, “is Heaven’s last best gift to manhis angel and minister of graces innumerablehis gem of many virtueshis casket of jewels. Her voice is sweet music; her smile, his brightest day; her kiss, the guardian of his innocence; her arms, the pale of his safety, the balm of his health, the balsam of his life; her industry, his surest wealth; her economy, his safest steward; her lips, his faithful counselors; her bosom, the softest pillow of his cares; and her prayers, the ablest advocates of Heaven’s blessing on his head.” The sacred Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, represent the love which the husband should bear towards his wife as being of the closest, tenderest, holiest kind (Eph 5:25-33). When a man has a good wife, who is to him the desire of his eyes, and she is taken from him by death, great is his loss and sore his sorrow. “The death of a man’s wife,” says Lamartine, “is like cutting down an ancient oak that has long shaded the family mansion. Henceforth the glare of the world, with its cares and vicissitudes, fails upon the old widower’s heart, and there is nothing to break their force or shield him from the full weight of misfortune. It is as if his right hand were withered; as if one wing of his angel was broken, and every movement that he made brought him to the ground. His eyes are dimmed and glassy, and when the film of death falls over him, he misses those accustomed tones which have smoothed his passage to the grave.” How frequently are beloved relatives removed by death! At one time it is the true wife and tender mother. At another, it is the faithful husband and the wise and loving father. Again, it is the beloved and beautiful child.
II. THE REMOVAL OF A BELOVED RELATIVE BY DEATH SUDDENLY, “I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke.” The wife of Ezekiel did not suffer long from any illness, she had no antecedent affliction which tended to prepare him for her removal, but was snatched away as it were in a moment. It is not infrequently the case that our beloved are taken from us without any warning or without any anticipation of their removal. By virulent disease, by public calamity, by private accident, men are taken away with a stroke. This renders the suffering of the survivors more severe. If the life had slowly faded away, they would in a moment have been prepared for its departure. When there is a protracted affliction, the hearts of those who are soon to be bereaved nerve themselves for the last separating stroke when it shall come. The idea of the parting to some extent familiarizes itself to the mind. But in cases of sudden death there is no such preparation for the trial. And the stroke sometimes stuns the bereaved by its unlooked-for force, sometimes overwhelms their hearts with sorrow, and sometimes drives them into half-madness.
III. THE REMOVAL OF A BELOVED RELATIVE BY DEATH SUDDENLY BY GOD. “The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke.” The agent in the removal of the prophet’s wife is here said to be neither disease, nor accident, nor chance, nor fate, but the Lord himself. This is the general teaching of the Bible as to man’s decease (cf. Job 1:21; Job 14:5, Job 14:20; Psa 31:15; Psa 68:20; Psa 90:3, Psa 90:5; Psa 104:29; Rev 1:18). In the fact which we are considering there is:
1. Deep mystery. Why does God take away our beloved ones with a stroke? Why does he not grant us at least some intimation and preparation for the coming trial? We cannot tell. But he says unto us, “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt understand hereafter.”
2. Divine instruction. The fact should teach us important lessons; e.g.:
(1) Not to place too much reliance on creatures, however wise and good and beloved (cf. Psa 146:3, Psa 146:4; Isa 2:22; 1Co 7:29).
(2) To live in a state of preparedness for death. He who lives a truly Christian life will not be found unprepared whenever death shall come to him (cf. Php 1:21).
(3) To acknowledge God as the Sovereign of our life. This is manifestly our duty and our interest.
3. Rich comfort. God is all-wise, perfectly righteous, infinitely kind, and graciously interested in us. Therefore his arrangements concerning us, and his actions in relation to us, must be for our good. It is consoling and even inspiring to know that our times are in his hand.
IV. THE REMOVAL BY GOD OF A BELOVED RELATIVE, WHO WAS NOT TO BE MOURNED BY THE BEREAVED SURVIVOR. “Yet neither shalt thou mourn or weep, neither shall thy tears run down.” God does not prohibit to his servant the feeling of sorrow, but only its outward expression. All the visible signs of mourning in use amongst his countrymen he must abstain from (Verse 17). He may not weep, and even the relief of silent tears is forbidden him. It has been well said by Albert Smith that tears are “the safety-valves of the heart, when too much pressure is laid on.” And Leigh Hunt writes, “Tears enable sorrow to vent itself patiently. Tears hinder sorrow from becoming despair and madness.” But in this painful bereavement Ezekiel must neither weep nor shed tears, in order that he may be a more impressive sign unto his fellow-exiles. Exceedingly severe were his trials. But for us in our sorrow there is no such prohibition. Christianity does not forbid tears. “Jesus wept.” In the days of his flesh he “offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death.” And the solace of tears is allowed unto us. We may relieve the over-laden heart by sighs, and cool the burning brain by our flowing tears. And in the sorrows of bereavement we have richer, diviner consolations than these. We know that to those who are in Christ death is unspeakable gain; that the separations which it causes are more in appearance than in reality; and that in the great hereafter there will be blessed reunions with those who have passed beyond the veil.W.J.
Eze 24:20-23
An awful catastrophe and a prohibition of mourning.
“The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Speak unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God,” etc. The death of Ezekiel’s wife, and his abstinence from mourning by reason thereof, were symbolical, and their signification is brought before us in our text. Two scenes are presented for our contemplation.
I. A PEOPLE DEPRIVED OF THEIR MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSIONS.
1. The possessions of which they were to be deprived.
(1) The temple itself. “Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pitieth” The last clause is literally, “the pity of your soul;” that which “your soul would sparepledging life itself for it.” See also in what exalted terms the temple is spoken of in Verse 25: “I take from them their strength,” or stronghold, “the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their heart.” The wife of Ezekiel, who was the desire of his eyes, symbolized the temple. In some respects the Jews made too much of their temple. They gloried in its outward beauty and splendor, even while they dishonored God by their idolatries; they trusted in it as their stronghold, instead of making him their Refuge and Strength; they set their heart upon it, when they should have loved him with all their heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. And they were now about to lose that temple. Heathen intruders would first desecrate it and then destroy it (cf. Psa 79:1; Psa 74:3-8).
(2) The temple as a symbol. “The temple,” says Schroder, “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 8:4).” And Hengstenberg remarks that in the profanation of the sanctuary “is included the dissolving of the whole covenant relation, the removal of everything sublime and glorious, that had flown from that covenant relation, of all that was valuable and dear to the people. The general conception is demanded by the fundamental passage, Le Eze 26:19, where by the pride of power is meant all the glory of Israel. Then also by Verse 25, where in place of the sanctuary here all that is glorious appears.”
(3) Their sons and daughters. “Your sons and your daughters whom ye have left behind shall fall by the sword.” Hitzig suggests that, “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; and these would be slain by the sword. But it seems to us better to interpret, with Hengstenberg, “The sons and the daughters are not those of individuals, but of the people as a whole. The house of Israel, not the exiles in particular, are addressed. In point of fact, it is as much as to say, ‘ your countrymen.'” They were soon to be stripped of their temple and its ordinances, their independence and liberty, their homes and country, and many of their fellow-countrymen would perish by famine, pestilence, and sword.
2. The Person by whom they were to be thus deprived. “Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will profane my sanctuary,” etc. (Eze 26:21); “I take from them their strength,” etc. (Verse 25). In this destruction and slaughter the Chaldeans were as instruments and weapons in the hand of God, who was himself the great Agent.
3. The reason why they were to be thus deprived. All this loss and misery was coming upon them because of their sins. They had forsaken God, and he was about to leave them without his defense. They had profaned his temple by their idolatries, and he was about to allow the idolatrous Chaldeans to enter into it and destroy it. Their calamities were caused by their crimes. Their sufferings were the righteous retribution of their sins.
II. A PEOPLE THAT SHOULD NOT MOURN THE LOSS OF EVEN THEIR MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSIONS. “And ye shall do as I have done: ye shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men. And your tires shall be upon your heads,” etc. The outward demonstrations of mourning are thus forbidden to the Jews in their distress. The covering of the face from the upper lip downwards was a sign of mourning (cf. Le 13:45; Mic 3:7). In great grief the mourners partook of food which their neigh-hours prepared and sent to them (cf. Jer 16:7, Revised Version). This is here called “the bread of men.” In many cases of mourning the headdress was taken off, and dust or ashes sprinkled upon the head (cf. Le Eze 10:6; Job 2:12; Isa 61:3; Lam 2:10). But David and his companions in a season of deep distress went weeping with their heads covered (2Sa 15:30). It was also customary for mourners to go barefoot, as David did on the occasion just referred to. All these visible symbols of grief were to be absent from the house of Israel during the great distresses that were coming upon them. Yet our text speaks of their great sorrow. “Ye shall pine away in your iniquities, and moan one toward another.” We suggest, by way of explanation:
1. Their calamities would so overwhelm them as to leave them no power to think of the ceremonial of mourning. Their losses and miseries would stun them with amazement and anguish of soul. “As in the prophet’s case,” says Schroder, “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” (and we must not limit this to them to the exclusion of their fellow-countrymen) “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 generalsuch shall be their knowledge of the Lord.”
2. Their consciousness of the sin which caused their calamities should check the outward exhibitions of sorrow because of them. This is well set forth by Fairbairn: “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 bloodstained guilt of their iniquities, which had brought on the catastrophe? The overwhelming sense 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 (cf. Eze 7:16). Yet 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 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. 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.”
CONCLUSION. Mark well the dread consequences of persistence in sin.W.J.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
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.
Eze 24:4. Sept.: … Vulg.: electa et ossibus plena
Eze 24:5. compone strues ossium
Eze 24:10. Some codices read: , adunentur.
Eze 24:12. Vulg.: Multo labore sudalum est neque per ignem.
Eze 24:13. . Immunditia tua execrabilis, quia et non Sed nec mundaberis prius
Eze 24:14. , . , , . . All the ancient versions read: .
Eze 24:16. .
Eze 24:17. ,
Eze 24:18. . , .
Eze 24:19. , Sept.: . For , is read.
Eze 24:22.
Eze 24:23. . .
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 bookthe prophecy of judgmentclose 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), andas this whole third division, like the second, is also governed by the number threeafter 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 Ezekiels being required to write down not only its name, but the day itself (, 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. is: to lie hard upon (Psa 88:7), as 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 (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. Dont 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 (to sweep together, comp. therewith Eze 22:19) to those who fled before the Chaldeans from the country into the city, and in (to cut in pieces ) to the sword which hung threateningly over all. The 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, , 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. is properly a noun, a pile; literally: And also let there be a pile of the bones underneath. The expression cannot signify, with Hv., a pile of wood for the bones; for is simply a pile, not a pile of wood, and when coupled with bones can only mean a heap of these.W. F.] , the boiling, found here only, and that in a plural form, strengthens the idea of the verb in this interest. =to be cooked.
Eze 24:6 introduces with 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 viewtherefore 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, , 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 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 and . 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. (), 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 (Hv.). 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 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, alternates with (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 , from , comp. Eze 22:15. 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. 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. , crime, deliberate wickedness, is a term employed to denote a criminal act, perpetrated on set purpose. Root, , 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. Henceforththat is the immediate future of Israelthe 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., 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.Fairbairns Ezekiel, pp. 261, 262.W. F.]
Eze 24:15-27. The Virtual Sign (the Silence of Ezekiel)
Eze 24:16. , what the eyes desire, 1Ki 20:6, what they rest on with affection., from , 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.
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 ( is placed expressively at the beginning of the clause) is described in detail. 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 bareheadedcomp. 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 3:7the beard, as mans 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 prophets 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. either stands for , 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 24:21namely, 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 establishedcomp. Eze 24:16by the expression: , 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 and ; 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 Ezekiels 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). 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. [Hv. 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 prophets case, the misfortune of his wifes 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. is referred by many to Eze 24:26. The introduction of Ezekiels 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 explodedwhen 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 prophets 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 himselfthough 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 prophets parabolical example, or by the reality of Gods afflicting dispensations.Fairbairns Ezekiel, pp. 266268.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 prophets 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 Ezekiels 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 prophets 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 Ezekiels dull pain (Eze 24:17) prefigured not merely the feeling and behaviour of the exiles, but also Gods 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 Hv., 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 Gods word, and a regard to Gods 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 Gods 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 Lords 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 Gods displeasure are slighted, others of a more severe and alarming kind may assuredly be looked for. But as mens 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 Gods displeasure, and so improve these as to render unnecessary the heavier visitations of wrath.Fairbairns Ezekiel, pp. 262, 263.W. F.]
4. Hengst., in denying the reality of the death of Ezekiels 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 prophets 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 Hvernick 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 sidesa 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 names 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 Ezekiels wife by a stroke, her death was used as a symbol of a great public calamity, whose character was further symbolized, by the prophets 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 prophets 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 thisthat he shall enjoy, on account of his affliction, the opportunity of preaching by new symbols of unusual impressivenessof 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 Gods 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 Gods 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 Gods 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 Gods chastisements.
Eze 24:6 sq. Mans sentence and Gods 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 ( Lap.).
Eze 24:8. Gods 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 ( Lap.).OEzekiel 24:12. Gods 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,Jobs words, Ezekiels experience. God wills that we should give up, at His command, all that is dear to us in this world (Tb. 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 (Tb. 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! (Tb. 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 Gods judgment began to speak (Hengst.).
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
By the figure of a pot, the Prophet is commanded to set forth the ruin of Jerusalem. And the Prophet is again made a type to the people, in respect to the not mourning for the death of his wife, to show, that Jerusalem’s chastisements merit no sorrow.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The Prophet is commanded to be very particular as to the precise day and time of this wonderful transaction. The ninth year of the captivity, in the tenth month called Tebeth; and even the day of the month. And this was no doubt with a view to testify the judgment of God, in the siege of Jerusalem. For that Ezekiel who was now in Babylon, should be able to tell the people there, as he did, what was at that very day going on in Babylon, could proceed from no other than the Lord himself.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Eze 24:15-16
The enunciation of laws or principles seems more especially to belong to Ezekiel, as the experience of personal evil and the sympathy with national sorrow belong more to the tender and womanly nature of Jeremiah. Nevertheless, Ezekiel was to be a priest in this sense also, as well as in that higher sense of beholding the glory of God and proclaiming His name. Suffering was not the destination of one prophet; it was the badge of all the tribe.
F. D. Maurice.
To love, is to know the sacrifices which eternity exacts from life.
John Oliver Hobbes, The School for Saints, chap. xxv.
Eze 24:18
Mr. R. H. Hutton quotes this passage (vv. 15-27) in his essay on the poetry of the Old Testament, to show how ‘this sublime characteristic of the Hebrew prophets, that they seem almost to forget their human centre of life in their effort to delineate Divine truth, is strikingly illustrated in the frequent surrender of their private lives and affections, for the purpose of sculpturing, in a living symbol, upon the mind of the nation, the lesson that no mere words could have taught. How far can any human being now, even distantly, comprehend the state of mind in which Ezekiel must have lived when he acted thus under the Divine inspiration?
References. XXIV. 18. J. H. Jowett, Meditations for Quiet Moments, p. 106. XXIV. 19. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxviii. No. 2286.
Eze 24:23
‘Sin will cease,’ said Herbert Spencer,’ when men shall have discovered that sin is essentially fatal to happiness.’
The Significance of Ezekiel
Eze 24:24
Is not every man a sign? Each man is significant of much. Each man points to something beyond himself, something either beautiful or base. Every man is a living sermon. It would evangelize our lives did we realize this. How circumspectly would we walk were this always in our recollection!
All great and good men are signs. The Bible declares that the Lord Christ was and is a sign. And of Ezekiel Jehovah attests, ‘Thus shall Ezekiel be unto you a sign’ (R. V.).
I believe the idea to be that Ezekiel is a sign in a very special degree. Bishop Wordsworth translates my text: ‘Ezekiel is unto you a wonderful portent’. No common sign, but a portent flaming with supernatural significance. This is a strong claim to be instituted for Ezekiel. Can it be substantiated?
I. Ezekiel is a sign of the brave bearing of the ills of life.
II. Ezekiel is a sign of individuality.
III. Ezekiel is a sign of fidelity in proclaiming a message.
IV. Ezekiel is a sign of self-renouncing obedience.
V. Ezekiel is a sign of intensity.
Dinsdale T. Young, The Gospel of the Left Hand, p. 167.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
XVI
PROPHECIES ON THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM (CONTINUED)
Ezekiel 15-24
We may ask ourselves at the outset, What purpose did Jeremiah serve in preaching forty years the downfall of the city, warning the people of their sins, though he knew that downfall was absolutely certain, yet all the time seeking to save the city? Why should God require a man to give forty years of his life to guard the people against the inevitable? Why should he require of a man like Ezekiel so many years of preaching to those already in exile concerning the fall of the city of Jerusalem? Why should he exert himself in the manner in which he did, to warn those in Babylon of the fall of Jerusalem?
Jeremiah’s preaching had this effect: It prepared the people in a measure for the downfall of their Temple and their capital and thus helped them to keep faith in God. Whereas, the fall of their capital and city without such a warning would have inevitably shattered their faith in God. Jeremiah’s prophecies of the restoration and the glorious future also helped the earnest heart to prepare for that future and for that restoration. Ezekiel’s preaching to the exiles in Babylon also prepared them for the fall of Jerusalem and also preserved their faith in God. It furnished them with truth to keep alive their faith during the period when their Temple was gone; it also served as a stay during the period of the exile and prepared them for the return. Though it seems that Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s long ministries were temporarily fruitless, yet they were the means of preparing the people for a possible future and their work abides.
Why did Ezekiel use all these symbols, figures and metaphors to those people who were already in exile in Babylon? It was to prepare their faith, so that when the shock came they might withstand it and be ready to return when God called them. As a result of Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s preaching, nearly 50,000 people were prepared to return as soon as the decree of Cyrus was sent forth. One may see no immediate result of his preaching, yet when he is preaching what God wants him to preach, the fruits may be all the greater because they are delayed.
In Eze 15 we have the parable of the vine tree and its interpretation. This is a parable in which Israel is likened to a vine tree among the trees of the forest. The vine tree is a very lowly tree. It is of comparatively little use. The wood thereof is not taken for fire, nor do people make pins or pegs from it. It is simply cast forth to be burned as rubbish. It is not profitable for anything. Then what does he mean? The Kingdom of Judah was among the great kingdoms of the world as the lowly vine tree was among the trees of the forest. It was of little use; it would not do for wood to burn; it would not do to make furniture or anything useful. It was simply cast off. All this we readily see would have its effect upon the people. It is a blow at their national pride. It goes to show that a mere vine of the forest that is cast away and burned as rubbish may be destroyed, while the lordly trees of the forest are still preserved. Judah is a lowly, contemptible kingdom beside the other kingdoms, and it is no great thing if she does perish. Notice, he makes no mention of the fruit of the vine. There was no fruit to this vine. In the case of the grape the vine is useless when there is no fruit; the vine is utterly valueless and fit only to be cast off. Thus he prophesied that Jerusalem should be burned with fire and its inhabitants destroyed.
In Eze 16 we have an allegory of the foundling child and its interpretation. This whole chapter is an allegory. Judah is described as a wretched outcast infant on the very day of its birth, thrown out into the field, a thing all too frequently done among Semitic and other Oriental peoples. There the infant lay, ready to perish. Jehovah comes along and sees the child thus in its neglected, wretched, forsaken condition; takes pity upon it; cares for it in the best way possible; rears it up until the child, a female child, becomes a young woman. She becomes of marriageable age, and then she is espoused to her husband, Jehovah. He adorns her with all the beauties with which a bride can possibly be adorned, and crowns her with a beautiful crown, and as Eze 16:14 says, “Thy renown went forth among the nations for thy beauty; for it was perfect, through my majesty which I had put upon thee.” All went well for a time, but the foundling child which had the disposition of the Amorite and of the Hittite, very soon became the faithless bride and then rapidly degenerated into a shameless and abandoned prostitute. She prostituted herself with Egypt, with Assyria, and with Babylonia and their gods; then went into the very extreme of wickedness and sank to the very lowest depths of shame.
As a result of this absolute abandonment to wickedness, this prostitution of herself to idol worship, the nation is doomed to destruction at the hands of the very people after whom she had gone, and whose gods she had sought and worshiped. They were to gather around her from every side and were to destroy and lay waste the very bride of Jehovah. This passage is doubtless the analogue of that famous passage in Rev 17 , where the apostate church is compared to the harlot sitting upon the beast. He goes on and compares Jerusalem with Samaria and with Sodom. Notice verse Eze 16:46 : “Thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters, that dwelleth at thy left hand; and thy younger sister that dwelleth at thy right hand is Sodom and her daughters.”
In Eze 16:48 he says that Jerusalem is worse and more shameless than even Sodom: “As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.” In Eze 16:49 he gives the sin of Sodom: “Pride, fulness of bread, and prosperous ease,” the besetting sins of the society women of every city of the land. Eze 16:51 says, “Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations,” and Eze 16:53 says, “I will turn again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them.”
What does he mean by saying that Sodom shall return from her captivity? No Sodomite was preserved; everyone perished. I think it means that in a future age all the land shall be reclaimed and even the place of Sodom shall be repeopled and, when restored and repeopled, will be like unto the inhabitants of Samaria and Jerusalem; that they will be loyal and true with new hearts and right spirits. It cannot be taken literally, for it is impossible that a Sodomite could return from captivity. It is necessary to read carefully all this allegory at one sitting to get its effect, to see and feel its force. It is powerful. Israel was not the descendant of an Amorite nor a Hittite. She had the blood of Chaldea and of Aram, but what he means is that there was in Israel from the very first the seeds of idolatry that existed in those Amorites among whom she lived. Thus Ezekiel prophesies the return of Samaria, the return and restoration of Jerusalem as well as Sodom, the last no doubt in a figurative sense.
We have had symbols, symbolic actions, and parables; now we have a riddle. The riddle is this, Eze 17:3 f: “A great eagle with great wings and long pinions, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the top of the cedar; he cropped off the topmost of the young twigs thereof, and carried it into a land of traffic; he set it in a city of merchants.” And in Eze 17:5 it says, “He took also of the seed of the land, and planted it in a fruitful soil; he placed it beside many waters; he set it as a willow tree.” Verse Eze 17:6 : “And it grew, and became a spreading vine of low stature, whose branches turned toward him, and the roots thereof were under him: so it became a vine, and brought forth branches, and shot forth sprigs.” Then it began to send its roots in another direction as we see from verse Eze 17:7 : “There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers: and, behold, this vine did bend its roots toward him, and shot forth its branches toward him, that he might water it.”
What is the meaning of it? The first great eagle was Nebuchadnezzar who came from Babylon and lopped off the top of the cedar, Jehoiachin, the son of Josiah, and carried him away to Babylon with seven thousand of the best people. He then set Zedekiah upon the throne and made him a feeble, weak vassal, with the hope that Zedekiah would depend upon him, pay him tribute, seek strength and power from Babylon, i.e., send out his roots to Babylon. But instead of that, Zedekiah begins to plot with Pharaoh-Necho of Egypt and instead of sending roots toward Babylon, he sent them toward Egypt. This is the riddle and the explanation. The riddle found in Eze 17:1-10 and the explanation in Eze 17:11-21 .
In Eze 17:22-23 we have the promise of a universal kingdom. He uses the same figure, that of the lofty top of the cedar, the symbol of the lawful descendant, the legitimate heir to the throne of Israel. After the return, God is going to take the lofty top of the cedar and crop off a twig from the topmost limb and plant it in the top of a high mountain in Israel. The latter part of Eze 17:23 says, “And under it shall dwell all birds of every wing; in the shade of the branches thereof shall they dwell.” Here he means that from the royal family of David, a twig, the topmost twig, shall be taken by Almighty God, and shall be set upon a high and lofty throne and his kingdom shall become so large, so wide, so broad, that its dominion will be universal, and all the peoples of the world will come to lodge under its branches and enjoy its protection. This, of course, is the messianic kingdom.
In Eze 18 we have Ezekiel’s discussion on the moral freedom and responsibility of the individual before God. This is the most important theological contribution which Ezekiel made to the thought of his age. In this chapter he meets one of the most perplexing problems that ever troubled men. It was the great religious problem of his age. When Jeremiah prophesied the restoration of the people to their land, he said that the time would come when they would no longer say, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” but each one should bear and suffer for his own sins and sustain an individual, personal relationship to God. Individualism, liberty in religion, was a messianic principle with Jeremiah, but Ezekiel is already living in the new order of things, and he takes up the problem that confronted Jeremiah: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are on edge.”
What does he mean? It was a proverbial saying and there is implied in it a reproach against divine providence; a suggestion that God is unjust in his administration of the laws of the world; that the children are suffering wrongfully for sins they never committed, but which their fathers committed. All that is implied in it, but the real significance of the proverb is this: “The sins of which you accuse us were born in us; we can’t help them; we must sin; our fathers sinned and the evil has been transmitted to us; we can’t help ourselves.”
The proverb rose out of the fact that God dealt with nations as units, and the individual shared the effects of that dealing. That was the case with Israel all down through the ages until this period. But now when the greatest crisis in the history of the nation had come, the nation destroyed, the city burned, the Temple gone, the ceremonial and ritual at an end, the national religious life collapsed, what would be the effect? The only way in which religion could be preserved was for them to realize that each individual soul had an individual and personal relationship to God. This was something new in the history of religion, this idea of individual responsibility to and relationship with God.
Ezekiel meets this great problem and deals with it fairly and squarely. There are two principles brought out in this chapter, which are these:
1. “All souls [individual personalities] are mine, saith the Lord.”
2. “I have no pleasure in the death of any one of these persons. I do not wish any one of them to perish. It grieves me that they do. I have no pleasure in it.”
And then, arising from these two principles are two conclusions:
1. Each soul’s destiny depends upon its relation to God.
2. It is their privilege to repent and turn from sin.
The following is an analysis of the chapter:
1. The individual man is not involved in the sins and fate of his people or his forefathers (Eze 18:1-20 ). He says in Eze 18:5 , “If a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right,” and the latter part of Eze 18:9 , “he is just, he shall surely live.” Verse Eze 18:10 : “And if he beget a son that is a robber, a shedder of blood he [the robber] shall surely die.” Verse Eze 18:13 : “But hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase shall he then live? He shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.” In the latter part of Eze 18:17 , he says, “The righteous man shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live.” In other words, no man shall die because of his father’s sins, but because of his own, and no man shall be responsible for his son’s sins, but for his own. Each individual shall bear his own personal relationship to God and that alone.
2. The individual soul does not lie under the ban of its own past (Eze 18:21-23 ). Ezekiel means to say this: “If any man going on in sin, should turn from his sin and should repent and get right with God, he shall live. He is no slave to his moral environment, no victim of the sins of his ancestors, he is not compelled to go on in sin. He means to say also that if a man going on and doing right should fall into sin and do unrighteousness, then he shall die in his iniquity; he shall suffer its consequences; he shall not have attributed to him anything of his past righteousness; that would be completely nullified. He shall not have an average made of his righteousness and wickedness, but according to the condition of his heart at that time he shall either live or die. Now, that does not abrogate the law of heredity; it does not say that we do not inherit evil tendencies; it does not say that the result of our past lives will not continue with us, but it does say that everything depends upon the man’s personal and individual relationship to his sins and to his God; that the trend of his mind, the bent of his character, is that which fixes his destiny.
In other words, it is the doctrine of moral freedom which implies individual responsibility, with a possibility of repentance, a possibility of sin, a possibility of individual relationship to God, a possibility of life or death. This chapter is worthy of long and careful study.
There is a lamentation in Eze 19 , set forth in two parables. Here Ezekiel represents Jerusalem as a lioness. She brought up one of her cubs, or whelps, and he became a young lion; the nations came, caught him, bound him, and he was carried away to Egypt. That was Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah. When he was gone, the lioness brought up another one of her whelps and he grew up to be a young lion. The nations came against him and he was caught and carried away to Babylon that his voice should be no more heard on the mountains of Judah. That was Jehoiachin. He makes no mention of Jehoiakim for he was only a vassal set upon the throne by Pharaoh, not the chosen heir to the throne. He makes no mention of Zedekiah for he also was a vassal placed upon the throne by Nebuchadnezzar, not by the choice of the people, and he was not one of the lioness’s whelps.
Then, Eze 19:10-14 , he describes the mother as a vine, and shows how the vine is to be plucked up, burned, and destroyed, signifying the end of the reign of Zedekiah with the destruction of his capital.
The prophet reviews the past history of Israel in Eze 20:20 and emphasizes the principle that has saved Israel, viz: Jehovah’s regard for his own name. The elders came to inquire of Ezekiel about the law, or about the fate of the city. Ezekiel said that God would not be inquired of by them. He then goes on to review the history of Israel, and shows them the principle which actuated Jehovah in the saving of that nation. It is this: In Eze 20:9 he says, “I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, among whom they were, in whose sight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.” And in Eze 20:14 he refers to their salvation in the wilderness: “I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations” and in Eze 20:22 , referring to his dealing with them while in the wilderness, he says, “Nevertheless I withdrew my hand, and wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations.” And from Eze 20:30-44 Ezekiel, in prophetic vision, sees that the return from captivity, the restoration from Babylon, the setting up of the glorious messianic kingdom in Jerusalem and Judah, will be done on this very same principle, viz: Jehovah’s regard for his own name.
The following is a summary of the contents of Eze 20:45-21:32 :
1. The fire in the forest of the South (Eze 20:35-49 ). The South refers to Judah and Jerusalem. Ezekiel sees from his situation in Babylon a fire raging in the South and burning the nation. It is a fire that shall not be quenched.
2. The sword of Jehovah shall be on Jerusalem (Eze 21:1-27 ). In substance, it is this: The sword of Jehovah is the sword of Nebuchadnezzar. It is coming against the city. When it is drawn it shall be sheathed no more. From Eze 21:8-17 we have Ezekiel’s “Song of the Sword,” a peculiar dirge picturing the sharpness of the sword and the anguish of the people. From Eze 21:18-27 the prophet represents the king of Babylon as undecided whether he should attack Ammon or Jerusalem first. He stands at the parting of the ways, and uses divination; he shook the arrows to and fro, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the liver. He drew forth the arrow marked, “Jerusalem.” Hence he marches there first.
3. Threatening prophecy against Ammon (Eze 21:28-32 ). This contains very little that is different from the prophecy against Jerusalem and from what shall follow. The prophet repeats in Eze 21:22 , in new form, the same charge he has been making over and over again; the same that Jeremiah had made so repeatedly: the sins of Jerusalem are idolatry, bloodshed, open licentiousness, incest, and almost every other conceivable form of evil. Because of all this her destruction was certain and necessary, and all nations were involved in it.
We have the symbolism of two harlot women in Eze 23 . This is a history of two harlot women, Samaria and Jerusalem, under the names of Aholah and Aholibah. This is largely a repetition of Eze 16 . The chief thoughts are as follows:
1. The infidelities of Samaria with Assyria and Egypt (Eze 23:1-10 ).
2. The infidelities of Jerusalem with Assyria, Babylon and Egypt (Eze 23:11-21 ).
3. Therefore, her fate shall be like that of Samaria (Eze 23:22-35 ).
4. A new description of their immoralities and another that of punishment (Eze 23:36-49 ).
The date of the prophecy in Eze 24 is the very day upon which Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, August 10, 588 B.C. The prophet here performs a symbolic action just as the siege begins. He takes a caldron, a great iron pot. The Lord tells him to pour water into it, to gather pieces of flesh, good pieces, the thigh and shoulder and choice bones; to take from the choicest of the flock, and to pile the wood up under it and to make it boil well. “Let the bones thereof be boiled in the midst of it.” Thus the symbolic action is carried on by Ezekiel.
What does it mean? At the moment Nebuchadnezzar began to surround Jerusalem the prophet performs this action. Jerusalem was the caldron; the inhabitants were the flesh therein, Jehovah was kindling the fire; he was piling up the wood and setting it ablaze, so that the unfortunate city would be seething and boiling and roasting as the flesh in a caldron. It was made so hot that the very rust of the iron was purged out and left it clean. In other words, Jerusalem should be so cleansed by the captivity and destruction of its city, that there would be left only the pure and clean (Eze 24:1-14 ). (See the author’s sermon on this paragraph in The River of Life.)
Another symbolic action occurs on the death of Ezekiel’s wife (Eze 24:15-27 ). The prophet mourns not. There is a very remarkable statement in the Eze 24:16 . God says to Ezekiel, “Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet thou shalt neither mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud, make no mourning for the dead; bind thy headtire upon thee, and put thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover thy lips, and eat not the bread of men.” Then he says, “So I spake unto the people in the morning; at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.” This symbolic action actually happened.
He says in Eze 24:18 , “I spake unto the people in the morn under the overwhelming grief that had fallen upon him so suddenly, he showed no signs of grief, he shed no tears, and heaved not an audible sigh. The people were unable to understand his actions, verse Eze 24:19 : “And the people said unto me, Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so?” He tells them: “And ye shall do as I have done: ye shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.” He means that very soon, as by a single stroke, a swift and inevitable stroke of justice, their fair and beloved city, Jerusalem, shall be destroyed, and they will be so stunned, so bewildered, so dumbfounded, so paralyzed that they will be unable to eat bread or even to sigh. In that stunned and dazed condition they shall bear their almost unbearable burden. It was a striking symbol, very touching, and it must have bad great effect.
QUESTIONS
1. To what end were the ministries of Jeremiah and Ezekiel?
2. What the parable of the vine tree and its interpretation? (Eze 15 .)
3. Give the allegory of the foundling child and its interpretation (Eze 16 ).
4. What the riddle of Eze 17 , what is its explanation, and what is the great promise in the latter part of this chapter?
5. What is Ezekiel’s discussion on the moral freedom and responsibility of the individual before God? (Eze 18 .)
6. What the lamentation in Eze 19 , and bow is it act forth in two parables? Give their interpretation.
7. What the principle upon which Jehovah acted toward Israel discussed in Eze 20 , and what the details of the discussion?
8. Give a summary of the contents of Eze 20:45-21:32 .
9. What the renewed charge against Jerusalem? (Eze 22 )
10. Who the two harlot women of Eze 23 and what the chief thoughts of this chapter?
11. What the meaning and application of the boiling pot and the blood on a rock? (Eze 24:1-14 .)
12. Explain the prophet’s action at the death, of his wife.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
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.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Ezekiel Chapter 24
The new message of Jehovah has great peculiarity in it in this respect that the prophet is directed to note expressly the day, not as usually for a date of the communication but also as the precise beginning of the accomplishment of the prediction, the form of expressing it being as before from Jehoiachin’s captivity. A higher power it must have been to make known that the siege commenced that very day: even the dullest would feel this.
“Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day: the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day. And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Set on a pot, 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, and burn also the bones under it, and make it boil well, and let them seethe the bones of it therein. Wherefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it. For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a 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 on the top of a rock, that it should not be covered.” (Ver. 1-8) Thus the cauldron filled with the pieces of flesh and best bones, all boiled well, partly with the rest of the bones, is the awful figure which Jehovah afterwards explains in allusion to their own fond boast (chap. 11) of security in Jerusalem. For as the flesh never trusts God for eternal life or an absolute remission of sins, so mere religiousness is apt to presume on the indefeasibility of God’s promises without the slightest heed to His will or glory and to the evident dishonour of His name and word. But they deceive their souls, as the Jews did here, on whom should fall indiscriminate judgment. “Let no lot be cast upon it.” None should go unpunished. As the evil of Jerusalem even to blood (so much the greater offence in Israel, as they knew how God maintained the sacredness of life in man, His image, a truth which the Gentiles soon forgot and lost) was deeply ingrained and unblushingly committed, without care to conceal it, so would Jehovah deal in His retribution.
In verses 9-14 we see that Jerusalem should be taken and destroyed after no superficial sort; and this is described in continuance of the former allegory. For now Jehovah lets it be known that not only should the bones be burnt, but the city itself under the emblem of the cauldron set no longer with water but empty on the coals, that its copper might glow, and its filthiness be smelt in its midst, and its scum be consumed. “With frauds it wearied itself; and the greatness of its scum goeth not off from it: into the fire its scum! In thy uncleanness is incest: because I cleansed thee and thou wouldst not be cleansed, thou shalt not be cleansed from thy uncleanness any more till I have caused my fury to rest on thee. I Jehovah have spoken: it cometh to pass, I will do it; I will not go back, nor have pity, nor repent: according to thy ways and according to thy doings shall they judge thee, saith the Lord Jehovah.” Disciplinary measures had long failed, proper government according to His law was despised. Let the haughtiest and most cruel of earthly marauders come and execute the divine decree now fixed.
The prophet is next called to fear himself a stroke from God of the most intimate kind, if by any means the captives at the Chebar could be forced to feel the seriousness of the crisis and of that rebellious denial of the true God which had brought judgment on the Jews. “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 neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down. Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men. So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.” (Ver. 15-18)
Nor did this sudden domestic affliction, with absolutely no token of mourning on Ezekiel’s part, pass unheeded. “And the people said unto me, Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so? Then I answered them, The word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Speak unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the excellency of your strength, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pitieth; and your sons and your daughters whom ye have left shall fall by the sword. And ye shall do as I have done: ye shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men. And your tires shall be upon your heads, and your shoes upon your feet: ye shall not mourn nor weep; but ye shall pine away for your iniquities, and mourn one toward another.” (Ver. 19-23) The fresh oracular act is expounded; and the people are informed that God would teach them of their unexampled trouble which should leave no room for tears or ordinary mourning. So sweeping a destruction was begun, Jehovah Himself profaning the sanctuary by judgment as they had by their transgressions and abominations, that nothing would remain for them but pining away in their iniquities and groaning one to another. What a picture of despair when the sorrow lies too deep for tears, and an overwhelming sense of guilt compels men to abandon hope!
It is not right to speak of the sacred writers introducing their own names into their productions. Do those who so talk really believe that they were inspired in the true and full meaning of the term? If so, it was God who led and authorized them to do so, as the prophet here. “Thus Ezekiel is unto you a sign: according to all that he hath done shall ye do: and when this cometh, ye shall know that I am the Lord Jehovah. Also, thou son of man, shall it not be in that day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters, that he that escapeth in that day shall come unto thee, to cause thee to hear it with thine ears? In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him which is escaped, and thou shalt speak, and be no more dumb: and thou shalt be a sign unto them; and they shall know that I am Jehovah.” (Ver. 24-27)
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Eze 24:1-5
1And the word of the LORD came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, saying, 2Son of man, write the name of the day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day. 3Speak a parable to the rebellious house and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,
Put on the pot, put it on and also pour water in it;
4 Put in it the pieces,
Every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder;
Fill it with choice bones.
5Take the choicest of the flock,
And also pile wood under the pot.
Make it boil vigorously.
Also seethe its bones in it.
Eze 24:1 This is the fourth date (cf. Eze 1:2; Eze 8:1; Eze 20:1) listed in Ezekiel. Surprisingly one would expect another date at chapter 25, which starts the judgment context on the nations. This may mean chapters 24 and 25 are a literary unit.
This dates the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem (cf. 2Ki 25:1; Jer 39:1; Jer 52:4). It was begun on January 15, 588 B.C. It took until 586 B.C. for the city to fall.
In a book of prophecy the question of final revision always comes into play. Did Ezekiel know the exact date of the siege and later fall of Jerusalem? Of course he could; he was a prophet of YHWH. YHWH often used this predictive quality to encourage His people that He was in control of history. However, it is also surely possible, without distracting from the power of YHWH or the foresight of His prophets, to see these dates as literary. These books were, at some point, the collected and arranged prophecies of Ezekiel. Literary design does not diminish prophetic predictions!
Eze 24:2 Son of man See note at Eze 2:1.
write The MT has write (BDB 507, KB 503) as a Qal INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE, but the Masoretic scholars suggested it be read (Qere) as a Qal IMPERATIVE (same kind of problem as in Eze 24:10).
There are many IMPERATIVES in this chapter (cf. Eze 24:2-3[three],4,5[two],6,10[two],11,17[two],21. Most of them occur in the poetic section (i.e., Eze 24:3-13) and are directed to the rebellious house (i.e., Judah).
the name of the day, this very day Judgment on Jerusalem was not a future prediction, but a terrible reality!
has laid siege The VERB (BDB 701, KB 759, Qal PERFECT) is literally lean on, but is used here as an idiom of besiege (Jerusalem’s siege is begun, cf. 2Ki 25:1; Jer 39:1; Jer 52:4).
Eze 24:3-5 This first poetic stanza has several commands from YHWH which set the stage for the parable/proverb.
1. put on the pot, BDB 1046, KB 1636, Qal IMPERATIVE, Eze 24:3
2. put it on, BDB 1046, KB 1636, Qal IMPERATIVE, Eze 24:3
3. pour, BDB 427, KB 428, Qal IMPERATIVE, Eze 24:3
4. put (lit. gather), BDB 62, KB 74, Qal IMPERATIVE, Eze 24:4
5. fill, BDB 569, KB 583, Piel IMPERATIVE, Eze 24:4
6. pile, BDB 189, KB 217, Qal IMPERATIVE, Eze 24:5
7. boil, BDB 958, KB 1299, Piel IMPERATIVE, Eze 24:5
Eze 24:3 speak a parable This (BDB 605, KB 647) is a Qal IMPERATIVE. See note at Eze 12:22-23; Eze 17:2; Eze 18:2-3; Eze 20:49. Ezekiel used several poems to communicate YHWH’s messages.
1. poem of the sharp, bright, swift sword of judgment, Eze 12:8-17
2. poem of the large cup of drunkenness, Eze 23:32-34
3. poem of the corrupted, large, bronze (cf. Eze 24:11) cooking pot, Eze 24:3-13
to the rebellious house This (BDB 598, cf. Eze 2:5-6; Eze 2:8; Eze 3:9; Eze 3:26-27; Eze 12:2[twice],3,9,25; Eze 17:12; Isa 30:9) is a derogatory way of referring to Judah (cf. Eze 2:6; Eze 2:8).
The idiom is repeated with the PARTICIPLE of the VERB (BDB 597, KB 632) in Eze 2:3 (also note the use of the parallel terms (1) BDB 833, KB 981 in Isa 1:2 and (2) BDB 710 in Isa 30:1.
Judah’s stubborn rebellion (cf. Deu 9:5-6; Deu 9:13; Deu 10:16; Deu 31:27) has been continual and purposeful! I think YHWH chose Israel with all her weaknesses to clearly reveal His faithfulness in the stark light of their unfaithfulness! If YHWH can continue to love, forgive, and use Israel, then there is a great hope for all of Adam’s children, based solely on the unchanging, merciful, gracious character of YHWH!
This chapter is based on Jeremiah’s parable about a boiling pot (cf. Jer 1:13-14).
Eze 24:4-5 The very best pieces of the very best of the flock were put in the pot. Who does this refer to?
1. the royal, priestly, and civic leaders who remained in Jerusalem, cf. Jer 39:6; Jer 52:10; Jer 52:24-27
2. Israel herself when YHWH found her in the wilderness, Eze 16:4-14
In this context of the citizens of Jerusalem seeing themselves as the lucky ones, spared ones, better ones than those taken into exile, this phrase may well refer to all of them! However, they will be destroyed and YHWH will choose to work with and restore the early exiles! This was shocking to the arrogant, sinful Judeans still in Jerusalem and Judah.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
the ninth year. Of Jehoiachin’s captivity. See the table, p. 1105. Compare Eze 1:2.
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 24
Now again, chapter 24,
In the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month ( Eze 24:1 ),
Now notice this. He’s in Babylon and on this, in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month,
the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day ( Eze 24:1-2 ):
Write this day down, this date. It’s the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month. Write this date down.
For on this same day: the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem ( Eze 24:2 ).
This is the day that the siege against Jerusalem started. Now he’s over in Babylon and in front of the people he writes down this date. You go back to Second Kings, chapter 25, verse Eze 24:1 , “And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, and in the tenth day of the month that Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came, he and all of his host against Jerusalem and pitched against it. And they built the forts round about.” How did Ezekiel know that? Without telegraph, or telephones, or any means of communicating that truth over that distance. Woke up this morning, wrote this date down. Said to the people, “This is the day the siege is started.” Only by the knowledge of God could he have known these things. Only because God had revealed it to him. He’s really putting himself out on a limb. “This is the day. The siege has started today.” You know, it would take two weeks or so by fast express to get word back and forth in those days from Babylon to Israel. Another proof of the authorship, God, author of the book.
Now utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Set on a pot, and pour water into it: and then gather together the pieces of the animal, every good piece, the thigh, the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones. Take the choice of the flock, and burn also the bones under it, and make it boil well, and let them seethe the bones of it therein. Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it. For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a 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 top of a rock, that it should not be covered. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the bloody city! ( Eze 24:3-9 )
And now here is another sign. He sets on this big ol’ pot and he sets all of this flesh and bones and burns the bones underneath and gets this thing boiling. Everybody comes around saying, “What in the world? You’re going to burn that. What are you doing boiling all that stuff away?” And he said, “This is what’s happening to the inhabitants in Jerusalem. They’re about to be devoured.”
Now, earlier in the sixteenth chapter they were saying, you know, “We are the caldron, or we are in the caldron and the fire is not going to touch us.” But boy, he keeps this fire going until the thing boils and they are devoured, they are consumed. And thus, he speaks to them of the judgment that is coming.
Verse Eze 24:14 :
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 change; according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord GOD ( Eze 24:14 ).
I mean, that’s pretty sure when God says, “Hey, I have spoken it. It shall come to pass. I will do it. I will not go back, neither will I change.” I mean, when God gets that emphatic, you can be sure that it indeed will happen and indeed it did.
Now the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, behold, I’m going to take away the desire of your eyes with a stroke ( Eze 24:15-16 ):
I’m going to take your wife today. Your wife is going to die.
yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, nor cry when she dies. Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, don’t take off your turban ( Eze 24:16-17 ),
Now that’s what they would do when a person died, they remove their turban and they remove their shoes. They go around barefooted and their head bare.
but put on your shoes, and don’t cover your lips ( Eze 24:17 ),
That is, don’t let your beard grow. Now that’s another thing they would do after a person, a relative had died. You’d let your beard grow for thirty days and then you’d shave the beard at the end of thirty days and you’d bring the hair and offer it in a burnt offering to God. But don’t let your beard grow, don’t cover your lips, that is, with your mustache and beard.
and eat not the bread of man ( Eze 24:17 ).
That is the traditional bread of mourning. They would eat this particular kind of bread as a sign of mourning. But he is not to do any sign of the traditional mourning for the dead which the people did when his wife died.
So 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. The people said unto me, Won’t you tell us what these things mean, and why you are doing this? Then I answered them, The word of the LORD came unto me saying, Speak to the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will profane my sanctuary ( Eze 24:18-21 ),
That is, the temple is going to be destroyed.
the excellency of your strength, the desire of your eyes ( Eze 24:21 ),
Of course, every Jew, the temple was the thing that was… it was a thing of beauty. Solomon had built it and it was something of magnificent beauty, the desire of the eyes. But God said, “It’s going to go.”
that which your soul pities; and your sons and your daughters whom ye have left shall fall by the sword. And ye shall do as I have done: ye shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men ( Eze 24:21-22 ).
In other words, you’re gonna get news soon that the temple is destroyed and your children have been killed. But you’re not to enter into traditional mourning for them.
You’re not to remove your turbans or your shoes: you’re not to mourn nor weep; but ye shall pine away for your iniquities, and mourn one toward another ( Eze 24:23 ).
Rather than pining for the dead or mourning for the dead, you’re to mourn for yourself and for your sins.
Thus Ezekiel is unto you a sign: according to all that he hath done shall ye do: and when this comes, ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD. Also, thou son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters, That he that escapeth in the day shall come unto thee, to cause thee to hear it with thine ears? In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him which is escaped, and thou shalt speak, and be no more dumb: and thou shalt be a sign unto them; and they shall know that I am the LORD ( Eze 24:24-27 ).
So he was to be silent, really, until the time that news came confirming what he had said, and then he would speak again. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Eze 24:1-5
GOD’S LAST MESSAGE BEFORE
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM
THE RUSTED CALDRON; AND
THE DEATH OF EZEKIEL’S WIFE
There are three connected themes in this chapter: (1) the parable of the rusty caldron (Eze 24:1-14); the sign of the death of Ezekiel’s wife (Eze 24:15-24); and (3) the prophecy of the end of Ezekiel’s dumbness (Eze 24:25-27).
The date of this chapter is January 15,588 B.C., a date confirmed in 2Ki 25:1, and in Jer 39:1; Jer 52:4. It is also significant that, in the times of Zechariah, this very date had been memorialized among the captives, and for ages celebrated as a solemn fast-day (Zec 8:19).
When Ezekiel wrote these words (yes, they were actually written down on the very day God’s message came, Eze 24:2), he was in Babylon, four hundred miles from Jerusalem; and there was no way that he could have known the exact day of Nebuchadnezzar’s investment of Jerusalem except by the direct revelation of God. “It cannot be supposed that such intelligence could have reached him by any human means. When, therefore, the captives later received news of the beginning of the siege, they had, upon comparing the dates, an infallible proof of the Divine inspiration of Ezekiel.
The radical critics have done their best to get rid of the implications of a passage like this; but as Keil stated it, “The definite character of this prediction cannot be changed into a “vaticinium post eventum”, either by arbitrary explanations of the words, or by some unfounded hypothesis.
Only an unbeliever, or one who wishes to become an unbeliever, can possibly allow some evil scholar, whose purpose is clearly that of discrediting the Word of God, to deny what the sacred text says, merely upon the basis of his arbitrary emendations of the text, or by his efforts to substitute his own word for the Word of God.
“These prophecies in Ezekiel 24 were delivered two years and five months after those dated in Eze 20:1 .
PARABLE OF THE RUSTY CALDRON
Eze 24:1-5
“Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, write the name of the day, even of this selfsame day: the king of Babylon drew close unto Jerusalem this selfsame day. And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Set on the caldron, 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, and also a pile of wood for the bones under the caldron; make it boil well; yea, let the bones thereof be boiled in the midst of it.”
The arrogant unbelief of some alleged scholars never fails to astonish us. May, for example, stated that, Ezekiel was probably in Babylon when he wrote this, “To be able to know the very day of the beginning of the siege.” Apparently such a `scholar’ never heard of such a thing as ‘Divine inspiration.’ One may wonder why he wrote so much about a book in the Bible, the value of which is founded solely upon its being “inspired of God (1Pe 1:21).”
Feinberg accurately observed that, “One purpose for this attention to the exact date, was in order for the nations to have written, tangible proof of the accuracy of Ezekiel’s prophecies.
Analogies clearly visible in this parable: the caldron is the city; the flesh in it is the people; the immense fire under it is the fire of war; the setting of the caldron on the fire is the beginning of the siege; the rust in the pot (introduced later) is the inherent wickedness of the people; the “choice bones (Eze 24:4)” are the bones with meat attached to them; their being “choice” bones indicates that the nobility and the landed gentry will also be ruined by the war; the “bones under the caldron (Eze 24:5)” are the large bones used, along with the logs for fuel; the removal of the flesh from the caldron indicates the destruction of the whole city, rich and poor alike, high and low, indiscriminately, whether by sword, by pestilence, by famine, or by deportation; the emptying of the caldron indicated the removal of Jerusalem’s population; the caldron’s still being rusted indicated Jerusalem’s worthlessness, at that time, as regarded God’s eternal purpose, entailing, of course, the necessity for its complete destruction; the severe burning of the caldron in intense fire after it was emptied speaks of the burning and destruction of the city itself and the Temple of God.
It would seem, as Jamieson thought, that God’s selection of this figure of the boiling caldron might have been in response to that boastful proverb the people adopted (Jer 11:3), in which they claimed to be “the flesh” safe in the caldron (Jerusalem), whereas the captives, by their absence, were out of it altogether. Ezekiel here revealed to them that, “Your proverb shall prove to be awfully true, but in a far different sense from what you intended. Judah would not be safe in the caldron, but cooked and destroyed in it.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The final prophecy in this division described the coming destruction of the city. This was first done under the parable of a cauldron set on a fire, filled with water, and made to boil. The prophet applied his figure directly, declaring that Jerusalem was indeed a cauldron. It will be remembered that the conspirators seen by the prophet on an earlier occasion had declared that Jerusalem was a cauldron, and they the flesh, and by that had intended to indicate their safety. Ezekiel would seem now to turn to their own figure and use it against them, making it indicate, not safety but judgment, as he foretold the certainty of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and its people.
At this time the prophet was bereft of his wife, and commanded to give no external manifestation of grief. He obeyed the command and so unusual was his attitude in the presence of grief that the people inquired what he meant. He answered that Jehovah was about to visit them with calamity so dire that they would not be able to find relief in mourning or weeping.
The prophet was then told that the news of the fall of the city would be conveyed to him, and that in that day his mouth would be opened, and he would be able to speak with assurance the messages of Jehovah.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Chapter Twenty-four
The Death Of The Prophets Wife A Sign To Israel
The prophecies recorded in the last four chapters seem all to have been delivered in the seventh year of King Jehoiachins captivity (20:1). The message of chapter 24 is dated on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year. Despite all the optimistic promises made by false prophets who declared that the scattered families of Judah would soon return in peace to their land, conditions continued to grow worse.
Again, in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this selfsame day: the king of Babylon drew close unto Jerusalem this selfsame day. And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Set on the caldron, 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, and also a pile of wood for the bones under the caldron; make it boil well; yea, let the bones thereof be boiled in the midst of it-vers. 1-5.
Nebuchadnezzar, who was now the reigning monarch, had gone up against Jerusalem a second time, and God was about to use him to execute His judgment upon the guilty city whose inhabitants still seemed insensible of the real danger to which they were exposed. Ezekiel again likens Jerusalem to a great cooking vessel, and its inhabitants as the flesh to be boiled in it. The army of the Chaldeans surrounding the city were like the fire which should cause the pot to boil furiously until those within the city were utterly destroyed.
In the verses that follow he enlarges upon this illustration, applying it with terrible force to the people of the stricken city where once Jehovah had set His name, but which He now disowned because of its manifold iniquities.
Wherefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Woe to the bloody city, to the caldron whose rust is therein, and whose rust is not gone out of it! take out of it piece after piece; no lot is fallen upon it. 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 may cause wrath to come up to take vengeance, I have set her blood upon the bare rock, that it should not be covered. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Woe to the bloody city! I also will make the pile great. Heap on the wood, make the fire hot, boil well the flesh, and make thick the broth, and let the bones be burned. Then set it empty upon the coals thereof, that it may be hot and the brass thereof may burn, and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the rust of it may be consumed. She hath wearied herself with toil; yet her great rust goeth not forth out of her; her rust goeth not forth by fire. In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have cleansed thee and thou wast not cleansed, thou shalt not be cleansed from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused My wrath toward thee to rest. I, Jehovah, 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; according to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord Jehovah-vers. 6-14.
Instead of the holy city, Jerusalem is called the bloody city, for it had become utterly filthy and defiled by the idolatrous wickedness of its people. Like a disgusting mess simmering in its own filth, the doomed inhabitants were exposed to the vengeance of the God whose law they had spurned and whose grace they had despised. As they had poured out their sacrifices upon the high places to their false gods who were powerless to save, so should they be emptied out upon the top of the rock and cast into the dust as unclean and unfit for Gods acceptance. He Himself would make the pile for fire great against them, and instead of baring His arm to deliver them He would give them up to that destruction which their sins deserved. Jerusalem is again likened to a false and unchaste woman who has broken wedlock. She had wearied herself with lies in her effort to cover her infamy and hide her shame, but all was of no avail. So manifest was her corruption that her filthiness and lewdness could not be purged or cleansed away until she had endured the fury of the Lord which her guilt deserved.
What God had spoken He would surely bring to pass. There would be no changing His mind or giving further opportunity to repent. They had sinned beyond remedy, and so judgment must take its course.
Also 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 neither mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud, make no mourning for the dead; bind thy headtire upon thee, and put thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men. So I spake unto the people in the morning; and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded-vers. 15-18.
In this section we have a personal experience of the prophet. His wife, whom he loved tenderly, was to be taken away suddenly by death; yet he was not to show any outward sign of mourning, for as he suffered so should the people as a whole suffer. He was commanded to refrain from weeping for the dead, but was to endure in stolid silence the grief which he was called to face.
That day he prophesied as usual, though with this heavy cloud hanging over his head; and at evening his wife died. His heart must indeed have been heavy, but in the morning he gave no evidence of the grief that was stirring within his soul except that he remained dumb, much to the astonishment of the people who undoubtedly knew of his sincere affection for his wife. They wondered at his apparent indifference.
And the people said unto me, Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so? Then I said unto them, The word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Speak unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will profane My sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pitieth; and your sons and your daughters whom ye have left behind shall fall by the sword. And ye shall do as I have done: ye shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men. And your tires shall be upon your heads, and your shoes upon your feet: ye shall not mourn nor weep; but ye shall pine away in your iniquities, and moan one toward another. Thus shall Ezekiel be unto you a sign; according to all that he hath done shall ye do: when this cometh, then shall ye know that I am the Lord Jehovah-vers. 19-24.
When his neighbors questioned Ezekiel as to his strange behavior he explained that his loss was but a small one as compared with the sorrows and bereavements that were to come to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all the people of Israel.
The Lord God had decreed that because of their behavior His sanctuary would be given over to profanation and destruction. Israel, the desire of His eyes, was to be given up to death. Her sons and daughters were to perish by the sword of a cruel and vindictive enemy. So terrible would be the carnage that the survivors would be literally paralyzed with horror and would be dumb in the greatness of their grief. Thus, they should do as he, the prophet, had done in the hour of his souls distress-they should not put on the gar- ments of mourning nor show signs of their anguish because of the dead. Rather were they destined to pine away in their own sins, grieving because of what they themselves were called upon to endure.
In this way Ezekiel was their sign; for they should do as he had done when the word of the Lord had been fulfilled, and they should know that He was the Lord God who executed judgment against the unconfessed sin of His people.
And thou, son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their heart, their sons and their daughters, that in that day he that escapeth shall come unto thee, to cause thee to hear it with thine ears? In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him that is escaped, and thou shalt speak, and be no more dumb: so shalt thou be a sign unto them; and they shall know that I am Jehovah-vers. 25-27.
When the city was taken and multitudes slain and those who had escaped should come to Ezekiel for help and comfort, then he was to be dumb no longer but to speak unto them the Word of the Lord as He should give it in that day. Judgment must follow disobedience, but God delights to show mercy to all who confess and forsake their sins.
Surely there is a message in all this for us today. We who call ourselves Christians have drifted far from the truth as set forth in the Word of God. How can we hope to escape when He arises to deal in judgment with those who have turned after the things of the world, thus dishonoring His name? Oh, that there might yet be a great returning to God and His Word, that there might come revival and blessing ere the close of this dispensation of grace!
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
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 Ezekiels 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.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
tenth month
i.e. January.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
am 3414, bc 590
the ninth year: This was the ninth year of Zedekiah, about Thursday, January 30, am 3414, the very day in which Nebuchadnezzar began the siege of Jerusalem. Eze 1:2, Eze 8:1, Eze 20:1, Eze 26:1, Eze 29:1, Eze 29:17, Eze 31:1, Eze 32:1, Eze 32:17, Eze 33:21, Eze 40:1, 2Ki 24:12
Reciprocal: 2Ki 25:1 – in the ninth Jer 9:26 – Egypt Jer 29:16 – General Jer 39:1 – the ninth Jer 52:4 – the ninth year Jer 52:13 – the king’s
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 24:1. The specific date of this chapter is given which is the ninth year after Ezekiel was taken to Babylon. The exact day and month of that year are also given, and on that day the siege of Jerusalem began.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Section 5 (Eze 24:1-27).
The judgment reached.
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.
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
Eze 24:1-2. Again, in the ninth year Namely, of Jehoiachins captivity, and of Zedekiahs 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 Nebuchadnezzars 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, , hath set himself, or, as Buxtorf renders it, accedit, vel appropinquat, comes, or approaches, to Jerusalem, , 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.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Eze 24:1. In the ninth year, from Jehoiachins captivity; or the ninth year of Zedekiahs reign. 2Ki 25:1-2. Jer 52:4. Jehoiachin, who is the same with Jeconiah, reigned one year before his nephew Zedekiah. 2Ch 36:10. Jeremiah having noticed the day and the year of the ruin of the city and temple of Jerusalem as a historical fact, and Ezekiel the same event as a matter of prophecy, we have proof that the fall of the jewish state was by the special designation of heaven.
Eze 24:11. Then set it empty upon the coals; that the caldron itself may be fused and purified, as was the case with the metals of Jericho. After the choice pieces had all been consumed by various deaths, here is a burning, and the hottest burning after death. What can this be but the second death?
Eze 24:16. Behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke of sudden affliction. The prophet loved his wife; she was a diadem in his eyes, and his only desire upon earth. She seems to have died of grief, like Eli, when she had learned of her husband what had befallen the ark. But her death must be improved, by the nonobservance of obsequies, because in Jerusalem they could not be observed. It is good for ministers, when fair opportunities occur, to improve the death of their friends for the good of the living.
REFLECTIONS.
When Nebuchadnezzar sat down before Jerusalem to commence the siege, he was so eager in the reduction of that wicked and rebellious city, as to begin his operations in the depth of winter; for God had given him a heart to do his will. But Ezekiels mentioning the day of the month would have a good effect on the captives upon the Chebar. It would cure them of all unseasonable wishes to return, and would confound the infidels among them who had presumed that the calamities would never come.
The vision of the pot or boiler in the temple is here repeated from the eleventh chapter. Now, from the frequent mention of innocent blood, it would seem, that in Manassehs reign, 2Ki 24:4, there had been some tumult in Jerusalem, and that the men who opposed the wicked and idolatrous measures of the court, had been slain in the streets, or thrown from the rocks; nor had their blood been covered, as the law enjoined. Lev 17:13. This was indeed an age which forgat the law. God however did not forget. His great day of sacrifice was come; and the whole city was his boiler, unscummed and impure. The choice pieces were the rich, the proud, and the despisers of God in all his works of grace and justice. The Lord therefore invited all the birds and beasts of prey from Chaldea, and from all the surrounding states to his great supper, that an impure people might complete the defilement of his sanctuary, which his own people had first polluted with idols, and with every abomination of the heathen.
The Lord condescends to vindicate the terrors of his conduct as an act of necessity. I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged. Thrice, in a short time, had Jerusalem been plundered, and her kings carried away in chains. Once by Pharaoh-necho, and twice by Nebuchadnezzar; and yet the nation was unreformed; and instead of seeking God, they drenched themselves in the gloom of desponding crimes. Hence the times of mercy and probation were past: God could no longer bless them with health, harvests, and prosperity, without being a party in their crimes. Oh may men and nations be awed and sanctified by the spotless character of justice. May every incorrigible sinner know that the day is just at hand, when the perfections of God shall oblige him to strike, and glorify his justice, the exercise of mercy having failed of effect.
The sudden death of Ezekiels wife was improved to show, that no mourning should be made for the jews massacred at Jerusalem. This treasure, so precious to him, but unaccustomed to hardships, was taken away with a stroke, and in one day. The fleeting state of all terrestrial good should teach us to say, whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. How little then can we rest in inviting objects. The smiling villa, the enchanting bowers, the ample fortune, the amiable bride, the engaging progeny, yea, life itself may be blasted in an hour, and our eyes may be diverted from tears by the appalling terror of other calamities. Ezekiel must neither weep nor cry, nor eat the bread of mourning which neighbours usually sent. He must not be uncovered, but wear his tiara, bonnet, or hat.
The explication of his conduct revolted and choked his hearers, as appears from Eze 33:10. When they asked what he meant by so extraordinary a conduct, he declared that their children should fall by the sword, and that they should make no mourning for them, but pine away in their iniquities. Thus God would make them drink the dregs of his cup.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Ezekiel 24. The Last Message before the Fall of the City.
Eze 24:1-14. The Rusty Caldron.We now reach the last message delivered by Ezekiel before the fall of the city; and, curiously enough, it was delivered on the opening day of the siege (2Ki 25:1)an event of which Ezekiel must have known by his gift of second sight. In a probably acted parable, the city is compared to a pot filled with pieces of flesh (=the inhabitants), including choice pieces (= the leaders). But beneath the pot a huge fire is blazing, symbolic of the siege. Then, after boiling, the pieces are taken out in any order, symbolic of indiscriminate dispersion; but, as the pot is rusty, it is set again empty upon the furious fire, to be cleansed of its rust by the flames. The rust is symbolic of the blood, shed in injustice and child sacrifice, and of the moral and ceremonial foulness of the people, already so often described. The blood, which there was no attempt made to hide, cries aloud, according to ancient Semitic ideas, for vengeance (Gen 4:10*); and the vengeance falls in the shape of the terrible discipline thus symbolically described. (Probably the first clause of Eze 24:12 should be deleted.)
Eze 24:15-27. Death of the Prophets Wife.But not only by word and symbol, but in the experience of personal sorrow, is Ezekiel a prophet and a sign to his people. The sudden death of his wife at this time, the desire of his eyes, for whom he was forbidden to exhibit the customary signs of mourning, is an adumbration to the people of the impending loss of Jerusalem, and especially of the Temple, which was dear to them as his wife was to hima loss too prostrating to be lamented in ordinary ways, but expressing itself in a certain stupefaction and a numbing sense of guilt. (Eze 24:17 alludes to mourning customs: instead of men should perhaps be read mourning. From Eze 24:21 we learn that in the deportation of 597 B.C. some at least of the children were left behind.)
When the day came that a fugitive would arrive in Babylon with the news of the fall of Jerusalem, Ezekiels reputation as a prophet would be vindicated, and he would be no more tongue-tied (cf. Eze 33:22).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
24:1 Again in the {a} ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth [day] of the {b} month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
(a) Of Jeconiah’s captivity and of the reign of Zedekiah, 2Ki 25:1 .
(b) Called Tebeth, which contains part of December and part of January: in which month and day Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
1. The parable of the cooking pot 24:1-14
This parable represented the siege of Jerusalem, which began on the day that Ezekiel told this story.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The background to the parable 24:1-3a
The Lord instructed Ezekiel to note permanently the day this revelation came to him because it was the very day that Nebuchadnezzar began his siege of Jerusalem. This day fell in January (cf. 2Ki 25:1; Jer 39:1; Jer 52:4). Block dated it as January 5, 587 B.C., [Note: Block, The Book . . ., p. 774.] but most scholars follow Parker and Duberstein and date it as January 15, 586 B.C. [Note: Parker and Dubberstein, p. 28; Cooper, p. 235; Taylor, p. 177; Zimmerli, p. 498; et al.] Ezekiel’s ability to announce the beginning of the siege from Babylon validated his ministry as a prophet. The Jews later memorialized this special day with an annual fast (Zec 8:19). The prophet was also to deliver a parable to the Jewish exiles the same day. They were part of the "rebellious house" of Israel, one of God’s favorite titles for His people Israel in this book.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
FINAL ORACLES AGAINST JERUSALEM
Eze 22:1-31; Eze 24:1-27
THE close of the first period of Ezekiels work was marked by two dramatic incidents, which made the day memorable both in the private life of the prophet and in the history of the nation. In the first place it coincided exactly with the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem. The prophets mysterious knowledge of what was happening at a distance was duly recorded, in order that its subsequent confirmation through the ordinary channels of intelligence might prove the divine origin of his message. {Eze 24:1-2} That Ezekiel actually did this we have no reason to doubt. Then the sudden death of his wife on the evening of the same day, and his unusual behaviour under the bereavement, caused a sensation among the exiles which the prophet was instructed to utilise as a means of driving home the appeal just made to them. These transactions must have had a profound effect on Ezekiels fellow-captives. They made his personality the centre of absorbing interest to the Jews in Babylon; and the two years of silence on his part which ensued were to them years of anxious foreboding about the result of the siege.
At this juncture the prophets thoughts naturally are occupied with the subject which hitherto formed the principal burden of his prophecy. The first part of his career accordingly closes, as it had begun, with a symbol of the fall of Jerusalem. Before this, however, he had drawn out the solemn indictment against Jerusalem which is given in chapter 22, although the finishing touches were probably added after the destruction of the city. The substance of that chapter is so closely related to the symbolic representation in the first part of chapter 24 that it will be convenient to consider it here as an introduction to the concluding oracles addressed more directly to the exiles of Tel-abib.
I.
The purpose of this arraignment-the most stately of Ezekiels orations-is to exhibit Jerusalem in her true character as a city whose social condition is incurably corrupt. It begins with an enumeration of the prevalent sins of the capital (Eze 22:2-16); it ends with a denunciation of the various classes into which society was divided (Eze 22:23-31); while the short intervening passage is a figurative description of the judgment which is now inevitable (Eze 22:17-22).
1. The first part of the chapter, then, is a catalogue of the “abominations” which called down the vengeance of heaven upon the city of Jerusalem. The offences enumerated are nearly the same as those mentioned in the definitions of personal righteousness and wickedness given in chapter 18. It is not necessary to repeat what was there said about the characteristics of the moral ideal which had been formed in the mind of Ezekiel. Although he is dealing now with a society, his point of view is quite different from that represented by purely allegorical passages like chapters 16 and 23. The city is not idealised and treated as a moral individual, whose relations with Jehovah have to he set forth in symbolic and figurative language. It is conceived as an aggregate of individuals bound together in social relations; and the sins charged against it are the actual transgressions of the men who are members of the community. Hence the standard of public morality is precisely the same as that which is elsewhere applied to the individual in his personal relation to God; and the sins enumerated are attributed to the city merely because they are tolerated and encouraged in individuals by laxity of public opinion and the force of evil example. Jerusalem is a community in which these different crimes are perpetrated: “Father and mother are despised in thee; the stranger is oppressed in the midst of thee; orphan and widow are wronged in thee; slanderous men seeking blood have been in thee; flesh with the blood is eaten in thee; lewdness is committed in the midst of thee; the fathers shame is uncovered in thee; she that was unclean in her separation hath been humbled in thee.” So the grave and measured indictment runs on. It is because of these things that Jerusalem as a whole is “guilty” and “unclean” and has brought near her day of retribution (Eze 22:4). Such a conception of corporate guilt undoubtedly appeals more directly to our ordinary conscience of public morality than the more poetic representations where Jerusalem is compared to a faithless and treacherous woman. We have no difficulty in judging of any modern city in the very same way as Ezekiel here judges Jerusalem; and in this respect it is interesting to notice the social evils which he regards as marking out that city as ripe for destruction.
There are three features of the state of things in Jerusalem in which the prophet recognises the symptoms of an incurable social condition. The first is the loss of a true conception of God. In ancient Israel this defect necessarily assumed: the form of idolatry. Hence the multiplication. of idols appropriately finds a place among the marks of the “uncleanness” which made Jerusalem hateful in the eyes of Jehovah (Eze 22:3). But the root of idolatry in Israel was the incapacity or the unwillingness of the people to live up to the lofty conception of the Divine nature which was taught by the prophets. Throughout the ancient world religion was felt to be the indispensable bond of society, and the gods that were worshipped reflected more or less fully the ideals that swayed the life of the community. To Israel the religion of Jehovah represented the highest social ideal that was then known on earth. It meant righteousness, and purity, and brotherhood, and compassion for the poor and distressed. When these virtues decayed she forgot Jehovah (Eze 22:12)-forgot His character even if she remembered His name-and the service of false gods was the natural and obvious expression of the fact. There is therefore a profound truth in Ezekiels mind when he numbers the idols of Jerusalem amongst the indications of a degenerate society. They were the evidence that she had lost the sense of God as a holy and righteous spiritual presence in her midst, and that loss was at once the source and symptom of widespread moral declension. It is one of the chief lessons of the Old Testament that a religion which was neither the product of national genius. nor the embodiment of national aspiration, but was based on supernatural revelation, proved itself in the history of Israel to be the only possible safeguard against the tendencies which made for social disintegration.
A second mark of depravity which Ezekiel discovers in the capital is the perversion of certain moral instincts which are just as essential to the preservation of society as a true conception of God. For if society rests at one end on religion, it rests at the other on instinct. The closest and most fundamental of human relations depend on innate perceptions which may be easily destroyed, but which when destroyed can scarcely be recovered. The sanctities of marriage and the family will hardly bear the coarse scrutiny of utilitarian ethics; yet they are the foundation on which the whole social fabric is built. And there is no part of Ezekiels indictment of Jerusalem which conveys to our minds a more vivid sense of utter corruption than where he speaks of the loss of filial piety and; revolting forms of sexual impurity as prevalent sins in the city. Here at least he carries the conviction of every moralist with him. He instances no offence of this kind which would not be branded as unnatural by any system of ethics as heartily as it is by the Old Testament. It is possible, on the other hand, that he ranks on the same level with these sins ceremonial impurities appealing to feelings of a different order, to which no permanent moral value can be attached. When, for example, he instances eating with the blood as an “abomination,” he appeals to a law which is no longer binding on us. But even that regulation was not so worthless, from a moral point of view at that time as we are apt to suppose. The abhorrence of eating blood was connected with certain sacrificial ideas which attributed a mystic significance to the blood as the seat of animal life. So long as these ideas existed no man could commit this offence without injuring his moral nature and loosening the Divine sanctions of morality as a whole. It is a false illuminism which seeks to disparage the moral insight of the prophet on the ground that he did not teach an abstract system of ethics in which ceremonial precepts were sharply distinguished from duties which we consider moral.
The third feature of Jerusalems guilty condition is lawless violation of human rights. Neither life nor property was secure. Judicial murders were frequent in the city, and minor forms of oppression, such as usury, spoliation of the unprotected, and robbery, were of daily occurrence. The administration of justice was corrupted by systematic bribery and perjury, and the lives of innocent men were ruthlessly sacrificed under the forms of law. This after all is the aspect of things which bulks most largely in the prophets indictment. Jerusalem is addressed as a “city shedding blood in her midst,” and throughout the accusation the charge of bloodshed is that which constantly recurs. Misgovernment and party strife, and perhaps religious persecution, had converted the city into a vast human shambles, and the blood of the innocent slain cried aloud to heaven for vengeance. “Of what avail,” asks the prophet, “are the stores of wealth piled up in the hands of a few against this damning witness of blood? Jehovah smites His hand [in derision] against her gains that she has made, and against her blood which is in her midst. How can her heart stand or her hands be strong in the days when He deals with her?” (Eze 22:13-14). Drained of her best blood, given over to internecine strife, and stricken with the cowardice of conscious guilt, Jerusalem, already disgraced among the nations, must fall an easy victim to the Chaldaean invaders, who are the agents of Jehovahs judgments.
2. But the most serious aspect of the situation is that which is dealt with in the peroration of the chapter (Eze 22:23-31). Outbursts of vice and lawlessness such as has been described may occur in any society, but they are not necessarily fatal to a community so long as it possesses a conscience which can be roused to effective protest against them. Now the worst thing about Jerusalem was that she lacked this indispensable condition of recovery. No voice was raised on the side of righteousness, no man dared to stem the tide of wickedness that swept through her streets. Not merely that she harboured within her walls men guilty of incest and robbery and murder, but that her leading classes were demoralised, that public spirit had decayed among her citizens, marked her as incapable of reformation. She was “a land not watered,” “and not rained upon in a day of indignation” (Eze 22:24); the springs of her civic virtue were dried up, and a blight spread through all sections of her population. Ezekiels impeachment of different classes of society brings out this fact with great force. First of all the ancient institutions of social order, government, priesthood, and prophecy were in the hands of men who had lost the spirit of their office and abused their position for the advancement of private interests. Her princes have been, instead of humane rulers and examples of noble living, cruel and rapacious tyrants, enriching themselves at the cost of their subjects (Eze 22:25). The priests, whose function was to maintain the outward ordinances of religion and foster the spirit of reverence, have done their utmost, by falsification of the Torah, to bring religion into contempt and obliterate the distinction between the holy and the profane (Eze 22:26). The nobles had been a pack of ravening wolves, imitating the rapacity of the court, and hunting down prey which the royal lion would have disdained to touch (Eze 22:27). As for the professional prophets-those degenerate representatives of the old champions of truth and mercy-we have already seen what they were worth (chapter 13). They who should have been foremost to denounce civil wrong are fit for nothing but to stand by and bolster up with lying oracles in the name of Jehovah a constitution which sheltered crimes like these (Eze 22:28).
From the ruling classes the prophets glance turns for a moment to the “people of the land,” the dim common population, where virtue might have been expected to find its last retreat. It is characteristic of the age of Ezekiel that the prophets begin to deal more particularly with the sins of the masses as distinct from the classes. This was due partly perhaps to a real increase of ungodliness in the body of the people, but partly also to a deeper sense of the importance of the individual apart from his position in the state. These prophets seem to feel that there had been anywhere among rich or poor an honest response to the will of Jehovah it would have been a token that God had not altogether rejected Israel. Jeremiah puts this view very strongly when in the fifth chapter he says that if one man could be found in Jerusalem who did justice and sought truth the Lord would pardon her; and his vain search for that one man begins among the poor. It is this same motive that leads Ezekiel to include the humble citizen in his survey of the moral condition of Jerusalem. It is little wonder that under such leaders they had cast off the restraints of humanity, and oppressed those who were still more defenceless than themselves. But it showed nevertheless that real religion had no longer a foothold in the city. It proved that the greed of gain had eaten into the very heart of the people and destroyed the ties of kindred and mutual sympathy, through which alone the will of Jehovah could be realised. No matter although they were obscure householders, without political power or responsibility; if they had been good men in their private relations, Jerusalem would have been a better place to live in. Ezekiel indeed does not go so far as to say that a single good life would have saved the city. He expects of a good man that he be a man in the full sense-a man who speaks boldly on behalf of righteousness and resists the prevalent evils with all his strength: “I sought among them a man to build up a fence, and to stand in the breach before Me on behalf of the land, that it might not be destroyed; and I found none. So I poured out My indignation upon them; with the fire of My wrath I consumed them: I have returned their way upon their head, saith the Lord Jehovah” (Eze 22:30-31).
3. But we should misunderstand Ezekiels position if we supposed that his prediction of the speedy destruction of Jerusalem was merely an inference from his clear insight into the necessary conditions of social welfare which were being violated by her rulers and her citizens. That is one part of his message, but it could not stand alone. The purpose of the indictment we have considered is simply to explain the moral reasonableness of Jehovahs. action in the great act of judgment which the prophet knows to be approaching. It is no doubt a general law of history that moribund communities are not allowed to die a natural death. Their usual fate is to perish in the struggle for existence before some other and sounder nation. But no human sagacity can foresee how that law will be verified in any particular case. It may seem clear to us now that Israel must have fallen sooner or later before the advance of the great Eastern empires, but an ordinary observer could not have foretold with the confidence and precision which mark the predictions of Ezekiel in what manner and within what time the end would come. Of that aspect of the prophets mind no explanation can be given save that God revealed His secret to His servants the prophets.
Now this element of the prophecy seems to be brought out by the image of Jerusalems fate which occupies the middle verses of the chapter (Eze 22:17-22). The city is compared to the crucible in which all the refuse of Israels national life is to undergo its final trial by fire. The prophet sees in imagination the terror-stricken provincial population swept into the capital before the approach of the Chaldeans: and he says, “Thus doth Jehovah cast His ore into the furnace-the silver, the brass, the iron, the lead, and the tin; and He will kindle the fire with His anger, and blow upon it till He have consumed the impurities of the land.” The image of the smelting-pot had been used by Isaiah as an emblem of purifying judgment, the object of which was the removal of injustice and the restoration of the state to its former splendour: “I will again bring My hand upon thee, smelting out thy dross with lye and taking away all thine alloy; and I will make thy judges to be again as aforetime, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: thereafter thou shalt be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city” (Isa 1:25-26). Ezekiel, however, can hardly have contemplated such a happy result of the operation. The whole house of Israel has become dross, from which no precious metal can be extracted; and the object of the smelting is only the demonstration of the utter worthlessness of the people for the ends of Gods kingdom. The more refractory the material to be dealt with the fiercer must be the fire that tests it; and the severity of the exterminating judgment is the only thing symbolised by the metaphor as used by Ezekiel. In this he follows Jeremiah, who applies the figure in precisely the same sense: “The bellows snort, the lead is consumed of the fire; in vain he smelts and smelts: but the wicked are not taken away. Refuse silver shall men call them, for the Lord hath rejected them.” {Jer 6:29-30} In this way the section supplements the teaching of the rest of the chapter. Jerusalem is full of dross-that has been proved by the enumeration of her crimes and the estimate of her social condition. But the fire which consumes the dross represents a special providential intervention bringing the history of the state to a summary and decisive conclusion. And the Refiner who superintends the process is Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, whose righteous will is executed by the march of conquering hosts, and revealed to men in His dealings with the people whom He had known of all the families of the earth.
II.
The chapter we have just studied was evidently not composed with a view to immediate publication. It records the view of Jerusalems guilt and punishment which was borne in upon the mind of the prophet in the solitude of his chamber, but it was not destined to see the light until the whole of his teaching could be submitted in its final form to a wider and more receptive audience. It is equally obvious that the scenes described in chapter 24 were really enacted in the full view of the exiled community. We have reached the crisis of Ezekiels ministry. For the last time until his warnings of doom shall be fulfilled he emerges from his partial seclusion, and in symbolism whose vivid force could not have failed to impress the most listless hearer he announces once more the destruction of the Hebrew nation. The burden of his message is that that day-the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year-marked the beginning of the end. “On that very day”-a day to be commemorated for seventy long years by a national fast (Zec 8:19; Zec 7:5)-Nebuchadnezzar was drawing his lines around Jerusalem. The bare announcement to men who knew what a Chaldaean siege meant must have sent a thrill of consternation through their minds. If this vision of what was happening in a distant land should prove true, they must have felt that all hope of deliverance was now cut off. Sceptical as they may have been of the moral principles that lay behind Ezekiels prediction, they could not deny that the issue he foresaw was only the natural sequel to the fact he so confidently announced.
The image here used of the fate of Jerusalem would recall to the minds of the exiles the ill-omened saying which expressed the reckless spirit prevalent in the city: “This city is the pot, and we are the flesh.” {Eze 11:3} It was well understood in Babylon that these men were playing a desperate game, and did not shrink from the horrors of a siege. “Set on the pot,” then, cries the prophet to his listeners, “set it on, and pour in water also, and gather the pieces into it, every good joint, leg, and shoulder; fill it with the choicest bones. Take them from the best of the flock, and then pile up the wood under it; let its pieces be boiled and its bones cooked within it” (Eze 24:3-5). This part of the parable required no explanation; it simply represents the terrible miseries endured by the population of Jerusalem during the siege now commencing. But then by a sudden transition the speaker turns the thoughts of his hearers to another aspect of the judgment (Eze 24:6-8). The city itself is like a rusty caldron, unfit for any useful purpose until by some means it has been cleansed from its impurity. It is as if the crimes that had been perpetrated in Jerusalem had stained her very stones with blood. She had not even taken steps to conceal the traces of her wickedness; they lie like blood on the bare rock, an open witness to her guilt. Often Jehovah had sought to purify her by more measured chastisements, but it has now been proved that “her much rust will not go from her except by fire” (Eze 24:12). Hence the end of the siege will be twofold. First of all the contents of the caldron will be indiscriminately thrown out-a figure for the dispersion and captivity of the inhabitants; and then the pot must be set empty on the glowing coals till its rust is thoroughly burned out-a symbol of the burning of the city and its subsequent desolation (Eze 24:11). The idea that the material world may contract defilement through the sins of those who live in it is one that is hard for us to realise, but it is in keeping with the view of sin presented by Ezekiel, and indeed by the Old Testament generally. There are certain natural emblems of sin, such as uncleanness or disease or uncovered blood, etc., which had to be largely used in order to educate mens moral perceptions. Partly these rest on the analogy between physical defect and moral evil; but partly, as here, they result from a strong sense of association between human deeds and their effects or circumstances. Jerusalem is unclean as a place where wicked deeds have been done, and even the destruction of the sinners cannot, in the mind of Ezekiel, clear her from the unhallowed associations of her history. She must lie empty and dreary for a generation, swept by the winds of heaven, before devout Israelites can again twine their affections round the hope of her glorious future.
Even while delivering this message of doom to the people the prophets heart was burdened by the presemiment of a great personal sorrow. He had received an intimation that his wife was to be taken from him by a sudden stroke, and along with the intimation a command to refrain from all the usual signs of mourning. “So I spake to the people” (as recorded in Eze 24:1-14) “in the morning, and my wife died in the evening” (Eze 24:18). Just one touch of tenderness escapes him in relating this mysterious occurrence. She was the “delight of his eyes”: that phrase alone reveals that there was a fountain of tears sealed up within the breast of this stern preacher. How the course of his life may have been influenced by a bereavement so strangely coincident with a change in his whole attitude to his people, we cannot even surmise. Nor is it possible to say how far he merely used the incident to convey a lesson to the exiles, or how far his private grief was really swallowed up in concern for the calamity of his country. All we are told is that “in the morning he did as he was commanded.” He neither uttered loud lamentations, nor disarranged his raiment, nor covered his head, nor ate the “bread of men,” nor adopted any of the customary signs of mourning for the dead. When the astonished neighbours inquire the meaning of his strange demeanour, he assures them that his conduct now is a sign of what theirs will be when his words have come true. When the tidings reach them that Jerusalem has actually fallen, when they realise how many interests dear to them have perished-the desolation of the sanctuary, the loss of their own sons and daughters-they will experience a sense of calamity which will instinctively discard all the conventional and even the natural expressions of grief. They shall neither mourn nor weep, but sit in dumb bewilderment, haunted by a dull consciousness of guilt which yet is far removed from genuine contrition of heart. They shall pine away in their iniquities. For while their sorrow will be too deep for words, it will not yet be the godly sorrow that worketh repentance. It will be the sullen despair and apathy of men disenchanted of the illusions on which their national life was based, of men left without hope and without God in the world.
Here the curtain falls on the first act of Ezekiels ministry. He appears to have retired for the space of two years into complete privacy, ceasing entirely his public appeals to the people, and waiting for the time of his vindication as a prophet. The sense of restraint under which he has hitherto exercised the function of a public teacher cannot be removed until the tidings have reached Babylon that the city has fallen. Meanwhile, with the delivery of this message, his contest with the unbelief of his fellow captives comes to an end. But when that day arrives “his mouth shall be open, and he shall be no more dumb.” A new career will open out before him, in which he can devote all his powers of mind and heart to the inspiring work of reviving faith in the promises of God, and so building up a new Israel out of the ruins of the old.