Ver. 1. Again in the ninth year.] Of Jehoiakim’s captivity, (Ezekiel 1:2) three years before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.
Ver. 2. This same day.] Ezekiel in Mesopotamia is told by God, and telleth others the very day that Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. (2 Kings 25:1 Jeremiah 39:1 52:4) Heathen historians all us of Apollonius Tyanaeus, that in the self-same day and hour wherein Domitian the em peror was slain at Rome, he got up into a high place at Ephesus in Asia, and calling together a great multitude of men, he spake these words, Καλως Στεφανε, ειγε Στεφανε —Well done, Stephen, strike the murderer home, pay him soundly; thou hast struck him, thou hast wounded him to the heart, thou hast slain him outright; I commend thee for it. This, if it were so, was brought to him by the devil doubtless. Our prophet had a better intelligencer. παιε τον μιαιφονον, επλεξας, ετρωσας, απεκτεινας.— Dio Domit.
Ver. 3. Set on a pot.] Deus cum propheta loquitur tanquam cum coquo: anything to make them sensible of their danger, and the destruction of their city now fully determined. This pot is Jerusalem, and a lively representation of hell, saith A Lapide; the pouring of water into it, a long siege; the flesh, the citizens; the fat, the rich ones, lauti et lascivi; the bones, the stoutest and best warriors, &c. These scurrilous Jews had jeered at Jeremiah’s caldron or pot; (Jeremiah 1:13 Ezekiel 11:3) now they are cast into the pot, and their jeer driven back down their very throats. Repraesentat Tartarum, et ollam Vulcaniam inferni.
Ver. 4. Gather the pieces thereof into it.] Let people of all sorts flock into the city for safety sake, that there, as in a pot, they may be boiled by a long siege, and have sorrow enough.
Ver. 5. Take the choice of the flock.] The king and his peers. And burn also the bones.] The dry bones, the common people, for these will burn like wood. And let him seethe the bones.] The choice bones. (Ezekiel 24:4)
Ver. 6. Woe to the bloody city,] i.e., Blood guilty, and full of crimes capital that call for blood. To the pot whose scum is in it.] Who are hardened in their wickedness, which is evident to all men, and are not amended by punishments. Let no lot fall upon it,] i.e., Let none escape unpunished. In wars often they cast lots to save some and slay some.
Ver. 7. For her blood is in the midst of her.] She careth not who knows of her murders and oppressions. He seemeth to allude to that law, that blood being let out of a beast should be covered in the ground. She set it upon the top of a rock.] Super limpidissimam petram, saith the Vulgate, as glorying in it. So Abimelech slew all his brethren upon one stone; (Judges 9:5) the Jews crucified our Saviour on Mount Calvary. She poured it not.] Pudet et non esse impudentem. It is shameful not to be shameless.
Ver. 8. I have set her blood upon the top of a rock.] Where it will be seen afar off and for a long time. As her sin was in propatulo, in open view, so, to cry quittance with her, shall her punishment likewise be; my visible vengeance shall follow her close at heels as a bloodhound. Agit cum illa ex lege talionis. -Pol.
Ver. 9. Woe to the bloody city.] See Nahum 3:1 Hab 2:12. I will even make the pile for fire great.] They shall undergo a long and sore siege.
Ver. 10. Heap on wood, &c.] See on Ezekiel 24:3. And spice it well.] Vulgate, Coquatur tota compositio; let the whole composition be boiled, till all the virtue be boiled out; a metaphor from apothecaries.
Ver. 11. That the brass of it may be hot, and may burn.] This Gregory fitly applieth to Rome, taken and wasted by the Lombards. This city, ever since it was Papal—and then it first began to be so—was never besieged, but it was taken by the enemy. Iam vacua ardet Roma: iam enim et ipsa olla consumitur, in qua prius carnes et ossa consumebantur. -Hom. 18 in Ezek.
Ver. 12. She hath wearied herself with lies.] With seeking and trusting to lying vanities, creature comforts. Others render it, She hath wearied me with lies— i.e., With false promises of amendment; others, Frustra sudatum est, Pains is taken with them to no purpose. And her great scum went not forth out of her.] But is sodden into her partly, and partly sodden over into the fire. A godly man cleareth himself of sin, as spring water worketh itself clean; as the sea will endure no poisonous thing, but casteth it upon the shore; as the sweet water, made brackish by the coming in of the salt water, gets to be sweet again, so do God’s people work out brackish and sinful dispositions, &c. The good heart admitteth not the mixture of any sin; though sin may cleave to it as dross doth to silver, yet, like right wine or honey, as the scum ariseth, still it casteth it out; so here.
Ver. 13. In thy filthiness is lewdness,] i.e., Thou art desperately stiff and stubborn; thy disease is complicated, and threateneth death. Because I have purged thee,] i.e., Called upon thee by my prophets to “cleanse thyself of all filthiness of flesh and spirit”; sought also to purge thee by the soap of afflictions, and by the cudgel of calamities. (Isaiah 1:16 27:9 cf. Isaiah 1:5-7) And thou wast not purged.] From thy sin, which had gotten into thy very frame and constitution, was weaved into the texture of thine heart. Thou shalt not be purged.] But shalt perish in thy sins—which is worse than to die in a ditch—“and pine away in thine iniquities.” (Ezekiel 24:23) He who is filthy, shall be filthy still; a fearful sentence. Till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.] Till I have purged thee in hell fire, which will be ever doing, but never be done; donec omnia tela vindictae meae in te exhausero, till I have emptied my quiver, spent my wrath upon thee.
Ver. 14. I the Lord have spoken it.] And you may write upon it, Sententia haec stabit. Think not that these are only big words, bugbear terms, devised on purpose to frighten silly people; for do it I will, yea, that I will.
Ver. 15. Also the word of the Lord.] See Ezekiel 18:1.
Ver. 16. Behold, I take from thee the desire of thine eyes,] i.e., Thy wife, who is impendio dilecta et visu pergratiosa, thy dearly beloved and greatly delighted in. With a stroke.] With pestilence, palsy, or some similar sudden death. This was no small trial of the prophet’s patience and obedience. Let us learn to hang loose to all outward comforts. Yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep.] Which, might he have done, would have been some ease to him; for “ Expletur lachrymis, egeriturque dolor. ” As hinds by calving, so do men by weeping, cast out their sorrows. (Job 39:3) Est quaedam flere voluptas. -Ovid. Fletus aerumnas lennet. -Sen.
Ver. 17. Forbear to cry.] Heb., Be silent, and so suffocate thy sorrows; Ne plangas, ne plores. Not as if the dead were not to be lamented—tears are the dues of the dead, Mors mea ne careat lachrymis -or that it were unbeseeming a prophet to bewail his dead comfort, but to set forth by this figure the greatness of their ensuing sorrow, bigger than any tears; for, Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent. Bind the tire of thy head upon thee.] Mourners, it seems, used to go bare headed and bare footed, to cover their mustaches, to eat what their friends sent them in at such a sad time to cheer up their spirits. (Jeremiah 16:5,7) The prophet must do none of all this, but keep his sorrows to himself. Πατροκλον κλαιωμεν: ο γαρ γερας εστι θανοντων. Singultus devorat.
Ver. 18. And at even my wife died.] Though a good woman probably, and to the prophet a great comfort, the sweet companion of his life and miseries, yet she died suddenly, and by some extraordinary disease; all things come alike to all. And I did in the morning as I was commanded.] Grievous though it were, and went much against the hair with me, yet I did it. Uxorem posthabuit praecepto Dei. Obedience must be yielded to God even in the most difficult duties, and conjugal love must give place to our love to him.
Ver. 19. Wilt thou not tell us.] They well knew that there was something in it more than ordinary, for the prophet was no stoic, but sensible enough of what he suffered.
Ver. 20. Then I answered them.] The prophet was ready to tell them the true meaning of all; so should ministers be. See Job 33:23. [See Trapp on “Job 33:23”]
Ver. 21. Behold, I will profane my sanctuary.] I will put it into the hands of profane persons to be spoiled and polluted, for a punishment of your manifold pollutions of it. The excellency of your strength.] The Jews had too high a conceit of, and did put too much confidence in, their temple, which therefore they called, as here, the “excellency of their strength,” the “desire of their eyes,” and that which their soul pitied, animarum indulgentiam. “The temple of the Lord!” they cried; but the Lord of the temple they cared not for. (Jeremiah 7:4)
Ver. 22. And ye shall do as I have done.] Your grief shall be above tears, you shall be so overgone with it; besides you shall have neither leisure nor leave of your enemies to bewail your losses, &c. Ye shall not cover.] See on Ezekiel 24:17. Antonius Margarita, a Christian Jew, hath written a book of the Jewish rites or superstitions at the burial of the dead, and otherwise; so hath Leo Modena, another Jew, but no Christian.
Ver. 23. But ye shall pine away for your iniquities.] Non tam stupidi prae maestitia, quam prae malitia stipites. This was long since threatened, (Leviticus 26:39) and it is reserved to the last, as not the least of those dismal judgments. Oecolamp.
Ver. 24. Thus Ezekiel is unto you a son.] Portentum; portending no good to you. Whether he were made dumb till these things were fulfilled, as some gather from Ezekiel 24:27, I have not to say.
Ver. 25. When I take from them their strength.] Their kingdom, temple, all. And that whereupon they set their minds.] Heb., The lifting up of the soul, or the burden of their souls, that whereof they are most solicitous.
Ver. 26. To cause thee to hear it,] viz., The performance of that which now thou fortellest, but canst not be believed, till experience, the mistress of fools, hath better taught it them.
Ver. 27. In that day shall thy mouth be opened.] Meanwhile make use of a sacred silence, wait till a new prophecy concerning this people shall be committed unto thee, as was done Eze. 33. Till then, prophesy against foreigners, Ammonites, Tyrians, Egyptians.