Ezekielchapter 15
8 verses · BSBEzekiel book hub →
Speaks with:Isaiah 5×2Psalms 80×2Ezekiel 14×2Isaiah 24×2Jeremiah 24×2Hosea 10×1
Summary
Chapter summary
The shortest of the parables and among the sharpest. What is the wood of the vine more than any tree of the forest? It cannot be made into any work; men will not even take a pin of it to hang a vessel on. Cast into the fire for fuel, with both ends burned and the middle scorched, it is fit for less than it was before. 'As the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.' Israel's whole worth was fruit-bearing; barren, the vine has no second use.
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel — Ezekiel overview
- A. 1–5 Vine wood is good for nothing but fuel
- B. 6–8 Jerusalem handed over to the fire
The outline
A.Vine wood is good for nothing but fuelvv. 1 to 5
Read vv. 1 to 5 →B.Jerusalem handed over to the firevv. 6 to 8
Read vv. 6 to 8 →
The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 15The history
Israel had been called a vine before this — in the Psalms, in Isaiah, in Hosea — and the exiles knew the compliment. What this chapter does is ask a carpenter's question about it instead of a poet's.
Vine wood is useless as timber. The stem is twisted and soft, it splits, and it is never straight or long enough for a beam. You cannot even shape it into a peg strong enough to hang a pot on. Every farmer knew this because every winter he pruned hard and threw the cuttings on the fire; vine prunings were fuel and nothing else.
Then the picture gets worse. Take a vine branch that has already been half burned — charred at both ends and scorched in the middle — and ask what it is good for now. Nothing. It was worthless before the fire and it is less than worthless after it.
The application in the chapter names the two burnings without fuss. Jerusalem had already been through fire once, in the deportation of 597 BC, and it will go into the fire again.
What it meant to them
The exiles' pride ran on the assumption that Israel was inherently valuable — chosen, special, worth preserving for its own sake. This short chapter says a vine has exactly one value, and that is fruit. Take away the fruit and there is nothing structural left to admire.
It is a hard word aimed at a specific comfort, and it explains the strangeness of what had happened to them: the nation was not being destroyed because it was too small to defend, but because a fruitless vine is only good for the fire.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 15. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.