Ezekiel 24 Footnotes

24:1-14 The parable of the boiling pot is a poetic story that expands on 11:3. In that passage and here, Jerusalem was the pot, the people were the meat, and Babylon was the fire.

24:15-27 Interpreters question why a compassionate God would take the life of Ezekiel’s wife as an illustration of coming judgment, but there is no reason to assume that was what the Lord did. In providing advance knowledge of her death to Ezekiel (vv. 15-17), he was preparing him to respond to his loss in a way that would make the deepest impression on the prophet’s community. In the ancient Near East, mourning was a public rite in which a family often hired professional mourners to bewail the loss of their loved one. Ezekiel’s unorthodox conduct in the face of his wife’s death—he was instructed not to mourn in public—aroused the people’s curiosity, giving the prophet an opening to declare the word of the Lord. When judgment arrived, there would be no opportunity to conduct the usual ceremonies of mourning for lost loved ones or for the demise of the nation. This passage brings to a conclusion the record of Ezekiel’s ministry as the prophet of judgment to come upon Judah and Jerusalem.