Prepare thee stuff for removing, etc.; better, equipment for a journey, with the implied thought that it is the journey of one going into exile. "Bag and baggage," all the household goods which an exile could take with him, were to be brought out in broad daylight and piled up opposite his door. Then in the twilight (Revised Version, in the dark, and so in Ezekiel 12:7, Ezekiel 12:12) he was to go forth, not by the door of his house, but by breaking through the wall (with such walls as those of Ezekiel 13:11 the process would not be difficult), as a man might do who was escaping secretly from a city through the gates of which he dared not pass (Ezekiel 12:5), and was to start with his travelling chattels upon his shoulder. Lastly (Ezekiel 12:6), as the strangest feature of all, he was to go forth with his face covered, as one who wished to avoid recognition, as one also who could not see one step of the way before him. This, it is intimated, would startle even the most careless, and in this way he would become, as he had been before in like symbolic acts (Ezekiel 4:1-17; Ezekiel 5:1-17.), as Isaiah (Isaiah 20:2) and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 27:2) had been before him, a sign unto the house of Israel.
The commands were obeyed, and the prophet waited fur the next inspiration, the next word of the Lord. It would seem as if he had himself done what he was told to do without knowing what it meant. It was not till night had passed to morning that he was able to answer the question which the exiles asked him, What doest thou! At last the answer came.
This burden concerneth the prince in Jerusalem; literally, the prince is this burden in Jerusalem. The word "burden," in the sense of "prophecy," so common in Isaiah and Jeremiah and other prophets, as Hosea (Hosea 8:10) and Nahum (Nahum 1:1), is used by Ezekiel here only. Possibly he on the whole avoided it, as having fallen into discredit through its constant use by the false prophets (Jeremiah 23:1-40:83-38), and preferred the formula of "the word of Jehovah." As interpreted by Jeremiah 39:4 and 2 Kings 25:4, the "prince" is Zedekiah. Possibly Ezekiel avoided the title "king," as seeing in him one who was a ruler de facto, but not a king de jure. The facts related in Jeremiah 39:4 exactly correspond with the symbolic act. Zedekiah and his men of war escape from the city by night, "by the way of the king's garden, by the gate between the two walls," probably enough with faces covered, as David's was in his flight (2 Samuel 15:30), to avoid detection, or as a sign of mourning, and through some freshly made exit from the palace. The further significance of the covered face is found in the fact that Zedekiah was blinded at Riblah by Nebuchadnezzar's orders, and from that time could not see the ground on which he trod. Those who see in every Old Testament prediction nothing but a prophecy ex eventu infer from this that this section of Ezekiel was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. I do not take that view, and place it in close connection with the preceding chapters. We note in verse 11 the peculiar phrase," I am your sign." Ezekiel, in what he does in the presence of the exiles, is figuring that which, before long, will come to pass in Jerusalem. They were to go forth into captivity as he had gone. For they shall remove, the Revised. Version gives, they shall go into exile.