Ezekiel 11:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we see, first, how safe the princes of Jerusalem thought they were, even though God’s judgments were already against them. In vision, the prophet was taken by the Spirit to the east gate of the Lord’s house, where twenty-five men were sitting in council over the city’s urgent troubles. He carefully followed the Spirit’s lead and noticed everything shown to him.

These were apparently not the same twenty-five men seen earlier at the temple door worshiping toward the east (Ezekiel 8:16). Those earlier men seem to have been priests or Levites, standing between the porch and the altar. These men were princes, the city leaders, sitting at the gate of the Lord’s house to judge cases (Jeremiah 26:10). They were charged here, not with corrupt worship, but with bad rule and poor leadership. Two of them are named, Pelatiah and Jaazaniah, because they were likely the most active leaders, and perhaps because the prophet knew them, though he had been away for several years. This Jaazaniah was not the one mentioned in Ezekiel 8:11, who was the son of Shaphan, but this one was the son of Azur.

Some say Jerusalem was divided into twenty-four districts, and these men were the governors, or city rulers, over them, with one acting as mayor or chief leader. Whatever their office, God gives the prophet their true character in Ezekiel 11:2. He says they are men who plan evil. Under the color of public safety, they strengthen people in their sins and weaken their fear of God’s judgments spoken by the prophets. They gave wicked advice in the city, likely urging people to silence the prophets, rebel against the king of Babylon, and hold out in the city to the very end.

It is a bad sign when the things that would bring peace are hidden from the eyes of those trusted with leadership. Yet when evil is done, God knows exactly who is responsible. In the day when all things are exposed and repaid, he will lay the charge at the right door, and say, “These are the men who planned it.” Their greatness will not protect them, and their reputation for wisdom will not keep them from being corrected.

The specific charge against them is what they said in their council, words that God, who stands in the gathering of the mighty, took notice of (Ezekiel 11:3). Their meaning was, “The destruction the prophets keep warning about is not near.” They could not honestly deny their hatred of reform, and they knew judgment would come someday. But they trusted in God’s patience, though they had already abused it for a long time, and so they hoped disaster would be delayed for many years.

This is how Satan often works. If he cannot make people doubt that judgment is coming, he tries to make them think it is far away. Then it loses much of its force. If people believe it is sure, yet not near, they become careless. But in truth, the Judge is already standing at the door. Since they thought the disaster was delayed, they said, “Let us build houses.” They expected life to continue as usual, because, they said, “This city is the caldron, and we are the meat.”

That seems to be a proverb meaning, “We are as safe in this city as meat in a boiling pot. The city walls will protect us like bronze, and the attackers will be no more able to harm us than the fire can harm the pot.” Those who tried to drag them out into captivity, they thought, would risk their own lives by doing so, as if trying to pull meat out of a boiling pot with bare hands. God’s answer in Ezekiel 11:9 shows this meaning clearly: “I will bring you out of the middle of the city, where you think you are safe.” Then it will become plain in Ezekiel 11:11 that this is not their caldron, and they are not the meat.

Some think this also points to the flesh of peace offerings, which it was a serious offense for priests to take out of the pot while it was boiling (1 Samuel 2:13-14). If so, it suggests that these men felt even more secure because Jerusalem was the holy city, and they considered themselves a holy people living there, not to be touched. Others think this was a mocking reply to Jeremiah, who in one of his early visions saw Jerusalem like a boiling pot (Jeremiah 1:13). “If it is a boiling pot,” they seem to say, “then we are the meat inside it, and who would dare meddle with us?” Even while they suffered for it, they kept mocking the Lord’s messengers. But we should not mock, lest our chains be made stronger. A heart is in a truly sad state when it grows more careless because of the very words God intended as a warning.

Second, we see how God moved to wake them from their false safety. The providences of God should have been enough to shake them, but God also sent his word to make those warnings clear and forceful (Ezekiel 11:4). So the prophet is told to prophesy against them and try to undeceive them, as if he were speaking to dry bones with no life in them. The greatest kindness a minister can show secure sinners is to preach plainly against them and show their danger, even when they do not want to hear it. We serve them best when we seem to stand most against them.

The prophet may have felt unsure about what to say to people so hardened in sin and so bold in resisting God’s judgments. But then the Spirit of the Lord came on him to give him strength and courage, and said, “Speak.” When sinners are flattering themselves toward ruin, then it is time to speak and tell them they will have no peace if they keep going. Sometimes ministers are shy, fearful, or at a loss, and they need to be urged to speak, and to speak boldly. Yet the same God who tells the prophet to speak also gives him what to say.

He must speak to them as the house of Israel (Ezekiel 11:5), because not only the princes, but all the people, needed to know the truth about their condition and the full extent of their danger. They are the house of Israel, and so the God of Israel, in kindness to them, warns them. And in duty they are bound to listen. What, then, is he to say to them in God’s name?

Let them know that the God of heaven sees the empty confidence that supports them (Ezekiel 11:5). He says, “I know every thought that comes into your minds, every secret reason behind your plans, and every aim you hide while putting a good face on a bad matter.” God knows not only what comes out of our mouths, but what enters our minds. He knows every thought, even the ones that flash in and out so quickly that we barely notice them ourselves. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and he understands our thoughts from far away.

That should make us guard our hearts carefully, so no empty thoughts enter and settle there.

Let them know also that those who urged the people to hold out would stand before God as the murderers of all who had already fallen, and of all who would yet fall in Jerusalem by the sword of the Chaldeans. The slain would be the only ones left in the city, like the flesh in the cooking pot. “You have filled Jerusalem with the slain,” he says (Ezekiel 11:6). This includes not only those they had unjustly put to death under the cover of law, but also those they foolishly and proudly exposed to war, even after the prophets warned them they would lose. By their stubbornness, they had filled Jerusalem’s streets with the dead.

Those who start or carry on a war in an unjust or careless way bring much bloodguilt on themselves. Those killed in battles or sieges that could have been avoided through reasonable peace will be counted as their slain. But the slain are the only flesh that will remain in this pot (Ezekiel 11:7). No one will stay to hold the city except those buried in it. There will be no inhabitants of Jerusalem except the inhabitants of its graves, no free citizens except the free among the dead.

Let them know too that, however strong they thought their city was, they would be forced out of it, whether by flight or captivity. “I will bring you out of the middle of it,” God says, whether you want to or not (Ezekiel 11:7, 9). They had driven God away from the city and thought they could manage by their own skill and strength once he was gone. But God will show them that there is no peace for those who have left him.

If they have driven God from his house by their sin, he will quickly drive them from theirs by his judgments. They who feel most secure are often least safe. “This city will not be your cooking pot, and you will not be the flesh in it. You will not stay there and die comfortably in your nest. You think you are safe in the middle of it, but you will not remain there long.”

Let them know also that once God has driven them out of Jerusalem, he will pursue them with his judgments wherever he finds them, even where they thought they could hide from them. They feared the sword if they went out to the Chaldeans, so they wanted to stay in their pot. But God says, “I will bring a sword against you” (Ezekiel 11:8), and “you will fall by the sword” (Ezekiel 11:10). The fear of the wicked will come upon them. There is no protection against God’s judgments when he sends them, not even walls of brass.

They were afraid to trust themselves to strangers’ mercy. But God says, “I will hand you over to strangers,” whose anger they will feel, since they were unwilling to fall into their mercy. See Jeremiah 38:17, 18. They thought they could escape God’s judgments, but God says he will carry them out. And since they decided that, if they must be judged, it should be in Jerusalem, God says twice that he will judge them in the borders of Israel (Ezekiel 11:10, 11). This was fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar killed Judah’s nobles at Riblah in the land of Hamath, on the far edge of Canaan.

Those who have taken deep root where they live cannot be sure they will die there.

Let them know also that all this is the proper punishment for their sin, and a clear showing of God’s righteous judgment against them. “You will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 11:10, 12). Those who would not learn from his word what hatred he has for sin, and how dreadful it is for unrepentant sinners to fall into his hands, will be made to learn by the sword of the Lord.

“I will execute judgments, and then you will know that I am the Lord.” The Lord is known by the judgments he carries out on those who have not walked in his ways. In this way it becomes clear that he made the law, because he punishes people for breaking it. “I will execute judgments among you,” God says, “because you have not executed my judgments” (Ezekiel 11:12).

The only way to avoid the judgments of his hand in ruin and confusion is to carry out the judgments of his mouth, by steady obedience to his law. In one way or another, God’s judgments will be carried out. The law will take effect either in its command or in its penalty. If we do not honor God by obeying his judgments as he has commanded, he will honor himself on us by carrying out the judgments he has warned about. Then we will know that he is the Lord, the sovereign Lord over all, who will not be mocked.

Notice too that when they cast off God’s laws and refused to walk in them, they followed the ways of the nations around them. They brought into their worship all kinds of unclean, foolish, and cruel customs. When people leave God’s settled rule, they wander without end. For that reason, God had already said they must keep his ordinances so they would not copy the disgusting practices of the nations (Leviticus 18:30).

This awakening word is followed at once by an awakening act of providence, meaning God’s guiding rule over events (Ezekiel 11:13). We can see here how powerfully Ezekiel spoke, or rather, how divine power worked with his prophecy. “It happened, while I was prophesying, that Pelatiah son of Benaiah died.” He had been named earlier (Ezekiel 11:1) as one of the main twenty-five princes who caused much of the trouble in Jerusalem.

It seems this happened in vision at that moment, like the killing of the older men (Ezekiel 9:6), which led Ezekiel to pray as he does here. But it also assured him that when this prophecy was later announced, it would be fulfilled in fact. Pelatiah’s death was a first sign that the whole prophecy would come true.

God often chooses out certain sinners and makes them examples of his justice, so that others may see what is coming. Some people think they are completely safe, and then they are suddenly taken away in an instant, like Ananias and Sapphira, who fell dead at Peter’s feet when he prophesied about them.

Ezekiel also showed deep pity in his prayer. The sudden death of Pelatiah was a clear sign that Ezekiel’s prophecy was true, and it honored him as a prophet. Even so, Ezekiel was deeply troubled by it. He took it to heart as if Pelatiah had been a close relative or friend. He fell on his face and cried out loudly, “Ah, Lord God, will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel? Many have already been swept away by the judgments we have suffered, and now will the few who escaped the sword die by God’s direct hand too? If so, then you will truly bring an end to all.”

It may have been a weakness in Ezekiel to mourn the death of this wicked prince in this way, just as Samuel mourned Saul for so long. Still, this showed that Ezekiel did not want the disaster he had foretold. David also grieved over the sickness of people who hated and opposed him. We too should feel deeply when others die suddenly, even if they were wicked.