Ezekiel 22 Study Notes

22:13-14 On hand clapping, see 21:15-17.

22:15-16 The residents of Jerusalem will be scattered all over the world (among the countries) if they continue to pursue disobedience. Moses had warned Israel that continual national disobedience would lead to dispersion (Lv 26:27-39; Dt 28:64-68).

22:17-20 Just as precious metals are melted to remove dross, Israel will be purified by fire to remove sins and impurities. Now the city will once again be melted by the heat of God’s wrath in the furnace of Jerusalem. The Babylonians would execute this fire of God’s wrath when they burned and sacked Jerusalem.

22:21-22 The phrase will be melted within the city may refer to the misery of being besieged by foreign enemies, which in itself was a divine punishment (Dt 28:52-57). The image of the smelter’s fire was used by Ezekiel to represent the final purge that God planned for Judah. It is also an eschatological picture, referring to the time when God will purge his creation of sin (2Pt 3:9-14; Rv 20:15).

22:23-24 Ezekiel’s combination of rain and judgment goes back to the account of the biblical flood in Genesis (Gn 6-8). Just as the purpose of this flood was to cleanse the world of human wickedness and violence (Hb chamas, Gn 6:5,11), the Lord declared that a similar kind of cleansing was now overdue for the land of Israel (Ezk 13:11; 38:22). The withholding of rain was a covenant curse (Lv 26:19).

22:25 The Hebrew has her prophets (nevi’eyha) whereas the LXX has “her princes” (nesiy’eyha), read by NIV, NLT, NRSV.

22:26-27 Government officials were supposed to protect people, the first function of government being the establishment of justice for everyone (Rm 13). The denunciation of the leadership in Ezk 22:25-28 has such close affinities to the denunciation of leaders in Zph 3:1-4 that there may be some kind of relationship between these two texts. For instance, each passage contains a nearly identical list of leaders. Even more striking is the fact that both passages describe the officials as wolves (Zph 3:3) and the priests as those who do violence to my instruction (Zph 3:4). It is possible that Ezekiel knew this oracle from the prophet Zephaniah.

22:28-29 On whitewash, see note at 13:10-16.

22:30-31 This proposal (I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall) is reminiscent of Gn 18:22-33, where God promised to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if only ten righteous persons were found there. Although we normally think of a prophet as one who represented God and delivered his word to the people, it is also true that the Bible includes intercession (stand in the gap) as part of a prophet’s task (1Sm 12:23; Jr 37:3; 42:2). Compare the task of the prophetic “watchman” (Ezk 3:17-21; 33:1-6).