In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him which is escaped, and thou shalt speak, and be no more dumb: and thou shalt be a sign unto them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him which is escaped and thou shalt speak, and be no more dumb. "That day" here (in Ezekiel 24:27) is the day on which the fugitive brings the sad news to Ezekiel, at the Chebar. In the interval the prophet suspended his prophecies as to the Jews, as was foretold. Afterward his mouth was "opened," and no more "dumb" (Ezekiel 3:26-27: cf. Ezekiel 24:27; Ezekiel 33:21-22).
Remarks:
(1) The self-confident proverb of the Jews, "This city is the caldron, and we be the flesh," which was aimed in derision at Jeremiah's vision of "the seething pot toward the north" (Jeremiah 1:13), was now turned into an awful reality, very different from the sense in which they had intended it (Ezekiel 24:3). The city new besieged was indeed a caldron for keeping them in, so that none could escape: but it could afford no defense, such as they had expected, against their exasperated enemies. Alike the leaders and the common people perished in the indiscriminate slaughter, with the difference that the poorest, being the first to suffer, were the sooner put out of pain, while the sufferings of the upper classes were more protracted (Ezekiel 24:4). Mocking is an open defiance of God, and is sure to recoil with fearful ruin upon the head of those who thus dare to insult His majesty.
(2) The wickedness of the Jewish people is compared to a filthy and poisonous scum fermenting, through the heat, in the boiling contents of a pot, and rising to the surface. Instead of taking this filthy scum from the top, they kept continually adding to it (Ezekiel 24:6; Ezekiel 24:12). Therefore God was constrained by His justice to destroy them "piece by piece," in a series of successive judgments; and this without distinction of persons (Ezekiel 24:6). How sad it is that sinners will not be warned by lighter strokes of the rod but will still retain their filthiness, and even add to it, until God is at last provoked utterly to destroy them!
(3) So hardened and reckless were the Jews in sin that they perpetrated it in the worst form, and in the meet public axed conspicuous places, without fear or shame (Ezekiel 24:7). They openly shed blood: therefore their own blood was openly to be shed. The publicity of their sin brought on them, in just retribution, a like publicity of punishment (Ezekiel 24:8). God is sure, sooner or later, to punish transgression in kind. Crying sins bring down openly-executed judgments.
(4) The greater was Jerusalem's filthiness and scum of abominations, the greater was to be the force and fury of the enemy brought against her; just as the larger the mass of flesh and bones is that needs to be boiled, the more fire and fuel are heaped around the caldron (Ezekiel 24:9-10). Not only so, but the city itself, also, answering to the caldron infected by the poisonous scum, was to be destroyed, as well as its inhabitants, who answer to the contents. Sin brings ruin alike upon the sinner himself and upon all that belongs to him and is connected with him.
(5) God would have purged Jerusalem from her filthiness by milder measures-means of grace and warning providences-but she refused to be purged, She chose to keep her poisoned scum in her, rather than cast it "forth out of her" (Ezekiel 24:12). Instead of accepting God's happy service and refreshing ordinances, she "wearied herself with lies," and deliberately practiced lewdness and determined wickedness (Ezekiel 24:13). Therefore God would now no longer vouchsafe the interpositions of His grace, which had been designed for her purification, but was about to cause His fury to rest upon her. To sinners who have long resisted God's pleadings with them in mercy, the times of judgment will at last come, when God will no longer spare them, but will judge them according to their ways and doings (Ezekiel 24:14).
(6) The crowning visitation of God's wrath upon Jerusalem was when He took from them by a stroke the temple, which had heretofore been "the excellency of their strength, the joy of their glory, and the desire of their eyes" (Ezekiel 24:16; Ezekiel 24:21; Ezekiel 24:25). Yet so universal should be the calamity that they would not exhibit the usual badges of mourning, but would "pine away for their iniquities, and (privately) mourn one toward another" (Ezekiel 24:23). It was but just, that as they had profaned the sanctuary of God with idolatries, God should "profane" it with the sword of the enemy (Ezekiel 24:21).
(7) At length, by reason of Ezekiel's extraordinary calmness and absence of demonstration of grief under the heavy affliction of losing his wife, "the desire of his eyes" (Ezekiel 24:16), the Jews were stirred up to ask, "Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so?" (Ezekiel 24:19.) The teacher who would raise the people above the absorbing power of earthly and seen things, must himself show in his own person a Living example of how the feelings of the flesh are subordinated to the higher claims of heavenly and unseen realities. At the same time, under ordinary circumstances, we should avoid singularity, and we are not required to stifle, but to sanctify natural, feelings.
(8) The Jews had said (Jeremiah 17:15), "Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come now," as if the word of prophecy would never come to pass. But in God's own time it did come; and, too late, the guilty knew by bitter experience the power and faithfulness of God to His threats (Ezekiel 24:24). Meantime Ezekiel was a living "sign" to them of what waited them (Ezekiel 24:24): no longer were they, during this interval, favoured with revelations from God. They had had amply sufficient testimony already to convince them of the need of repentance (Ezekiel 24:27). Let us be warned by their case to take heed to the sure word of prophecy, now while the day and season of grace lasts. Let us not doubt for a moment, but heartily realize, look forward to, and prepare for, the foretold coming again of the Son of Man as the King of kings and Judge of all men!