Ezekiel Chapter 19 (Ezekiel 19:1-14)
Rev. William L. Barron, December 9, 2020Part of the Wednesday Bible Study series, preached at a Wednesday Bible Study service
This is a lamenting dirge of the final declining days in Judah. The lament uses pictures of a lioness and her cubs and also a vine and its branches. One lion cub (Jehoahaz) is chosen as leader; he tears his prey and consumes the people. This cub only rules three months and is captured and taken to his death in Egypt. The second cub is even more destructive and is captured and taken into exile in Babylon (could be Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin or Zedekiah). The vine pictured in vss. 10 and 11 was blessed with perfect growing conditions. However, it was uprooted, withered and burned. This refers to Zedekiah's rebellion. The remains were planted in dry and thirsty Babylon. This is the judgment on the existing royal line of Judah. Gedaliah was appointed as governor; there was no king. He was a good man and leader, but his own people rejected his counsel and assassinated him after only a short time, preferring to trust in Egypt and not in God. This chapter has lessons for the church in our time, in which we may be tempted to trust in earthly powers to carry us through a time of lamentation, and not trust in God.
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|---|---|---|
| « Knowing Is Not Faith | None | The Christ Is Born; Why Is Rachel Weeping? » |
Ezekiel 19 (Listen)
19:1 And you, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, 2 and say:
What was your mother? A lioness!
Among lions she crouched;
in the midst of young lions
she reared her cubs.
3 And she brought up one of her cubs;
he became a young lion,
and he learned to catch prey;
he devoured men.
4 The nations heard about him;
he was caught in their pit,
and they brought him with hooks
to the land of Egypt.
5 When she saw that she waited in vain,
that her hope was lost,
she took another of her cubs
and made him a young lion.
6 He prowled among the lions;
he became a young lion,
and he learned to catch prey;
he devoured men,
7 and seized their widows.
He laid waste their cities,
and the land was appalled and all who were in it
at the sound of his roaring.
8 Then the nations set against him
from provinces on every side;
they spread their net over him;
he was taken in their pit.
9 With hooks they put him in a cage
and brought him to the king of Babylon;
they brought him into custody,
that his voice should no more be heard
on the mountains of Israel.
10 Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard
planted by the water,
fruitful and full of branches
by reason of abundant water.
11 Its strong stems became
rulers’ scepters;
it towered aloft
among the thick boughs;
it was seen in its height
with the mass of its branches.
12 But the vine was plucked up in fury,
cast down to the ground;
the east wind dried up its fruit;
they were stripped off and withered.
As for its strong stem,
fire consumed it.
13 Now it is planted in the wilderness,
in a dry and thirsty land.
14 And fire has gone out from the stem of its shoots,
has consumed its fruit,
so that there remains in it no strong stem,
no scepter for ruling.
This is a lamentation and has become a lamentation.
(ESV)