Ezekiel 22:22

As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the LORD have poured out my fury upon you.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

22:17-22 Israel, compared with other nations, had been as the gold and silver compared with baser metals. But they were now as the refuse that is consumed in the furnace, or thrown away when the silver is refined. Sinners, especially backsliding professors, are, in God's account, useless and fit for nothing. When God brings his own people into the furnace, he sits by them as the refiner by his gold, to see that they are not continued there any longer than is fitting and needful. The dross shall be wholly separated, and the good metal purified. Let those who suffer pains, or lingering sickness, and find that their hearts can scarcely bear these light and momentary afflictions, take warning to flee from the wrath to come; for if these trials are not sanctified by the power of the Holy Spirit, to the cleansing their hearts and hands from sin, far worse things will come upon them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Dross - A frequent metaphor which denotes not only the corruption of the people, who have become like base metal, but also a future purification whereby, the "dross" being burned away, the remnant of good may appear.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. dross … brass—Israel has become a worthless compound of the dross of silver (implying not merely corruption, but degeneracy from good to bad, Isa 1:22, especially offensive) and of the baser metals. Hence the people must be thrown into the furnace of judgment, that the bad may be consumed, and the good separated (Jer 6:29, 30).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

These verses are an ingeminating of the same menaces, the more to affect the Jews with fear, and due apprehensions of their danger, and make them think of returning to God.

As silver is melted: this seems to intimate the Divine care over some few, that in the midst of the rest were precious, and God would purify, not destroy them.

Ye shall know; see, own, and submit to God’s afflicting hand, and comply with him, putting away your dross.

Have poured out my fury upon you, promiscuously with others, among which you have suffered the same outward troubles, though the end be different, which intimates the escape of a remnant.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

As silver is melted in the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof,.... This is repeated for the greater confirmation of it; and the people might assure themselves that it would verily be, as was threatened:

and ye shall know that I the Lord have poured out my fury upon you; feel it upon them; be sensible of it, and acknowledge it; and that it is the Lord's doings, and righteously done; these are they who are meant by the silver, who, though cast into the furnace, were not destroyed, only purified, and made the better and brighter for their afflictions.

Geneva Study Bible

As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the LORD have poured out my fury upon you.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. The figure of the furnace expresses mainly the idea of the terrible trials approaching; it is not intimated that pure silver was obtained from the process. In a prophet toward the end of the exile Jehovah complains that his casting Israel into the furnace had been barren of result, Isaiah 48:10.

Ezekiel 22:23-31. New indictment of all classes of the nation: the royal house, Ezekiel 22:25; the priests, Ezekiel 22:26; the princes, Ezekiel 22:27; the prophets, Ezekiel 22:28, and the people of the land, Ezekiel 22:29. Among all the people not one is found to stand in the breach, therefore his wrath must be poured out upon them to the uttermost.

Ezekiel 22:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Refining of Israel in the Furnace of Besieged Jerusalem

Ezekiel 22:17. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Ezekiel 22:18. Son of man, the house of Israel has become to me as dross; they are all brass, and tin, and iron, and lead in the furnace; dross of silver have they become. Ezekiel 22:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because ye have all become dross, therefore, behold, I gather you together in Jerusalem. Ezekiel 22:20. As men gather together silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin into the furnace, to blow the fire upon it for melting, so will I gather (you) together in my anger and my wrath, and put you in and melt you. Ezekiel 22:21. And I will collect you together, and blow the fire of my wrath upon you, that ye may be melted therein. Ezekiel 22:22. As silver is melted in the furnace, so shall ye be melted therein (viz., in Jerusalem), and shall learn that I Jehovah have poured out my wrath upon you. - This second word of God rests no doubt upon the figure in Ezekiel 22:15, of the uncleanness or dirt of sin; but it is not an exposition of the removal of the dirt, as predicted there. For that was to be effected through the dispersion of Israel among the nations, whereas the word of God, from Ezekiel 22:17 onwards, represents the siege awaiting Jerusalem as a melting process, through which God will separate the silver ore contained in Israel from the baser metals mingled with it. In Ezekiel 22:18 it commences with a description of the existing condition of Israel. It has turned to dross. היוּ is clearly a perfect, and is not to be taken as a prophetical future, as Kliefoth proposes. Such a rendering is not only precluded by the clause 'יען היות in Ezekiel 22:19, cut could only be made to yield an admissible sense by taking the middle clause of the verse, "all of them brass and tin," etc., as a statement of what Israel had become, or as a preterite in opposition to all the rules of Hebrew syntax, inasmuch as this clause merely furnishes an explanation of היוּ־לסוּג. סוּג, which only occurs here, for סיג signifies dross, not smelting-ore (Kliefoth), literally, recedanea, the baser ingredients which are mixed with the silver, and separated from it by smelting. This is the meaning here, where it is directly afterwards interpreted as consisting of brass, tin, iron, and lead, and then still further defined as סגּים כּסף, dross of silver, i.e., brass, tin, iron, and lead, with a mixture of silver. Because Israel had turned into silver-dross of this kind, the Lord would gather it together in Jerusalem, to smelt it there as in a smelting furnace; just as men gather together brass, iron, lead, and tin in a furnace to smelt them, or rather to separate the silver contained thereon. קבצת כּסף, literally, a collection of silver, etc., for "like a collection." The כ simil. is probably omitted for the sake of euphony, to avoid the discord occasioned by prefixing it to קבצת. Ezekiel mentions the silver as well, because there is some silver contained in the brass, iron, etc., or the dross is silver-dross. התּוּך, nomen verbale, from נתך in the Hiphil, smelting; literally, as the smelting of silver takes place in the furnace. The smelting is treated here simply as a figurative representation of punishment, and consequently the result of the smelting, namely, the refining of the silver by the removal of the baser ingredients, is not referred to any further, as in the case in Isaiah 1:22, Isaiah 1:25; Jeremiah 6:27-30; Malachi 3:2-3. This smelting process was experienced by Israel in the last siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans.