The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 31

EXPOSITION. CHAPTER XXIV. better, with the Vulgate and Revised Ver- sion, pile the bones. The bones of animals Ver. 1.-In the ninth yea.r. We pass from were often use,l as fuel. Currey quotes an the date of eh. XL I (B.O. 593) to B.O. 590, interesting passage from Livingstone's • Last and the very day is identified with that on Journal,' i. p. 347, narrating how, when the which the army of Nebuchadnezzar besieged supply of ordin11.ry fuel failed, be me.de bis Jerusalem (Jer. xxxiL I; 2 Kings xxv. 1- steamer work with the bones of elephants. 12). To the prophet's vision all that was See a like practice among the Scytbians passing there was as plain as though he (Herod., iv. 61). so.wit witli his own eyes. The siege lasted Ver. 6.-Scnm. The 'word is not found for a.bout two years. The punishments elsewhere. The Authorized Version follows - threatened in eh. xxiii had at Jo.st come the Vulgate. Keil and the Revised Version near. W1> may probably infer that a con- give "rust." As the cauldron was of brase siderable inten-al of silence had followed (ver. 11), this must have been the verdigris on the Aholah and Aholibah discourse. which was eating into the metal, and which Now the time hsd come to break that si- even the blazing fire could not get rid of. lence, and it,wae broken, after the prophet's The pieces that are to be brought out are manner, by a parable, In the "rebellions the inhabitants of Jerus11.lem, who are to be house " we find, as in eh. ii 3 and else-- carried into exile. There was to be "no lot where, primarily Ezekiel's immediate hearers, cost," e.s wo.s often done with prisoners of ECCOndarily the whole house of Israel as war, taking every tenth man (decimating) represented by them. of the captives for death or exile (comp. Vera. 3, 4.-Set on a pot, etc. The words 2 Sam. viii. 2). All alike were 1loomed contain an obvious reference to the imagery of (Joel iii. S). cb ri. 3-7. The people had used that ima- Ver. 7.-Tbe pnrable is for a moment in- gc,ry either in the spirit of a false security or terrupted, and Jerusalem is the murderess iu the recklessaess of despair. It is now the who has shed blood, not where the earth prophet's work to remind them that the in- might cover it (Job xvi. 18; Isa. xxvi. 21), terpretation which he gave to their own but as on the top of a rock visible in the sight comparison had proved to be the true ono. of all men. 'l'lic cauldron is the city, the fire is the in- Ver. 9.-We return to the image of the vacling army, the metal of the cauldron does cauldron, and once ago.in, as in ver. 6 nnd not protcet them. The pieces, the choice ob. xxii. 3 and xxiii. 37, we have the words bones\>'were the princes and chief men of the wblnh Nalrnm (iii. l) had used of Nineveh people. opplia,l to Jaruso.lem. Ver. 5.-Burn also the bones under it; Ver. 10.-Spioe it well; better, make thick ou. x.x1v. 1-27.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPIIET EZEKIEL. 33