Ezekiel 11:9

11:1-13 Where Satan cannot persuade men to look upon the judgment to come as uncertain, he gains his point by persuading them to look upon it as at a distance. These wretched rulers dare to say, We are as safe in this city as flesh in a boiling pot; the walls of the city shall be to us as walls of brass, we shall receive no more damage from the besiegers than the caldron does from the fire. When sinners flatter themselves to their own ruin, it is time to tell them they shall have no peace if they go on. None shall remain in possession of the city but those who are buried in it. Those are least safe who are most secure. God is often pleased to single out some sinners for warning to others. Whether Pelatiah died at that time in Jerusalem, or when the fulfilment of the prophecy drew near, is uncertain. Like Ezekiel, we ought to be much affected with the sudden death of others, and we should still plead with the Lord to have mercy on those who remain.

And I will bring you out of the midst thereof,.... Jerusalem, the cauldron, as they said it was, and where they thought they should be safe; this is repeated, to express the certainty of it, and to excite their attention to it, and remove their vain confidence: and deliver you into the hands of strangers; the Chaldeans: and will execute judgments among you; punishments for sin, such as famine, pestilence, sword, and captivity.

Verse 9. - The strangers are, of course, the Chaldean invaders, and the prediction finds its fulfilment in the massacre of the princes of Judah at Ritdah ( Jeremiah 52:9, 10 ), which was in Hamath, the northern border of Israel ( 1 Kings 8:65 ; 2 Kings 14:25 ). Then they should see that their defiant speech as to the "caldron" and "the flesh" would be of no avail. Thus they should know that the prophet had spoken in the name of Jehovah, and that their punishment by the heathen was the righteous retribution for their having walked in the ways of the heathen. Ezekiel 11:9

All that shall remain in the city are the buried dead. Bloodshed and murder were at this time rife in Jerusalem, and these were among the chief crimes that were bringing down judgment upon the city. All the inhabitants that should yet survive were destined to be carried away into exile.

Though the Chaldeans are the means or instruments by which it is done, yet I will so appear against you that it shall be confessed that I did it rather than the Chaldeans. And deliver you; defeating all your projects for escape; so was Zedekiah when he secretly fled, and his company with him, delivered unto enemies and strangers. Into the hands; it denoteth a full power over them. Strangers; Babylonians and others who assisted in this war. Will execute judgments among you; strangers will use you hardly; but the most severe part of the judgment will be from a provoked God, who would have pardoned, but impenitence refused the pardon.

And the Spirit of Jehovah fell upon me, and said to me: Say, Thus saith Jehovah, So ye say, O house of Israel, and what riseth up in your spirit, that I know. Ezekiel 11:6 . Ye have increased your slain in this city, and filled its streets with slain. Ezekiel 11:7 . Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Your slain, whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and it is the pot; but men will lead you out of it. Ezekiel 11:8 . The sword you fear; but the sword shall I bring upon you, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Ezekiel 11:9 . I shall lead you out of it and give you into the hand of foreigners, and shall execute judgments upon you. Ezekiel 11:10 . By the sword shall ye fall: on the frontier of Israel shall I judge you; and ye shall learn that I am Jehovah. Ezekiel 11:11 . It shall not be as a pot to you, so that you should be flesh therein: on the frontier of Israel shall I judge. Ezekiel 11:12 . And ye shall learn that I am Jehovah, in whose statutes ye have not walked, and my judgments ye have not done, but have acted according to the judgments of the heathen who are round about you. - For תּפּל עלי , compare Ezekiel 8:1 . Instead of the "hand" ( Ezekiel 8:1 ), the Spirit of Jehovah is mentioned here; because what follows is simply a divine inspiration, and there is no action connected with it.

The words of God are directed against the "house of Israel,' whose words and thoughts are discerned by God, because the twenty-five men are the leaders and counsellors of the nation. מעלות, thoughts, suggestions of the mind, may be explained from the phrase עלה על לב, to come into the mind. Their actions furnish the proof of the evil suggestions of their heart. They have filled the city with slain; not "turned the streets of the city into a battle-field," however, by bringing about the capture of Jerusalem in the time of Jeconiah, as Hitzig would explain it. The words are to be understood in a much more general sense, as signifying murder, in both the coarser and the more refined signification of the word. (Note: Calvin has given the correct explanation, thus: "He does not mean that men had been openly assassinated in the streets of Jerusalem; but under this form of speech he embraces all kinds of injustice. For we know that all who oppressed the poor, deprived men of their possessions, or shed innocent blood, were regarded as murderers in the sight of God.") מלּאתים is a copyist's error for מלּאתם. Those who have been murdered by you are the flesh in the caldron (Ezekiel 11:7). Ezekiel gives them back their own words, as words which contain an undoubted truth, but in a different sense from that in which they have used them. By their bloodshed they have made the city into a pot in which the flesh of the slain is pickled.