In the ninth year. We pass from the date of Ezekiel 20:1 to B.C. 590, and the very day is identified with that on which the army of Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem (Jeremiah 39:1; 2 Kings 25:1-12). To the prophet's vision all that was passing there was as plain as though he saw it with his own eyes. The siege lasted for about two years. The punishments threatened in Ezekiel 23:1-49, had at last come near. We may probably infer that a considerable interval of silence had followed on the Aholah and Aholibah discourse. Now the time had come to break that silence, and it was broken, after the prophet's manner, by a parable. In the "rebellious house" we find, as in Ezekiel 2:3 and elsewhere, primarily Ezekiel's immediate hearers, secondarily the whole house of Israel as represented by them.
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.