NOTES for Eze 11:1-25

In showing the prophet Ezekiel how the Glory of the Lord finally leaves the Jerusalem Temple, and even before this, God speaks exceptionally important words, recorded by the prophet in chapter 11. The beginning of the chapter concerns an idea of the Jerusalemites that seems strange to us: of their city they say, ‘It is the cauldron, and we are the meat.’ Most likely these words were a common saying, meaning that people are what matters most in Jerusalem and are protected by its walls like the contents of a cauldron. But God again says that nothing can protect the people from the consequences of their own sin.

Then, beginning with verse 14, God answers the prophet’s renewed question about the fate of Israel’s remnant: ‘Do You really wish to destroy it completely?’ The prophet is commanded to address the children of Israel living in exile—that is, precisely those who have gathered at this moment in the prophet’s house. These people, rightly regarded as the flower of the nation, had been taken captive by the Babylonians so that no one would remain not merely to lead resistance, but even to think of it. Among them are the people’s princes and elders, priests and members of the royal family, descendants of David; among them are scribes, students of Scripture, sages and scholars; among them are experts in the languages and customs of many peoples who, in just a few years, created the first ‘transnational corporations’ and international banks in Babylon. In today’s language we call this society’s elite. Many of them, judging by the prophet’s words, had not stained themselves with idolatry and grieved over ‘Israel’s abominations’.

The politically, religiously and morally undistinguished crowd remaining in Jerusalem quickly appreciated the opportunity to rule in the absence of the best people. Their unbridled pride led them to erase those taken into captivity from Israel’s life. Most likely the exiles were denied the right to participate ‘in absentia’ in the religious and political life of their homeland. This is precisely what the words the Lord quotes in verse 15 indicate. In effect, they have been deprived of more than their homeland: they have been deprived of the possibility of communion with God, since worship of Him is possible only in the Jerusalem Temple. And now the Lord addresses the exiles, rejected even by their own people.

People deprived of everything, uprooted from every foothold, are given an astonishing promise that makes them richer than anyone else. ‘I Myself,’ says the Lord, ‘will be something of a sanctuary for them.’ Alongside these words we should place Christ’s words: ‘The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father... But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth...’ (Jn 4:21–23). ‘I Myself will be something of a sanctuary for them’ is a prophetic anticipation of worship ‘in Spirit and truth’.

The Lord then answers an unspoken question, one of the central questions for the prophets of that era: the problem of people’s inability to be righteous before God, of which the prophet Jeremiah spoke at length. God’s saving action, described in Ezek 11:16–21, will bring renewal to those who have walked the path of suffering and purification. ‘I will put a new spirit within them,’ says the Lord, promising to give the faithful a new, truly living heart. Thus, at a moment of catastrophe, against a background of tragic spiritual degradation, a prophecy of Pentecost and human deification is heard.