EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Jerusalem besieged by her enemies is the furnace in which God will refine His people Israel.
Ezekiel 22:17. “The word of the Lord came unto me.” “This second word of God rests, no doubt, upon the figure in Ezekiel 22:15, of the uncleanness or dirt of sin; but it is not an exposition of the removal of the dirt as predicted there. For that was to be effected through the dispersion of Israel among the nations, whereas the word of God, from Ezekiel 22:17 onwards, represents the siege awaiting Jerusalem as a melting process, through which God will separate the ‘silver ore contained in Israel from the baser metals mingled with it.”—(Keil.)
Ezekiel 22:18. “The house of Israel is to Me become dross; all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver.” Some kinds of silver ore contain a large amount of copper, iron, and lead, with other impurities. The inhabitants of Judea are described as a mass of the baser metals intermixed with the impure residue of silver. The good silver had been drained out of Judah by death or exile, and those who remained had altogether become a compound of wickedness.
Ezekiel 22:20. “So will I gather you in Mine anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you.” “The smelting is treated here simply as a figurative representation of punishment, and consequently the result of the smelting, namely, the refining of the silver by the removal of the baser ingredients, is not referred to any further, as is the case in Isaiah 1:22; Isaiah 1:25; Jeremiah 6:27-30; Malachi 3:2-3. This smelting process was experienced by Israel in the last siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans.”—(Keil). “In the spiritual department, the silver may become altogether dross. The furnace is Jerusalem, according to its destination to serve for a smelting pot. Dross of silver is silver that has become dross. They are all gathered into Jerusalem (Ezekiel 22:19), as the people far and wide, under the pressure of the foe, seek refuge in the fortified city. In the whole section the judgment is regarded not in the light of purification, but in that of destruction, as Ezekiel usually considers the population of Jerusalem as an ungodly multitude doomed to be extirpated.”—(Hengstenberg).
Ezekiel 22:22. “As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace.” “In modern metallurgy, lead is employed for the purpose of purifying silver from other mineral products. The alloy is mixed with lead exposed to fusion upon an earthen vessel, and submitted to a blast of air. By this means the dross is consumed. This process is called the cupelling operation, with which the description in Ezekiel 22:18-22 accurately coincides. The vessel containing the alloy is surrounded by the fire, or placed in the midst of it, and the blowing is not applied to the fire but to the fused metals. And when this is done, nothing but the perfect metals, gold and silver, can resist the scorifying influence. In Jeremiah 6:28-30, we have a perfect description of this process. If we take silver having the impurities in it described in the text, namely, iron, copper and tin, and mix it with lead, and place it in the fire upon a cupell, it soon melts; the lead will oxidize and form a thick, coarse crust upon the surface and thus consume away, but effecting no purifying influence. The alloy remains, if anything, worse than before. The silver is not refined because ‘the bellows were burned,’ there existed nothing to blow upon it.”—(Smith’s Dict. of the Bicle, art. “Lead”).
HOMILETICS
God has a threefold smelting furnace.
1. Of sin. In which one can become dross.
2. Of trial. In which furnace the silver is tested.
3. Of judgment. In which even the dross is consumed.—Lange.
1. Churches and states may degenerate from their preciousness and purity, into vileness and profaneness. “It was full of judgment, and righteousness lodged in it” (Isaiah 1:21-23), but instead of these, now there was oppression and murder. “Thy silver is become dross, thy wine is mixed with water.” Thy money is counterfeit, and thy wine corrupt. Whatever was pure in thee is now corrupted, the law is corrupted with false expositions, the worship is corrupted with idols and human traditions, justice is corrupted with bribery and cruel oppressions, chastity and sobriety are corrupted with lewd and unclean practices. Rome was once a golden city for her faith and holiness (Romans 1:8; Romans 16:19); but now is so corrupt in doctrine, worship, and manners, that she is become “the mother of harlots and abominations” (Revelation 17:5). The Seven Churches were once golden candlesticks, but through their corruptions and weaknesses, they soon degenerated into dross.
2. Men professing godliness, and living ungodlily, are not acceptable to God, nor fit materials of a church. “The house of Israel is to Me become dross;” they profess My name, and so judge themselves good silver; but they live wickedly, and to Me they are no better than dross, than brass, tin, iron and lead, too base materials to make a temple for Me to dwell in, or a candlestick for Me to set a prophetical light in. Whatever profession they make, whatever parts or privileges they have, they are no silver, but the dross, the excrements of silver, which defile, disgrace the name, the Church, the ordinances of God, and must be separated from the gold and silver (2 Corinthians 6:17). Many that appear silver unto men will be found dross unto God. Hypocrites and wicked ones are dross; only hypocrites are the “dross of silver.”
3. The greatest part of professors, when they come to the trial, will be found corrupt and naught. “All they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace.” The furnace discovered them to be base metal. The number of sincere and silver-like Christians will be few.
4. Those who degenerate from God and His ways shall meet with fury and fire from the Lord (Ezekiel 22:21). When the church of Ephesus decayed in her first love, that of Pergamos turned aside to the doctrines of Balaam and the Nicolaitanes, that of Thyatira to the teachings and seductions of Jezebel; when Sardis abated in her zeal, and Laodicea became lukewarm, the Lord threatened them severely, and at last brake the candlesticks, and put out the lights (Revelation 2:3). God will put away all the wicked of the earth from Him like dross (Psalms 119:119).
5. Melting and consuming judgments upon a people are the wrath of God, whoever be the executioners thereof. Nebuchadnezzar should besiege Jerusalem, and make it like a furnace to melt and consume the Jews, and this the Lord owns to be His doing (Ezekiel 22:22). The enemies of Jerusalem were but the vials or vessels by which the fury of God was poured out.—(Greenhill.)