Gather the pieces thereof into it, even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones.
Ezekiel himself is made a sign to the people, so the verse belongs to a sorrowful account of what is coming upon Israel. The word rendered fill means filling the pot with choice bones and does not by itself imply that the pot had been filled before. By his own sufferings and privations Ezekiel displays the awful sufferings that will come upon Israel, that famine will overtake them, that they will be taken captive and bound by their enemies, that they will lose their city, and that the temple itself, the pride of their life and the joy of their heart, will be destroyed, as is shown further when Ezekiel suffers the death of his wife yet must not sigh nor cry nor wail aloud.
Ezekiel himself is made a sign to the people, so the verse belongs to a sorrowful account of what is coming upon Israel. The word rendered fill means filling the pot with choice bones and does not by itself imply that the pot had been filled before. By his own sufferings and privations Ezekiel displays the awful sufferings that will come upon Israel, that famine will overtake them, that they will be taken captive and bound by their enemies, that they will lose their city, and that the temple itself, the pride of their life and the joy of their heart, will be destroyed, as is shown further when Ezekiel suffers the death of his wife yet must not sigh nor cry nor wail aloud.