Charles Ellicott Commentary Ezekiel 11

Brought me unto the east gate of the Lord’s house. —This is the same place, the main outer entrance to the whole Temple enclosure, to which the prophet had seen the cherubim go (Ezekiel 10:19). It is not expressly said where he was brought from; but the last place mentioned was the court of the priests (Ezekiel 8:16), and so far the vision appears to be consecutive. Standing in that innermost court, he had seen the Divine presence go forth to the outer entrance; and he also is now transported there.

Here he sees twenty-five men, the same number whom he had seen worshipping the sun in the inner court. They appear, however, to have been priests, while these seem to be secular leaders. Hence they are generally supposed to be a different set of men. It is nevertheless by no means impossible that they may be the same idolatrous priests, who, by prostituting their holy office to idolatry, gained an ascendancy over a sinful people. Otherwise, the number twenty-five may represent the king, with two princes from each of the twelve tribes; or is possibly a number without any other especial significance than as representing a considerable array of the most prominent people of the nation.

Two of these are mentioned by name. If the Jaazaniah here is the same as the Jaazaniah of Ezekiel 8:11, it settles the point that the men here are not to be understood as priests, since he there represented a different class (see Note on Ezekiel 8:11). The names are significant: Jaazaniah = Jehovah hears, son of Azur = the helper; Pelatiah = God rescues, son of Benaiah = Jehovah builds. Names of this sort were common enough among the Jews, but they seem here intended to bring out the false hopes with which the people beguiled themselves; and in view of this, the sudden death of Pelatiah (Ezekiel 11:13) was particularly impressive. These princes were active in misleading the people to their destruction.

It is not near; let us build houses. Neither the text nor the marginal reading of the Authorised Version quite accurately represents the original. The expression is literally not near to build houses; and it is to be explained by the prophecy and narrative of Jeremiah 29:0. After the 10,000 (among whom was Ezekiel) had been carried captive—and apparently shortly after—Jeremiah had sent word to the captives to build houses and make themselves comfortable, because the captivity would be long (Ezekiel 11:5–10). This greatly offended the captives; and Shemaiah, a false prophet among them, had consequently sent letters to Jerusalem asking that Jeremiah might be punished for thus prophesying (Ezekiel 11:24–25).

The princes of the people now appear in Ezekiel’s vision as taking up this prophecy of Jeremiah’s and contradicting it: “this need of building houses for a long captivity is not near!” In Ezekiel 7:2-3; Ezekiel 7:12; Ezekiel 12:23, Ezekiel expressly declares that it is very near. The princes further confirmed the people in their fancied security by comparing the city to a cauldron, the strong walls of which should protect the flesh within it, i.e., the people, from the fire of all hostile attack. In the prophecy of Ezekiel 24:6 this figure is taken up, and a very different application given to it; it is also turned against them immediately in Ezekiel 11:7. In consequence of this attitude and these sayings of the princes, the prophecy of Ezekiel 11:5-12 is now directed against them.

Ye have multiplied your slain. —Crimes of violence, as well as licentiousness, are always the fruit of defection from God. In this case the apostasy of the people had produced its natural result; and the abundant crimes against life formed a prominent feature of the terrible indictment against the city.

Your slain ... they are the flesh.—They had boasted of the protection of their strong city: it would be a security only to the dead who had fallen by their own violence. The living who vainly trusted in its strength would be brought out of it and delivered as captives to the stranger.

The prophecy here takes up their own simile of Ezekiel 11:3 and shows that it would not help them. On the contrary, in Ezekiel 11:11 it is expressly said that the figure, in their sense of it, would not be true.

The use and repeated recurrence of this singular figure may illustrate the familiarity of the people with this kind of language and help us appreciate the figurative character of many of Ezekiel’s expressions.

In the border of Israel. —The judgment should be cumulative: first, the sword should come upon them (Ezekiel 11:8); then they should be driven out of the city in which they trusted, and delivered into the hands of strangers (Ezekiel 11:9); and then, finally—what was most terrible to a Jew—they were to be arraigned and punished “in the border,” i.e., at the extremity or outside of the land of Israel. Historically, it appears from 2 Kings 25:20–21, and Jeremiah 52:9-11, that the general of Nebuchadnezzar, after the capture of the city, carried the people of the land to the king at Riblah, just on the northern confines of Palestine.

There Nebuchadnezzar pronounced his cruel judgments upon them, slaying the king’s sons before his eyes, and executing many others, and then, putting out Zedekiah’s eyes, carried him and the rest captive to Babylon. By all this, not in repentance, but through the experiencing of the Divine judgments, they should be at last forced to recognise Jehovah as the Almighty Ruler and Disposer of events. This place of the judgment, and this consequence of it, are emphatically repeated in Ezekiel 11:11-12.