Ezekiel 33:21

Tidings of the Fall of Jerusalem, and the Consequences with Regard to the Prophet Eze 33:21. And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the tenth (month), on the fifth of the month after our being taken captive, there came to me a fugitive from Jerusalem, and said, The city is smitten. Eze 33:22. And the hand of Jehovah had come upon me in the evening before the arrival of the fugitive, and He opened my mouth, till he came to me in the morning; and so was my mouth opened, and I was silent no more. - In these verses the fulfilment of the promise made by God to the prophet in Eze 24:25-27, after the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, is recorded. The chronological datum, as to the precise time at which the messenger arrived with the account of the destruction of Jerusalem, serves to mark with precision the point of time at which the obstacle was removed, and the prophet was able to speak and prophesy without restraint. - The fact that the tidings of the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in the fifth month of the eleventh year, are said to have only reached the exiles in the tenth month of the twelfth year, that is to say, nearly a year and a half after it occurred, does not warrant our following the Syriac, as Doederlein and Hitzig have done, calling in question the correctness of the text and substituting the eleventh year for the twelfth. With the distance at which Ezekiel was living, namely, in northern Mesopotamia, and with the fearful confusion which followed the catastrophe, a year and a half might very easily pass by before a fugitive arrived with the information. But Hitzig's assertion, that Ezekiel would contradict himself, inasmuch as, according to Eze 26:1-2, he received intelligence of the affair in the eleventh year, is founded upon a misin…

Here we have, I. The tidings brought to Ezekiel of the burning of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. The city was burnt in the eleventh year of the captivity and the fifth month, Jer 52:12, Jer 52:13. Tidings hereof were brought to the prophet by one that was an eye-witness of the destruction, in the twelfth year, and the tenth month (Eze 33:21), which was a year and almost five months after the thing was done; we may well suppose that, there being a constant correspondence at this time more than ever kept up between Jerusalem and Babylon, he had heard the news long before. But this was the first time he had an account of it from a refugee, from one who escaped, who could be particular, and would be pathetic, in the narrative of it. And the sign given him was the coming of such a one to him as had himself narrowly escaped the flames (Eze 24:26): He that escapes in that day shall come unto thee, to cause thee to hear it with thy ears, to hear it more distinctly than ever, from one that could say, Quaeque ipse miserrima vidi - These miserable scenes I saw. II. The divine impressions and influences he was under, to prepare him for those heavy tidings (Eze 33:22): The hand of the Lord was upon me before he came, and had opened my mouth to speak to the house of Israel what we had in the former part of this chapter. And now he was no more dumb; he prophesied now with more freedom and boldness, being by the event proved a true prophet, to the confusion of those that contradicted him. All the prophecies from ch. 24 to this chapter have relation purely to the nations about, it is probable that the prophet, when he received them from the Lord, did not deliver them by word of mouth, but in writing; for he could not Say to the Ammonites, Say unto Tyrus, Say unto Pharaoh, etc., so and so,…

33:21 A survivor arrived from Jerusalem, bringing eyewitness testimony of the city’s fall. This news took more than five months to reach the exiles.