Ezekiel 24: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

On the day the king of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem, God tells Ezekiel to write down the date and to speak a parable of a cooking pot set on the fire, a pot crusted with rust that will not come off. The pot stands for the city and the blood spilled in it, and God says the city will not be made clean until his anger against it has been spent. God then takes Ezekiel's wife and tells him not to mourn in the usual ways; when the people ask what this means, Ezekiel says God will treat the temple as common and their children will be killed, and they will hold back their mourning as he did. The chapter ends with word that on the day a survivor arrives with the news, Ezekiel will speak again.

Claim by Claim

1. 24:1
   • In the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
   • The word of the LORD came saying the following.
2. 24:2
   • God addressed the prophet as son of man.
   • God commanded him to write down the name of that day, that very day.
   • The king of Babylon pressed against Jerusalem on that very day.
3. 24:3
   • God commanded him to speak a parable to the rebellious house.
   • God commanded him to say to them what follows.
   • The message is introduced as the words of the Lord GOD.
   • The command is given to set the pot on the fire.
   • The command is given to pour water into the pot.
4. 24:4
   • The command is given to gather the pieces of meat into the pot.
   • Every good piece is to go in.
   • The thigh is to go in.
   • The shoulder is to go in.
   • The pot is to be filled with the choice bones.
5. 24:5
   • The command is given to take the choicest of the flock.
   • The command is given to pile the fuel underneath the pot.
   • The command is given to make it boil hard.
   • The bones in it are to be cooked inside it.
6. 24:6
   • Therefore the Lord GOD speaks the following.
   • Woe is pronounced on the city of blood.
   • The city is a pot whose corrosion is in it.
   • The corrosion has not gone out of the pot.
   • The command is given to bring its contents out piece by piece.
   • No lot is to be cast upon it.
7. 24:7
   • Her blood is in the midst of her.
   • She placed the blood on bare rock.
   • She did not pour the blood on the ground.
   • Pouring it on the ground would have covered it with dust.
8. 24:8
   • God acted in order to bring up fury and to take vengeance.
   • God set her blood on bare rock.
   • God did this so that the blood would not be covered.
9. 24:9
   • Therefore the Lord GOD speaks the following.
   • Woe is pronounced on the city of blood.
   • God says he too will make the pile of fuel great.
10. 24:10
    • The command is given to heap on wood.
    • The command is given to kindle the fire.
    • The command is given to consume the flesh.
    • The command is given to mix in the spices.
    • The bones are to be burned.
11. 24:11
    • The command is given to set the pot empty on its coals.
    • The purpose is that the pot become hot.
    • The purpose is that its copper glow.
    • The purpose is that its uncleanness be melted within it.
    • The purpose is that its corrosion be consumed.
12. 24:12
    • She has wearied herself with lies.
    • Her abundant corrosion did not go out of her.
    • Her corrosion is to be in the fire.
13. 24:13
    • In your uncleanness is lewdness.
    • God purged you.
    • You were not purged.
    • You will not be purged from your uncleanness any more.
    • You will not be purged until God has caused his fury to rest upon you.
14. 24:14
    • The LORD says he has spoken it.
    • It is coming.
    • God says he will do it.
    • God will not go back.
    • God will not spare.
    • God will not relent.
    • They will judge you according to your ways and your doings.
    • This is declared by the Lord GOD.
15. 24:15
    • The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel, saying the following.
16. 24:16
    • God addressed him as son of man.
    • God says he is about to take away from him the desire of his eyes by a blow.
    • He is not to mourn.
    • He is not to weep.
    • His tears are not to run down.
17. 24:17
    • He is to groan in silence.
    • He is to make no mourning for the dead.
    • He is to bind his headdress upon himself.
    • He is to put his sandals on his feet.
    • He is not to cover his lips.
    • He is not to eat the bread of men.
18. 24:18
    • Ezekiel spoke to the people in the morning.
    • His wife died in the evening.
    • In the morning he did as he had been commanded.
19. 24:19
    • The people spoke to Ezekiel.
    • The people asked whether he would not tell them what these things meant for them.
    • The people referred to the fact that he was doing these things.
20. 24:20
    • Ezekiel answered them.
    • Ezekiel said the word of the LORD came to him, saying the following.
21. 24:21
    • God commanded him to speak to the house of Israel.
    • The message is introduced as the words of the Lord GOD.
    • God says he is about to profane his sanctuary.
    • The sanctuary is the pride of their strength.
    • The sanctuary is the desire of their eyes.
    • The sanctuary is what their soul pities.
    • Their sons and daughters whom they left behind will fall by the sword.
22. 24:22
    • They will do as Ezekiel has done.
    • They will not cover their lips.
    • They will not eat the bread of men.
23. 24:23
    • Their headdresses will be on their heads.
    • Their sandals will be on their feet.
    • They will not mourn.
    • They will not weep.
    • They will pine away in their iniquities.
    • They will groan to one another.
24. 24:24
    • Ezekiel is a sign to them.
    • They will do according to all that he has done.
    • When this comes, they will know that God is the Lord GOD.
25. 24:25
    • God again addressed him as son of man.
    • God speaks of the day when he takes from them their stronghold.
    • That stronghold is the joy of their glory.
    • That stronghold is the desire of their eyes.
    • That stronghold is what their soul is set upon.
    • On that day he also takes their sons and their daughters.
26. 24:26
    • On that day one who escapes will come to Ezekiel.
    • He will come to make Ezekiel hear the news with his ears.
27. 24:27
    • On that day Ezekiel's mouth will be opened to the one who escaped.
    • Ezekiel will speak.
    • Ezekiel will no longer be mute.
    • Ezekiel will be a sign to them.
    • They will know that he is the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

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

24:1

Ezekiel dates his messages from the deportation of King Jehoiachin and a first group of exiles to Babylon in 597 BC, when Ezekiel himself was taken. The ninth year, tenth month, tenth day falls in January of 588 BC. The Hebrew calendar counted months from spring, so the tenth month is midwinter, not October.

24:2

"Son of man" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning simply "human being" or "mortal." It is God's regular form of address to Ezekiel throughout the book, marking him as a man being spoken to by God. Ezekiel is in Babylonia, hundreds of miles from Jerusalem, and writes the date down because there is no way for him to have the news yet: when word of the siege eventually arrives, the date can be checked against it. A siege meant an army surrounding a walled city and cutting off supplies until hunger or assault brought it down. This one lasted about eighteen months.

24:3

"House" here means a whole people or dynasty, not a household, the nation of Israel, called rebellious. The Hebrew word behind "parable" and "picture story" covers proverbs, riddles, taunts and extended comparisons; it is a saying that carries a meaning beyond its surface. Earlier (Ezekiel 11:3) people in Jerusalem were quoting a saying that the city was a cooking pot and they were the meat safe inside it. The image is now turned against them.

24:4

The thigh and the shoulder were the choice cuts, the portions given to priests and to honored guests at a feast. In the picture they stand for Jerusalem's most important people.

24:5

The Hebrew of this line is uncertain. As written it says to pile the bones under the pot as fuel, which is what the King James reflects; many translators read a very similar word meaning logs or firewood instead.

24:6

"Bloody city" means a city guilty of shedding innocent blood, of murder and violence, not a city covered in gore. The King James "scum" and the modern "rust" render one Hebrew word for the corrosion or crust that forms on a copper pot; the same word can suggest either a deposit floating in it or a stain eaten into the metal, and the image works either way. Casting lots was the ordinary way of dividing up shares of meat or plunder fairly; here there is no dividing and no choosing, because every piece is being thrown out.

24:7

Custom and law held that blood spilled from a killing had to be covered with earth (Leviticus 17:13). Blood left lying exposed was thought of as crying out for justice until it was answered (as in Genesis 4:10). Pouring it out on bare rock, where dust cannot absorb it, leaves the demand for vengeance permanently in the open.

24:9

The KJV's "pile for fire" is a pyre: a stack of wood built up for burning.

24:10

The Hebrew of the phrase the King James gives as "spice it well" is unclear. It may mean mixing in the spices for cooking, or emptying out the broth; both readings are current among translators.

24:11

"Brass" in the King James means copper or bronze; brass as we know it was not in use. The picture is of an empty metal pot left on the coals until it glows, so that the encrusted filth burns off.

24:12

The Hebrew of the first line is difficult and translations split over it. The KJV reads it as the city wearing herself out with lies; other translations read it as the pot defeating every effort made to clean it.

24:13

The King James "lewdness" translates a Hebrew word for shameless, outrageous indecency. It is often used of sexual sin, and Ezekiel has used sexual images for the nation's unfaithfulness in earlier chapters, but the word itself covers any deliberate, brazen wrongdoing.

24:14

In 1611 English "repent" meant to change one's mind or relent from an intended course. It does not here mean confessing a fault.

24:16

"The desire of thine eyes" is a warm phrase for someone deeply loved; verse 18 reveals it is Ezekiel's wife. "With a stroke" means with a single sudden blow, a death without warning, perhaps by plague. The instruction is not that he may not grieve, but that he may not perform any of the public mourning rites listed in the next verse.

24:17

These are the ordinary mourning customs of the time, and Ezekiel is forbidden every one of them. Mourners took off the turban or headcloth and went bareheaded, went barefoot, covered the lower face or mustache, wailed aloud, and were fed by neighbors: a household with a death in it did not cook, so friends brought in the funeral meal, "the bread of men." To go about turbaned, shod and silent after a death would be as conspicuous to onlookers as loud wailing would be to us.

24:21

"Sanctuary" is the temple in Jerusalem. To "profane" something is to strip it of its set-apart status and let it be treated as ordinary (here, by letting foreign soldiers enter and destroy it. The phrases piled up in this verse) pride of your strength, delight of your eyes, what your heart holds dear, deliberately echo the words used of Ezekiel's wife in verse 16.

24:23

"Grow weak inside" means sadness so deep that a person stops eating well. The King James says they will "pine away".

24:24

A "sign" in this sense is not an omen to be read but an acted-out message: the prophet performs something in public, and the performance is itself the announcement. Ezekiel does several of these in the book, lying on his side, shaving his head, packing baggage for exile.

24:25

The King James calls the temple their "strength." It means a stronghold, the place they trusted to keep them safe.

24:26

News traveled with refugees on foot, and Babylonia lay roughly nine hundred miles from Jerusalem by the usual route. Ezekiel 33:21 records the survivor's arrival, about a year and a half after the events described here.

24:27

"Dumb" in the King James means unable to speak, with no suggestion of stupidity. It refers back to Ezekiel 3:26, where God made Ezekiel mute except when giving him words to deliver; the arrival of the fugitive ends that restriction.