Again the date is very precise. It is the ninth year, tenth month, tenth day (January 588 BC). It is the day on which Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. On this dark day the prophet is told to put a cooking pot on the fire and place water and choice pieces of meat in it. Already in Ezekiel 11:3 Jerusalemites have referred to their city as a cooking pot and to themselves as choice morsels. The pot provides protection and insulation, they think. Not only are they wrong on that count; they are also incorrect in equating themselves with choice pieces of meat. In fact, their victims are the choice morsels (Ezek. 11:7).

Chapter 24 expands on chapter 11 by including the fire beneath the pot, something on which the metaphor makers of chapter 11 had not banked. The pot, far from being a shel…