BOOK 26 OF 66 · MAJOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Ezekiel 22

Ezekiel book home•Chapter 22 of 48•31 verses

Chapter overviewAt a glance + deeper study

REVIEWED OVERVIEW

Ezekiel 22 Overview

The LORD indicts Jerusalem as a “bloody city” filled with murder, idolatry, contempt for parents, oppression of strangers and vulnerable people, sexual corruption, bribery, extortion, profaned holy things, corrupt priests, princes, prophets, and people. No one is found to stand in the gap, so judgment is poured out.

EzekielBook

22Chapter

31Verses

Major ProphetsDivision

Before you read Ezekiel 22

Coming from

The LORD commands Ezekiel to announce a sharpened sword against Jerusalem and to groan publicly. Babylon’s king is pictured at a crossroads using divination to choose between Rabbah and Jerusalem; the road points to Jerusalem. Judah’s profane prince will lose his crown until the rightful ruler comes.

In this chapter

Leads into

Samaria and Jerusalem are portrayed as sisters, Aholah and Aholibah, who pursue political and spiritual adultery with Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and idols. Their graphic unfaithfulness leads to humiliating judgment by the very nations they desired, exposing covenant betrayal and bloodshed.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The chapter functions like a comprehensive charge sheet. It moves from the city’s general crimes to the refining-furnace image and then to failures across leadership and population groups.

“Standing in the gap” is military-wall imagery for someone who would repair the breach and intercede faithfully. The verse is often used for prayer ministries, but in context the absence involves a broader lack of righteous leadership capable of averting judgment.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Public corruption is rarely confined to one class

Princes, priests, prophets, and ordinary people all participate in different forms of injustice and unfaithfulness.

Religious corruption and social injustice belong together

Profaning holy things sits beside bloodshed, bribery, exploitation, and neglect of the vulnerable.

A society can reach a point where judgment exposes what reformers failed to repair

The LORD finds no one to build the wall or stand in the breach for the land.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Micah 3

Micah also condemns rulers, priests, and prophets together for corruption and exploitation.

Isaiah 1:21-23

Isaiah calls Jerusalem a once-faithful city become a harlot, filled with murder, bribery, and injustice.

1 Timothy 2:1-2

The New Testament commands intercession for rulers and society, though Ezekiel’s “stand in the gap” should not be reduced only to a prayer slogan.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not limit “stand in the gap” to private prayer while ignoring the chapter’s demand for righteousness and truthful leadership.

Intercession is involved, but the missing person is also one who would repair the breach in a corrupt society.

Do not use the refining furnace image as though every trial is automatically purifying.

Here the furnace is an image of Jerusalem gathered for judgment because the people have become dross.

Read Ezekiel 22 watching for…

the title “bloody city”

the long list of social and religious sins

silver becoming dross in the furnace

failures of prophets, priests, princes, and people

the missing person who would stand in the gap

Chapter outline3 sections

1-16Jerusalem is charged as a bloody city full of idolatry, oppression, uncleanness, and forgotten worship 17-22Israel is compared to dross gathered into a furnace and melted by God’s fury 23-31Prophets, priests, princes, and people are corrupt, and no man is found to stand in the gap

Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt shew her all her abominations.

Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord GOD, The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself.

Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries.

Those that be near, and those that be far from thee, shall mock thee, which art infamous and much vexed.

Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood.

In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.

Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths.

In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness.

In thee have they discovered their fathers' nakedness: in thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution.

And one hath committed abomination with his neighbour's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter in law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter.

In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD.

Behold, therefore I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee.

Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the LORD have spoken it, and will do it.

And I will scatter thee among the heathen, and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of thee.

And thou shalt take thine inheritance in thyself in the sight of the heathen, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.

And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver.

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.

As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you.

Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof.

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.

And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation.

There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.

Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.

And her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken.

The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.

And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.

Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD.