(3) Utter a parable.--What follows (Ezekiel 24:3-14) was not a symbolical action, but was simply a parable spoken to the people, although the language is just that which would describe action.

Set on a pot.--Rather, the cauldron, the word being the same as in Ezekiel 11:3, and preceded by the definite article referring to that passage. Urgency is indicated by the repetition of the command "set on." The people in Ezekiel 11:3 had called their city the cauldron; so let it be, the Divine word now says, and set that city upon the fire of the armies of my judgment, and gather into it for destruction the people who have boasted of it as their security.

Verses 3, 4. - Set on a pot, etc. The words contain an obvious reference to the imagery of Ezekiel 11:3-7. The people had used that imagery either in the spirit of a false security or in the recklessness of despair. It is now the prophet's work to remind them that the interpretation which he gave to their own comparison had proved to be the true one. The cauldron is the city, the fire is the invading army, the metal of the cauldron does not protect them. The pieces, the choice bones, were the princes and chief men of the people.

24:1-14 The pot on the fire represented Jerusalem besieged by the Chaldeans: all orders and ranks were within the walls, prepared as a prey for the enemy. They ought to have put away their transgressions, as the scum, which rises by the heat of the fire, is taken from the top of the pot. But they grew worse, and their miseries increased. Jerusalem was to be levelled with the ground. The time appointed for the punishment of wicked men may seem to come slowly, but it will come surely. It is sad to think how many there are, on whom ordinances and providences are all lost.And utter a parable to the rebellious house,.... The people of the Jews so called, not so much on account of their rebellion against the king of Babylon, which caused him to come against them, as on account of their rebellion against God, and the breach of his laws; see Ezekiel 2:3. The prophet is bid to represent to them, in a figurative and emblematic way, the miseries that were coming upon them for their wickedness, namely, under the parable of a boiling pot:

and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God; speaking in his name, and as coming from him, and clothed with his authority; that the following parable might not be thought to be a fancy and chimera of his own: "set on a pot, set it on"; set a pot on the fire, and do it quickly. This "pot" is the city of Jerusalem, which was to be brought into great distress and ruin; not a cauldron of brass, wherein the inhabitants should be as safe as if they had walls of brass about them, as they vainly boasted, Ezekiel 11:3, but a seething pot, such an one as Jeremiah saw, to which, it may be, reference is here had, Jeremiah 1:13, in which the people should be destroyed:

and also pour water into it; which, as it is some time a boiling, may denote the length of the siege of the city, which held two years; and of the troubles and miseries attending it; and of the greatness of them, which were as intolerable as boiling water. The Targum is,

"prophesy that armies shall come against this city; and also there shall be given unto it length of time to receive the siege.''