Ezekiel 12:15

_AND THEY SHALL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD, WHEN I SHALL SCATTER THEM AMONG THE NATIONS, AND DISPERSE THEM IN THE COUNTRIES._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

Here God insults both Jews and Israelites who had united themselves. He says that he would so display his power that they should be compelled to acknowledge him, but to their own destruction. Experimental knowledge is sometimes attributed to the faithful; because when we are too slow, God shows us his power by sure proofs. But what is here said ought to be restricted to the reprobate and abandoned, who do not acknowledge God except in death. Yet Zedekiah was not entirely without the fear of God: he reverenced Jeremiah, and the seed of piety was not altogether extinct in his mind. As regards the people, inasmuch as they offered the daily sacrifice, they certainly cherished some opinion of God’s favor, and also of his power. But because they despised the Prophets, they were altogether unsubdued, and made a laughing-stock of their threats, and for this cause they are said not to acknowledge...

1-16 By the preparation for removal, and his breaking through the wall of his house at evening, as one desirous to escape from the enemy, the prophet signified the conduct and fate of Zedekiah. When God has delivered us, we must glorify him and edify others, by acknowledging our sins. Those who by afflictions are brought to this, are made to know that God is the Lord, and may help to bring others to know him....

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 12:1 THE WORD OF THE LORD, etc. This formula, so familiar in Isaiah and Jeremiah, appears for the first time in Ezekiel, but occurs repeatedly afterwards, especially in this chapter (verses 8, 17, 21, 26. and again Ezekiel 13:1; Ezekiel 14:2, _et al._)_. _The teaching by "the visions of God" ceases, and that of direct message or symbolic acts is resumed. In each case the point aimed at was the same. The people who heard the one or saw the other were to be taught how utterly groundless was the hope that Jerusalem could hold out against its enemies. The interval between the two was probably a short one, and the new teaching, we may conjectu

AND THEY SHALL KNOW THAT I [AM] THE LORD,.... God omniscient, and can and do foresee and foretell future events, when the above things shall come to pass; and omnipotent, able to do what he purposed and declared he would; and true and faithful to his word, and holy and righteous in all his ways and works: WHEN I SHALL SCATTER THEM AMONG THE NATIONS, AND DISPERSE THEM IN THE COUNTRIES; of Egypt, Babylon, Media, and other places....

CHAPTER S 12-19 Signs, Messages, and Parables _ 1. Signs given through the prophet (Ezekiel 12:1) _ 2. The message of speedy judgment (Ezekiel 12:21) 3. The message against false prophets and prophetesses. (Ezekiel 13:1) 4. The message against the elders (Ezekiel 14:1) 5. The parable of the vine given to the fire (Ezekiel 15:1) 6. The parable of the abandoned child and Israel's whoredom (Ezekiel 16:1)

EZEKIEL 12. EXILE FORESHADOWED. Ezekiel 12:1. Flight from the Beleaguered City. Ezekiel's message of doom has surely been made plain enough, but the rebellious house will not listen; for one thing, their confidence in the indestructibility of the monarchy and the throne made such a message incredible. Well then, if they will not hear, they must be made to see; and again, as before (4) Ezekiel incarnates his message. By his conduct, he becomes a prophetic sign. In the daytime, before the eyes of the people, he packs a few belongings together, such as an exile might take with him to the land for which he was destined; then, having thus stimulated their curiosity, he carries them on his shoulder in the dead of night through a hole which he had dug in the wall (apparently of his house). In the morning, in answer to their astonished queries, he tells them plainly that it is a prophetic sy

All the armies and aids of the king shall be dispersed and pursued with the sword. They shall be scattered among the nations, and their history shall bring to their knowledge what Jehovah, their God, truly is. A remnant of them shall be spared among the nations that they make known to them their abominations, and these also shall learn what the God of Israel is. Jerusalem and Israel is set in the midst of the nations round about (ch. Ezekiel 5:5), its history is a drama enacted before the eyes of mankind, and the drama when finished will reveal, not only to Israel but the nations of the world, Jehovah in his fulness. Cf. ch. Ezekiel 14:22-23; Ezekiel 17:24;...

CHAPTER SEVEN SYMBOLS AND SERMONS 12:1-14:23 This section does not begin with a chronological note, but in all likelihood the symbolic actions and oracles recorded here date from the same time frame as those in the preceding section. According to the modern calendar, that would be in the summer of 592 B.C. Ezekiel's purpose here is to defend and reinforce the announcement of Jerusalem's coming judgment. This material may be divided into four subdivisions with each subdivision itself being a logical bifid. Ezekiel has here incorporated (1) two symbolic actions which he performed (Ezekiel 12:1-22); (2) two popular sayings which he corrected (Ezekiel 12:17-20); (3) two scathing oracles which he delivered ...

SYMBOLS OF EXILE, FLIGHT, AND FAMINE Ezekiel's audience being blind to the meaning of the vision he has just described, he is commanded to give them, in new symbolic actions, a further representation of the coming fate of Jerusalem and its king and people. He is told to gather together such things as one leaving home would take with him, and to carry these out of his house by day. At night he is to dig a hole in a wall, and pass through it with his face covered and his baggage on his shoulder. When the people ask hun next morning what these proceedings mean he is directed to tell them that the action of the daytime is a symbol of the captivity awaiting Jerusalem, and that the action of the evening foreshadows the secret flight which Zedekiah will attempt, and the punishment of blindness which will prevent him from seeing the land of his exile (Ezekiel 12:1). Another symbolic action,