“Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose corrosion is in it, and whose corrosion has not gone out of it! Take out of it piece after piece, without making any choice.
Ezekiel 24 opens on the day Nebuchadnezzar's army closed in on Jerusalem, a date God told the prophet to write down before any news could reach him. Verse 6 is the "woe" spoken over the boiling pot: why is this city called bloody, and why is no one spared?
(Where the ESV says "corrosion," older translations say "scum" or "rust." Where it says "without making any choice," they read "let no lot fall upon it.")
A parable timed to the hour
The prophet knew the day because God told him, not because news had reached him.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe prophet gives the exact date. It was the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year... How did Ezekiel know about all this? It was the Lord who gave him this information and led him to record the date... The boiling pot announced is the symbol of Jerusalem.
Their own proverb turned back on them
The picture of a pot was not new. The leaders in Jerusalem had already used it themselves, as a slogan of safety.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinIn regard to the judgment they said, "It is not the time to build houses; this is the cauldron and we are the flesh."... They still thought themselves safe in Jerusalem. The words "this is the cauldron" mean the city of Jerusalem, and "the flesh" means themselves. The pot keeps the flesh inside it safe from the fire. In the same way, they felt safe inside the doomed city.
God takes their comforting picture and sets it on the fire. One writer draws from it a warning about religion that presumes on God:
William KellyThe pot is filled with the pieces of flesh and the best bones, all boiled well, partly with the rest of the bones. That is the terrible picture which the Lord later explains, pointing back to their own proud boast (chapter 11) that Jerusalem kept them safe. The flesh never trusts God for eternal life or for full forgiveness of sins. In the same way, mere religion tends to assume that God's promises can never be cancelled, while paying no attention at all to His will or His glory — and plainly dishonouring His name and His word.
Why she is called the bloody city
Jerusalem earned that name. She shed blood in the open, and no nation had been taught more clearly how sacred life is.
William KellyJerusalem's evil went as far as shedding blood. It was deeply ingrained, and she committed it shamelessly, taking no care to hide it. So the Lord would repay her just as openly. The offence was far greater in Israel, because they knew how God upheld the sacredness of human life, since man is His image — a truth the other nations soon forgot and lost.
Corrosion that would not scour off
The stain in the pot is the point of the woe. Scrubbing did not remove it.
F. W. GrantThe city itself was a pot with rust inside it that could not be scrubbed out. So the whole of it comes under judgment.
So judgment here is not God's first move.
J. N. DarbyIn Ezekiel 24 God pronounces final judgment on Jerusalem, who was not even ashamed of her sins... Jerusalem would be set on the fire like a pot, to melt and burn up everything in her. God had worked to cleanse her, but she was not cleansed; and now He lets His fury rest on her.
No lot means no favourites
The last words of the verse rule out any picking and choosing.
William Kelly"Let no lot be cast upon it." None should go unpunished.
What the whole chapter is saying
The boiling pot is only half the message. The death of the prophet's wife on that same day is the other half.
F. W. GrantThe chapter has two parts. The first announces that the siege has begun, before any news of it could reach the people. The second shows what this means: God is cutting the tie between Himself and the people, pictured in the death of the prophet's wife.
Summary
- Boast — "this is the cauldron and we are the flesh" was Jerusalem's slogan of safety. God takes the same pot, fills it, and lights the fire under it.
- Blood — the name fits the stain. She shed blood in the open, and she knew better than any nation that human life bears God's image.
- Stain — the corrosion is in the pot and will not scrub out. God worked to cleanse her, and she was still not clean.
- No lot — no lot falls, and no piece is spared. The whole pot empties piece by piece, and none goes unpunished.
- Severed — the siege starts, and the prophet's wife dies the same day. Together they mark the cutting of the tie between the Lord and His city.