11:1–3 In a shocking juxtaposition of perspectives, just as the departing divine glory reaches the east gate of the temple (10:19), the prophet overhears a simultaneous earthly conversation at the same location (11:1). Twenty-five prominent men were gathered, including two named individuals, Jaazaniah and Pelatiah, who from their title (“princes of the people”) are likely members of King Zedekiah’s inner council. The size of this group matches that of the idolaters in the inner courtyard of the temple (8:16), and, since those men were identified as “elders” (9:6), these may well be the same men. This time, however, the issue is not idolatry but wicked counsel (11:2; cf. Mic. 2:1). Because of their position, these men are expected to provide wise leadership for the people, but their counsel is willfully out of touch with reality.

The exact nature of their counsel is not easy to discern because of its terseness. Literally, they say, “Not near building houses.” “Near” (Hb. qarob) may be taken in a temporal sense, either as a statement (“The time is not near to build houses”; ESV) or as an unmarked question (“Is not the time near to build houses?”; ESV mg.; CSB). What follows seems to interpret this saying as an attitude of confident safety.69 These leaders seem to be saying that right now the Babylonian threat might seem so great that long-term projects such as house building must be put on hold, but the threat will soon subside and the people will be able to get back to their projects. The city of Jerusalem is their cauldron, the solid object that protects them (the good food on the inside) from the dangerous fire on the outside. They feel safe there and believe life will soon return to normal.

Alternatively, the word “near” may have a spatial sense,70 with the saying referring to Jeremiah’s counsel to the exiles to build houses and settle down in Babylon (Jer. 29:5). To paraphrase their advice, “Those who are near (the Jerusalemites) do not need to build houses; we will leave that to you exiles who are gone from the land forever. We are the choice cuts of meat in the cauldron; you exiles are the offal cast into the fire.” This would certainly fit with their bold assertion in Ezekiel 11:15 that the exiles are far away from the Lord and the land had been given to those who remained in Judah as a possession.

On either interpretation the elders are boldly denying the words of judgment proclaimed by Ezekiel and his older contemporary, Jeremiah. They are complacent and confident for the future. However, their confidence in the security of Jerusalem is severely misplaced, because their trust is not in the Lord. As a result, their counsel is wicked (v. 2), and those who heed it will soon be disabused. After all, “unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1).

11:4–13 Once again the conviction of the Jerusalemites that “the Lord does not see” (Ezek. 8:12; 9:9) is demonstrated to be erroneous. The Lord not only sees their wicked actions, which have resulted in the streets of Jerusalem being filled with dead bodies, but knows their secret thoughts as well (11:5). They may not have personally wielded the sword against their victims, but by their corruption, perversion of justice, and wicked policies they have caused the deaths of many. Far from the leaders’ being the choice cuts of meat in the cauldron, it is actually the victims of their bloodshed who are the meat, while the leaders of Jerusalem are the butchers (cf. Mic. 3:1–3). The city will not be a protective cauldron for them against the invading Babylonians. On the contrary, the Lord will bring them out of the city and hand them over to foreigners, who will judge them and put them to death with the sword—a fitting punishment, given their rampant bloodshed. Far from their possessing the land, they will be brought to the very edge of the land before being executed (Ezek. 11:10).

This judgment is deliberately depicted as a kind of anti-exodus. In the exodus the Lord brought Israel out of the land of Egypt; now the Lord will “bring [them] out of the midst of it” (v. 9; cf. Ex. 6:6). Once the Lord promised to deliver his people from the hand of the Egyptians, but now he will give them into the hand of foreigners (Ezek. 11:9; Ex. 3:8). The judgments that once fell on Egypt (Ex. 6:6; 12:12) now fall on the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Ezek. 11:10). Indeed, the place of judgment, the “border of Israel,” is reminiscent of the division of the land in the time of Joshua (Joshua 15–19; cf. Ezekiel 48). Instead of being given the land to divide among themselves as they please, the leading inhabitants of Jerusalem will be brought out of the land before being put to death. Then the Jerusalemites will acknowledge God (“know that I am the Lord”; Ezek. 11:10) when this reverse exodus shows that the warnings of his prophets are not idle.

In chapter 9 the prophet saw visibly enacted the firstfruits of God’s judgment as he witnessed the twenty-five elders being cut down in the inner court. So too here, while he is still prophesying, Ezekiel sees Pelatiah die, a symbolic down payment on the judgment to come. When the news of Pelatiah’s death—presuming he is indeed a literal person—reaches the exiles, it will confirm the legitimacy of Ezekiel as a prophet. In 37:7 it is also “while” Ezekiel prophesies that the dry bones come together into bodies, highlighting the fact that the prophetic word is the effective means of both judgment and salvation. The irony of Pelatiah ben Benaiah’s death is intense, since his name means “the Lord gives escape,” son of “the Lord builds up.”71 The Lord will neither deliver nor build up those who remain in Jerusalem; on the contrary, he will uproot them and tear them down (cf. Jer. 1:10). As in Ezekiel 9:8, when Ezekiel sees judgment enacted in front of him, he cries out, “Ah Lord God! Will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel?” (11:13). He fears that with the promised destruction of Jerusalem and Judah there will be nothing left of God’s people to inherit what the Lord had originally promised them.

11:14–21 The first time Ezekiel uttered this cry, in 9:8, the Lord gave an ambiguous answer. Without directly answering the prophet’s question he affirmed the greatness of Israel’s guilt and the certainty of the coming judgment. The only positive response was the return of the man clothed in linen, reporting the successful tagging of all those marked out for salvation (9:11). But this time the prophet’s cry receives a word of hope and salvation directed at those already in exile. The Jerusalemites may have written the exiles off as “far from the Lord”72 and concluded that the land had been given to them as a possession (11:15)—including the former property of the exiles, many of whom would have been landowners, since they had belonged to the Judean elite before they were exiled. Yet it is these very exiles, Ezekiel’s brothers and wider kin,73 who in fact now constitute the “whole house of Israel” (v. 15).

The Lord’s departure from the temple in Jerusalem is the beginning of a journey that takes him all the way to Babylon, where he joins the exiles, providing a sanctuary for them there for a little while (v. 16).74 This is a remarkable statement in an ancient context, where the word “sanctuary” normally designated a physical place set apart as sacred because of the presence of the deity. There is no physical building in Babylon in which the exiles might worship, but the Lord can still meet with his people there in exile—as indeed he is doing through Ezekiel’s prophetic ministry. The Lord is not far from the exiles, as the Jerusalemites claim. This is a significant step in the direction of NT worship, which is no longer linked to a particular geographic location because of the Lord’s presence through the Spirit with his people wherever they are (cf. Matt. 18:20; John 4:21–24).

The Lord’s exile from his land is to be only a temporary displacement, however, and the anti-exodus threatened against those left in Jerusalem will soon be matched by a new exodus bringing the exiles home from the countries to which they have been scattered. The ones whose land has been appropriated by those left behind will receive the entire land of Israel as a gift, just as Joshua had before them (Ezek. 11:17). This returning remnant will then cleanse the land of its detestable idols and other abominations, so that the scenes depicted in Ezekiel 8 will no longer be characteristic of God’s people.

Nor will this be merely an external change in the people’s behavior and practices. The Lord will give them a changed heart and spirit. In place of their former heart, divided in its loyalties between the Lord and idols, they will now have “one heart” (v. 19)—a single-minded focus on the Lord (cf. Jer. 32:39). The heart is the center of idol worship, even among the exiles (cf. Ezek. 14:3), but in the future all that will change. In place of their rebellious spirit they will be granted a submissive spirit. In place of their former stony heart, unresponsive to divine correction (2:4; 3:7), they will have a heart of flesh that delights to walk in God’s ways and keep his laws (11:20). This also distinguishes the returning exiles from the present inhabitants of the land, who do not walk in the Lord’s statutes or obey his rules (v. 12). This new gathering, exodus, and entry into the Promised Land will accomplish God’s goal of the original exodus: they shall be his people, and he will be their God (v. 20). The Lord is not attached primarily to the land, as were other ancient Near Eastern deities; Israel’s God is attached to the people. But heredity does not guarantee blessing by itself. Obedience is necessary. Those who remain rebelliously committed to idolatry—whether among the exiles or especially those who remain in Judah—will reap their deserved reward. The Lord will bring their wicked deeds back on their own heads (v. 21).

11:22–25 These verses provide the conclusion not merely for chapter 11 but for the whole vision of chapters 8–11. The glory of the Lord has already moved to the east gate of the temple by the end of chapter 10, where it paused. Now it moves further eastward, out of the city and off to the Mount of Olives, to the east of the city, across the Kidron Valley. It stops there, as if waiting to see the threatened judgment carried out on the city by the Babylonians. Its final destination is a return to the heavenly sanctuary, of which the building in Jerusalem was always merely a faint earthly reflection. Meanwhile, Ezekiel himself is carried from his visionary journey by the Spirit back to the elders of the exiles (cf. 8:1) so that he can convey the Lord’s message to them. We are not told of their response. There is much for them to digest here, but the overall message should be encouraging to them.