Ezekiel 11: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In a vision Ezekiel is carried to the east gate of the temple, where God shows him twenty-five men who give wicked advice and say the city is a cooking pot and they are the meat safe inside it. God turns the saying around: the people they killed are the meat, and they themselves will be taken out of the city and judged at the border of Israel. When Pelatiah dies as Ezekiel is speaking, Ezekiel cries out, and God answers with a promise to gather the scattered exiles, give them one heart and a new spirit, and give them back the land, while those whose hearts keep following detestable things will be repaid for what they do. The vision ends with the glory of the God of Israel rising from the city and stopping over the mountain east of it, and Ezekiel reporting everything to the exiles.

Claim by Claim

1. 11:1
   • A spirit lifted the prophet up.
   • The spirit brought him to the gate of the LORD's house that faces east.
   • At the entrance of that gate were twenty-five men.
   • Among them he saw Jaazaniah son of Azur.
   • Among them he saw Pelatiah son of Benaiah.
   • Jaazaniah and Pelatiah were officials of the people.
2. 11:2
   • A voice said to him, Son of man.
   • The voice said these are the men who devise wickedness in this city.
   • The voice said these men give wicked counsel in this city.
3. 11:3
   • These men say that building houses is not near at hand.
   • The words are ambiguous and can be read either as a denial that the time is near or as a question asking whether the time to build houses is not near.
   • These men say the city is the cooking pot.
   • These men say they themselves are the meat.
4. 11:4
   • The voice commanded him to prophesy against them.
   • The voice repeated the command to prophesy.
   • The voice addressed him as son of man.
5. 11:5
   • The spirit of the LORD fell upon him.
   • The spirit told him to speak.
   • He was to say, Thus says the LORD.
   • The LORD said the house of Israel had spoken in this way.
   • The LORD said he knows the things that come into their minds, every one of them.
6. 11:6
   • The LORD said they have multiplied their slain in this city.
   • The LORD said they have filled the streets of the city with the slain.
7. 11:7
   • Therefore thus says the Lord GOD.
   • The slain whom they laid in the midst of the city are the meat.
   • The city is the cooking pot.
   • They themselves will be brought out from the midst of the city.
8. 11:8
   • The LORD said they have feared the sword.
   • The LORD said he will bring a sword upon them.
   • This is the declaration of the Lord GOD.
9. 11:9
   • The LORD said he will bring them out of the midst of the city.
   • The LORD said he will deliver them into the hands of foreigners.
   • The LORD said he will execute judgments among them.
10. 11:10
    • They will fall by the sword.
    • The LORD will judge them at the border of Israel.
    • They will know that he is the LORD.
11. 11:11
    • The city will not be a cooking pot for them.
    • They will not be the meat in the midst of it.
    • The LORD will judge them at the border of Israel.
12. 11:12
    • They will know that he is the LORD.
    • They have not walked in the LORD's statutes.
    • They have not carried out the LORD's ordinances.
    • They have acted according to the ordinances of the nations around them.
13. 11:13
    • While the prophet was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died.
    • The prophet fell on his face.
    • The prophet cried out with a loud voice.
    • The prophet said, Ah, Lord GOD.
    • The prophet asked whether the LORD was making a full end of the remnant of Israel.
14. 11:14
    • The word of the LORD came to the prophet, saying.
15. 11:15
    • The LORD addressed him as son of man.
    • The LORD spoke of his brothers, repeating the word.
    • These are the men who hold the right of redemption for him.
    • The LORD included the whole house of Israel, all of it.
    • The inhabitants of Jerusalem have spoken about these people.
    • The inhabitants of Jerusalem said to keep far from the LORD, the words being ambiguous between a command that they go far from the LORD and a statement that they are far from the LORD.
    • The inhabitants of Jerusalem said the land has been given to themselves as a possession.
16. 11:16
    • Therefore he is to say, Thus says the Lord GOD.
    • The LORD has removed them far away among the nations.
    • The LORD has scattered them among the countries.
    • The LORD has been to them a sanctuary in small measure, the phrase being ambiguous between a little sanctuary and a sanctuary for a little while.
    • This has been so in the countries where they have come.
17. 11:17
    • Therefore he is to say, Thus says the Lord GOD.
    • The LORD will gather them from the peoples.
    • The LORD will assemble them out of the countries where they have been scattered.
    • The LORD will give them the land of Israel.
18. 11:18
    • They will come to that land.
    • They will remove all its detestable things from it.
    • They will remove all its abominations from it.
19. 11:19
    • The LORD will give them one heart.
    • The LORD will put a new spirit within them.
    • The LORD will remove the heart of stone from their flesh.
    • The LORD will give them a heart of flesh.
20. 11:20
    • The purpose is that they may walk in the LORD's statutes.
    • The purpose is that they may keep his ordinances.
    • The purpose is that they may do them.
    • They will be his people.
    • He will be their God.
21. 11:21
    • There are those whose heart walks after their detestable things and their abominations.
    • The LORD will bring their way back upon their own heads.
    • This is the declaration of the Lord GOD.
22. 11:22
    • The cherubim lifted up their wings.
    • The wheels were beside them.
    • The glory of the God of Israel was above them.
23. 11:23
    • The glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city.
    • The glory of the LORD stopped over the mountain east of the city.
24. 11:24
    • A spirit lifted the prophet up.
    • The spirit brought him to Chaldea, to the exiles.
    • This happened in a vision by the Spirit of God.
    • The vision he had seen went up from him.
25. 11:25
    • He spoke to the exiles.
    • He told them all the words of the LORD that the LORD had shown him.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

11:1

Ezekiel is not physically in Jerusalem. He is sitting in his house in Babylon with the elders of Judah, and everything from chapter 8 through chapter 11 happens in a vision that carries him to the temple and back (8:1-3; 11:24). "The east gate of the LORD's house" is the main gate of the temple courts, facing the Mount of Olives. "Princes" in the KJV means senior officials or leading men, not sons of a king. This Jaazaniah son of Azur is a different man from the Jaazaniah son of Shaphan named in 8:11.

11:2

"Son of man" is how God addresses Ezekiel throughout the book. The Hebrew ben adam means simply "human being, mortal"; it is a form of address, not a title of honor.

11:3

The first line is genuinely unclear in Hebrew and has been read two ways: as a flat statement ("the time is not near; let's get on with building houses") or as a question ("is not the time near to build houses?"). Either way the speakers are brushing aside warnings of imminent disaster. The saying about the pot works from a picture everyone knew: meat inside a thick cooking pot is enclosed and protected, so "we are the meat" means the city walls will keep us safe. Some read it instead as "we are the choice cuts," i.e. the best people, left behind while the rest went into exile. Verses 7-11 turn the image inside out.

11:5

"The Spirit of the LORD fell upon me" is a set idiom for the sudden onset of prophetic speech. "Fell" conveys force and seizure, not gentleness.

11:6

The charge is killing inside the city, not deaths in battle: violent oppression and judicial murder by the men in power are what is meant.

11:7

The reversal of the proverb: the meat that stays in the pot is the corpses of those they have killed. Being "brought out" of the pot sounds like rescue but is not, verses 9-11 spell out that it means being dragged out of the city to be handed over and executed.

11:8

"The sword" is standard shorthand throughout the prophets for war, and specifically for an invading army, here the Babylonians.

11:9

"Strangers" in KJV English means foreigners, people not of your own nation. Here it means the Babylonians.

11:10

"In the border of Israel" means at the frontier, on the very edge of the land or just outside it. After Jerusalem fell, Nebuchadnezzar had the captured officials of Judah taken to Riblah, near the northern boundary, and executed there (2 Kings 25:18-21). To die outside the land and be buried nowhere near your family was itself understood as a disgrace.

11:12

"Heathen" in KJV English translates goyim, "the nations", simply the non-Israelite peoples, with no implication about how primitive they were. "Statutes" and "judgments" are the standard terms for the fixed rules and legal decisions of the law given through Moses.

11:13

Pelatiah's name means "the LORD delivers" or "the LORD grants escape," and the irony of who dies here would have been audible to a Hebrew listener. "Remnant" is the ordinary word for what is left over after a disaster, the survivors, the small group not destroyed. Falling facedown is the posture of someone bringing an urgent petition before a king.

11:15

"The men of thy kindred" translates a Hebrew phrase that means literally "the men of your redemption", your kinsmen-redeemers, the near relatives whose legal duty it was to buy back family land that had been lost and keep it inside the family. The term is pointed, because the quarrel is precisely about who owns the land. The saying quoted can be read either as words spoken at the exiles ("keep well away from the LORD") or as words spoken about them ("they have gone far from the LORD"). Either way, those left in Jerusalem are claiming that deportation has canceled the exiles' claim and that the property has passed to them.

11:16

A "sanctuary" is a holy place, a temple. The Hebrew phrase (miqdash me'at) is ambiguous and can mean "a sanctuary in small measure", something less than the Jerusalem temple, or "a sanctuary for a little while." The phrase directly answers the claim quoted in verse 15, that being far from Jerusalem means being cut off from God.

11:18

"Detestable things" and "abominations" render two standard Hebrew words (shiqqutsim and to'evot) used for idols and for the rites carried out for them. Both are words of physical disgust, of the kind used for things ritually unclean.

11:19

In Hebrew the "heart" is the seat of thinking, willing and deciding, closer to "mind" than to "feelings." "One heart" (lev echad) is what the Hebrew text reads here, but some manuscripts and ancient versions have "a new heart" (lev chadash), a difference of one letter. Stone against flesh contrasts something hard and unresponsive with living, workable tissue. The abrupt switch between "them" and "you" inside the verse is in the Hebrew too.

11:20

"They shall be my people, and I will be their God" is a fixed formula in Hebrew, repeated across the Old Testament as the standard wording of the covenant bond; comparable set phrases were used in ancient treaties and in declarations of marriage and adoption.

11:21

"Recompense their way upon their own heads" is a legal idiom: to make the consequences of what someone has done fall back on the person who did it.

11:22

Cherubim are winged composite creatures; in the ancient Near East they guarded thrones and temple entrances, and here they are the beings described in chapters 1 and 10, with their accompanying wheels. (KJV "cherubims" adds an English plural to a word already plural in Hebrew.) "The glory of the God of Israel" translates kavod, the visible, blazing presence of God, pictured in the earlier chapters as fire, brightness and a throne.

11:23

The mountain east of the city is the Mount of Olives, immediately across the Kidron Valley from the temple.

11:24

Chaldea means Babylonia, in southern Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq); the Chaldeans were the dynasty ruling the Babylonian empire. "Them of the captivity" are the Judeans deported by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC, among whom Ezekiel was settled in a community by the Chebar canal.