Prophecy against the leaders
11
📚And the spirit lifted me up, and brought me to the east gate of the LORD’s house, which looks eastward. And at the door of the gate twenty-five men appeared. Among them I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, leaders of the people. 11:1 This Jaazaniah is different from the one in Ezek 8:11.⚜
2 📚Then he said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who plot evil, and give wicked counsel in this city, 3 📚who say, ‘It is not near the time for us to build houses. This city is the cooking pot and we are the meat.’
11:3 They refused to believe God’s message through Jeremiah that the Babylonians would destroy the city (Jer 14:12-16; 21:3-10). They thought they were safe, that the walls of Jerusalem would be like brass walls around them to protect them. They boasted that they were the “meat”, the choicest part of the nation. Compare vs 7-11; see Jeremiah chapter 24.⚜
4 📚Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, son of man”.
5 📚And the Spirit of the LORD suddenly came on me, and said to me, “Say, Thus says the LORD: You have spoken this, O house of Israel; for the things which come into your mind, I know them all 📖. 6 📚You have multiplied your slain in this city, and you have filled its streets with the slain.
7 📚“Therefore thus says the Lord God: Your slain whom you have caused to lie in the midst of it, they are the meat, and this city is the cooking pot, but I will bring you out of the midst of it.
11:7 God says the choicest part of the nation was those murdered by these men. Those dead were true prophets and godly men. Compare Matt 23:27-31; Acts 7:52.⚜
8 📚You have feared the sword, and I will bring a sword on you, says the Lord God. 9 📚And I will bring you out of the midst of the city, and hand you over to foreigners, and will execute judgments among you. 10 📚You will fall by the sword. I will judge you at the border of Israel, and you will know that I am the LORD. 11 📚This city will not be your cooking pot, and you will not be the meat inside it, but I will judge you on the border of Israel, 12 📚and you will know that I am the LORD. For you have not walked in my statutes, or executed my judgments, but have acted in the ways of the nations that are around you”.
13 📚And it happened, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then I went down on my face, and cried out with a loud voice, and said, “Alas, Lord God! Will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel?”
God will scatter and gather Israel again
14 Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 15 📚“Son of man, your brethren, even your brethren, your relatives and kindred, and the whole house of Israel, are the ones to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘Go far from the LORD. This land has been given to us to possess.’
11:15 The people of Jerusalem were referring to those who had gone into exile with Ezekiel. They thought God’s wrath was on them and imagined that God’s blessing was on those who remained in Jerusalem. This was the exact opposite of the truth as verses 16-21 show. See also Jeremiah chapter 24. It is the way of sinful men to misinterpret what God does and turn the truth upside down.⚜
16 📚“Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: Although I have put them far off among the nations, and although I have scattered them in the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them 📖 in the countries where they have gone.’
17 📚“Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.’
11:17 The future of the nation of Israel lay with the exiles, not with those who remained in Judah.⚜
18 📚“And they will come here, and they will take away from here all its detestable things and all its abominations.
11:18 The exiles after their return from Babylon, having learned their lesson, were opposed to all idolatry.⚜
19 📚And I will give them one heart 📖, and I will put a new spirit within you, and I will take the stony heart 📖 out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh, 20 📚so that they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them. And they will be my people, and I will be their God 📖. 21 📚But as for those whose heart follows their detestable things and their abominations, I will repay their way on their own heads, says the Lord God”.
22 📚Then the cherubim raised their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was up above them. 23 📚And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood on the mountain which is on the east side of the city.
11:22-23 The mountain east of Jerusalem is the Mount of Olives. From its summit, much later in history, God’s glory in Christ, after pausing there, ascended into heaven. To the same mount He will return at the end of this age (Zech 14:4).⚜
24 📚Afterwards the Spirit took me up, and in a vision brought me by the Spirit of God to Chaldea, to those of the captivity. So the vision that I had seen went up from me.
11:24 Ezek 8:3. “Chaldea” – the southern part of the country of Babylon, but sometimes the whole country was called by this name.⚜
25 📚Then I told those of the captivity all the things that the LORD had shown me.