Ezekiel 24:1-14
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 burna 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.
Ezekiel 24. The Last Message before the Fall of the City.
Ezekiel 24:1. 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 (2 Kings 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 (Genesis 4:10 *); and the vengeance falls in the shape of the terrible discipline thus symbolically described. (Probably the first clause of Ezekiel 24:12 should be deleted.)
Ezekiel 24:15. Death of the Prophet's 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 him a loss too prostrating to be lamented in ordinary ways, but expressing itself in a certain stupefaction and a numbing sense of guilt. (Ezekiel 24:17 alludes to mourning customs: instead of men should perhaps be read mourning. From Ezekiel 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, Ezekiel's reputation as a prophet would be vindicated, and he would be no more tongue-tied (cf. Ezekiel 33:22).