Ezekiel 24:1
Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
The date given is the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year, when the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel, marking the very day Nebuchadnezzar began his siege of Jerusalem. It stands among the prophetic warnings delivered before the destruction of Jerusalem. More particularly it stands within Ezekiel 21-39.
In those chapters Jehovah repeats His instruction to Israel, pleading for twenty-two years for the people to turn to God. He uses the kingdoms on every side to show how He has brought down pride and will bring down what remains. The verse is therefore to be understood under the universal conditions of promise and threatening.
It opens the sorrowful episode in which Ezekiel himself is made a sign to the people, showing by his own sufferings and privations something of the awful sufferings coming upon Israel. It points to famine overtaking them, to captivity and binding by their enemies, to loss of their city, and to destruction of the temple as the pride of their life and the joy of their heart. This is crowned by the death of Ezekiel's wife, over whom he must not sigh nor cry nor wail aloud.
It gives the reason for the fast of the tenth month, which memorializes the start of the siege. Just so the fast of the fourth month memorializes the capture of the city, the fast of the fifth month memorializes the burning of the temple, and the fast of the seventh month memorializes the assassination of Gedaliah the governor. The fast of the tenth month shall become joy and gladness to the house of Judah on condition that they love truth and peace, but if they love wickedness they will again receive the judgments of God.