Ezekiel 11
Judgment on Jerusalem's Wicked Leaders 1–13
Promise of Restoration for the Exiles 14–21
The Glory of the Lord Departs 22–25
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Ezekiel 11
Verse 1
the east gate of the LORD’S house — This is where the cherubim and the glory stopped in 10:19. At the door are ‘five and twenty men’, and two are named as ‘princes of the people’, Jaazaniah the son of Azur and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah. This Jaazaniah is not the son of Shaphan of 8:11. Pelatiah’s death is told in v.13.
Verse 2
devise mischief, and give wicked counsel — ‘Mischief’ is aven, trouble or iniquity, and ‘counsel’ is etsah, the plan a leader gives. The LORD names the men who ought to guide the city. His own people are warned against taking counsel ‘but not of me’ (Isa 30:1), and these princes give counsel that has no place for him.
Verse 3
this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh — The saying, ‘It is not near’, matches the people’s words in 12:22, ‘The days are prolonged’, and 12:27, ‘for many days to come’. A caldron (sir) is a cooking pot (Ex 16:3), and the speakers expect the walls to hold them as meat is held in a pot. Mic 3:1–3 uses the same picture of rulers who treat the people as ‘flesh within the caldron’.
Verse 5
the things that come into your mind — Maaleh is what ‘comes up’ in the mind, so the LORD answers what was said in private. The Spirit ‘fell upon’ the prophet, as the hand did in 8:1. The verb behind it, alah, is used in 38:10 of things that ‘come into thy mind’, and Jer 17:10 says, ‘I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins’.
Verse 7
they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron — The LORD takes up their saying (v.3) and gives it another meaning: the flesh in the pot is the slain whom they ‘have multiplied’ in the city (v.6). The living leaders will not remain in it, for ‘I will bring you forth out of the midst of it’. Ezekiel gives a longer parable of the pot in 24:3–13.
Verse 10
I will judge you in the border of Israel — The ‘border’ (gebul) fits Riblah in the land of Hamath, where the king of Babylon ‘smote them, and slew them’ (2 Kgs 25:21), Hamath being the northern edge of Israel’s coast (2 Kgs 14:25). ‘Know that I am the LORD’ occurs in 58 verses of Ezekiel, more than in any other book.
Verse 11
This city shall not be your caldron — The LORD repeats their word of v.3 and denies it. Jerusalem will not shelter them, and they will not be the ‘flesh’ kept safe in the pot. ‘Flesh’ (basar) is also the word of ‘an heart of flesh’ in v.19. The sentence is the same as in v.10, to be judged ‘in the border of Israel’.
Verse 13
Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died — Pelatiah is the prince named in v.1, and he dies ‘when I prophesied’. Ezekiel falls on his face and asks again, ‘wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?’, as in 9:8. ‘Make a full end’ (kalah) is the phrase of Jer 4:27, ‘yet will I not make a full end’, and of 20:17, ‘neither did I make an end of them’.
Verse 15
Get you far from the LORD — The people of Jerusalem say this of the exiles, and claim, ‘unto us is this land given in possession’. ‘Kindred’ is ge’ullah, the word for redemption in Lev 25:24, so ‘the men of thy kindred’ are literally ‘the men of thy redemption’. Ezek 33:24 records the same boast, ‘Abraham was one, and he inherited the land’.
Verse 16
a little sanctuary in the countries — The LORD has cast the exiles ‘far off’ (the verb of ‘Get you far’, v.15) and says he will himself be their sanctuary there. ‘Little’ is me’at, which can mean small in size or short in time. The house in Jerusalem is not the only place of his dwelling: ‘Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations’ (Ps 90:1).
Verse 17
I will even gather you from the people — The verb ‘give’ of the claim in v.15, ‘unto us is this land given’, is the LORD’s own promise here: ‘I will give you the land of Israel’. The gathering is told again in 28:25, 34:13 and 36:24, and the land is the one first promised to Abraham for ‘an everlasting possession’ (Gen 17:8).
Verse 19
I will take the stony heart out of their flesh — ‘One heart’ is the gift of Jer 32:39, ‘one heart, and one way’. ‘Stony’ is eben, a stone. The promise comes in almost the same words in 36:26, and Paul echoes the contrast in 2 Cor 3:3, ‘not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart’. The change is the LORD’s own work: ‘I will give’, ‘I will take’.
Verse 20
walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances — The purpose of the new heart is obedience, and 36:27 says the LORD will ‘cause you to walk in my statutes’. ‘They shall be my people, and I will be their God’ is the covenant formula spoken to Israel in Egypt (Ex 6:7) and repeated in 14:11 and 36:28.
Verse 21
whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things — These are the ones who do not receive the new heart of v.19. ‘Detestable things’ (shiqqutsim) and ‘abominations’ are what the returned ‘shall take away’ from the land in v.18. For those who cling to them, their way is given back ‘upon their own heads’, as in 9:10.
Verse 23
went up from the midst of the city — The glory, which has passed from the threshold (10:18) to the east gate (10:19), now leaves the city and stands on the mountain ‘on the east side’. Zech 14:4 says the LORD’s feet will stand ‘upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east’. In 43:2 the glory returns ‘from the way of the east’.
Verse 24
into Chaldea, to them of the captivity — The whole visit to Jerusalem has been ‘in a vision’ (8:3; 11:24). ‘Went up’ is the verb used of the glory in v.23, so the vision rises as the glory does. The Spirit of God returns him to the exiles among whom he lives (1:1).
Verse 25
all the things that the LORD had shewed me — Ezekiel speaks to the exiles all that he has seen in chapters 8–11. His commission was to speak God’s words to them ‘whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear’ (2:7), and he was made ‘a watchman unto the house of Israel’ (3:17). The next chapter begins with the word of the LORD again.