What does Ezechiel Chapter 11 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Caldron imagery receives a reply. Death and intercession precede return promises. A new heart and spirit accompany restoration.

Chapter breakdown

Ezechiel 11 is brought by the spirit to the east temple gate, where twenty-five men include princes Jezonias son of Azur and Pheltias son of Banaias. Their wicked counsel asks about recently built houses and calls the city a caldron and themselves flesh. The edition separately explains contempt for warnings and an inference from new building that they would remain until a peaceful death. The Lord knows their thoughts and identifies the people they killed as the city's flesh, announcing the counselors' removal, enemy custody and sword judgment at Israel's borders. The edition locates that judgment at Reblatha in Emath and cites earlier accounts. Bronze caldron material, new urban quarters and victims' innocence are not specified here.

Pheltias dies while Ezechiel prophesies. The prophet falls on his face asking whether the remnant will end. The Lord addresses brethren and kin whom Jerusalem's residents dismissed as far from him and excluded from possession. The edition separately identifies earlier captives, despised but promised a happier condition and eventual return. The Lord promises to be a little sanctuary in their scattered countries, gather them to Israel and give them the land. They remove abominations; one heart, a new spirit and a heart of flesh replacing stone enable commandment keeping and the reciprocal God-and-people relation. Those following abominations receive their ways upon their heads.

Cherubims lift wings with accompanying wheels and glory above. The glory leaves the city's midst for the mount east of it, without naming the Mount of Olives in this admitted span. The spirit returns Ezechiel in vision to Chaldea's captives; the vision ends and he relates all the shown words. Pheltias's death is not expanded into a specified medical event or used as independent proof of every future promise.

The story inside

Opening: Caldron imagery receives a reply. Development: Death and intercession precede return promises. Conclusion: A new heart and spirit accompany restoration.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Caldron imagery receives a reply.
2
Death and intercession precede return promises.
3
A new heart and spirit accompany restoration.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 92127–92142
11:2. And he said to me: Son of man, these are the men that study iniquity, and frame a wicked counsel in this city, 11:3. Saying: Were not houses lately built? This city is the caldron, and we the flesh. Were not houses lately built, etc.... These men despised the predictions and threats of the prophets; who declared to them from God, that the city should be destroyed, and the inhabitants carried into captivity: and they made use of this kind of argument against the prophets, that the city, so far from being like to be destroyed, had lately been augmented by the building of new houses; from whence they further inferred, by way of a proverb, using the similitude of a cauldron, out of which the flesh is not taken, till it is thoroughly boiled, and fit to be eaten, that they should not be carried away out of their city, but there end their days in peace.
Lines 92164–92172
11:10. You shall fall by the sword: I will judge you in the borders of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord. In the borders of Israel.... They pretended that they should die in peace in Jerusalem; God tells them it should not be so; but that they should be judged and condemned, and fall by the sword in the borders of Israel: viz., in Reblatha in the land of Emath, where all their chief men were put to death by Nabuchodonosor. 4 Kings 25., and Jer. 52.10, 27.
Lines 92211–92216
11:19. And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh: 11:20. That they may walk in my commandments, and keep my judgments, and do them: and that they may be my people, and I may be their God.