Ezekielchapter 19
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Speaks with:Ezekiel 19×42 Chronicles 36×42 Kings 24×3Ezekiel 12×2Psalms 80×2Ezekiel 27×1
Summary
Chapter summary
A funeral song for the princes of Israel. The mother is a lioness among lions; she rears one whelp that learns to catch prey and is taken with hooks to Egypt, then another brought in a cage to the king of Babylon: Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin, the crown carried off twice. The image shifts to a vine planted by the waters, full of branches, with strong rods for the sceptres of them that bear rule; but she is plucked up in fury, dried by the east wind, and fire goes out of the rod of her branches. Now planted in a dry land, she has 'no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.'
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel — Ezekiel overview
- A. 1–9 A lioness and the two cubs taken in pits
- B. 10–14 The fruitful vine plucked up and dried in the desert
The outline
A.A lioness and the two cubs taken in pitsvv. 1 to 9
Read vv. 1 to 9 →B.The fruitful vine plucked up and dried in the desertvv. 10 to 14
Read vv. 10 to 14 →
The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 19The history
This chapter is a lament, and Hebrew laments had a distinctive limping rhythm — a longer line followed by a shorter one, so the poem seems to stumble as it goes. Professional mourning women were hired for funerals, and the form was instantly recognizable. Singing a funeral song for a dynasty that still had a king on the throne was a deliberate scandal.
The lion imagery is royal imagery. Lions stood on the arms of Solomon's throne, and Assyrian and Babylonian kings had themselves carved hunting lions to show mastery. Judah's own tribal emblem was a lion.
The two cubs are two kings. The first was taken to Egypt with hooks: Jehoahaz reigned three months in 609 BC before Pharaoh Neco removed him, and he died there. The second was put in a wooden collar and cage and brought to the king of Babylon: Jehoiachin, deported in 597 BC. Assyrian palace reliefs show captured lions transported in wooden cages and prisoners led by rings and cords, so the picture was drawn from things people had actually seen.
The second half switches to a vine — the same national image as chapter fifteen — planted by water, with strong branches fit for rulers' sceptres, then torn up in fury, thrown down, dried by the east wind, and burned by fire from its own branch. The east wind off the desert is the scorching one that kills crops in a day.
What it meant to them
For the exiles, the monarchy was the thread holding the story together. This song tells them the thread has snapped, and it says so in the form used at a burial.
The final line is the emptiest in the book: there is no strong branch left, no sceptre to rule. Every human hope in the house of David is stripped out here — which is what makes the promise of a shoot planted by God in the previous chapter, and the shepherd-king of chapter thirty-four, land the way they do.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 19. 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.