Introduction
This chapter denounces the judgments of God against those wicked persons who remained in Jerusalem and made a mock of the types and predictions of the prophets, [Eze 11:1-13]; compare [Eze 11:3] with [Jer 1:13]. God promises to favour those who were gone into captivity, and intimates their restoration from the Babylonish yoke, [Eze 11:14-21]. Then the shechinah, or symbol of the Divine Presence, is represented forsaking the city, as in the foregoing chapter it did the temple, [Eze 11:22], [Eze 11:23]; and the prophet returns in vision to the place from which he set out, ([Eze 8:1]. etc.), in order to communicate his instructions to his brethren of the captivity, [Eze 11:24], [Eze 11:25].
Verse 1
At the door of the gate five and twenty men - The same persons, no doubt, who appear, [Eze 8:16], worshipping the sun.
Jaazaniah the son of Azur - In [Eze 8:16], we find a Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. If Shaphan was also called Azur, they may be the same person. But it is most likely that there were two of this name, and both chiefs among the people.
Verse 3
It is not near - That is, the threatened invasion.
This city is the caldron, and we be the flesh - See the vision of the seething pot, [Jer 1:13]. These infidels seem to say: "We will run all risks, we will abide in the city. Though it be the caldron, and we the flesh, yet we will share its fate: if it perish, we will perish with it." Or they may allude to the above prediction of Jeremiah, in order to ridicule it: "We were to have been boiled long ago: but the fulfillment of that prediction is not near yet."
Verse 7
Your slain - they are the flesh - Jerusalem is the caldron, and those who have been slain in it, they are the flesh; and though ye purpose to stay and share its fate, ye shall not be permitted to do so, ye shall be carried into captivity.
Verse 9
And deliver you into the hands of strangers - This seems to refer chiefly to Zedekiah and his family.
Verse 11
I will judge you in the border of Israel - Though Riblah was in Syria, yet it was on the very frontiers of Israel; and it was here that Zedekiah's sons were slain, and his own eyes put out.
Verse 13
Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died - Most probably he was struck dead the very hour in which Ezekiel prophesied against him. His death appears to have resembled that of Ananias and Sapphira, [Act 5:1], etc.
Verse 15
Get you far from the Lord - These are the words of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, against those of Israel who had been carried away to Babylon with Jeconiah. Go ye far from the Lord: but as for us, the land of Israel is given to us for a possession, we shall never be removed from it, and they shall never return to it.
Verse 16
Yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary - Though thus exiled from their own land, yet not forgotten by their God. While in their captivity, I will dispense many blessings to them; and I will restore them to their own land, [Eze 11:17], from which they shall put away all idolatry, [Eze 11:18].
Verse 19
And I will give them one heart - A whole system of renewed affections.
And I will put a new spirit within you - To direct and influence these new affections.
And I will take the stony heart out of their flesh - That which would not receive the impressions of my Spirit.
And will give them a heart of flesh - One that is capable of receiving and retaining these impressions.
Verse 20
That they may walk in my statutes - The holiness of their lives shall prove the work of God upon their hearts. Then it shall appear that I am their God, because I have done such things in them and for them; and their holy conduct shall show that they are my people. See on [Eze 36:25] (note), etc.
Verse 21
But as for them whose heart walketh - Them whose affections are attached to idolatry, they shall have such reward as their idols can give them, and such a recompense as Divine justice shall award them.
Verse 23
The glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city - This vision is no mean proof of the long-suffering of God. He did not abandon this people all at once; he departed by little and little.
First, he left the temple
Secondly, he stopped a little at the gate of the city.
Thirdly, he departed entirely from the city and went to the Mount of Olives, which lay on the east side of the city. Having tarried there for some time to see if they would repent and turn to him -
Fourthly, he departed to heaven. The vision being now concluded, the prophet is taken away by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, and there announces to the captive Israelites what God had showed him in the preceding visions, and the good that he had spoken concerning them; who at first did not seem to profit much by them, which the prophet severely reproves.
Introduction
The prophet proceeds, by a variety of types and parables, to convince those of the captivity that their brethren who were left behind to sustain the miseries of a siege and the insults of a conqueror, would be in a much worse condition than they who were already settled in a foreign land. In the beginning of this chapter he foretells the approaching captivity of Judah by action instead of words, [Eze 12:1-7]. He predicts particularly the flight, capture, captivity, and sufferings of Zedekiah and his followers, [Eze 12:8-16], compared with [Jer 52:11]. He is to eat his food with trembling and signs of terror, as an emblem of the consternation of the Jews when surrounded by their enemies, [Eze 12:17-20]; and then he answers the objections and bywords of scoffers and infidels, who either disbelieved his threatening or supposed the accomplishment of them very distant, [Eze 12:21-28]. Josephus (Antiq. 11:10) tells us that Zedekiah thought the prophecy of Ezekiel in the thirteenth verse inconsistent with that of Jeremiah, ([Jer 34:3]), and resolved to believe neither. Both, however, were literary fulfilled; and the event convinced him that they were not irreconcilable. Thus, blinded by infidelity, sinners rush on to that destruction against which they are sufficiently warned.
Verse 2
Which have eyes to see, and see not - It is not want of grace that brings them to destruction. They have eyes to see, but they will not use them. No man is lost because he had not sufficient grace to save him, but because he abused that grace.
Verse 3
Prepare thee stuff for removing - Get carriages to transport thy goods to another place; signifying by this the captivity that was at hand.
Verse 5
Dig thou through the wall - This refers to the manner in which Zedekiah and his family would escape from the city. They escaped by night through a breach in the wall. See [Jer 39:2-4]; and [2Kgs 25:4].
Verse 6
Thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground - Referring to the blinding of Zedekiah: even the covering of the face might be intended to signify that in this way Zedekiah should be carried to Babylon on men's shoulders in some sort of palanquin, with a cloth tied over his eyes, because of the recent wounds made by extracting them. All the prophecies from this to the twentieth chapter are supposed to have been delivered in the sixth year of Zedekiah, five years before the taking of Jerusalem. How accurate the prediction! and how exactly fulfilled!