Ezekiel 17

Ezekiel 17:1-24

Section 4 (Ezekiel 17:1-24).The mercy to an abased kingdom; yet its failure. Having thus seen Israel in her relation to God, and in what comes from this on her side, and on God’s side -the judgment, and the grace which follows the judgment -we return now to what is more simply history, but which has of necessity, as ever, its spiritual lesson, as all history will have if it be read aright. We have, here, the mercy which had been shown to the abased kingdom, in the long days of its latter declension, when God yet waited upon it in patient long-suffering. But this mercy failed to effect recovery, as we see here; and it must be reserved to a future day, in which it will manifest itself at last in triumph. This brings in, of course, a prophecy of Messiah, the future King; for in all this part, in which judgment is assured and imminent, the promise of future dawn is held out for faith, to deliver from a hopelessness which is not of Him who is “the God of all encouragement.”

1. We have first a parable put forth, of which the interpretation is given afterwards. It is significant, as to the use of a parable, that it should be given with its interpretation alongside of it; which one might think to be the whole matter. It is evident that in pictures such as these we have what strikes the mind and fastens upon the imagination in a peculiar way; and God does not disdain to use these helps for men’s attention. Certainly everything is full of parables, if we had only skill to read them; parables which are not mere chance applications, but everywhere rooted in the very nature of things. God’s wisdom is everywhere seen in that with which He has surrounded man in all his history.

It needed no apology therefore that Ezekiel should be, what they in fact accused him of being, “a speaker of parables.” It showed that he was in the line of that universal teaching which divine wisdom has appointed for us, which connects itself with what is before our eyes, that we might never lose sight of it. How good it would be if our minds were spiritually trained in the interpretation of parables! When the Lord asked His disciples the question: “How then will ye know all parables?” did it not imply that He intended them to know what was thus set before them for their exercise? Yet we are not ashamed to own our want of skill in such things, and so far despise what Scripture calls “the deep things of God.” The parable here, as all true parables are, is from God Himself: “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: A great eagle with great wings, long-pinioned, full of feathers, which had divers colors, came unto Lebanon, and took the topmost branch of the cedar. He cropped off the topmost of the young shoots thereof, and carried it into a land of merchants. In a city of traders he set it. And he took of the seed of the land and planted it in a fruitful soil. He placed it beside many waters; he set it as a willow, and it sprouted, and became a spreading vine of low stature; so that its branches might turn towards him and its roots might be under him. And it became a vine, and produced branches and shot forth sprigs.” Here is plainly a story of humiliation, and yet of mercy mingling with the humiliation.

He had once reminded them of a deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and how He had borne them on eagles, wings and brought them to Himself (Exodus 19:4). This, however, is not what we have here. It is not in Egypt or the wilderness that the scene is laid; nor is it the beginning of a nation that is spoken of; but of the Cedar of Lebanon, which in fact Israel was, with the sign of its former glory. The interpretation leaves no doubt of this: “Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and took its king and its princes, and brought them to him to Babylon; and he took one of the seed royal and made a covenant with him, and brought him under an oath. He took away the mighty of the land, that the kingdom might be abased, that it might not lift itself up, that it might keep his covenant in order to stand.” It is, plainly, the history of Zedekiah that is thus before us. Jehoiachin had been plucked off and carried away in the captivity from which, as we have seen, Ezekiel dates his own prophecies.

Jehoiachin never returned, and the captivity of Judah was already begun. Daniel himself belonged to the beginning of this transportation to Babylon. Thus the great eagle is Nebuchadnezzar, a royal bird, his royalty being derived from God Himself; yet a bird of prey, whose great wings show the extent of his dominion, as well, perhaps, as the rapidity with which he acquired power. The feathers of divers colors are the heterogeneous multitudes which followed him; yet he is plainly under divine control, and his acts towards Israel are at first gentleness itself, as far as a king of Babylon could show this. If he crops off the topmost shoots of the cedar, it is to carry them to a land of merchants, a city of traders. We see in Daniel himself an illustration of this conduct; in the captives of Tel-abib we see how they could find their hope in it. But Israel as a whole was not yet rooted out of the land. He took of the seed of it and planted it in a fruitful soil.

Nebuchadnezzar placed it beside many waters, set it as a willow that its branches might turn towards himself. This was everywhere, and necessarily, the policy of the empire, whose interest was to encourage in a subjective way the growth of various powers under it, independent of one another while dependent upon himself. Thus one might be used against another, and the empire sustained by these divided interests. Here we find the beginning of Zedekiah’s history. His significant name, “Jehovah’s righteousness,” was soon to be the illustration of it against himself. The kingdom, under Nebuchadnezzar’s policy, was reviving hopefully.

It was indeed but as a vine of low stature; it could be nothing else, but it produced branches and shot forth sprigs. But soon the spirit of independence arose which was to work the total downfall of the nation. Another great eagle is seen with great wings and many feathers; it is the king of Egypt, but in no wise with the power of the king of Babylon; yet for this very reason more capable of being made use of, while having sufficient power, as they hoped, to enable them to stand by his help against Babylon’s rising power, which was much more to be feared. Thus did this vine bend its roots towards him, and shot forth its branches toward him, that he might water it from the beds of its plantation. There was nothing to be pleaded for this on the ground of any oppression by Nebuchadnezzar. On the contrary, Israel might still have prospered in bowing to Jehovah’s will. It was still, according to the language of the prophet, in a good field, by many waters, and had been planted to be a noble vine. God had declared His purpose as to Babylon, so that rebellion against it was rebellion against Him.

It was resistance to the chastening which the Lord had appointed for blessing, if they had received it as such.* But all was forfeited by this resistance. The question then is capable of but one answer: “Shall it prosper? Shall he not pull up its roots and cut off its fruit, that it may wither?” This, surely, would be the result, if God’s word and His power counted for anything. What was the power of Egypt that it should be opposed to Him? “Shall it not utterly wither,” the Lord asks, “when the east wind toucheth it?” -but “toucheth” it! and of course it did.
2. The people are not left to interpret this parable for themselves. That they may be without excuse, God Himself will give them the interpretation. They are to be plainly told the issue of this breach of a covenant which had solemnly been made in the name of the Lord with Nebuchadnezzar; the breach of which could only make heavier the chastisement which had already come, and thoroughly arm God as well as man against them. Thus the royal power in Israel, which was to have been for the deliverance of the people, was now to involve them completely in its doom: “As I live,” says the Lord, of Zedekiah, “Verily in the place of the king that made him king, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he brake, even with him in the midst of Babylon shall he die. I will spread my net over him, and he shall be taken in my snare; and I will bring him to Babylon, and will enter into judgment with him there for his unfaithfulness in which he hath been unfaithful to Me.” Plainly, the whole character of Israel as the people of the Lord was gone, and nothing remained for them but complete scattering, which would assure them at last what their unbelief had refused to own, that Jehovah had spoken! 3. Such then, for many centuries, was the end of the throne of David; yet God had guaranteed that throne with a promise which no failure of man could possibly set aside. Nay, in giving it, God had contemplated the failure, and declared what He would do: “I will establish his seed forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in mine ordinances; if they profane my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter that which has gone out of my lips.

Once have I sworn by my holiness, I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne shall be as the sun before Me” (Psalms 89:29-36). Therefore, while avenging their breaking of the covenant, God will surely not forget His own; and while the rod is upon David’s house for its unfaithfulness, the assurance is at once given that God is not as man to repent, and that He will be to Israel at last, what the Babylonian eagle could only be by contrast, representing as it did, God’s tender hand in their present discipline: “Thus, saith the Lord Jehovah, I will also take of the topmost branch of the high cedar, and will set it. I will crop off from the top of its young shoots a tender one, and will plant it upon a mountain high and exalted.” For God, the cedar remains therefore, though He seem now to be calling that which is not as though it were. But this cedar of David’s house rises up only to fuller stature, as it were, out of its degradation, when Christ of whom the Spirit speaks here becomes the Head of it; humbled, and accepting the deepest possible humiliation, when every promise of blessing to the people who refused Him will seem to have come to an end forever. What blessing can there be, we might ask, for those who have refused the Deliverer when He came and, in a way beyond all that Zedekiah could possibly do, hurled defiance against Him who sent His Son for man’s salvation? Yet, in the resurrection of Him who went down thus to death for man, is the assurance of the fulfilment of every promise: “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I also will take of the highest branch of the lofty cedar, and will set it; I will crop off from the top of its young shoots a tender one, and I will plant it upon a mountain high and exalted. Upon the mountain height of Israel will I plant it.” There is here no question of legal conditions at all, nor breach of covenant, which we see all through Israel’s history, to affect Jehovah’s promise in grace when He takes up her cause. It is a new beginning, as we see.

It is the branch cropped off by Jehovah which now becomes a noble cedar, and all birds of every wing shall dwell in the shadow of its branches. Here comes at last the universal refuge from the oppressor, the beneficent power in which the weakest shall rejoice.

All the music of heaven shall be heard amid its branches. Here at last is One in whom God shall fully display Himself, and in whom will be revealed the secret of all God’s former dealings with the nation, and with men at large. Man’s pride is brought down that thus abased he may be rightly exalted. The tree, once so green to man’s eye, is dried up that it may flourish again after God’s mind. Ezekiel’s wheel, and the Preacher’s, has made now its final revolution! Thank God, it will need to revolve no more; for here is One come who, having been abased, is now exalted, and shall never again be abased. By His abasement all has been secured. It was “overturn, overturn, overturn,” till He should come whose right it was, and now it is given Him.

God has put His seal upon this: “I, Jehovah, have spoken, and will do it.”* \