Ez 24:1-14

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The cooking pot (Eze 24:1-14)

On the day Babylon began its siege of Jerusalem, Ezekiel spoke another message (Eze 24:1-2; see 2 Kings 25:1). Previously the Jerusalemites had boasted that the walls of the city would protect them from the Babylonian armies as a cooking pot protects the meat within from the fire (see Eze 11:3).

Ezekiel now uses the illustration of the cooking pot in an entirely opposite sense. The people of Jerusalem (the meat in the pot) are going to be ‘cooked alive’ by the ‘fire’ of the besieging armies of Babylon (Eze 24:3-5).

The cooking pot illustration is then used again. The pot, covered in rust and filth, cannot be cleansed, and the meat within it must be thrown out. Jerusalem is morally filthy beyond cleansing, and the people will be taken out of it into captivity (Eze 24:6).

One reason for Jerusalem’s punishment is the innocent blood that has been shed in the city. That blood, which has cried out for vengeance and which till now has not been answered, will now receive a decisive response from God (Eze 24:7-8).

Once the contents of the pot have been thrown out, the pot itself will melt in the intense heat of the fire. Only in this way can the filth of the pot be removed; and only by the destruction of Jerusalem can its filth be removed (Eze 24:9-14).