When Jerusalem surrendered to the armies of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in the reign of Jehoiachin (BC. 597), the Chaldean monarch took a total of 3,023 captives to his own country. Among these was a priest, who settled with a colony of his fellow unfortunates at Tel-Abib near the river Chebar, a large navigable canel branching off from the river Euphrates to the South East of Babylon. The circumstances were evil but he was determined to make the best of them and established himself with his wife in their own house in the locality.
It is possible that he was always a noteworthy person among the exiles, but for five years he lived quietly, thinking continually and wistfully of his native land. Then in 592 B.C. his life was changed by a series of stupendous visions. He saw the glory of God as no one had seen it before. Amid cherubic manifestations a commission came to him to become a watchman to Israel, to speak God’s words to them. With a great rushing sound and the invocation ‘Blessed be the glory of God from this place’ the visions faded away and Ezekiel found himself among his friends, too staggered by what he had seen to speak to them for a week. When he recovered, he took up his duties as a watchman at once. The people of the colony became representative of the wider audience to which his words applied which included the Jews still resident in Jerusalem under the rule of Zedekiah, who had been made king by the Babylonians. The elders of the people in Telabib used to visit him at his house and many were the burning words they heard from him and the strange symbolic acts they saw him perform.
Strangest of all, he was able in the visions of God to tell those in Babylonia what was going on in Jerusalem from time to time, despite the 250 miles between Zion and Chehar. Graphically, he described the evil practices in the city and especially in the temple. Looking through the north gate he saw the Jewish women weeping for the Babylonian God — Tammuz, the impersonation of the power which caused the spring-time crops to grow. Weeping was made for him because it was supposed that just as the crops were later dried up and consumed by the burning summer sun, so he died annually when his work was done. In the inner court itself, Ezekiel saw a number of men with their backs turned towards the temple, facing the east and worshipping the sun. At the gate of the inner court was the image of jealousy which provoked God to jealousy. Lastly the prophet saw a hole in the wall near the door of the court and passing through it he came to a further door which opened on a disgraceful scene in which seventy of the elders of Israel led by a man named Jaazaniah were burning incense to pictures of creeping things and abominable beasts, drawn on the wall of the chamber (Ezekiel 8).
Besides this open contempt which the leaders shewed for the worship of the true God, they were conspiring to force Nebuchadnezzar’s vassal king Zedekiah to be false to the oath of submission which he had given to his master and, by securing the assistance of Egypt, to endeavor to regain full independence for his people. So determined were they with their wicked counsel that they took violent measures against any who opposed them and many of these were murdered. One of these who condemned their schemes was the prophet Jeremiah and he received a rough handling, being placed on the stocks and in the miry pit and escaping with his life only because he enjoyed the favour of Zedekiah, as far as the monarch dared exercise it on his behalf.
While Jeremiah toiled in Judea, Ezekiel was working in Babylon. The period was one in which catchwords and proverbs were popular. Many of these are preserved in the writings of Ezekiel and one of them was a great favourite with the pro-Egyptian and anti-Yahweh party:
‘It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the cauldron and we be the flesh! Ezekiel 11:3.
They urged complete disregard of the warnings of the prophets of Yahweh and affirmed that they were so secure from the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar that it was quite safe to build houses. The Babylonian would doubtless attack the city but it was immensely strong and with Egyptian help, it could easily be defended. Jerusalem was like a cauldron in which they, as the flesh, were protected from the fire. Matters might be very hot for a time but they would not be consumed and would in the end be able to maintain their position in the city.
To this proverb Ezekiel gave a preliminary reply with a direct negative.
‘This city .shall not be your cauldron, neither shall ye be the flesh in the mid a thereof Ezekiel 11:11.
The forces upon which they relied would betray them in the hour of need and they would be removed forcibly from the city. In a grim passage the prophet told them that Jerusalem would truly be a cauldron, but not for their purposes. They would not be the flesh to remain in it. The flesh which would remain would be those whom they had murdered for opposition to their impious Policies — dead, indeed, but not forgotten of the Lord.
Over three years later, Ezekiel gave a final reply to their false proverb by setting forth the true parable of the seething pot:
‘. . . Thus saith the Lord God, Set on a pot, set it on, and also pour water into it:
Gather the pieces thereof into it, even every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder: fill it with the choice bones .
Take the choice of the flock, and burn also the bones under it, and make it boil well, and let them seethe the bones of it therein.
Wherefore. thus saith the Lord God; woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it . . .
Heap on wood, kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned. Ezekiel 24:3-6, 10
Jerusalem was the cauldron, the pieces of flesh were the inhabitants, and the choice of the flock were the leaders of the people. The scum or rust represented the injustices, the murders, the child-sacrifices and the uncleanness of worship and personal conduct which were practiced in the Holy City. The blood of the innocents cried out for vengeance. In the prophet’s figure, it had not been poured out on the dust where it would disappear, but on the top of a rock where it was manifest to all.
The intense heat generated by the onslaught of the Babylonian troops, represented by the heaping on of wood, would cause the cauldron to boil furiously. The contents, bones and flesh, would seethe and the broth would be made thick (v. 10–R. V. for ‘spice it well’). The flesh would be singed in the pot. When the boiling was complete, symbolizing the taking of the city, the contents of the cauldron would be taken out piece by piece and none of them should fall or be lost. Thus those who trusted in their cauldron to protect them and the Egyptians to deliver them would find their situation too hot for endurance and would be taken away by their conquerors. The parable was not yet complete, however;
‘Then set it empty upon the coals thereof, the brass of it may be hot, d may burn, d that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed.
She hath wearied herself with lies, and her great scum went not forth out of her: her scum shall he in the fire.
In the filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wart not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.’
Ezekiel 24:11-13.
So polluted was the city that even the removal of the evil-doers could not cleanse it. The taint of their defilement’s remained. So the cauldron was set on again, this time empty of flesh. It was heated until its rust became molten and the offence in the sight of God was removed. When Nebuchadnezzar captured the city after a desperate resistance lasting nearly two years, he took many of the inhabitants prisoner and scattered the remainder. Then he set fire to it—the temple, the royal palace and houses great and small. In the silence of ruin and desolation the place was purged.
This parable was spoken by Ezekiel to his fellow-captives at Tel-Abib on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year from the time of his exile and as an introduction to it, he announced that the siege of Jerusalem had commenced that day. Tidings which came later over the long stretch of territory between Judea and Chaldea proved that he was right. He was right, too, in his other statements and his parable received a dreadful fulfillment in the carnage and destruction in the Holy City. Too late, the self-sufficient idolaters learned that God is not mocked and that he who sows reaps what he sows.
The main application of the parable was to the Jews of the time at which it was spoken, and its lesson to us is more general than is the case with some other Old Testament parables. It leads us to recall that the Lord our God is a jealous God.’ This is a salutary recollection in days when in their desire, laudable when carried out with balanced judgment, to shew the love of God, many fail to realize that a God all mercy is a God unjust. There is, however, one striking aspect of Ezekiel’s message which is very pertinent for the individual. The complaint against Israel was that the rust had not gone out of them. There are many things in all our lives which might fittingly be compared to rust, and which hinders our brightness in the service of God. Yet by the Divine grace, we have power to remove the tarnish and become polished vessels of usefulness. The process is neither easy nor pleasant, but resolute and sustained action on our part will be effective and in the goodness of God the day will come when there will be inscribed upon us
Holiness Unto The Lord!
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One