Ezekiel 12:10-11 - Exposition

This burden concerneth the prince in Jerusalem; literally, the prince is this burden in Jerusalem. The word "burden," in the sense of "prophecy," so common in Isaiah and Jeremiah and other prophets, as Hosea ( Hosea 8:10 ) and Nahum ( Nahum 1:1 ), is used by Ezekiel here only. Possibly he on the whole avoided it, as having fallen into discredit through its constant use by the false prophets ( Jeremiah 23:1-40 :83-38), and preferred the formula of "the word of Jehovah." As interpreted by Jeremiah 39:4 and 2 Kings 25:4 , the "prince" is Zedekiah. Possibly Ezekiel avoided the title "king," as seeing in him one who was a ruler de facto, but not a king de jure. The facts related in Jeremiah 39:4 exactly correspond with the symbolic act. Zedekiah and his men of war escape from the city by night, "by the way of the king's garden, by the gate between the two walls," probably enough with faces covered, as David's was in his flight ( 2 Samuel 15:30 ), to avoid detection, or as a sign of mourning, and through some freshly made exit from the palace. The further significance of the covered face is found in the fact that Zedekiah was blinded at Riblah by Nebuchadnezzar's orders, and from that time could not see the ground on which he trod. Those who see in every Old Testament prediction nothing but a prophecy ex eventu infer from this that this section of Ezekiel was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. I do not take that view, and place it in close connection with the preceding chapters. We note in verse 11 the peculiar phrase," I am your sign." Ezekiel, in what he does in the presence of the exiles, is figuring that which, before long, will come to pass in Jerusalem. They were to go forth into captivity as he had gone. For they shall remove, the Revised. Version gives, they shall go into exile.