Ezekiel 11 - Bible Study, Explanation, and Application
Ezekiel 11 Bible Study
TIMELINE:
We are given a specific date for the vision seen by Ezekiel in chapter 11, the 6th year, in the 6th month. This likely refers to the 6th year of the exile of King Jehoiachin, which dates this chapter to approximately 591 BC, a year after Ezekiel was called as a prophet.
Below is a list of kings of Judah and dates for their reign:
Amon (642-640 BC)
Josiah (640-609 BC)
Jehoahaz (also known as Shallum, 609 BC)
Jehoiakim (initially known as Eliakim, 609-598 BC)
Jehoiachin (also known as Jeconiah or Coniah, 598-597 BC)
Zedekiah (His reign ended when Babylon conquered Judah, (597-586 BC)
WHAT WE STUDIED PREVIOUSLY
Ezekiel 1 – Ezekiel has a vision of 4 living creatures, 4 wheels, and God’s throne.
Ezekiel 2 – God commissions Ezekiel to be a prophet to his rebellious countrymen.
Ezekiel 3 – The end of the heavenly vision. Ezekiel eats the scroll of God’s words, and God calls him to be a watchman over the people of Judah.
Ezekiel 4 – Ezekiel prophesies with an object lesson in the street by laying on his side for 430 days, eating rations of bread, and creating a siege scene with a brick that represents Jerusalem.
Ezekiel 5 – After the 430 days, Ezekiel cut off his hair divided it up into 3 parts and used it as a symbol for what would happen to the people of Jerusalem.
Ezekiel 6 – Ezekiel prophesies against the idol worshipers in Judah, telling them their bodies will be thrown at the feet of their powerless gods.
Ezekiel 7 – The Lord announces that the day of Judah’s judgement and doom is near.
Ezekiel 8 – Ezekiel saw a vision of the Temple in Jerusalem. God guided him through the courts and gates of the Temple and showed him the secret idolatries that filled God’s house.
Ezekiel 9 – God sends a man with a writing case to mark the foreheads of those who hated the idolatries of Judah. Afterwards, God sends 6 executioners to kill everyone in Jerusalem who didn’t have the mark.
Ezekiel 10 – God’s glory departs the inner sanctuary of the Temple and ascends to the throne carried by the 4 living creatures.
OUTLINE:
THE MEAT IN THE CAULDRON (11:1-7):
God’s Spirit brought Ezekiel to the east gate of the Temple, where God’s glory and His heaven throne were located (10:19).
There, Ezekiel saw 25 men, including Jaazaniah and Pelatiah, princes of the people.
God informed Ezekiel that these were the men who devised evil, wickedness, and iniquity in Jerusalem.
They were telling the people, “The time in not near to build houses. This city is the cauldron, and we are the meat” (11:3).
Jeremiah had told the exiles in Babylon to build houses because they were going to be in Babylonian exile for decades (Jer 29:5), but Jaazaniah and Pelatiah rejected that concept.
Using a metaphor that must have been familiar to the people of Judah, these princes suggested they were safe within the walls of Jerusalem, like meat being cooked inside a cauldron.
But these men had made themselves the enemies of God through their corruption and violence, and they were not safe.
They feared the Babylonian sword, and God promised to bring it down on them in judgement.
The only people who would be remaining in the cauldron of Jerusalem were the people who died within its walls.
God said, “You shall fall by the sword… This city shall not be your cauldron, nor shall you be the meat in the midst of it. I will judge you at the border of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord. For you have not walked in My statutes nor obeyed My rules, but you acted according to the rules of the nations that are around you” (11:10-12).
Ezekiel was told to prophesy these words.
As he was prophesying, Pelatiah died.
A NEW HEART AND A NEW SPIRIT FOR GOD’S PEOPLE (11:8-21):
From verse 15, it appears the people who still lived in Jerusalem looked down on their countrymen who had been exiled into the nations. They said to them, “Go far from the Lord; to us this land is given.”
But contrary to the suggestion of their proud brothers in Jerusalem, God had not cast off the exiles, in fact God told Ezekiel He would be a sanctuary to them until He gathered them again in the Promised Land.
God foretold that when the people were brought back to the Promised Land, they would rid it of all the detestable things and immoral abominations.
God would put a new spirit in them and take out their heart of stone to replace it with a heart of flesh, “that they may walk in My statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be My people, and I will be their God” (11:20).
These promises would be fulfilled in future days, but judgement for their evil was the immediate fate of Jerusalem.
GOD’S GLORY DEPARTS JERUSALEM (11:22-25):
The 4 living creatures lifted up their wings and carried the glory of God on His throne out of Jerusalem to the mountain east of the city (the Mount of Olives).
The glory of God remained on the mountain until Ezekiel was pulled out of the vision and returned to Babylon where he was sitting amongst his fellow exiles (8:1).
He shared with the people all that God had showed him.
PARALLELS IN THE BIBLE:
In Ezekiel 11, God departed Jerusalem and went to the Mount of Olives awaiting the destruction of the city.
In Luke 19, during the “Triumphal Entry,” near the Mount of Olives, God’s glory (Jesus) wept over Jerusalem for their rebellion and future destruction (at the hands of the Romans, 70 AD).
In Ezekiel’s vision, those who loved God were spared the slaughter of the siege when they were marked on the forehead by the man with the writing case (9:4).
In the 1st Century, Jesus warned those who loved God and gave them signs ahead of time so they could escape Jerusalem before the Romans destroyed it and killed thousands.
