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Ezekielchapter 17

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Key verse

He took also of the seed of the land, and planted it in a fruitful field; he placed it by great waters, and set it as a willow tree.

It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 10.

The chapter

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

Where the chapter sits

Ezekiel 17 falls in Symbolic acts and judgment on Jerusalem (chapters 4–24). Lying on his side for 430 days; shaving the head with a sword; eating food in anxiety; the glory departs in stages (8–11); the prophet survives his wife's death without mourning (24).

Before it: Call and wheels-vision, chapters 1–3. After it: Oracles against the nations, chapters 25–32.

The whole shape of Ezekiel

The world behind this chapter

Ezekiel 17
When
The Babylonian exile, while Zedekiah was negotiating with Egypt · c. 591-589 BC
Where
Tel Abib, told as a riddle about two eagles, a cedar and a vine
Who first heard it
Exiles following the political news from home and hoping Egypt would break Babylon

The 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 rest of the history, and what it meant to them

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

Every work MannaFest builds on →

A. A riddle of two great eagles and a spreading vine

1. (vv. 1-2)

a.And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying: The Lord commands a riddle and a parable together, a saying meant to puzzle before it teaches. Henry notes the form matches the moment, Zedekiah's court needed a story it could not dismiss before it heard the plain charge that follows at verse 12. Fairbairn reads the double command as the chapter's own structure in miniature, riddle first, then the Lord's own interpretation, so that no reader mistakes the political history that follows for guesswork.

Ezekiel 17:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.

Ezekiel 17:1

When it is said of the prophets: Present an enigma, tell a parable, or as the Septuagint translated: tell a narration, it is shown that what is said is obscure. For there is no doubt that to present an enigma and a parable is to express something in words and hold something in meaning. And indeed the Savior spoke to the people in parables, which he explained in secret to the apostles. Therefore, we must understand enigma and parable in such a way that... Two enigmas and parables are presented in the prophecy of Ezekiel at present.

Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Ezekielpatristic

Ezekiel 17:1

Ezekiel, after describing by a figure the circumstances and conditions of the Jews and Zedekiah, the vassal of the Assyrian monarch, warns them of the delusive character of their hopes of help from Egypt, protests against the perfidy which must accompany such alliance, and points out that the restoration of the people of God will be effected by a very different son of David. The close of this chapter is a striking prediction of the kingdom of the Messiah.

Ezekiel 17:2, 2 voices

Ezekiel 17:2

Son of man, put forth a riddle - Riddle, Anglo-Saxon, from to divine; a thing that must be curiously investigated and sifted, to find out the meaning; and hence, riddle, a sort of coarse sieve to clean corn, to separate coarse chaff and straws from the pure grain. An instrument formerly used for divination. This is not far removed from the Hebrew חידה chidah, from חד chad, to penetrate; not that which penetrates the mind, but which we must penetrate to find out the sense.

Ezekiel 17:2

At the end of the chapter he promises indeed the restoration of the Church, and heralds the kingdom of Christ: but the principal part of the chapter is consumed with this teaching, that the Jews were utterly foolish in promising themselves safety for the city, the temple, and their kingdom: for, as it now appeared, they had violated the covenant of God and he had rejected them.

John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed

2. (vv. 3-6)

a.A great eagle with great wings, longwinged, full of feathers: The first eagle, Babylon read through Nebuchadnezzar, takes the highest branch of Lebanon's cedar, Jehoiachin the king, and carries it to a city of merchants, Babylon itself. The seed of the land left behind, Zedekiah installed as a vassal, is planted low and by great waters, a vine rather than a cedar, deliberately kept small. Keil reads the vine's low stature as the historical fact plainly stated in 2 Kings 24:17, a puppet king meant to stay a puppet, and the vine's turning toward the eagle that planted it pictures the vassal's proper obligation.

Ezekiel 17:3, 2 voices

Ezekiel 17:3

A great eagle ... - Probably the golden eagle, whose plumage has the variety of color here depicted. The eagle (the king of birds) is a natural representative of monarchs (compare, Jer 48:40), and was an Assyrian emblem. With great wings, Iongwinged - literally, “great of wing, long of pinion,” because he has swept victoriously over widely distant lands - of divers colors, because his subjects are of various races and tongues. Jerusalem is here called “Lebanon” because Lebanon is the proper home of the cedar.

Ezekiel 17:3

"The mountain of the Lord's house" (Isa 2:2). Jerusalem, however, is chiefly meant, the chief seat of civil honor, as Lebanon was of external elevation. took the highest branch--King Jeconiah, then but eighteen years old, and many of the chiefs and people with him (2Ki 24:8, 12-16). The Hebrew for "highest branch" is, properly, the fleece-like tuft at the top of the tree.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

Ezekiel 17:4, 1 voice

Ezekiel 17:4

The top of his young twigs - The princes of Judah. A land of traffic - Chaldea. A city of merchants - Babylon; for which this city was the most celebrated of all the cities of the east. Its situation procured it innumerable advantages; its two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Persian Gulf, gave it communication with the richest and the most distant nations.

Ezekiel 17:5, 2 voices

Ezekiel 17:5

The seed of the land - Zedekiah, brother of Jehoiachin. Planted it in a fruitful field - Made him king of Judea in place of his brother. Placed it by great waters - Put him under the protection of Babylon, situated on the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. And set it as a willow tree - Made him dependent on this city of great waters, as the willow is on humidity.

Ezekiel 17:5

This was one of the seed of the land, a native, not a foreigner, not one of his Babylonian princes; he was planted in a fruitful field, for so Jerusalem as yet was; he placed it by great waters, where it would be likely to grow, like a willow-tree, which grows quickly, and grows best in moist ground, but is never designed nor expected to be a stately tree.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Ezekiel 17:6, 2 voices

Ezekiel 17:6

A spreading vine of low stature - The Jewish state having then no height of dominion, it must abide under the wings or branches of the Chaldean king. Those branches turned toward him, and the roots - under him - Zedekiah was wholly dependent on Nebuchadnezzar, both for his elevation to the throne, and his support on it.

Ezekiel 17:6

This plant grew, and though it was set as a willow-tree, and little account was made of it, yet it became a spreading vine of low stature, a great blessing to his own country, and his fruits made glad their hearts; and it is better to be a spreading vine of low stature than a lofty cedar of no use.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

3. (vv. 7-8)

a.There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers: A second eagle appears, Egypt under Pharaoh Hophra, and the vine already planted by Babylon's hand bends its roots toward this new power instead, reaching for water it already had. Gill reads the picture as Zedekiah's actual embassy to Egypt, confirmed at Jeremiah 37:5-7, a planted vassal seeking a rival patron against the very power that planted him. The soil and water were already good, Clarke notes, which is the chapter's quiet indictment, the turn to Egypt answered no real need.

Ezekiel 17:7, 3 voices

Ezekiel 17:7

Another great eagle - This is the king of Egypt, mighty indeed but not like the first. By the furrows of her plantation - From the beds, where it was planted to bring forth fruit for another, it shot forth its roots to him that he might water it. Zedekiah was courting the favor of Egypt while he owed his very position to the bounty of Assyria.

Ezekiel 17:7

Rather, "by" or "out of the furrows." It refers to the waters of Egypt, the Nile being made to water the fields by means of small canals or "furrows"; these waters are the figure of the auxiliary forces wherewith Egypt tried to help Judah. See the same figure, Isa 8:7.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

Ezekiel 17:7

Those two great potentates, the kings of Babylon and Egypt, were but two great eagles, birds of prey. This great eagle of Egypt is said to have great wings, but not to be long-winged as the king of Babylon, because, though the kingdom of Egypt was strong, yet it was not of such a vast extent as that of Babylon was.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Ezekiel 17:8, 2 voices

Ezekiel 17:8

It was planted in a good soil - Though he depended on Babylon, he lived and reigned as Nebuchadnezzar’s vicegerent in the land of Judea.

Ezekiel 17:8

It was planted in a good soil--It was not want of the necessaries of life, nor oppression on the port of Nebuchadnezzar, which caused Zedekiah to revolt: it was gratuitous ambition, pride, and ingratitude.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

4. (vv. 9-10)

a.Say thou, Thus saith the Lord God; Shall it prosper?: The riddle answers its own question before the interpretation arrives: a vine that abandons the root that planted it will not prosper, and the east wind, blowing out of Babylon's own direction, withers it without a siege army needed at all. Henry reads the double rhetorical question as building the verdict into the puzzle itself, so that Zedekiah's own court, asked to solve the riddle, would have to pronounce its own sentence. The image anticipates the interpretation given from verse 12 onward.

Ezekiel 17:9, 3 voices

Ezekiel 17:9

Her spring - Rather, her growth. Even without ... - Translate; and not with great power or with much people is it to be raised up from its roots again.

Ezekiel 17:9

"It," that is, the vine. he . . . pull up--that is, the first eagle, or Nebuchadnezzar. in all . . . leaves of her spring--that is, all its springing (sprouting) leaves. without great power or many--It shall not need all the forces of Babylon to destroy it; a small division of the army will suffice because God will deliver it into Nebuchadnezzar's hand (Jer 37:10).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

Ezekiel 17:9

He needs not great power and many people to effect his purposes; a handful will serve if he pleases. He can without any difficulty ruin a sinful king and kingdom, and make no more of it than we do of rooting up a tree that cumbers the ground. In the explanation of the parable the sentence is very largely recorded: Shall be prosper?

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Ezekiel 17:10, 1 voice

Ezekiel 17:10

Shall - utterly whither - The regal government shall be no more restored. Zedekiah shall be the last king, and the monarchy shall finally terminate with him.

B. The oath sworn to Babylon's king, then broken

1. (vv. 11-14)

a.Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying: The interpretation names names: the king of Babylon took Jerusalem's king and princes, made a covenant with the king's own seed, Zedekiah, and bound him by oath, deliberately keeping the kingdom base so it could not rise to challenge Babylon. Barnes reads the covenant language as treaty vocabulary of the period, an oath sworn presumably in the Lord's own name, which is why its breaking becomes a matter the Lord himself takes up at verse 19. Wesley notes the stated purpose of the arrangement, that by keeping of his covenant it might stand; the vassal state's survival was tied to the very oath Zedekiah went on to break.

Ezekiel 17:11, 1 voice

Ezekiel 17:11

He promises hereafter to raise the royal family of Judah again, the house of David, in the Messiah and his kingdom,

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Ezekiel 17:12, 2 voices

Ezekiel 17:12

Let us now see what the matter of this message is. Nebuchadnezzar had some time ago carried off Jehoiachin, the same that was called Jeconiah, when he was but eighteen years of age and had reigned in Jerusalem but three months, him and his princes and great men, and had brought them captives to Babylon, 2 Kings xxiv.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Ezekiel 17:12

Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel's vision, is a lion, the king of beasts ( Dan. vii. 4 ); there he has eagle's wings, so swift were his motions, so speedy were his conquests. Here, in this parable, he is an eagle, the king of birds, a great eagle, that lives upon spoil and rapine, whose young ones suck up blood, Job xxxix.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Ezekiel 17:13, 1 voice

Ezekiel 17:13

And hath taken of the king's seed,.... One of the royal family, signified by the seed of the land, Eze 17:

Ezekiel 17:14, 3 voices

Ezekiel 17:14

That the kingdom might be base - Have no political consequence, and at last sink into a miserable government under Gedaliah.

Ezekiel 17:14

That the kingdom might be base--that is, low as to national elevation by being Nebuchadnezzar's dependent; but, at the same time, safe and prosperous, if faithful to the "oath." Nebuchadnezzar dealt sincerely and openly in proposing conditions, and these moderate ones; therefore Zedekiah's treachery was the baser and was a counterpart to their treachery towards God.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

Ezekiel 17:14

A kingdom may stand firmly and safely, though it do not stand so high as it has sometimes done; and so may a family. Zedekiah, while he continued faithful to the king of Babylon, did very well, and, if he would but have reformed his kingdom, and returned to God and his duty, he would have done better, and by that means might soon have recovered his former dignity,

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

2. (v. 15)

a.But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt: Zedekiah's rebellion is named as sending to Egypt for horses and troops, the historical embassy 2 Kings 24:20 and Jeremiah confirm, and the riddle's own question returns in the interpretation's own words, shall he prosper? shall he escape? Fairbairn reads the repeated question as the chapter's method throughout, letting the political fact answer the theological charge without needing to argue it further. The breach is framed first as a broken oath before it is framed as a failed strategy.

Ezekiel 17:15, 2 voices

Ezekiel 17:15

Sending his ambassadors into Egypt - Zedekiah must have sent his ambassadors into Egypt, between the sixth month of his sixth year, and the fifth month of his seventh year. Compare Eze 8:1, with Eze 20:1. - See Newcome.

Ezekiel 17:15

God promised that they should be a numerous people, as the sand of the sea; yet now, if their king had occasion for much people, he must send to Egypt for them, they being for sin diminished and brought low, Ps. cvii.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

3. (vv. 16-18)

a.As I live, saith the Lord God, surely in the place where the king dwelleth that made him king: The Lord swears by his own life, the strongest oath form in the prophets, that Zedekiah will die in Babylon, in the very place of the king who made him king, and that Pharaoh's army will not save him despite its size. Keil notes the theological weight resting on the broken oath specifically, not merely the broken treaty; an oath sworn in the Lord's name makes the Lord himself a party wronged by its breaking. History bore this out exactly at 2 Kings 25:6-7, Zedekiah taken to Babylon and never seeing it again.

Ezekiel 17:16, 1 voice

Ezekiel 17:16

Note, As God's promises are confirmed with an oath, for comfort to the saints, so are his threatenings, for terror to the wicked. As sure as God lives and is happy (I may add, and as long), so sure, so long, shall impenitent sinners die and be miserable. It is justified by the heinousness of the crime he had been guilty of.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Ezekiel 17:17, 1 voice

Ezekiel 17:17

To cast up mounts and build forts - was the business not of the relieving but of the besieging army. Translate it: when men cast up mounts and build forts to destroy many persons.

Ezekiel 17:18, 2 voices

Ezekiel 17:18

Seeing he despised the oath, by breaking the covenant,.... This is repeated again, to show the heinousness of the sin Zedekiah had been guilty of, and what was the cause of his ruin: when, lo, he had given his hand; to the king of Babylon, to testify his hearty agreement with him, and that he might depend upon the oath and covenant being sacredly observed by him.

Ezekiel 17:18

Seeing he despised the oath - This God particularly resents. He had bound himself by oath, in the presence of Jehovah, to be faithful to the covenant that he made with Nebuchadnezzar, and he took the first opportunity to break it; therefore he shall not escape.

4. (vv. 19-21)

a.Therefore thus saith the Lord God; As I live, surely mine oath that he hath despised: The Lord claims the broken covenant as his own matter to recompense, mine oath, my covenant, language that reframes Zedekiah's treaty violation as sin against God directly rather than mere political failure. The net and snare picture the coming siege and capture, and the scattering of his fugitives to all winds names the exile's mechanism plainly. The recognition formula closes the section, ye shall know that I the Lord have spoken it, the pattern the whole book carries landing here on a broken oath specifically.

Ezekiel 17:20, 2 voices

Ezekiel 17:20

Thirdly, Nor would it justify him that the oath was extorted from him by a conqueror, for the covenant was made upon a valuable consideration. He held his life and crown upon this condition, that he should be faithful and bear true allegiance to the king of Babylon; and, if he enjoy the benefit of his bargain, it is very unjust if he do not observe the terms.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Ezekiel 17:20

God has a net for those who deal perfidiously and think to escape his righteous judgments, in which those shall be taken and held who would not be held by the bond of an oath and covenant. Zedekiah dreaded Babylon: "Thither I will bring him," says God, "and plead with him there. " Men will justly be forced upon that calamity which they endeavour by sin to flee from.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

C. A tender twig planted on a high mountain

1. (vv. 22-24)

a.Thus saith the Lord God; I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar: The chapter closes where the failed vassal king could not stand: the Lord himself takes a tender twig from the highest branch and plants it on the mountain height of Israel, where it grows into a goodly cedar sheltering every kind of bird. The image deliberately answers the vine planted low at verse 5, a cedar planted high in place of a vine kept small, and the older commentators, Henry and Fairbairn among them, read the tender twig as the Messianic branch promised elsewhere in the prophets, compare Isaiah 11:1 and Jeremiah 23:5, planted by God's own hand rather than a foreign eagle's. The closing line brings the recognition formula to its widest reach yet, all the trees of the field shall know, the nations reading in one king's rise and another's fall the same lesson Ezekiel has been preaching since chapter 1.

Ezekiel 17:22, 3 voices

Ezekiel 17:22

I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar - I will raise up another monarchy, which shall come in the line of David, namely, the Messiah; who shall appear as a tender plant, as to his incarnation; but he shall be high and eminent; his Church, the royal city, the highest and purest ever seen on the face of the earth.

Ezekiel 17:22

The highest branch - Of the royal seed; of the highest branch that is heir to the throne; namely, the Messiah. An high mountain - Upon Mount Zion. Eminent - Not for outward splendour, but for spiritual advantages.

John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical

Ezekiel 17:22

God himself undertakes the reviving and restoring of the house of David. Nebuchadnezzar was the great eagle that had attempted the re-establishing of the house of David in a dependence upon him,

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Ezekiel 17:23, 3 voices

Ezekiel 17:23

Some interpret it differently, as the exalted humbled and the humble exalted, referring to the passion of the Lord Savior. Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God: but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6-7); and after the resurrection, the same tree was exalted, which was first green, dried up by death, and then revived, regaining its original greenness.

Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Ezekielpatristic

Ezekiel 17:23

In the mountain of the height of Israel - The parallel passage Eze 20:40 points to the mountain on which the temple stood. But it is not here the actual Mount Moriah so much as the kingdom of which that mountain was the representative, the seat of the throne of the anointed Son of God (Psa 2:6; compare Psa 40:2). All fowl of every wing - (or, of every kind) are those who flock from all lands to this kingdom. Compare Mat 13:

Ezekiel 17:23

The Christian church was at first like a grain of mustard-seed, but became, like this tender branch, a great tree, its beginning small, but its latter end increasing to admiration.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Ezekiel 17:24, 2 voices

Ezekiel 17:24

All the trees of the field shall know - All the people of Israel and of Chaldea. I the Lord have brought down the high tree - Have dethroned Jehoiachin. Have exalted the low tree - Put Zedekiah, brother of Jehoiachin, in his place. Have dried up the green tree - Zedekiah, who had numerous children, but who were all slain before his eyes at Riblah. And have made the dry tree to flourish - Have raised up a rod out of the stem of Jesse, the family of David being then apparently dried up and extinct.

Ezekiel 17:24

All the empires of the world, represented by Babylon, once flourishing ("green"), shall be brought low before the once depressed ("dry"), but then exalted, kingdom of Messiah and His people, the head of whom shall be Israel (Da 2:44).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

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 →

This page draws on 10 works. Open for the list.

This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Calvin, Commentaries (1554); John Gill; John Wesley; Matthew Henry and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.

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