Ezekielchapter 19
14 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
Fire has gone out from its main branch and devoured its fruit; on it no strong branch remains fit for a ruler’s scepter.’ This is a lament and shall be used as a lament.”
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
Ezekiel sang this funeral song for the royal house of David while a king of that house still sat on the throne in Jerusalem. The exiles had lived through four kings in a dozen years and were loyal to the dynasty. A lament had its own limping rhythm, and every hearer knew it from the burials of their own families. The chapter uses that form for a whole royal line. Listen for the two pictures it paints, a lioness with her cubs and a vine by the water. Then listen for the last line. It asks what is left when every human hope in a family has failed.
Context
- Who
- Exiles who had lived through four kings in a dozen years and were still loyal to the throne
- What
- A lament for the princes of Israel, told as a lioness whose cubs are captured and as a vine torn up and burned.
- Where
- Tel Abib in Babylonia, sung of Jerusalem and of kings taken to Egypt and Babylon.
- When
- About 590 BC, looking back over the years 609 to 597 BC.
- Why
- To mourn the fall of the house of David and to show the exiles that its human strength was spent.
Historical context
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.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
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.
Significance
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.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
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.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's table of synagogue readings ties no weekly portion and no Haftarah to this chapter. Probed for this lane, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot 0 and haftarah uses 0 for Ezekiel 19, and no festival reading for the book. The table holds the Haftarah of each weekly portion and the six books read whole on a feast or a fast. Across chapters 1 to 24 of Ezekiel the same probe found a Haftarah only in chapters 20 and 22.
How it is read
Rashi is the main commentator on this chapter in the corpus. He is quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The translation is modern, so every quotation from it is fifty words or fewer.
The chapter is a lament, and Rashi names its figures. The mother is "the congregation of Israel" (Rashi on Ezekiel 19:5:1). The lions around her are "The princes of Judah" (Rashi on Ezekiel 19:2:2). "This lamentation was said regarding the sons of Josiah. The first is Jehoahaz" (Rashi on Ezekiel 19:3:1). The nations that caught him are "Pharaoh the king of Egypt" (Rashi on Ezekiel 19:4:1).
The second cub laid waste the cities "For he levied a tax on the land to give Pharaoh annually" (Rashi on Ezekiel 19:7:2). At the widows of the seventh verse Rashi gives two readings, one of violence against women and one that reads the word as palaces (Rashi on Ezekiel 19:7:1).
The vine of the tenth verse is "still part of the lamentation" (Rashi on Ezekiel 19:10:1). Its strong rods are "Powerful rulers and mighty kings" (Rashi on Ezekiel 19:11:1). The fire that went out from its branch is the sin of its own rulers: "From the iniquity of its kings and princes, the evil came to it" (Rashi on Ezekiel 19:14:1).
The corpus carries 5 notes on this chapter without an English text, marked linked. Metzudat David's notes stand at 19:1:1 and 19:6:1. Radak's notes stand at 19:1:1, 19:6:1 and 19:13:1. Each stands cited and unquoted, because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 12 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 1 filed under the Talmud and 11 under the Midrash. It carries the text of none, so each is cited by ref here and never quoted or paraphrased. The verse numbers are the Hebrew ones the corpus prints.
On verse 1 it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Vayishlach 1:3. On verse 2 it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:36, Ein Yaakov, Sotah 1:42, Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 1:19:1 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 2:10:17. It also holds Shemot Rabbah 1:16, Shemot Rabbah 29:9, Sotah 11b:21 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 164:8. On verse 3 it holds Vayikra Rabbah 22:6. On verse 7 it holds Vayikra Rabbah 19:6.
On verse 12 it holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 47:13:2.
What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ezekiel 19:2:2 to 19:14:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Ezekiel 19:1:1 to 19:6:1, cited by ref only: Sefaria holds no English version of the ref; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 19:1:1 to 19:13:1, cited by ref only: Sefaria holds no English version of the ref; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/19.json, the 12 Talmud and Midrash locators on the verses of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for Ezekiel 19: parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, no festival reading for the book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A lioness and the two cubs taken in pits
Ezekiel 19:1-2
A qinah, the meter of grief, is set over the house of David before a single line names its wrong. The mother is Judah, pictured as a lioness among lions. Henry reads the whole chapter as a dirge sung in advance, mourning kings who had not yet finished reigning.
Ezekiel 19:1
“Princes of Israel - Israel is the whole nation over which the king of Judah was the rightful sovereign. Compare Eze 2:3; Eze 3:1, Eze 3:7.”
A lioness among the lions!: The lion is Judah's emblem from Jacob's blessing at Genesis 49:9, where the tribe crouches like a lion's cub. Calvin notes the figure turns here toward insolence. Wesley reads the lions she lay among as the neighbour kings whose ways Judah's house took up.
Ezekiel 19:2
“He calls the nation itself a lioness: for when he treats of the mother of the people, we know that the offspring is considered. He says, therefore, that the people was full of insolence. The comparison to a lion is sometimes taken in a good sense, as when Moses uses it of the tribe of Judea, as a lion's whelp shall he lie down, (Genesis 49:9,) a, phrase used in a good sense.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
3 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 19:2
24:9, this passage alludes. nourished . . . among young lions--She herself had "lain" among lions, that is, had intercourse with the corruptions of the surrounding heathen and had brought up the royal young ones similarly: utterly degenerate from the stock of Abraham. Lay down--or "couched," is appropriate to the lion, the Arab name of which means "the coucher."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 19:2
“Mother - The land of Judea, and Jerusalem, the chief city of it, the royal family of David. Lioness - Tho' chosen of God to execute justice; yet they soon degenerated into the fierce and ravening nature of the lioness. Lay down - Associated, and grew familiar with neighbour kings, called here lions; fierce and bloody.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 19:2
“And say, what is thy mother?.... That is, say so to the then reigning prince, Zedekiah, what is thy mother like? to what is she to be compared? by whom is meant, not the royal family of David only, or Jerusalem the metropolis of the nation, but the whole body of the people; and so the Targum interprets it of the congregation of Israel.”
Ezekiel 19:3-4
The first whelp learns to catch the prey and devour men, then is trapped and dragged in chains to Egypt, a fit matched to Jehoahaz. Gill and Clarke both read taken in their pit as the language of a beast hunt turned on the hunter.
Ezekiel 19:3
“Brought up - Advanced, caused him to take the throne after the slaughter of Josiah. One - Jehoahaz the second son of Josiah. Became - Soon shewed his fierce, cruel, and bloody disposition.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
he was trapped in their pit: Hunters took lions alive with pits and nets, and verse 8 names both. Clarke reads the nations as Egypt's army, gathered from many peoples. Jeremiah 22:10-12 mourns the same king under the name Shallum, who would never see his land again.
Ezekiel 19:4
“The nations also heard of him - The king of Egypt, whose subjects were of divers nations, marched against Jerusalem, took Jehoahaz prisoner, and brought him to Egypt.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 19:5-9
When the mother's hope in the first whelp is lost she raises a second, who is likewise taken, this time to Babylon rather than Egypt. His voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel, a throne silenced rather than a man merely exiled.
Ezekiel 19:5
“When she saw that she had waited - Being very weak, the Jews found that they could not resist with any hope of success; so the king of Egypt was permitted to do as he pleased. She took another of her whelps - Jehoiakim. And made him a young lion - King of Judea.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
He prowled among the lions: Wesley and Clarke name this young lion Jehoiakim, the king who prowled among the kings of the nations for eleven years. Others name Jehoiachin, brought to Babylon after three months. Second Chronicles 36:6 has Jehoiakim bound for Babylon too.
Ezekiel 19:6
“And he went up and down among the lions - He became a perfect heathen, and made Judea as idolatrous as any of the surrounding nations. He reigned eleven years, a monster of iniquity, 2Ki 23:30, etc.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 19:6
“Went up - He continued eleven years on the throne; whereas Jehoahaz was taken as soon as he first ventured out. The lions - Heathen kings, with whom he entered into leagues.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
broke down their strongholds: The Hebrew of the first clause is difficult, and older versions read it as knowing their desolate palaces. Henry pictures the land left desolate at the sound of his roaring. A king's roar is his oppression of his own land.
Ezekiel 19:7
“The land was desolate, and the country villages were deserted; and though there was great plenty, and a fulness of all good things, yet people quitted it all for fear of the noise of his roaring.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
They spread their net over him: Clarke lists the nations as Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites, the same raiders 2 Kings 24:2 says the LORD sent against Jehoiakim. The net and the pit are the two tools of a lion hunt. Babylon led the hunt.
Ezekiel 19:8
“The nations set against him - The Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, and the king of Babylon - king of many nations. He was taken - The city was taken by Nebuchadnezzar; and Jehoiakim was taken prisoner, and sent in chains to Babylon.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
With hooks they caged him: Assyrian reliefs show captives led by hooks through the nose or lip, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the verse against them. Clarke follows the king into a long imprisonment. The release under Evil-merodach at 2 Kings 25:27 belongs to Jehoiachin, who never saw the mountains of Israel again.
Ezekiel 19:9
“Margin, "hooks"; perhaps referring to the hook often passed through the nose of beasts; so, too, through that of captives, as seen in the Assyrian sculptures (see on Eze 19:4). voice--that is, his roaring. no more be heard upon the mountains--carrying on the metaphor of the lion, whose roaring on the mountains frightens all the other beasts.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 19:9
“That his voice should no more be heard - He continued in prison many years, till the reign of Evil-merodach, who set him at liberty, but never suffered him to return to the mountains of Israel. “The unhappy fate of these princes, mentioned Eze 19:4, Eze 19:8, Eze 19:9, is a just subject of lamentation.” - Newcome.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The fruitful vine plucked up and dried in the desert
Ezekiel 19:10-11
The allegory changes: Judah is now a vine planted by the waters, its strong rods fit to be the sceptres of them that bare rule. Keil ties the figure back to the vine brought out of Egypt in Psalm 80, the same national image carried across the canon.
Ezekiel 19:10
“Thy mother (Jerusalem) is like a vine in thy blood - Of this expression I know not what to make. Some think the meaning is “A vine planted by the waters to produce the blood of the grape.” See Deu 32:14. Others, for בדמך bedamecha, in thy blood, would read ברמון berimmon, in or at a pomegranate; like a vine planted by or beside a pomegranate-tree, by which it was to be supported. And so the Septuagint and Arabic appear to have read. Calmet reads כרמך carmecha, thy vineyard, instead of בדמך bedamecha, in thy blood.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 19:10
“A new metaphor taken from the vine, the chief of the fruit-bearing trees, as the lion is of the beasts of prey (see Eze 17:6). in thy blood--"planted when thou wast in thy blood," that is, in thy very infancy; as in Eze 16:6, when thou hadst just come from the womb, and hadst not yet the blood washed from thee.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
It had strong branches: The strong branches are the royal line, sons fit to rule. Clarke reads them as Zedekiah and his many sons, and the towering height as the pride that led Zedekiah to break faith with Babylon. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown see the former dignity set against the ruin to come.
Ezekiel 19:11
“The mention of their former royal dignity, contrasting sadly with her present sunken state, would remind the Jews of their sins whereby they had incurred such judgments. stature-- (Da 4:11). among the thick branches--that is, the central stock or trunk of the tree shot up highest "among its own branches" or offshoots, surrounding it.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 19:11
“She had strong rods - Zedekiah, and his many sons. Her stature was exalted - Zedekiah grew proud of his numerous offspring and prosperity; and although he copied the example of Jehoiakim, yet he thought he might safely rebel against the king of Babylon.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 19:12-14
The vine is plucked up in fury and cast to the ground, the east wind drying its fruit until no strong rod remains. Planted in a dry and thirsty ground rather than by the waters, the vine sets fire in its own branches, a ruin that consumes itself.
Ezekiel 19:12
“But she was plucked up in fury - Jerusalem; taken after a violent and most destructive siege; Nebuchadnezzar being violently enraged against Zedekiah for breaking his oath to him. She was cast down to the ground - Jerusalem was totally ruined, by being burned to the ground. Her strong rods were broken - The children of Zedekiah were slain before his eyes, and after that his own eyes pulled out; and he was laden with chains, and carried into Babylon.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
planted in the wilderness: Babylon lay in a fertile river plain, yet Gill and Wesley read the wilderness as exile itself, hard and barren to the captives. The phrase dry and thirsty land echoes Psalm 63:1. The vine by abundant waters of verse 10 now stands in drought.
Ezekiel 19:13
“And now she is planted in the wilderness,.... In the land of Babylon, which though a very fruitful country, yet, because of the hardships and miseries which the Jews were exposed unto in it, was a wilderness to them: in a dry and thirsty ground; which is a periphrasis or description of a wilderness, Psa 63:1; and designs the same place as before; where the Jews were deprived of their liberties, and had not the opportunities of divine worship, the word and ordinances; and were destitute of the comforts both of civil and religious life.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 19:13
“She - A few of the branches of the last pruning. In the wilderness - Tho' Babylon was in a very fruitful place, yet the cruelty of the Babylonians, made it to the Jews as terrible as a wilderness.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
gone out from its main branch: Wesley reads the fire from the main branch as the rebellion of Zedekiah, the ruler whose revolt brought the king of Babylon against Jerusalem. Clarke sees Ishmael, a man of the royal branch. He murdered the governor Gedaliah.
Ezekiel 19:14
“Fire is gone out - A vindictive and murderous disposition has taken hold: - Of a rod of her branches - Ishmael, son of Nethaniah, who was of the blood-royal of Judah: - Hath devoured her fruit - Hath assassinated Gedaliah, slain many people, and carried off others into the country of the Ammonites. But he was pursued by Jonathan, the son of Kareah, who slew many of his adherents, and delivered much of the people. She hath no strong rod - None of the blood-royal of Judah left.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 19:14
“Fire - The fire of rebellion, kindled by Zedekiah, who is of the blood-royal. No strong rod - The regal dignity is ceased.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.