Sermon Tone Analysis

A specific date notice begins this chapter.

“In the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month.”

It’s been about a decade since Ezekiel has been in exile in Babylonia.

In verse 2, the God of Israel tells Ezekiel to “write down the name of this day, this very day.”

The day was January 5, 587 BC.[1]

We get the sense that what happened on this particular day is a key moment in history and God wants Ezekiel and his fellow exiles to take note of it.

This is the day, we are told, that “the king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem.”

It’s one of the most significant days in history, God claims.

Why?

What is the meaning of the day?

On the one hand, it is easy to understand the significance of this day for the Jews in exile.

Jerusalem was their capital city, and an attack against it would be a national crisis.

But why does this matter to us Christians?

It matters because the nation of Israel is the chosen people of God in redemptive history.

And we need to remember that the whole point of God choosing Israel was that through them he could save his world.

What we learn in this moment of history, then, is that God is intent on killing every remnant of sinful disease in his people so that they might bring the flourishing of his kingdom into the world again.

In order to see this, let’s consider the problem of contamination, the cause of contamination, and the solution to it.

The Problem of Contamination

First, we see the problem of contamination addressed here.

The Parable of the Pot

In verse 3, God tells Ezekiel to “utter a parable to the rebellious house,” the frequent designation of God for Israel throughout Ezekiel’s prophecies (see Ezek 2:3-7).

The parable, in verses 3-5, goes like this:

“Set on the pot, set it on;

pour in water also;

put in it the pieces of meat,

all the good pieces, the thigh and the shoulder;

fill it with choice bones.

Take the choicest one of the flock;

pile the logs under it;

boil it well;

seethe also its bones in it.”

The image is of a cook preparing a meal by placing choice cuts of meat into a boiling pot of water.

And it harkens back to Ezekiel 11, where the Jews who had not yet been sent into exile were claiming to be the meat in the cauldron of Jerusalem (Ezek 11:3).

The image is one of privilege, of being God’s elect—the “choice meat” of God himself at a formal, stately dinner.[2]

God is affirming that image by having Ezekiel utter the poem.

But in the context of the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem, the poem is somewhat perplexing.

At the very moment that Jerusalem is being attacked, God brings up this image of a sacred meal in which he comes to commune with his people.[3]

Is this day a day of good news or bad news?

Woe to the Bloody City

Well, there’s definitely bad news here.

The beginning of the fall of Jerusalem cannot be sugar-coated, as the next verses show.

The popular poem celebrating Israel’s privileged position is subverted in verse 6. God declares, “Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose corrosion is in it, and whose corrosion has not gone out of it!”

At the end of the verse, God puts a halt to the preparations for the celebratory meal.

He takes over as cook, demanding that “piece after piece” of the meat be taken out of the pot, “without making any choice.”

Another pronouncement of woe follows in verse 9.

And then, in verse 10, he makes the fire hotter and hotter until all the liquid is burned out of the pot and the meat along with its bone is burned up.

The problem as God sees it is not so much with the people, with the meat, but with the city, identified as the pot.

That’s not to say that the people get off the hook; they are completely burned up.

But the point is that the destruction of Jerusalem now under way is necessary in order for God to cleanse the pot.

In verse 11, he instructs the pot to be placed back on the fire with nothing in it, so “that it may become hot, and its copper may burn, that its uncleanness may be melted in it, its corrosion consumed.”

This, according to God, is the meaning of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in the 6th century BC.

In verse 12, he complains that the “abundant corrosion” of the city simply would not come out any other way.

The disease was in way too deep.

God Will Not Relent

So, in verses 13-14, God explains why he is destroying the capital city of Israel with the swords of the Babylonian army.

He had tried numerous times before to rid the pot of its impurities, but it has all been in vain.

So he says, “you shall not be cleansed anymore till I have satisfied my fury upon you.”

And then, in verse 14, he shows his determination with a striking stacotto.

“I am the LORD.

I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it.

I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent.”

Now what shall we make of all this?

For some, it is easy enough to disassociate themselves from this gruesome image of God’s judgment in real historical events.

It happened so long ago and, well, the people of Jerusalem had it coming.

“They got what they deserved,” some might say.

But others will surely have a hard time with this, no doubt in part because of the ill-advised assertions of numerous people that claim to draw a straight line from the tragic events of history to some obvious persons God wanted to judge.

We ought to be wary of those who might find support for any form of antisemitism coming from a text like this.

The best approach here, I suggest, is to stay with the parable of the meal.

God’s intention here is his covenant faithfulness to Israel for the sake of the world.

The plan all throughout the Old Testament is that God is going to bring rescue and redemption and ultimate restoration to his broken world through his chosen people.

We need to read these stories with the much bigger picture of God’s mission in the world in view, even as we will of course have to wrestle through the question of theodicy in the painful details.

The satisfaction of God’s fury here is nothing less than his total commitment to see to it that the great communal meal between God and his people is as perfect as it ought to be.

No one is going to sick from it because, as Revelation 21:27 says, “nothing unclean will ever enter it.”

God is not only a master chef, but he is also a professional deep cleaner.

He is determined to put his world right.

The destruction of Jerusalem was part of that process, as Ezekiel claims here.

And that’s because, for God to put his world right again, he must cleanse his people completely.

He must rid them of every last hint of contamination.

The Cause of Contamination

Easier said than done!

It is already clear here in chapter 24 that God’s people are like a pot that just won’t come clean.

Rather than bringing life to the world, they contaminate it further.

Jerusalem is a “bloody city,” colluding with evil rather than pushing back against it.

Why?

What is wrong with the people of God?

What is the cause of this contamination?

Back to Egypt

Much of what we’ve already seen in Ezekiel addresses this.

It’s a repeated theme through the prophet’s ministry.

But most recently, it shows up in the previous chapter.

In Ezekiel 23, we find yet another re-telling of Israel’s history, and just like the one in chapter 16 and the one in chapter 20, it is a subversive re-telling of Israel’s history.

Here God names the divided kingdom of Israel, describing them as “two women, the daughters of one mother” (Ezek 23:2).

The northern kingdom, represented by the capital city of Samaria, is named Oholah.

The southern kingdom with its capital city, Jerusalem, is named Oholibah.

We probably should not read too much into the names; the significance is in their similarity.

The names sound similar because the nations are similar.

They act like the sisters they are, showing they possess the same nature and character.[4]

In verses 5-10, God tells the story of the northern kingdom, describing the nation’s behavior as repeated acts of infidelity with the Assyrians.

In verses 11-21, he then describes the southern kingdom of Judah not only going down the same path as her sister but being even more corrupt.

What really ties the two sisters together—and what is most subversive about the history God is telling—is the fact that the promiscuity of the nations goes all the way back to the time in which they lived in Egypt.