Eze 4:3-4, Mat 12:39-42 | JFB | STEP | 3. iron pan-- the divine decree as to the Chaldean army investing the city. set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city-- Ezekiel, in the person of God, represents the wall of separation between him and the people as one of iron: and the Chaldean investing army. His instrument of separating them from him, as one impossible to burst through. set ... face against it-- inexorably ( ). The exiles envied their brethren remaining in Jerusalem, but exile is better than the straitness of a siege.

‏ Ezekiel 4:3-4

3. iron pan--the divine decree as to the Chaldean army investing the city.

set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city--Ezekiel, in the person of God, represents the wall of separation between him and the people as one of iron: and the Chaldean investing army. His instrument of separating them from him, as one impossible to burst through.

set ... face against it--inexorably (Psa 34:16). The exiles envied their brethren remaining in Jerusalem, but exile is better than the straitness of a siege.

4. Another symbolical act performed at the same time as the former, in vision, not in external action, wherein it would have been only puerile: narrated as a thing ideally done, it would make a vivid impression. The second action is supplementary to the first, to bring out more fully the same prophetic idea.

left side--referring to the position of the ten tribes, the northern kingdom, as Judah, the southern, answers to "the right side" (Eze 4:6). The Orientals facing the east in their mode, had the north on their left, and the south on their right (Eze 16:46). Also the right was more honorable than the left: so Judah as being the seat of the temple, was more so than Israel.

bear the iniquity--iniquity being regarded as a burden; so it means, "bear the punishment of their iniquity" (Nu 14:34). A type of Him who was the great sin-bearer, not in mimic show as Ezekiel, but in reality (Is 53:4, 6, 12).

‏ Matthew 12:39-42

39. But he answered and said unto them--"when the people were gathered thick together" (Lu 11:29).

an evil and adulterous generation--This latter expression is best explained by Jr 3:20, "Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord." For this was the relationship in which He stood to the covenant-people--"I am married unto you" (Jr 3:14).

seeketh after a sign--In the eye of Jesus this class were but the spokesmen of their generation, the exponents of the reigning spirit of unbelief.

and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.

40. For as Jonas was--"a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation" (Lu 11:30). For as Jonas was

three days and three nights in the whale's belly--(Jon 1:17).

so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth--This was the second public announcement of His resurrection three days after His death. (For the first, see Joh 2:19). Jonah's case was analogous to this, as being a signal judgment of God; reversed in three days; and followed by a glorious mission to the Gentiles. The expression "in the heart of the earth," suggested by the expression of Jonah with respect to the sea (2:3, in the Septuagint), means simply the grave, but this considered as the most emphatic expression of real and total entombment. The period during which He was to lie in the grave is here expressed in round numbers, according to the Jewish way of speaking, which was to regard any part of a day, however small, included within a period of days, as a full day. (See 1Sa 30:12, 13; Es 4:16; 5:1; Mt 27:63, 64, &c.).

41. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, &c.--The Ninevites, though heathens, repented at a man's preaching; while they, God's covenant-people, repented not at the preaching of the Son of God--whose supreme dignity is rather implied here than expressed.

42. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, &c.--The queen of Sheba (a tract in Arabia, near the shores of the Red Sea) came from a remote country, "south" of Judea, to hear the wisdom of a mere man, though a gifted one, and was transported with wonder at what she saw and heard (1Ki 10:1-9). They, when a Greater than Solomon had come to them, despised and rejected, slighted and slandered Him.