The interior mechanism of war.
The prophet is commissioned to employ another homely metaphor. The patience and ingenuity of God's love are inexhaustible. The homeliest imagery is employed with a view to vivid and abiding impression. Here it is shown that behind all the machinery and circumstance of war, a hand Divine directs and overrules. A moral force resides within the material and human agency.
I. THE NECESSITY FOR THE SCOURGE. The necessity arose from the excessive criminality of the Jewish people.
1. They are described as a "house of rebellion." The authority of Jehovah was trampled in the dust.
2. Jerusalem was a city of blood. Justice was so grossly administered that the guilty escaped; the innocent were judicially murdered.
3. Sin assumed the most flagrant forms. "In thy filthiness is lewdness." All restraint to vice was cast off. All moral vigor was eaten out with self-indulgence.
4. There had been wanton abuse of God's corrective methods. "I purged thee, and thou wast not purged." Costly remedies had been wasted and scorned. The hand of the great Physician had been withstood. This is the culmination of guilt. The condition of such is hopeless.
II. THE CERTAINTY OF THE SCOURGE. "I the Lord have spoken: it shall come, and I will do it." The event was based upon the word of God, and God's word is the forthputting of his will. He puts himself into his speech. Fulfillment of his word is not only invariable as law; fulfillment is a necessity. But further, the scourge had already come. By prophetic inspiration Ezekiel knew that on that identical day on which he spoke to the people in Chaldea, Nebuchadnezzar lay siege to Jerusalem. The verification of this fact would impart a weight of authority to Ezekiel's mission as a prophet of Jehovah. It was now too late to evade, by repentance, the scourge. Still, the moral lesson would be healthful. It is never unseasonable to be assured of the righteous faithfulness of God.
III. THE SEVERITY OF THE SCOURGE. The truth intended to be conveyed by this singular and striking figure is that of entire and indiscriminate destruction. Chastise-meats less drastic in their nature had been tried in vain; and, as the evil seemed to be ingrained in the very nature of the body politic, no other measure was availing than overwhelming disaster. This is represented by keeping the cauldron on the fire till its contents were evaporated. To men this punishment appears severe, but to those intelligences who stand near God's throne the punishment does not appear such an evil as does the sin. No punishment is equal to the hatred of man's heart toward God. Calamity that is external to the man is not such a curse as the sin in the soul. This inward canker is the heaviest of all catastrophes.
IV. THE THOROUGHNESS OF THE SCOURGE. "I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent, saith the Lord' (Verse 14). Every piece of flesh was to be brought out for the foe; no exemption was to be allowed. Even the scum was to be consumed. The very rust upon the cauldron was to be burnt off. In other words, the city itself was to be destroyed as well as the inhabitants—the institutions, political and religious, as well as nobles and priests. God's cleansing will be thorough. In God's esteem there are no small sins. Only give them time, and small sins become great. Therefore, no sin must be spared. God is represented, in one place, as "searching Jerusalem with candles" in order to discover her secret sins. Over the gateway of the new Jerusalem it shall be written, "Nothing that is defiled, or that worketh abomination, can enter herein!" And unless sin be separated from us, we and our sins must be destroyed together. Light and darkness cannot dwell in the same room at the same moment; nor can sin and holiness. The God of righteousness will exterminate sin root and branch.
V. THE HIDDEN HAND THAT WIELDS THE SCOURGE. Ordinary observers of the invasion of Judaea, and of the overthrow of Jerusalem, saw only the activity of man. To them it would seem only a human quarrel. Human ambition on the one side, and violation of treaties upon the other, appeared as the immediate causes of the war. To military captains, I dare say the probability of success was on the side of the besieged. The wails were strong and high; the natural ramparts were almost inaccessible; the gates had withstood many a foe. Yet there was a factor in that martial business that was not apparent. The mightiest agent was out of sight. All the forces of righteousness were on the side of Nebuchadnezzar. He had been commissioned to this undertaking by the invincible God. At what point, or in what way, the directing and controlling will of Jehovah acted upon the mind of the Babylonian king, we cannot say. But that God did move him to this undertaking, and did give him success, is a plain fact. Even men of the world are the sword in the hand of God.—D.