Ezekiel 24:1-27

The Allegory of the Boiling Caldron. Ezekiel's Bereavement and Significant Silence

This prophecy is dated on the day on which the siege of Jerusalem began. Ezekiel is commanded by God to note the date, and to speak to the exiles a final parable of the city's coming fate. Jerusalem is a rusty pot filled with water and meat and set upon a fire. The meat is well boiled, and brought out piece by piece at random. The empty pot is then set back on the fire that the rust may be burned away. The rust denotes Jerusalem's impurity and bloodshed. The boiling is the siege, and the emptying of the pot the captivity. The heating of the empty pot symbolises the burning of the city at the end of the siege (Ezekiel 24:1).

Ezekiel spoke this message in the morning, and his wife died on the evening of the same day, but in obedience to a divine command he indulged in no sign of mourning. His silent sorrow was an emblem of the stupor into which the exiles would be cast when they should hear of the fall of Jerusalem. When the survivors of the siege should reach BabyIonia, however, Ezekiel's silence would be at an end (Ezekiel 24:15).