3 And make a comparison for this uncontrolled people, and say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Put on the cooking-pot, put it on the fire and put water in it: 4 And get the bits together, the fat tail, every good part, the leg and the top part of it: make it full of the best bones. 5 Take the best of the flock, put much wood under it: see that its bits are boiling well; let the bones be cooked inside it.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Ezekiel 24:3-5
Commentary on Ezekiel 24:1-14
(Read Ezekiel 24:1-14)
The pot on the fire represented Jerusalem besieged by the Chaldeans: all orders and ranks were within the walls, prepared as a prey for the enemy. They ought to have put away their transgressions, as the scum, which rises by the heat of the fire, is taken from the top of the pot. But they grew worse, and their miseries increased. Jerusalem was to be levelled with the ground. The time appointed for the punishment of wicked men may seem to come slowly, but it will come surely. It is sad to think how many there are, on whom ordinances and providences are all lost.