Ezekiel 22:17-22

B. The Smelting Furnace 22:17-22

TRANSLATION

(17) And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, (18) Son of man, the house of Israel has become to Me dross; all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead in the midst of a furnace; they are the dross of silver. (19) Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: Because all of you have become dross, therefore, behold, I am about to gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. (20) As they gather silver, and bronze and iron and lead and tin into the midst of a furnace to blow the fire upon it to melt it, thus I will gather you in My wrath and fury, and I will cast you in, and melt you. (21) And I will gather you, and I will breathe upon you with the fire of My wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst of it. (22) As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, thus you shall be melted in the midst of it; and you shall know that I the LORD have poured out My wrath upon you.

COMMENTS

The thought in Ezekiel 22:15 that the exile would purge the filthiness from Judah is amplified in the present paragraph. The house of Israel, i.e., Judah, has become like a metallic ore, a mixture of various minerals and impurities which must undergo a smelting process. They once were silver; now they are dross, i.e., worthless (Ezekiel 22:18). Jerusalem where the inhabitants would gather to make their last stand would serve as the symbolic furnace in which the refining process would begin (Ezekiel 22:19). The wrath and fury of the Lord would be the fire which would heat that furnace (Ezekiel 22:20-21). But through the holocaust the precious silver the spiritual remnant would become evident. All the inhabitants of that place would know that they had experienced the judgmental fury of the one true and living God (Ezekiel 22:22).