1Moreover the Word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, 2And you, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? Yes, show her all her abominations! 3Then say, Thus says the Lord Jehovah: The city sheds blood in her midst, that her time may come. And she makes idols within herself to defile herself. 4You are guilty by the blood which you have shed, and have defiled yourself with the idols which you have made. You have caused your days to draw near, and have come to your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mockery to all lands. 5Those who are near and those far from you will mock you as defiled of name and full of confusion. 6Behold, the rulers of Israel: each one was in you by his power to shed blood in you. 7In you they have made light of father and mother; in your midst they have oppressed the sojourner; in you they have mistreated the orphan and the widow. 8You have despised My holy things and profaned My Sabbaths. 9In you are men who slander to cause bloodshed; in you they eat on the mountains; in your midst they commit lewdness. 10In you men uncover the nakedness of their fathers; in you they humble women during their menstrual impurity. 11One commits abomination with his neighbor's wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; and another in you humbles his sister, his father's daughter. 12In you they take bribes to shed blood; you take usury and increase; you have made profit from your neighbors by extortion, and have forgotten Me, declares the Lord Jehovah. 13Behold, therefore, I have clapped My hands at the unjust gain which you have made, and at the blood which has been in your midst. 14Can your heart endure, or can your hands remain strong, in the days when I shall deal with you? I, Jehovah, have spoken, and will do it. 15I will scatter you among the nations, disperse you throughout the earth, and destroy your filthiness out of you. 16You shall defile yourself in the eyes of the nations; and you shall know that I am Jehovah. 17The Word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, 18Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me; they are all bronze, tin, iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are the dross of silver. 19Therefore thus says the Lord Jehovah: Because you have all become dross, therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. 20As men gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the midst of the furnace, to blow fire on it to melt it; so I will gather you in My anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there and melt you. 21Yes, I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you shall be melted in its midst. 22As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall you be melted in its midst. And you shall know that I, Jehovah, have poured out My fury upon you. 23And the Word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, 24Son of man, say to her: You are a land that is not cleansed or rained on in the day of indignation. 25The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in her midst. 26Her priests have violated My Law and defiled My holy things; they have not divided between the holy and profane, nor have they declared between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. 27Her rulers in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, to shed blood, to destroy souls, and to get dishonest gain. 28Her prophets plastered them with whitewash, seeing vain visions, and divining lies to them, saying, Thus says the Lord Jehovah, when Jehovah has not spoken. 29The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the sojourner. 30So I sought for a man among them who would close up the wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. 31Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord Jehovah.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 2 GOD'S JUDGMENT ON THE SINFULNESS OF JERUSALEM. (Eze. 22:1-31)
See
Ezek 20:4; that is, "Wilt thou not judge?" &c. (compare
Ezek 23:36).
the bloody city--literally, "the city of bloods"; so called on account of murders perpetrated in her, and sacrifices of children to Molech (
Ezek 22:3-
Ezek 22:4,
Ezek 22:6,
Ezek 22:9;
Ezek 24:6,
Ezek 24:9).
3 sheddeth blood . . . that her time may come--Instead of deriving advantage from her bloody sacrifices to idols, she only thereby brought on herself "the time" of her punishment.
against herself-- (
Pro 8:36).
4 thy days--the shorter period, namely, that of the siege.
thy years--the longer period of the captivity. The "days" and "years" express that she is ripe for punishment.
5 infamous--They mockingly call thee, "Thou polluted one in name (Margin), and full of confusion" [FAIRBAIRN], (referring to the tumultuous violence prevalent in it). Thus the nations "far and near" mocked her as at once sullied in character and in actual fact lawless. What a sad contrast to the Jerusalem once designated "'the holy city!"
6 Rather, "The princes . . . each according to his power, were in thee, to shed blood" (as if this was the only object of their existence). "Power," literally, "arm"; they, who ought to have been patterns of justice, made their own arm of might their only law.
7 set light by--Children have made light of, disrespected, father . . . (
Deut 27:16). At
Ezek 22:7-
Ezek 22:12 are enumerated the sins committed in violation of Moses' law.
9 men that carry tales--informers, who by misrepresentations cause innocent blood to be shed (
Lev 19:16). Literally, "one who goes to and fro as a merchant."
10 set apart for pollution--that is, set apart as unclean (
Lev 18:19).
12 forgotten me-- (
Deut 32:18;
Jer 2:32;
Jer 3:21).
13 smitten mine hand--in token of the indignant vengeance which I will execute on thee (see on
Ezek 21:17).
14 (
Ezek 21:7).
15 consume thy filthiness out of thee--the object of God in scattering the Jews.
16 take thine inheritance in thyself--Formerly thou wast Mine inheritance; but now, full of guilt, thou art no longer Mine, but thine own inheritance to thyself; "in the sight of the heathen," that is, even they shall see that, now that thou hast become a captive, thou art no longer owned as Mine [VATABLUS]. FAIRBAIRN and others needlessly take the Hebrew from a different root, "thou shalt be polluted by ('in,' [HENDERSON]) thyself," &c.; the heathen shall regard thee as a polluted thing, who hast brought thine own reproach on thyself.
18 dross . . . brass--Israel has become a worthless compound of the dross of silver (implying not merely corruption, but degeneracy from good to bad,
Isa 1:22, especially offensive) and of the baser metals. Hence the people must be thrown into the furnace of judgment, that the bad may be consumed, and the good separated (
Jer 6:29-
Jer 6:30).
23 From this verse to the end he shows the general corruption of all ranks.
24 land . . . not cleansed--not cleared or cultivated; all a scene of desolation; a fit emblem of the moral wilderness state of the people.
nor rained upon--a mark of divine "indignation"; as the early and latter rain, on which the productiveness of the land depended, was one of the great covenant blessings. Joel (
Joel 2:23) promises the return of the former and latter rain, with the restoration of God's favor.
25 conspiracy--The false prophets have conspired both to propagate error and to oppose the messages of God's servants. They are mentioned first, as their bad influence extended the widest.
prey--Their aim was greed of gain, "treasure, and precious things" (
Hos 6:9;
Zeph 3:3-
Zeph 3:4;
Matt 23:14).
made . . . many widows--by occasioning, through false prophecies, the war with the Chaldeans in which the husbands fell.
26 Her priests--whose "lips should have kept knowledge" (
Mal 2:7).
violated--not simply transgressed; but, have done violence to the law, by wresting it to wrong ends, and putting wrong constructions on it.
put no difference between the holy and profane, &c.--made no distinction between the clean and unclean (
Lev 10:10), the Sabbath and other days, sanctioning violations of that holy day. "Holy" means, what is dedicated to God; "profane," what is in common use; "unclean," what is forbidden to be eaten; "clean," what is lawful to be eaten.
I am profaned among them--They abuse My name to false or unjust purposes.
27 princes--who should have employed the influence of their position for the people's welfare, made "gain" their sole aim.
wolves--notorious for fierce and ravening cruelty (
Mic 3:2-
Mic 3:3,
Mic 3:9-
Mic 3:11;
John 10:12).
28 Referring to the false assurances of peace with which the prophets flattered the people, that they should not submit to the king of Babylon (see on
Ezek 13:10;
Ezek 21:29;
Jer 6:14;
Jer 23:16-
Jer 23:17;
Jer 27:9-
Jer 27:10).
29 The people--put last, after the mention of those in office. Corruption had spread downwards through the whole community.
wrongfully--that is, "without cause," gratuitously, without the stranger proselyte giving any just provocation; nay, he of all others being one who ought to have been won to the worship of Jehovah by kindness, instead of being alienated by oppression; especially as the Israelites were commanded to remember that they themselves had been "strangers in Egypt" (
Exod 22:21;
Exod 23:9).
30 the hedge--the wall (see on
Ezek 13:5); image for leading the people to repentance.
the gap--the breach (
Ps 106:23); image for interceding between the people and God (
Gen 20:7;
Exod 32:11;
Num 16:48).
I found none-- (
Jer 5:1) --not that literally there was not a righteous man in the city. For Jeremiah, Baruch, &c., were still there; but Jeremiah had been forbidden to pray for the people (
Jer 11:14), as being doomed to wrath. None now, of the godly, knowing the desperate state of the people, and God's purpose as to them, was willing longer to interpose between God's wrath and them. And none "among them," that is, among those just enumerated as guilty of such sins (
Ezek 22:25-
Ezek 22:29), was morally able for such an office.
31 their own way . . . recompensed upon their heads-- (
Ezek 9:10;
Ezek 11:21;
Ezek 16:43;
Pro 1:31;
Isa 3:11;
Jer 6:19).
The imagery is similar to that in the sixteenth chapter; but here the reference is not as there so much to the breach of the spiritual marriage covenant with God by the people's idolatries, as by their worldly spirit, and their trusting to alliances with the heathen for safety, rather than to God.
