Ezek. 11 Ezekiel is showed the presumption of the princes of Judah, Ezek. 11:1–3. He declareth their sin, and the manner of their punishment, Ezek. 11:4–12. He is terrified at the sudden death of Pelatiah, Ezek. 11:13.

The spirit; the Spirit of God, as Ezek. 2:2. Lifted me up; as at first, so still it supports him, and removes him from place to place. The east gate: either of the east gates, whether that which leads into the first court, or into the second court, or into the house of the Lord, may be here…

So soon as the prophet had seen and observed how many and who they were, the Lord, sitting on the cherub, spoke unto him, Ezek. 10:4. The men; not the only men, but indeed the most notorious. Devise; frame and contrive with craft and false reasonings.

What counsel was by these men given appears by their words. It is not near; either the threatened danger and ruin by the Chaldeans; or else, build, but not in the suburbs, not near, but in the city, that your houses may not shelter the enemy.

For this their atheistical temper and words, tell them beforehand what they shall suffer. The charge and command is doubled, both to engage the prophet, and to intimate a doubled misery coming upon them, a misery they shall not have courage to laugh under, though they now dare contemptuously laugh…

The Spirit of prophecy again moved him, which is here called the Spirit of the Lord, or, the Spirit the Lord, as the Hebrew will bear. Fell upon me; descended, by its own act powerfully, sweetly, and prevailingly entered the man. Said unto me; inclined me, that I could not but speak.

Many murders, and great ones, (for the Hebrew includeth both,) have you committed, either with frauds or violence, and sometimes with colour and pretence of law. Your slain; so called because they were such as God had not commanded to be cut off, but the Jews did it without warrant from God.

Therefore; your murders are the cause of my severity, and such sins first or last are surely punished. Your slain: see Ezek. 11:6. Or, your slain, because when they might and would have saved their life by a seasonable submission, you persuaded them to an obstinate opposition against the Chaldeans…

Sinfully, and forgetting God, you would have escaped the sword of the Babylonians, and attempted it by an idolatrous compliance: for this very cause will I send that sword upon you, and it shall slay your wives, children, and fellow citizens.

Though the Chaldeans are the means or instruments by which it is done, yet I will so appear against you that it shall be confessed that I did it rather than the Chaldeans.

The enemies’ sword shall slay you; my just judgments shall pursue you whithersoever you flee, and overtake some of you; and ye shall know, Zedekiah and others who were judged at Riblah, 2 Kings 25:20, that I am the Lord.

This city, Jerusalem, though it suffered unparalleled hardships, shall not be your caldron; shall not be the place of your sufferings; greater are reserved for you, you shall be tortured in a strange land.

Ye shall know; though you would not believe my threats, nor fear them, you shall feel them, and then you shall know: thus the wicked learn. I am the Lord, whom you should have obeyed, feared, and returned to, and who now convinceth you of his and his prophet’s truth in all that was foretold you.

Either this refers to some’ particular prediction of the death of this man; as Jeremiah did of Hananiah’s death, Jer. 28:17; though I do not remember that Ezekiel had spoken of it before, and therefore I take the words for a usual transition.

It was a seasonable word to stop the mouths of the insulting Jerusalemites, and to encourage the captives at Babylon.

Son of man: see Ezek. 2:1. Thy brethren; thy nearest kindred, which it seems were left in Jerusalem, and were grown as bad as the rest, though theirs were of a priestly lineage. Their degeneracy and unjust censure is more noted in the repetition of the word brethren.

Therefore; in apology and vindication of them, backed with excellent promises in the following verses. Say; say to them, and of them in Babylon. Although I have cast them far off: the obstinate Jews at Jerusalem will call them apostates and renegades; but let such false accusers know that they were…

Say; add to the former apology this promise. The Lord God; the faithful and eternal God, the supreme and sovereign Lord. I will gather; by my advice and hand they were scattered, and by my hand they shall be gathered.

They; the gathered, who assembled upon Cyrus’s proclamation first, and then again upon Darius’s proclamation; of which Ezra 1:0 and Ezra 8:0; they met together some where in the land of their captivity, and had a long journey to Jerusalem.

And: this may be understood causally, and so gives an account how the reformation, mentioned Ezek. 11:18, should be effected. I; the Lord himself, and he assumeth it to himself thrice in this verse.

This is the end grace aimeth at, converting us to God, that we may walk with God. Walk: see Ezek. 11:12. My statutes; the rule of religious worship. Mine ordinances; standards in civil affairs and matters of right and wrong with men.

For all those promises, and in the best times, some there will be who will refuse to own God and obey him, whose state shall as much differ as their practices did from the people of God. As for them, whoever they be.

The whole 22nd verse is in almost the same words you have in Ezek. 10:19, which see.

See Ezek. 3:23, Ezek. 8:4, Ezek. 9:3, Ezek. 10:18–19. The glory of the Lord removes now out of the city, over which it had stood some space of time waiting for their repentance; but no fruits of this, and God now departed from them. Upon the mountain; above it.

After all this, the same Spirit of God which carried him to Jerusalem, and to the temple, now brings him back in like manner to his captive brethren in Chaldea; not corporally, but in an ecstasy or rapture of his spirit, by the power of the Spirit of God.

When the ecstasy was past, I spake unto them; either the elders who came to him, Ezek. 8:1, or to the body of the people, who were in those parts where Ezekiel was; for many were scattered into other parts of Chaldea.