10 Your mother was in comparison like a vine, planted by the waters: she was fertile and full of branches because of the great waters.
You took a vine out of Egypt: driving out the nations, and planting it in their land. You made ready a place for it, so that it might take deep root, and it sent out its branches over all the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, and the great trees with its branches. It sent out its arms to the Sea, and its branches to the River.
For the Lord your God is guiding you into a good land, a land of water-springs, of fountains, and deep streams flowing out from the valleys and the hills;
They are stretched out like valleys, like gardens by the riverside, like flowering trees planted by the Lord, like cedar-trees by the waters. Peoples will be in fear before his strength, his arm will be on great nations: his king will be higher than Agag, and his kingdom made great in honour.
Where there will be bread for you in full measure and you will be in need of nothing; a land where the very stones are iron and from whose hills you may get copper.
I will put his hand in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. He will say to me, You are my father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation. And I will make him the first of my sons, most high over the kings of the earth. I will keep my mercy for him for ever; my agreement with him will not be changed. His seed will keep their place for ever; his kingdom will be eternal, like the heavens.
Let me make a song about my loved one, a song of love for his vine-garden. My loved one had a vine-garden on a fertile hill: And after working the earth of it with a spade, he took away its stones, and put in it a very special vine; and he put up a watchtower in the middle of it, hollowing out in the rock a place for the grape-crushing; and he was hoping that it would give the best grapes, but it gave common grapes. And now, you people of Jerusalem and you men of Judah, be the judges between me and my vine-garden. Is there anything which might have been done for my vine-garden which I have not done? why then, when I was hoping for the best grapes did it give me common grapes?
Son of man, what is the vine-tree more than any branching tree which is among the trees of the woods? Will its wood be used for any work? do men make of it a pin for hanging any vessel on? See, it is put into the fire for burning: the fire has made a meal of its two ends and the middle part of it is burned; is it good for any work? Truly, before it was cut down, it was not used for any purpose: how much less, when the fire has made a meal of it and it is burned, will it be made into anything? For this cause the Lord has said: Like the vine-tree among the trees of the woods which I have given to the fire for burning, so will I give the people of Jerusalem. And my face will be turned against them; and though they have come out of the fire they will be burned up by it; and it will be clear to you that I am the Lord when my face is turned against them. And I will make the land a waste because they have done evil, says the Lord.
And its growth went on and it became a vine, low and widely stretching, whose branches were turned to him and its roots were under him: so it became a vine, putting out branches and young leaves.
Take up the cause against your mother, take it up, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; let her put away her loose ways from her face, and her false ways from between her breasts;
For their mother has been untrue; she who gave them birth has done things of shame, for she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my wine.
Give ear to another story. A master of a house made a vine garden, and put a wall round it, and made a place for crushing out the wine, and made a tower, and let it out to field-workers, and went into another country. And when the time for the fruit came near, he sent his servants to the workmen, to get the fruit. And the workmen made an attack on his servants, giving blows to one, putting another to death, and stoning another. Again, he sent other servants more in number than the first: and they did the same to them. But after that he sent his son to them, saying, They will have respect for my son. But when the workmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is he who will one day be the owner of the property; come, let us put him to death and take his heritage. And they took him and, driving him out of the vine-garden, put him to death. When, then, the lord of the vine-garden comes, what will he do to those workmen? They say to him, He will put those cruel men to a cruel death, and will let out the vine-garden to other workmen, who will give him the fruit when it is ready.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Ezekiel 19
Commentary on Ezekiel 19 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 19
Eze 19:1-14. Elegy over the Fall of David's House.
There is a tacit antithesis between this lamentation and that of the Jews for their own miseries, into the causes of which, however, they did not inquire.
1. princes of Israel—that is, Judah, whose "princes" alone were recognized by prophecy; those of the ten tribes were, in respect to the theocracy, usurpers.
2. thy mother—the mother of Jehoiachin, the representative of David's line in exile with Ezekiel. The "mother" is Judea: "a lioness," as being fierce in catching prey (Eze 19:3), referring to her heathenish practices. Jerusalem was called Ariel (the lion of God) in a good sense (Isa 29:1); and Judah "a lion's whelp … a lion … an old lion" (Ge 49:9), to which, as also to Nu 23:24; 24:9, this passage alludes.
nourished … among young lions—She herself had "lain" among lions, that is, had intercourse with the corruptions of the surrounding heathen and had brought up the royal young ones similarly: utterly degenerate from the stock of Abraham.
Lay down—or "couched," is appropriate to the lion, the Arab name of which means "the coucher."
3. young lion—Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, carried captive from Riblah to Egypt by Pharaoh-necho (2Ki 23:33).
4. The nations—Egypt, in the case of Jehoahaz, who probably provoked Pharaoh by trying to avenge the death of his father by assailing the bordering cities of Egypt (2Ki 23:29, 30).
in their pit—image from the pitfalls used for catching wild beasts (Jer 22:11, 12).
chains—or hooks, which were fastened in the noses of wild beasts (see on Eze 19:9).
5. saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost—that is, that her long-waited-for hope was disappointed, Jehoahaz not being restored to her from Egypt.
she took another of her whelps—Jehoiakim, brother of Jehoahaz, who was placed on the throne by Pharaoh (2Ki 23:34), according to the wish of Judah.
6. went up and down among the lions—imitated the recklessness and tyranny of the surrounding kings (Jer 22:13-17).
catch … prey—to do evil, gratifying his lusts by oppression (2Ki 23:37).
7. knew … desolate palaces—that is, claimed as his own their palaces, which he then proceeded to "desolate." The Hebrew, literally "widows"; hence widowed palaces (Isa 13:22). Vatablus (whom Fairbairn follows) explains it, "He knew (carnally) the widows of those whom he devoured" (Eze 19:6). But thus the metaphor and the literal reality would be blended: the lion being represented as knowing widows. The reality, however, often elsewhere thus breaks through the veil.
fulness thereof—all that it contained; its inhabitants.
8. the nations—the Chaldeans, Syrians, Moab, and Ammon (2Ki 24:2).
9. in chains—(2Ch 36:6; Jer 22:18). Margin, "hooks"; perhaps referring to the hook often passed through the nose of beasts; so, too, through that of captives, as seen in the Assyrian sculptures (see on Eze 19:4).
voice—that is, his roaring.
no more be heard upon the mountains—carrying on the metaphor of the lion, whose roaring on the mountains frightens all the other beasts. The insolence of the prince, not at all abated though his kingdom was impaired, was now to cease.
10. A new metaphor taken from the vine, the chief of the fruit-bearing trees, as the lion is of the beasts of prey (see Eze 17:6).
in thy blood—"planted when thou wast in thy blood," that is, in thy very infancy; as in Eze 16:6, when thou hadst just come from the womb, and hadst not yet the blood washed from thee. The Jews from the first were planted in Canaan to take root there [Calvin]. Grotius translates as the Margin, "in thy quietness," that is, in the period when Judah had not yet fallen into her present troubles. English Version is better. Glassius explains it well, retaining the metaphor, which Calvin's explanation breaks, "in the blood of thy grapes," that is, in her full strength, as the red wine is the strength of the grape. Ge 49:11 is evidently alluded to.
many waters—the well-watered land of Canaan (De 8:7-9).
11. strong rods—princes of the royal house of David. The vine shot forth her branches like so many scepters, not creeping lowly on the ground like many vines, but trained aloft on a tree or wall. The mention of their former royal dignity, contrasting sadly with her present sunken state, would remind the Jews of their sins whereby they had incurred such judgments.
stature—(Da 4:11).
among the thick branches—that is, the central stock or trunk of the tree shot up highest "among its own branches" or offshoots, surrounding it. Emblematic of the numbers and resources of the people. Hengstenberg translates, "among the clouds." But Eze 31:3, 10, 14, supports English Version.
12. plucked up—not gradually withered. The sudden upturning of the state was designed to awaken the Jews out of their torpor to see the hand of God in the national judgment.
east wind—(See on Eze 17:10).
13. planted—that is, transplanted. Though already "dried up" in regard to the nation generally, the vine is said to be "transplanted" as regards God's mercy to the remnant in Babylon.
dry … ground—Chaldea was well-watered and fertile; but it is the condition of the captive people, not that of the land, which is referred to.
14. fire … out of a rod of her branches—The Jews' disaster was to be ascribed, not so much to the Chaldeans as to themselves; the "fire out of the rod" is God's wrath kindled by the perjury of Zedekiah (Eze 17:18). "The anger of the Lord" against Judah is specified as the cause why Zedekiah was permitted to rebel against Babylon (2Ki 24:20; compare Jud 9:15), thus bringing Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem.
no strong rod … sceptre to rule—No more kings of David's stock are now to rule the nation. Not at least until "the Lord shall send the rod of His strength ("Messiah," Ps 110:2; Isa 11:1) out of Zion," to reign first as a spiritual, then hereafter as a literal king.
is … and shall be for a lamentation—Part of the lamentation (that as to Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim) was matter of history as already accomplished; part (as to Zedekiah) was yet to be fulfilled; or, this prophecy both is a subject for lamentation, and shall be so to distant posterity.