Wilt thou not tell us what these things are That is, what is the meaning of thy unusual actions. They seem to make this inquiry by way of derision and contempt. Speak unto the house of Israel Now he is commissioned to declare the meaning of what he did. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will profane my sanctuary I will deliver my temple into the hands of the heathen, and they shall profane and destroy it: even that temple wherein you placed your glory, and thought your greatest protection. The desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pitieth As much your desire, as my wife was mine; most dear to you, the destruction of which will affect you with a most poignant grief. Your sons and your daughters whom ye have left shall fall by the sword Whom you left behind you when you were made captives; for this was addressed to those who were at this time captives in Babylonia, having been carried thither with Jehoiachin. Or the meaning may be, Your sons, &c., who are left to you, from the famine and the pestilence. Ye shall not mourn nor weep
These terrible judgments shall strike you with astonishment, and produce in you such distress as is too great to be expressed by words or actions; but ye shall pine away for your iniquities, &c. You shall be absorbed in silent sorrow, and shall waste away by lingering grief, and secret lamentation over each other's calamities, as the punishment of your iniquities, which have made your land, city, temple, and families desolate, and yourselves miserable. Thus Ezekiel is a sign unto you His actions foreshow you what your conditions shall be. The sacred writers, in several places, speak of themselves in the third person. And when this cometh, ye shall know that I am the Lord Comparing the prediction with the event will convince the most obstinate that the immediate hand of God is in the judgments which are come upon you.