Ezekiel 9:5-7

To the others he said, Go ye after him and smite That is, cut off and destroy all that are either guilty of, or accessory to the abominations of Jerusalem, and even all that do not sigh and cry for them, or that are not affected with grief and sorrow on account of them. Let not your eyes spare You must not save any whom God has doomed to destruction. None needs to be more merciful than God is, and he had said, Ezekiel 8:18, My eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity. Take notice, reader, those that live in sin, and hate to be reformed, shall perish in sin, and deserve not to be pitied; for they might easily have prevented their ruin, but would not. Slay utterly old and young, &c. Make no distinction of age or sex. This was awfully fulfilled, partly by the sword of the Chaldeans, 2 Chronicles 36:17, and partly by famine and pestilence, each of which calamities swept away multitudes. And begin at my sanctuary That sanctuary, the horrid profanation of which Ezekiel had seen, as is described in the former chapter; they must begin there, because there the wickedness began which provoked God to send these judgments: the debaucheries of the priests were the poisoning of the springs from which all the corruption of the streams flowed. The wickedness of the sanctuary was of all other the most offensive to God, and therefore there the slaughter must begin. Begin there to try if the people will take warning by the judgments of God upon their priests, and will repent and reform: begin there, that all the world may see and know that the Lord, whose name is Jehovah, is a jealous God, and hates sin most in those that are nearest to him. Indeed when judgments are abroad in the earth, they commonly begin at the house of God, 1 Peter 4:17, because such persons sin against greater light and clearer convictions, and abuse greater privileges than others. You only have I known, and therefore will I punish you, Amos 3:2. God's temple is a sanctuary, a place of refuge and protection for penitent sinners, but not for any that go on still in their trespasses; neither the sacredness of the place, nor the eminence of any one's office or station in it, will be their security. But come not near any man upon whom is the mark Do not harm, nay, do not so much as threaten, or put in fear, any one of these. The sense is, I will so order it by my providence, that none whom I have designed for preservation shall be destroyed. This prediction was remarkably fulfilled. Nebuchadnezzar gave particular orders that Jeremiah should be protected, Baruch and Ebed- melech were secured, and it is likely others of Jeremiah's friends for his sake; God had promised that it should go well with his remnant, and that they should be well treated, Jeremiah 15:11; and we have reason to think that none of the mourning, praying remnant fell by the sword of the Chaldeans, but God found out some way or other to secure them all; as in the last destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the Christians were all secured in a city on the mountains, called Pella, and none of them perished with the unbelieving Jews. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house Namely, those who committed idolatry in the several courts and apartments belonging to the temple; that is, they strictly observed the orders given them, and began at God's sanctuary, as they were commanded. And he said, Defile the house, and fill the courts with slain God, abhorring the temple, as having been polluted with idolatry, here not only declares that he will no longer own it for his place of residence, but delivers up both the inner and outward courts belonging to it to be polluted with blood and slaughter. Let us observe well, that if the servants of God's house defile it with their sins, God will justly suffer its enemies to defile it with their acts of violence. If the ministers and members of God's church pollute it with their errors and impieties, God will take away its wall of defence, and expose it to the ravages of persecutors. And they went forth and slew in the city So it was represented to the prophet in his vision, which was still continued, as a prediction of what should shortly be done in reality.