24 In the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day. 3 And utter a parable to the rebellious house and say to them, Thus says the Lord God:
“Set on the pot, set it on;
pour in water also;
4 put in it the pieces of meat,
all the good pieces, the thigh and the shoulder;
fill it with choice bones.
5 Take the choicest one of the flock;
pile the logs under it;
boil it well;
seethe also its bones in it.
6 “Therefore thus says the Lord God: Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose corrosion is in it, and whose corrosion has not gone out of it! Take out of it piece after piece, without making any choice. 7 For the blood she has shed is in her midst; she put it on the bare rock; she did not pour it out on the ground to cover it with dust. 8 To rouse my wrath, to take vengeance, I have set on the bare rock the blood she has shed, that it may not be covered. 9 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Woe to the bloody city! I also will make the pile great. 10 Heap on the logs, kindle the fire, boil the meat well, mix in the spices, and let the bones be burned up. 11 Then set it empty upon the coals, that it may become hot, and its copper may burn, that its uncleanness may be melted in it, its corrosion consumed. 12 She has wearied herself with toil; its abundant corrosion does not go out of it. Into the fire with its corrosion! 13 On account of your unclean lewdness, because I would have cleansed you and you were not cleansed from your uncleanness, you shall not be cleansed any more till I have satisfied my fury upon you. 14 I am the Lord. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord God.”
The date of this prophecy given in 1 refers to the ninth year after the first captivity, in 597 BC, when Ezekiel and the elders of Israel with the king were taken to Babylon. This brings us to 588 BC, which was the year that Zedekiah in Jerusalem rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, in league with Egypt and the confederacy of peoples round about. It was this that provoked Nebuchadnezzar's attack upon Jerusalem. There is considerable drama in the statement in 2, as the divine intimation comes to the prophet of the siege of Jerusalem at the precise moment that it began, and it must have been an impressive, indeed shattering, announcement to the people that even as the prophet spoke, Jerusalem was meeting its doom. It may be that what is recorded in 3ff is once again an acted parable, but whether or not this is the case, the message is quite clear, and the imagery not in doubt. The rusty cauldron represents Jerusalem, the fire under it is the siege they were undergoing at that precise moment, and the pieces of flesh are the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The reference to the scum in 6 is taken by one commentator to mean that with the pot boiling up, the impurities in the pot itself begin to come out, forming as a filthy scum at the top. Ezekiel's metaphor is very graphic: 'That is what it is like in Jerusalem', he says. If this is the meaning, then the message is surely clear: when an abandoned people are put 'in the cauldron' like this, and put under pressure, all the scum does come to the surface, and all the ugly characteristics that may have been hidden from public gaze come right out into the open, and the filth and degradation of the city is exposed to view.