They; founders, who melt down metals to prove them. Gather silver, & c.: if these different kinds of metals be to be gathered into one and the same furnace, it speaks the involving all promiscuously in the same afflictions; if it be meant as each distinct metal is tried by the fire in the furnace, but by fire proportioned to the stubbornness of the metal, then it bespeaks the future affliction shall be such as shall melt down the hardest of the degenerate idolaters and sinners. To blow the fire; to raise the fierceness of the fire. To melt it; till it be melted. So will I gather you: see Ezekiel 23:19. In mine anger; in great but just displeasure, called fury too here, and elsewhere: such were the sins of this people, that they had kindled a fire against them which should surely consume them. I will leave you there; or, I will sit down and rest me, as the founder, when he hath taken pains to gather in the metal, heaped up the wood, kindled fire, and blown it to its full height, rests himself, observing how the metal melts down: God will so rest himself; after the manner of man it is spoken; the like phrase Ezekiel 5:13, Ezekiel 16:42, which see. And melt you; he will take care the fire go not out till you are melted, either to the purging away, or consuming you with your dross.
Related Commentaries of Ezekiel 22:20
Ezekiel 22:20
20 As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you.