The second temple in Jerusalem : its history and its structure

Front matter

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY iSvo

THE SECOND TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM

Jcarp

PART i THE HISTORY OF THE SECOND TEMPLE

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Early Years of Ezekiel’s Life and Ministry . 3

A Prince of the Blood — The Revolt of Jerusalem — The Call of Ezekiel — Ezekiel becomes famous — His ministerial activity — His silence during the siege — Nebuchadrezzar’s conquest — A Babylonian Viceroy — Determination of the exile — The Hebrews abandon idolatry.

II. Later Years of Ezekiel’s Life and Ministry . 25

Treatment of Hebrew manuscripts — The Temple plans redrawn — Their consecration and acceptance — Vision of the new Temple — The first use of the plans.

III. An Imaginary Visit to the Completed Temple

and Altar . . ... 36

Temple laws of personal purity — The central altar — Measurements of the altar — Interior of the Temple court — Interior of the outer court.

IV. The New Constitution in Church Order 47

The old laws still vital — Some priestly rules revived — Rank and duties of the Prince — The “Prince” not a King — Commercial integrity enjoined — Ezekiel’s literary style.

V. The New Constitution in State ... 60

An ideal of restoration — The sacred territory — -The Sanctuary area on Moriah — The clerical patrimonies — The Prince’s landed estate — The tribal settlement — Ezekiel’s closing years.

VI. The Chaldean Exile and the Fall of Babylon 74

The Median nomads — A scheme of transfer — Status of the exiles — Nebuchadrezzar the Great — The later years of exile —

Sudden rise of Persia— Peaceful occupation of Babylon —

Death of Nabonidus — Death of Belshazzar — Death of Cyrus — Reign of Darius the Mede — An illuminating document.

xiii

XIV

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

VII. Preparation for the Exiles’ Return . . 98

Period of Daniel’s life — Two documents of State — The policy of Cyrus — The Temple in Babylon — Origin of E-sagil — Belshazzar’s feast — The second Isaiah — An eye-witness of idol-making— A threefold argument — Salvation, local and larger — A bright vision of the future — Difficulties of the return — Promises for wayfarers.

VIII. The First Return: that under Zerubbabel . 125

The ten tribes remain — Activity of the two tribes — The Prince of Judah — Formation of caravans — Census of Zerubbabel— Disparity in the sex numbers — Quarrels of the rustics — Analysis of the first census — Rechabites and hedge-dwellers — Tribal distinctions of the return.

IX. The Building of the Second Temple . . 147

Funds for Temple building — The new Temple begun — The stone-laying — A political blunder — Samaritan enmity — Completion of the building — Darius ascends the Persian throne —

He protects his Hebrew subjects — Dedication of the Temple — Local animosities appeased — The priestly courses.

X. The Historical Silence of Fifty-six Years . 170

The prophet Malachi — The Book of Esther — Origin of the Persian War — Xerxes’ invasion of Greece — Death of Zerubbabel — A representative at Susa — A long-lost name found.

XI. The Governorship of Ezra, and the Second

Ezra’s early life — Terms of his commission — His misplaced gratitude — His principal fellow-travellers — Order of caravan march — He arrives at Jerusalem — His first official acts — His dramatic grief — The mixed marriages — Popular reaction —

An official complaint — Ezra’s fall.

XII. The First Governorship of Nehemiah . . 208

He succeeds Ezra — A scion of royalty — He visits Samaria — Repair of the city walls — Foes and traitors — Completion of the city walls — Municipal government — Hospitality in the city — The city walls dedicated — Literary conservatism — The law publicly read — A revived spiritual life — A covenant service held — The citizens of Jerusalem — A civil conscription — Population of Jerusalem.

XIII. Nehemiah’s Second Governorship . 241

Decay of moral fervour — Supplies for Levites abolished — Heathen guest of the city — Ezra reinvites Nehemiah — Nehemiah’s fresh reforms — The Samaritan schism — Site of Samaritan Temple — Death of Ezra — Close of Old Testament Canon.

Note. — The Remaining Fragments of Old Testament History in the Book of Nehemiah.

XIV. The Last Century of Persian Rule . 261

The scribes a literary profession — Influence of Nehemiah — High Priest becomes Nasi — Cross currents of national life — Decay of the Persian Empire — The fall of Persia — Rise of Alexander the Great — The founding of Alexandria — The Septuagint.

CONTENTS xv

CHAPTER PAGE

XV. Roman Judea to the Removal of the Temple. 281

Rise of the Herod Family — Death of Julius Caesar — Herod appointed King — Three years of civil war — Herod’s resolute governing — Josephus’ dates harmonized — A new Temple proposed— Herod’s scheme carried out.

Introduction to Part II. . . 301

I. Some Measurements of the Temple . . 303

The first progress — The second progress — Temple entered and measured — The Temple woodwork — “The inner court without” — Various Temple chambers — The two blocks of chambers — Two epiphanies — Harel and Ariel.

II. The Temple Terrace or Bulwark . . . 326

Anti-material teaching — Anti-local teaching — “The Mountain of the House ” — Description of frontispiece — The level of Temple site — Clay tablets used in Judea — The River of Life — Watchers in the Temple.

III. The First and Second Temples Compared . 342

Their sites the same — Height of the porches — Their basements or foundations — Widths of chambers — New structural elements — The water supply — Orientation of the entrances — Distance apart of the two soregs — Police corridors or walks —

The Elammivi or pillars — Ezekiel non-allegorical.

APPENDICES

I. Ezekiel’s Temple Plan : Schedule of Specifications . . . ... 365

II. Comparative Topographical Name-lists of

Jerusalem . . ... 377

III. Table of Sections of the Wall of Jerusalem. 381

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Ezekiel’s Temple on Moriah : Described Site of Frontispiece

The East Gate of Ezekiel’s Temple . End of Preface%p. xi

The Altar of Ezekiel’s Temple . . . page 46

The Sacred Territory of Ezekiel . . Face page 62

Map of the Persian Empire

Ezekiel’s Temple : Section through Chambers .

LARGE PLANS

(In Pocket of Cover )

Ezekiel’s Temple Plan and Scale Plan of the Walls and Gates of Jerusalem xvi

PART I

THE HISTORY

THE SECOND TEMPLE

Chapter I

EARLY YEARS OF EZEKIEL’S LIFE AND MINISTRY HE year 606-5 b.c. was one of fateful interest for the Hebrew nation and monarchy. A state of active war then existed between the two great Powers, Egypt and Babylon. The struggle was for supremacy and the lordship of the world. Each in turn occupied Jerusalem, as the capital of a buffer and border State.

On the death of his father at the battle of Megiddo, Necho placed Jehoiakim, the eldest son of Josiah, upon the throne of Judah as Satrapking under the suzerainty of Egypt. Then followed Nebuchadrezzar’s victory over the forces of Egypt in the battle of Carchemish, now Jerablus. Two years later Prince Nebuchadrezzar — not yet king — with a Babylonian army, appeared at the gates of Jerusalem. This was done as a challenge to Egypt. The gates were opened, and Judah now became a province of the Babylonian Empire (2 Kings xxiv. 1).* To mark his victory

* Unless otherwise stated, all the citations of and references to Scripture in this volume are to the Revised Version of the English Bible.

in the battle of Carchemish, celebrated by Jeremiah,* Nebuchadrezzar carried off a portion of the vessels of the Temple, and also certain youths of noble and royal blood (Dan. i. 1-4). These were not hostages for good behaviour, as there was no intention of returning them to the land of their fathers.

Taken to Babylon, they were — in fulfilment of a prophecy to Hezekiah (2 Kings xx. 18) — mutilated, and handed over to Ashpenaz, the master of the eunuchs, to be trained as Court attendants and officials.

Amongst these unhappy victims of Eastern conditions of Palace life was the young son of Jehoiakim, Daniel by name. He could not have been more than ten or twelve years of age, as his father was twenty-five when he came to the throne (2 Kings xxiii. 36), and this domestic calamity came to him when he was in the third year f of his reign, and therefore in the twenty-eighth year of his age (Dan. 1. 1). We gain a further insight into the youthfulness of JehoiakinTs eldest son at the time of his surrender in the fact that for seventy years Daniel survived his deportation to Babylon, and was alive at the fall of the Empire under the blows of Cyrus the Persian i (Dan. 1. 21).

* Jer. XLVI., the date of which victory is given by him as having been gained in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim. This was B.C. 605-4.

t Later Jewish Kings invariably were married young, e.g. Amon became the father of Josiah at the age of sixteen (comp. 2 Kings xxi. 19 ; XXII. 1).

| As the suggested relationship of Daniel to the royal family of Judah is new and unconventional, and therefore rightly to be called

A PRINCE OF THE BLOOD

The third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, King of Judah — b.c. 606-5 — therefore marks the beginning of those seventy years of captivity which Jeremiah prophesied should come to Judah and Jerusalem (Jer. xxv. 11, 12 ; xxix. 10).

Eight or nine years after the deportation of Daniel and the three Hebrew children, Nebuchadrezzar, then in the seventh year of his reign, again appeared before the walls of Jerusalem. His leniency in dealing with a rebellious subaltern (2 Kings xxiv. 1), whose offence was that of refusing the tribute imposed upon him, met with a return peculiarly Jewish. The King, Jehoiakim, was deposed and arrested and, while a prisoner, committed suicide, as all the items of evidence

in question, it may be well to give the evidence by which it is arrived at, in a series of formal propositions. They are : —

1. The warning to Hezekiah that of his personal descendants there should be eunuchs in the palace of the King of Babylon (2 Kings XX. 18). Daniel and his companions are the only persons known to history to whom this prophecy could have applied.

2. The statement that in the time of Jehoiakim certain of the children of Israel “even of the seed royal and of the nobles5’ were given into the care of the master of the eunuchs in Babylon (Dan. I. 3). (The term “ seed royal 55 is elsewhere used as descriptive of King Zedekiah) (Ezek. xvii. 12, 13).

3. By the writer of the book which bears his name, Daniel was unlikely to be introduced as of royal birth. To have done so would have been to give increased publicity to the humiliation and disgrace of the royal house of Judah.

4. The release from prison of Jehoiachin, on the death of Nebuchadrezzar (2 Kings xxv. 27-30), is explained by supposing that he was Daniel’s younger brother, and that the prophet’s influence was used to this end.

5. See an inferred reference to Daniel in the text of the Deutero- Isaiah, where “an everlasting Name that shall not be cut off” is promised to some one eunuch. The change of pronoun here from plural to singular is important, and would seem to refer to some one well-known individual holding a prominent place (Isaiah LVI. 5). Comp, footnotes pp. 99, 116.

before us show.* The deficiency in the tribute was taken from the Temple Treasures (2 Chron. xxxvi. 7), and sent to Babylon. A Chaldean noble was then put in charge of the State, in order to collect the taxes which the native rulers professed themselves unable to do. The political degradation which this dynastic change involved was one that the sons of Abraham found themselves unable to submit to. Even its record was unpalatable to the compilers of Chroncles and Kings, and the appointment of an alien ruler finds no place in their annals. But it remains the only possible antecedent to the events which followed and its non-record is, of itself, in harmony with the spirit of a people who, centuries later, still falsely boasted, “We have never yet been in bondage to any man ” (John viii. 33).

Having placed his Viceroy upon the throne of Judah, Nebuchadrezzar withdrew his army. The historians of the day, however, reflect the popular feeling when they, neglecting the painful interregnum, state that Jehoiachin, at eighteen, followed his father Jehoiakim upon the throne (2 Kings xxiv. 8). The succession was not an immediate one.

Jehoiachin reigned in Jerusalem “ three months and ten days ” f (2 Chron. xxxvi. 9) (reminding one of the hundred days during which the Scourge of Europe made his last venture), when the Chaldean army reappeared at the gates of the city.

* Comp. Solomon's Temple , pp. 198, 21 1.

t This period covers the time it would take a runner to convey the news of the revolt to Babylon, and for a flying contingent of troops to march thence to Jerusalem.

THE REVOLT OF JERUSALEM 7

These they now found closed against them by a desperate fanaticism, which had used its utmost courage in recognizing Jehoiachin as sovereign. The explanation of the army’s return, of the defiance of the defenders, and of the severity that followed, can be accounted for only on the supposition of the murder of Nebuchadrezzar’s representative. No other action but this could have had such tremendous consequences as those which now followed.

Nebuchadrezzar himself followed his army to Jerusalem after a short interval. His appearance was the signal for an unconditional surrender of the besieged. By his order a royal procession was formed, which issued from one of the Temple gates, long known — in consequence — as the “ Gate of Jehoiachin,” in which appeared the King, the Queen-Mother, Nehushta,* his wives, his uncle, Mattaniah, his officers of State and Palace attendants, the Princes of Judah and all the men of eminence in Jerusalem (2 Kings xxix. 12).

Received into the Assyrian camp as prisoners of war, they must have been lodged in tents, with a total absence of ceremony, and fed on military rations. Then followed the fulfilment of the Prophet Jeremiah’s warning that Jerusalem should be wiped as a dish is wiped, and turned upside down ; for seven thousand soldiers, one thousand

* Nehushta (“the brasen”) was the daughter of Elnathan (2 Kings xxiv. 8), an influential “prince” in Jerusalem (Jeremiah xxxvi. 12, 25), and one of the persecutors of Jeremiah. The prophecy of Jeremiah xm. 18-27 is addressed to her as well as to Jehoiakim, showing that she had a large share in the policy of the Government, and was a woman of depraved character.

mechanics and artisans, and two thousand nobles and officials (Jer. xxix. 2) were collected together, and deported to Babylon. This was in the year B.c. 597, and may be known as the Great Captivity, its victims exceeding in number those in any other of several removals.*

It was, probably, at this time that the Ark of the Covenant, with its precious deposits of the Tables of Stone and the manuscript book of Exodus, disappeared.

Of the prisoners of war now taken two deserve especial notice, though for different reasons, f One of these was the King’s uncle, Mattaniah, youngest son of Josiah. Him the King of Babylon appointed Viceroy, over a collection of vine-dressers and herdsmen, at the same time taking an oath of him of loyalty and obedience — in the name of Jehovah. In token of his subordinate place, and to remind him of his oath, he changed his name to Zedekiah, “ Jah is might ” (2 Kings xxiv. 17 ; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10). This choice of Zedekiah as King was probably made because, being three years older than his nephew, Jehoiachin, he had not headed the party of revolt at the elevation of the Jewish standard of rebellion.

The other unusual prisoner was a priest, twenty-

* The total of prisoners now taken is given in round numbers as 10,000 in 2 Kings xxiy. 14, not including their wives, children, and servants.

t Amongst the other captives was a youth named Kish, a Benjamite, who became the great-grandfather of Mordecai of the Book of Esther (Esther II. 6). The identification of Ahasuerus with Xerxes, the invader of Greece, is one of the first and most valuable results obtained from the deciphering of the cuneiform inscriptions.

THE CALL OF EZEKIEL five years of age, whose studies had been those of an architect. He was the possessor of a unique genius, and bears an imperishable name — Ezekiel. He describes himself as the son of Buzi, but tells us nothing else about his ancestry or dignity. That he was of good birth is, however, certain.

Ezekiel had been in the land of the Chaldeans for nearly five years when the spirit of prophetic utterance fell upon him. He lived in his own house by the Chebar, a canal, which passed Nippur, the modern Niffer, and does not seem to have had any intercourse with the royal and noble captives in the Palace at Babylon. They were a long way off, and had now been in the service of the State for some fourteen years, and it is well to remember that the streams of history in the works of Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel run, in part, in parallel lines, and may be used to illustrate one another.*

During these five years the feeble Zedekiah sat upon the throne in Jerusalem, and exercised a shadowy power as the nominee and vassal of Nebuchadrezzar. The years of his reign nearly coincide — its beginning being omitted — with those of the captivity of Jehoiachin and Ezekiel, and it is by their procession that most of the writings

* (i) The similarity extended even to the form in which their prophecies are given. As Ezekiel, by the Chebar, saw himself in vision in Jerusalem, measuring the Temple, so Daniel saw himself by the river Ulai, which is ten miles to the east of the city Shushan (Dan. vill. 2).

(2) Jeremiah has, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me” (Jer. XV. 1). Ezekiel writes, “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it” (Ezek. xiv. 14). Such literary coincidence cannot be accidental.

IO EZEKIEL’S LIFE AND MINISTRY

of Ezekiel are dated. With true literary instinct, the first of these dates departs from this rule, and is given as “ the thirtieth year ” (Ezek. i. i, 2).

Much speculation has existed as to the era of these years, some supposing that they date from the new dynasty of Nabopolassar, others that they were the years since the last Jubilee. It is, however, plain that the prophet was writing subjectively, and that he wished to mark the day on which the call of God came to him to be His prophet. It was on the day named, when he was in his thirtieth year, that the call and vision came.*

Owing to this systematic chronological provision, there are few temporal difficulties as to the order and period of Ezekiel’s prophecies, f

1. The first series of prophecies details Ezekiel’s call to the prophetic office (n. 3, ff.), which was to be exercised to the members of the captivity, and foretold in graphic symbolism the siege and fall of Jerusalem (chapters 1. to vn.), which took place six years later.

On receiving his commission, the prophet at once began his sad and hopeless task of preaching to his compatriots, and of suffering in their sight some of the deprivations and hardships which

* 1. It was not till they were thirty years of age that the Hebrew priests entered upon their full duties in the Temple (Num. IV. 3).

t “ History is little more than a collection of disconnected facts or isolated biographies without chronology, the skeleton upon which it must be built. We cannot trace the connection between events or determine their development unless we know the relative dates to which they must be assigned.

“A system of chronology is as indispensable to the historian as the framework is to the scene that is painted thereon ” (Sayce’s Babylonian Literature , p. 16).

EZEKIEL BECOMES FAMOUS ii the besieged in Jerusalem should endure. Eighteen months — the period of the siege* — passed in this way, fourteen of which, or 430 days, were used as a sign to the House of Israel, during which time the prophet slept in the open air, having before him in miniature a rough picture of the coming siege, a representation of J erusalem, being drawn on an eastern tile, before which large clay tablet was an iron plate typical of the iron siege which the city was to suffer.

2. Such strange conduct and such symbolic actions as Ezekiel showed would make him a man of mark amongst his fellows. It is, therefore, not strange to read that at the end of this period of eighteen months the Elders of Judah came before him for counsel as he sat in his house (Ezek. vm. 1, ff.). Then a series of foul visions of what was transpiring in Jerusalem was given to him. He saw himself in the inner court of the Temple at the door that looked towards the north, which was the gate of sacrifice, here called “ the gate of the Altar.” Without this gate was an idol-image, probably that of the bull-god Apis — as this was the gate outside of which the larger animals destined for sacrifice were slaughtered.

A greater abomination followed. Seventy elders, i.e. civil officials of the House of Israel, with Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan, at their head, were seen burning incense to another god than Jehovah, in the outer Holy Chamber of the Temple.

* The siege was interrupted by a movement from Egypt (Jer. xxvii. 11). The two periods, of the text, 390 and 40 days, may represent the two close investments of the city before and after the relief.

A third revelation was that at the northern gate of the southern court (to which alone women were admitted) there sat women weeping for Tammuz or Adonis — a well-known act of Phoenician idolatry.*

A fourth spectacle was that of about five-andtwenty men f standing on the platform of the Temple steps “ between the porch and the altar/' J worshipping the rising sun. Than this no greater offence to Jehovah could be perpetrated by any of the Children of Israel, as it was a deification of the Baal of Nature, and a repudiation of the ancient faith.

Visions of coming judgments to fall upon the guilty city followed, the whole being contained in chapters vm.-xi.

“ All the things which the Lord had showed him Ezekiel spake unto them of the Captivity." Jeremiah was Jehovah's speaker in Judea, as Ezekiel was in Babylon. Both, however, found unwilling listeners.

* Tammuz was originally a Babylonian deity representing Spring, and took the form of a shepherd-youth loved of I star or Venus. The Syrian Adonis was usually worshipped in June in the “ Porches of Adonis/’ The “ weeping ” was on behalf of the annual departure of Spring and the coming of Winter.

t These were priests, whom, in scorn, the prophet will not call by that honourable name. The twenty-five men of xi. i, who stood at the great East Gate, were not the same. Two of these at least were princes of the congregation, and, together, the whole body was probably that of the governing oligarchy of the nation. They are spoken of as directing its policy. The number of seventy, as that of the Elders of Israel (Ezek. vm. n), dates from the time of Moses (Ex. xxiv. i).

I This was the usual place, on the steps of which the officiating priests stood when conducting the public services of the Temple. “ Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar” (Joel n. 17).

HIS MINISTERIAL ACTIVITY

3. The year that followed this remarkable apocalypse was one of great ministerial activity by the prophet. Its record may be seen in chapters xii.-xix. From these rugged and powerful representations and appeals may be selected one concerning Zedekiah, foretelling, as Jeremiah had done (Jer. xxxiv. 4, 5), that he should die in the midst of Babylon (Ezek. xvn. 16) ; and yet more plainly — three years before the event — occurred the prophecy —

I will bring him to Babylon To the land of the Chaldeans ;

Yet shall he not see it,

Though he shall die there.

(Ezek. xii. 13.)

His death there, after having had his eyes put out by Nebuchadrezzar at Riblah, is well known (Jer. lii. 10, n).

The record of Ezekiel's ministry for the next two years opens with an account of the assembling, for the second time (Ezek. xiv. 1), of certain of the Elders of Israel, who sat before him (Ezek. xx. 1). A year before the Elders of Judah had similarly come to inquire of the Lord (Ezek. vm. 1). These visits were formal and official interviews by responsible men, and show the estimation in which the prophet was held by both sections of the deported tribes. After recounting, as directed, the events of their ancestral history in a beautiful summary, the prophet sarcastically advised them, “ Go ye, serve every one his idols" (Ezek. xx. 39). He knew that he was speaking to those by whom any other counsel would be disregarded. This was, also, the only answer possible to him, as he was forbidden to speak in the Name of Jehovah.

Stung by the prophet's taunts, the deputation withdrew, saying, “ Is he not a speaker of parables ? ” (Ezek. xx. 49).

Soon after this, owing to the refusal of Zedekiah in Jerusalem to contribute the amount assessed upon him,* the avenging army marched towards Jerusalem. Rabbath, the capital city beyond the Jordan, in league with Jerusalem, likewise refused its quota. The prophet, in chapter xxl, gives a graphic description of a scene which must have occurred on the great Syrian highway, south of Damascus. It is one which is in complete harmony with all that late years have told us as to the part that divination played in Chaldean politics and history.

Nebuchadrezzar is represented as standing at the parting of the ways, one of which led to Rabbath- Ammon and one to Jerusalem. He shook the arrows to and fro. He consulted the figures of the teraphim gods. He looked in the liver of the sacrificial animals. It was the will of Jehovah that Jerusalem should be indicated (Ezek. xxi. 24), arid the army march on it. Zedekiah is described as already “ a deadly wounded wicked one," whose day had come in which to remove the mitre and to take off the crown. But though Jerusalem was to be the first to fall, the turn of Ammon would follow, and

* The cruel severity of this impost may be inferred from the fact that, in refusing it, Zedekiah had before him the example of his brother Jehoiakim, whose similar refusal had led to his arrest and death. Comp. Solomon's Temple , pp. 195, 203.

HIS SILENCE DURING THE SIEGE 15

it should be so destroyed as to be no more remembered.

During the march of the army the great prophecy of Oholah and Oholibah was written in Babylonia (Ezek. xxiii.). In it Samaria and Jerusalem, as the religious capitals of the two kingdoms, have a common fate meted out to them. Samaria had already fallen, and her sister city was to be involved in a similar ruin. What is noticeable in this verdict is that the later idolatries of both countries are traced to Assyria, as the earlier ones had been copied from Egypt (Ezek. xx. 8 ; xxm. 3). The cup of Samaria, which city had fallen a century before, was to be given to Jerusalem, and it should contain more than was possible to endure.

With this lamentable utterance the prophet's public attempts to save his people ceased. On the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign the Chaldean army, for the fourth time, sat down in a close investment of Jerusalem.

On this day the distant prophet uttered his final parable as to the fate of the city which all loved. It was set forth in the similitude of a cauldron set upon a great fire.* In it all the choice pieces of

* The imagery of this parable is taken from an earlier chapter in which the Princes of Judah in Jerusalem said, “This city is the cauldron and we be the flesh” (Ezek. XI. 3-1 1). They acknowledged that the coming siege would be hot, but found hope in the fact that the strong city walls would protect them, as a pot would the flesh from the fire. With a certain grimness of humour, Ezekiel tells them that the only flesh left in the pot will be the dead bodies lying in the streets, and that the living will be pulled out and judged in the faraway border of the land. This came to pass at Riblah.

the sacrificial meats were placed, and were spoiled in the soddening, by the rust of the cauldron. The empty cauldron was then placed over the flames, “ yet did not her rust go forth from her.” In this way was the fierce trial set forth of the siege of Jerusalem begun that day. It was indeed an iron furnace and burning flame that was to consume, but not to purify her.