Ezekielchapter 22
31 verses · BSBEzekiel book hub →
Speaks with:Ezekiel 22×9Isaiah 1×4Ezekiel 24×3Ezekiel 20×3Leviticus 18×3Ezekiel 13×3
Summary
Chapter summary
Three indictments of 'the bloody city.' First a catalog of her crimes, blood shed, fathers and mothers set light by, sojourners oppressed, the fatherless and widow wronged, sabbaths profaned, usury and extortion taken. Second, the furnace: Israel has become dross (brass, tin, iron and lead), gathered into the fire to be melted in the heat of Jehovah's wrath. Third, an audit of every class: prophets daubing with untempered mortar, priests who hide their eyes from the sabbaths, princes like wolves ravening the prey, and the people using oppression. Then the verse behind a thousand sermons on intercession: 'I sought for a man among them, that should… stand in the gap before me for the land… but I found none' (22:30).
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel — Ezekiel overview
- A. 1–16 The bloody city and the sins done in her streets
- B. 17–22 Melted in the furnace like worthless dross
- C. 23–31 Princes, priests, prophets — and no one to stand in the gap
The outline
A.The bloody city and the sins done in her streetsvv. 1 to 16
Read vv. 1 to 16 →B.Melted in the furnace like worthless drossvv. 17 to 22
Read vv. 17 to 22 →C.Princes, priests, prophets — and no one to stand in the gapvv. 23 to 31
Read vv. 23 to 31 →
The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 22The history
The chapter is laid out like a legal charge sheet, and the offences are ordinary civic ones. Fathers and mothers treated with contempt. Resident foreigners squeezed. Orphans and widows wronged. Holy things despised and sabbaths ignored. Slander that got men killed. Bribes taken to shed blood. Loans made at interest and profit taken by extortion from neighbours.
One accusation would have struck hardest at a priest. Her priests have done violence to my law: they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, and have taught no difference between the unclean and the clean. That was literally the priest's job description in the Law — to teach the difference. The complaint is not that they taught it badly but that they stopped.
The refining image at the centre is technical. Silver was purified by heating the ore in a furnace with bellows until the lead and other metals oxidized off and the dross could be skimmed away. Ezekiel piles the whole city into the furnace — silver, bronze, iron, lead, tin — and the fire is blown to full heat. What comes out is not silver. The alloy melts and the dross is all there is.
The list of guilty groups at the end is a roll call of the whole establishment: princes like wolves tearing prey, prophets whitewashing over it with false visions, priests violating the law, and the people of the land practising extortion and robbing the poor. God says He looked for a man to build the wall and stand in the breach before Him for the land, and found none.
What it meant to them
The exiles could name plenty of reasons for Babylon's success — better cavalry, bigger empire, Egyptian betrayal. This chapter puts the reason inside the city walls and inside the leadership.
It is also a mirror for the community by the canal. These were their own classes — their princes, their prophets, their priests, their landowners. If nobody would stand in the gap for Jerusalem, the question hanging over the room was who would stand in it now.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 22. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.