Ezekielchapter 17
24 verses · BSBEzekiel book hub →
Speaks with:Ezekiel 17×5Ezekiel 12×3Ezekiel 20×2Matthew 13×2Ezekiel 31×2Jeremiah 32×2
Summary
Chapter summary
A riddle and a parable. A great eagle comes to Lebanon, crops the topmost twig of the cedar and carries it to a city of merchants, then plants seed of the land by great waters, where it becomes a spreading vine of low stature. But the vine bends its roots toward a second great eagle (Zedekiah's turn to Egypt) and the question comes: shall it prosper? He despised the oath and broke the covenant, and he shall die in Babylon. Then God plants for himself: 'I will also take of the lofty top of the cedar… and will plant it upon a high and lofty mountain,' a goodly cedar where every bird finds shelter.
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel — Ezekiel overview
- A. 1–10 A riddle of two great eagles and a spreading vine
- B. 11–21 The oath sworn to Babylon's king, then broken
- C. 22–24 A tender twig planted on a high mountain
The outline
A.A riddle of two great eagles and a spreading vinevv. 1 to 10
Read vv. 1 to 10 →B.The oath sworn to Babylon's king, then brokenvv. 11 to 21
Read vv. 11 to 21 →C.A tender twig planted on a high mountainvv. 22 to 24
Read vv. 22 to 24 →
The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 17The history
Riddles and animal fables were a normal entertainment in royal courts across the ancient Near East, and a prophet using one had a captive audience before anybody realised they were the subject of it. Ezekiel tells the story first and explains it afterwards.
The history behind the riddle is exact. In 597 BC Nebuchadnezzar — the first great eagle — came to Jerusalem, took the topmost shoot of the cedar, and carried it to a land of merchants. That is King Jehoiachin, taken to Babylon. He then planted a seed of the land: he installed Zedekiah, Jehoiachin's uncle, as a low spreading vine that would live if it stayed low.
The second eagle is Egypt. Zedekiah sent envoys asking for horses and a large army, and Egypt under Psammetichus II and then Hophra encouraged the hope. When the siege of Jerusalem began, an Egyptian force did march out and the Babylonians lifted the siege briefly — then the Egyptians went home and the siege closed again.
The heart of the charge is the oath. A vassal treaty was sworn before the gods of both parties, with the vassal calling down curses on himself if he broke it, and Zedekiah had sworn his by the name of the LORD. In that world, breaking such an oath was not merely politics; it was a religious crime, and God treats it as one committed against Himself: my oath that he despised, my covenant that he broke.
The chapter closes with God planting a shoot of His own — a tender twig from the top of the cedar, set on a high mountain of Israel, growing into a tree where birds of every kind nest.
What it meant to them
The exiles had a party line: Zedekiah was making a brave play, Egypt would come through, and Babylon would be broken. This chapter tells them the play is treaty-breaking, that God is a party to the treaty, and that it will fail.
But the last image is the one that would stay with them. Nebuchadnezzar transplants a king and it withers. God transplants a shoot, and it becomes the tree everything else shelters in — a promise, on the mountain height of Israel, of a king Babylon did not appoint.
Sources cited
- The Babylonian Chronicle (ABC 5), on the capture of Jerusalem in 597 BC
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 17. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 22 · A deliberate contrast
The tender messianic twig God plants to become a noble cedar (17:22-24) set against Assyria the felled cosmic cedar in Eden (Ezek 31) - the humble planting that outlasts the empire-tree. The cedar-of-Lebanon station's teaching edge (pride felled vs lowly exalted).
Ezekiel 31:3→Look at Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches that shaded the forest. It towered on high; its top was among the clouds.
MT-ASV; H6086 (erez H730 cedar)
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.