“Moreover, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
and say, ‘What was your mother? A lioness. She couched among lions, in the middle of the young lions she nourished her cubs.
She brought up one of her cubs. He became a young lion. He learned to catch the prey. He devoured men.
The nations also heard of him. He was taken in their pit; and they brought him with hooks to the land of Egypt.
“ ‘Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her cubs, and made him a young lion.
He went up and down among the lions. He became a young lion. He learned to catch the prey. He devoured men.
He knew their palaces, and laid waste their cities. The land was desolate, with its fullness, because of the noise of his roaring.
Then the nations attacked him on every side from the provinces. They spread their net over him. He was taken in their pit.
They put him in a cage with hooks, and brought him to the king of Babylon. They brought him into strongholds, so that his voice should no more be heard on the mountains of Israel.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Here the Prophet, under the image of a lion,…
Here the Prophet, under the image of a lion, informs us that whatever evils happened to the Israelites could not be imputed to others. We must understand then his intention: it is not surprising that the Spirit of God insists on a matter not very obscure, since nothing is more obstinate than the pride of men, especially when God chastises them, although they pretend to humility and modesty, yet they swell with pride and are full of bitterness, and, lastly, they can scarcely be induced to confess God to be just, and that they deserve chastisement at his hand. For this reason, therefore, Ezekiel confirms what we formerly saw, that the Jews were not afflicted without deserving it. But he uses, as I have said, a simile taken from lions. 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. But here Ezekiel denotes cruelty, as if he had said that all the Jews were fierce and savage beasts. For under the name of mother, as I said, he embraces the whole nation. At the beginning he orders his Prophet to take up a mournful wailing: for thus I interpret the word קינה, kineh, but there is in my judgment an indirect opposition between this lamentation which God dictated to them by his Prophet, and the common complaints which sounded constantly from their tongues. For when their condition was not only ruinous, but utterly deplorable, they made many groanings and bewailings. But at the same time no one extended his thoughts beyond the pressure of present evils they all exclaimed that they were wretched, but no one was anxious to inquire why they were so or whence their miseries arose; nay, they avoided this contemplation. The Prophet then indirectly reproves them, by stating that this mournful complaint was suggested by God, but yet was very different from that ordinary lamentation and howling in which the Jews stopped at blind grief, and never inquired why God was so hostile to them. Take up, therefore, a lamentation, says he, regarding or against the princes of Israel. In this way God does not excuse the people from blame, he only means that not only the common people were lost, but the very flower of the nation and all who were held in honor.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 That is, Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim Josiah’s sons, who for…
That is, Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim Josiah’s sons, who for their pride and cruelty are compared unto lions.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–9 Eze 19:1 Moreover take thou up a lamentation for…
Eze 19:1 Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
Ver. 1. Moreover take thou up a lamentation.] A threnodia, a doleful ditty. In all ages things joyful and sorrowful were made up in songs and ballads for popular use.
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For the princes of Israel.] Those four last kings - princes rather than kings, because vassals to Egypt and Babylon - who, by starting unnecessary wars, wrought their own and their country’s ruin.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–9 Moreover, Heb. And.
Moreover, Heb. And.
Take up a lamentation; son of man, Ezekiel, declare what a lamentable state the princes of Israel are falling into, propound it by parable. It was usually expressed in verse, as Jeremiah did in his lamentations, and as appears 2Ch 35:25; but the prophet is here directed to a hieroglyphic, as Eze 19:2.
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The princes of Israel; though they were kings, yet, because subject to Babylon or Egypt, they are, by a diminutive, lessening term, called
princes, and these were Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Though they had but the two tribes under them, yet because some of Israel that escaped the captivating power of Shalmaneser were joined with the two tribes, they are called by the name of Israel.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Here are, I. Orders given to the prophet to…
Here are, I. Orders given to the prophet to bewail the fall of the royal family, which had long made so great a figure by virtue of a covenant of royalty made with David and his seed, so that the eclipsing and extinguishing of it are justly lamented by all who know what value to put upon the covenant of our God, as we find, after a very large account of that covenant with David (Psa 89:3, Psa 89:20, etc.), a sad lamentation for the decays and desolations of his family (v. 38, 39): But thou hast cast off and abhorred, hast made void the covenant of thy servant and profaned his crown, etc. The kings of Judah are here called princes of Israel; for their glory was diminished and they had become but as princes, and their purity was lost; they had become corrupt and idolatrous as the kings of Israel, whose ways they had learned. The prophet must take up a lamentation for them; that is, he must describe their lamentable fall as one that did himself lay it to heart, and desired that those he preached and wrote to might do so to. And how can we expect that others should be affected with that which we ourselves are not affected with? Ministers, when they boldly foretel, must yet bitterly lament the destruction of sinners, as those that have not desired the woeful day. He is not directed to give advice to the princes of Israel (that had been long and often done in vain), but, the decree having gone forth, he must take up a lamentation for them.
II. Instructions given him what to say. 1. He must compare the kingdom of Judah to a lioness, so wretchedly degenerated was it from what it had been formerly, when it sat as a queen among the nations, Eze 19:2. What is thy mother? thine, O king? (we read of Solomon's crown wherewith his mother crowned him, that is, his people, Sol 3:11), thine, O Judah? The royal family is as a mother to the kingdom, a nursing mother. She is a lioness, fierce, and cruel, and ravenous. When they had left their divinity they soon lost their humanity too; and, when they feared not God, neither did they regard man. She lay down among lions. God had said, The people shall dwell alone, but they mingled with the nations and learned their works. She nourished her whelps among young lions, taught the young princes the way of tyrants, which was then used by the arbitrary kings of the east, filled their heads betimes with notions of their absolute despotic power, and possessed them with a belief that they had a right to enslave their subjects, that their liberty and property lay at their mercy: thus she nourished her whelps among young lions. 2. He must compare the kings of Judah to lions' whelps, Eze 19:3. Jacob had compared Judah, and especially the house of David, to a lion's whelp, for its being strong and formidable to its enemies abroad (Gen 49:9, He is an old lion; who shall stir him up?) and, if they had adhered to the divine law and promise, God would have preserved to them the might, and majesty, and dominion of a lion, and does it in Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. But these lions' whelps were so to their own subjects, were cruel and oppressive to them, preyed upon their estates and liberties; and, when they thus by their tyranny made themselves a terror to those whom they ought to have protected, it was just with God to make those a terror to them whom otherwise they might have subdued. Here is lamented, (1.) The sin and fall of Jehoahaz, one of the whelps of this lioness. He became a young lion (Eze 19:3); he was made king, and thought he was made so that he might do what he pleased, and gratify his own ambition, covetousness, and revenge, as he had a mind; and so he was soon master of all the arts of tyranny; he learned to catch the prey and devoured men. When he got power into his hand, all that had before in any thing disobliged him were made to feel his resentments and become a sacrifice to his rage. But what came of it? He did not prosper long in his tyranny: The nations heard of him (Eze 19:4), heard how furiously he drove at his first coming to the crown, how he trampled upon all that is just and sacred, and violated all his engagements, so that they looked upon him as a dangerous neighbour, and prosecuted him accordingly, as a multitude of shepherds is called forth against a lion roaring on his prey, Isa 31:4. And he was taken, as a beast of prey, in their pit. His own subjects durst not stand up in defence of their liberties, but God raised up a foreign power that soon put an end to his tyranny, and brought him in chains to the land of Egypt. Thither Jehoahaz was carried captive, and never heard of more. (2.) The like sin and fall of his successor Jehoiakim. The kingdom of Judah for some time expected the return of Jehoahaz out of Egypt, but at length despaired of it, and then took another of the lion's whelps, and made him a young lion, Eze 19:5. And he, instead of taking warning by his brother's fate to use his power with equity and moderation, and to seek the good of his people, trod in his brother's steps: He went up and down among the lions, Eze 19:6. He consulted and conversed with those that were fierce and furious like himself, and took his measures from them, as Rehoboam took the advice of the rash and hot-headed young men. And he soon learned to catch the prey, and he devoured men (Eze 19:6); he seized his subjects' estates, fined and imprisoned them, filled his treasury by rapine and injustice, sequestrations and confiscations, fines and forfeitures, and swallowed up all that stood in his way. He had got the art of discovering what effects men had that lay concealed, and where the treasures were which they had hoarded up; he knew their desolate places (Eze 19:7), where they his their money and sometimes hid themselves; he knew where to find both out; and by his oppression he laid waste their cities, depopulated them by forcing the inhabitants to remove their families to some place of safety. 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. He took a pride in making all his subjects afraid of him, as the lion makes all the beasts of the forest to tremble (Amo 3:8), and by his terrible roaring so astonished them that they fell down for fear, and, having not spirit to make their escape, became an easy prey to him, as they say the lions do. He hectored, and threatened, and talked big, and bullied people out of what they had. Thus he thought to establish his own power, but it had a contrary effect, it did but hasten his own ruin (Eze 19:8): The nations set against him on every side, to restrain and reduce his exorbitant power, which they joined in confederacy to do for their common safety; and they spread their net over him, formed designs against him. God brought against Jehoiakim bands of the Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, with the Chaldees (Kg2 24:2), and he was taken in their pit. Nebuchadnezzar bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon, Ch2 36:6. They put this lion within grates, bound him in chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon, Ch2 36:9. What became of him we know not; but his voice was nowhere heard roaring upon the mountains of Israel. There was an end of his tyranny: he was buried with the burial of an ass (Jer 22:19), though he had been as a lion, the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. Note, The righteousness of God is to be acknowledged when those who have terrified and enslaved others are themselves terrified and enslaved, when those who by the abuse of their power to destruction which was given them for edification make themselves as wild beasts, as roaring lions and ranging bears (for such, Solomon says, wicked rulers are over the poor people, Pro 28:15), are treated as such - when those who, like Ishmael, have their hand against every man, come at last to have every man's hand against them. It was long since observed that bloody tyrants seldom die in peace, but have blood given them to drink, for they are worthy.
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Ad generum Cereris sine caede et sanguine pauci
Descendunt reges et sicca morte tyranni -
How few of all the boastful men that reign
Descend in peace to Pluto's dark domain!
- Juvenal
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–9 Moreover, take thou up a lamentation,.... These words are…
Moreover, take thou up a lamentation,.... These words are directed to the Prophet Ezekiel, to compose a doleful ditty, a mournful song, such as was used at funerals; and by it represent the lamentable state of the nation of the Jews and their governors, in order to affect them with it, with what was past, and present, and yet to come:
for the princes of Israel; or, "concerning them" (s); the princes meant are Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, who were kings, though called princes, these words being synonymous; or, if so called by way of diminution, the reason might be, because they were tributary, either to the king of Egypt, or king of Babylon.
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(s) "de principibus Israel", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus, Starckius; so Ben Melech.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–8 The kingdom of Judah and house of David is…
The kingdom of Judah and house of David is compared to a lioness, and their princes to lions taken in nets, ver. 1-9. The kingdom and house are compared to a vine, and these princes to branches, now broken off and burnt, ver. 10-14.
For the princes - Jehoahaz, Jehoiachim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 This chapter contains two beautiful examples of the parabolic
CHAPTER XIX
This chapter contains two beautiful examples of the parabolic
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kind of writing; the one lamenting the sad catastrophe of
Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, 1-9,
and the other describing the desolation and captivity of the
whole people, 10-14.
In the first parable, the lioness is Jerusalem. The first of
the young lions is Jehoahaz, deposed by the king of Egypt; and
the second lion is Jehoiakim, whose rebellion drew on himself
the vengeance of the king of Babylon. In the second parable the
vine is the Jewish nation, which long prospered, its land being
fertile, its princes powerful, and its people flourishing; but
the judgments of God, in consequence of their guilt, had now
destroyed a great part of the people, and doomed the rest to
captivity.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIX
Verse 1. Moreover take thou up a lamentation] Declare what is the great subject of sorrow in Israel. Compose a funeral dirge. Show the melancholy fate of the kings who proceeded from Josiah. The prophet deplores the misfortune of Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, under the figure of two lion whelps, which were taken by hunters, and confined in cages. Next he shows the desolation of Jerusalem under Zedekiah, which he compares to a beautiful vine pulled up by the roots, withered, and at last burned. Calmet justly observes, that the style of this song is beautiful, and the allegory well supported throughout.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5 Eze 19:1-2. Take up a lamentation for the princes…
Eze 19:1-2. Take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel — The expression alludes to the mournful songs sung at funerals. Such a lamentation the prophet is directed to apply to the mournful condition of Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. And say, What is thy mother? — What resemblance shall I use to express the nature, deportment, and state of the mother of these princes, namely, Judea, or the Jewish nation? The prophet proposes a question that may be applied to each prince distinctly. A lioness — Here is an allusion, says Grotius, to Gen 49:9, where Judah is represented under the emblem of a lion, and Judea was among the nations like a lioness among the beasts of the forest; she had strength and sovereignty. And the young lions which she produced are the princes, Josiah’s successors, whose life and disgraces the prophet here points out. She lay down among the lions — She remained in grandeur and security in the neighbourhood of many powerful kings. She nourished her whelps among lions — She multiplied and increased in power, notwithstanding the envy of all the neighbouring nations.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Princes of Israel - Israel is the whole nation…
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.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 Princes: sons of Josias, who were so wretched. The…
Princes: sons of Josias, who were so wretched. The latter part of this beautiful canticle, or allegory, (ver. 10.) regards Sedecias. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 8. The Lamentation over the Kingdom of Israel (Ezekiel…
8. The Lamentation over the Kingdom of Israel (Ezekiel 19.)
1, 2And do thou take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel. And say: How has thy mother lain down—a lioness among lions [lionesses], among young lions she reared her whelps! 3And she brought up one of her whelps; he became 4a young lion, and learned to catch prey; he devoured men. And the heathen peoples heard of him, he was taken in their pit, and they brought him in chains 5to the land of Egypt. And she saw while [when] she waited, her hope had perished; then she took one of her whelps, made him a young lion. 6And he went up and down among the lions [lionesses], he became a young lion, and learned to catch prey; he devoured men. 7And he knew [knew well] his widows [palaces], and he laid waste their cities; and the land and its fulness were desolated 8by the noise of his roaring. And the heathen nations round about from the provinces set against him, and spread their net over him; he was taken in their pit. 9And they put him in ward in chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon, brought him into a stronghold, that his voice might no 10more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.—Thy mother [is, was] like a vine, in thy blood, planted by the waters; fruitful and full of branches was it, 11from many waters. And it had strong rods for staves [sceptres] of rulers; and its growth was high, up among the clouds, and was conspicuous in its 12height, in the multitude of its branches. And it was plucked up in fury, cast to the ground, and the east wind dried up its fruit; broken and withered 13were its strong rods, fire consumed [devoured] them. And now it is planted in 14the wilderness, in a land of drought and thirst. And fire went out of a rod of its boughs, consumed [devoured] its fruit, and there was not in it [more] a strong rod, a staff [sceptre] for ruling. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.
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Eze_19:1. Sept.: ... ἐπι τον ἀρχοντα—
Eze_19:3. K. ἀπεπηδησεν εἱς των—
Eze_19:5. K. ἰδεν ὁτι ἀπωστσι ἀπʼ αὑτης κ. ἀπωλετο ἡ ὑποστασις αὐτης, κ. ἐλαβεν ἀλλον—
Eze_19:7. ... κ. ἐνεμετο ἐν τ. θρασει αὐτου, κ. τ. πολεις αὐτων—Vulg.: Didicit viduas facere, et … in desertum adducere—
Eze_19:9. ... ἐν κημω, κ. ἠνεγκαν αὐτον ἐν γαλεαγρα—(For מלך בבל other copies read ארץ בבל.)
Eze_19:10. ... ὡς ἀμπελος, ὡς ἀνθος ἐν ῥοα ἐν ὑδχτι—Vulg.: … quasi vinea in sanguine tuo super aquam—(For בדמך there is a reading: ברמך in celsitudine tua.
Eze_19:11. χ. ἐγενοντο αὐτη π̔αβδος ἱσχυος ἐπι φυλην ἡγουμενων, χ.... ἐν τω μεγεθει αὐτης ἐν μεσω στελεχεων—Vulg.: statura ejus inter frondes—
Eze_19:14. Sept.: ... φυλη εἰς παραβολην θρηνου ἐστιν, χ. ἐσται εἰς θρηνον.
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
The parallel to Ezekiel 17. shows itself clearly in substance and form: that also referred to the kingdom of Jerusalem; this has the same enigmatic style, the same borrowing of figurative expressions from the plant and animal world, and agrees partially in general, and in particular expressions.
Eze_19:1. וְאַתָּה, introducing a partial contrast, so that the “proverb” of the previous chapter, from the side of the people, is now confronted by the lamentation, from the side of the prophet. It is an elegy (possibly on the model of songs like 2Ch_35:25, Häv.), a lament, whose occasion is contemplated as an existing reality. That which hangs over the kingdom is already an accomplished fact; one only requires to summon what has happened into the present, in order to anticipate easily what is about to happen. Comp. Eze_2:10.—The princes (Eze_7:27; Eze_12:10; Eze_12:12) are evidently the existing kings, Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin, as royal types for the future of the Israelitish kingdom. According to Häv., the lament was devoted to the Davidic royal race in general. Purposely of Israel, because David’s house alone was legitimate over all Israel (Häv.).—שָׂא, paronomasia with נְשִׂאֵי.
Eze_19:2-9. The Kings
Eze_19:2. The address is directed to the people. According to Hengst., to the tribe of Judah, the people of the present. [Ewald makes Ezekiel sing beforehand, in the spirit of prophecy, a lament over Zedekiah, and his inevitable overthrow. Hitzig even alters the plural, princes, into the singular, prince (following the Sept.), for the sake of this interpretation. Rosenm. makes Jehoiachin the subject, who, like Ezekiel, was in exile.]—The mother of the people is Jerusalem (Eze_21:25 [20]). Comp. Gal_4:25 sq. [Ewald: the ancient church. Hitzig: the people of Israel. Häv.: ancient Israel in its earlier glory. Klief.: Israel as a historical people. Hengst.: the people per se.] Perhaps an allusion to Isa_29:1 sq. Jerusalem-Judah, as in Ezekiel 16.—The retrospective reference of the figure employed to Gen_49:9 sq. is evident, recommends itself also by the allusion to Judah, and is not gainsaid by Klief.; just because the figure is here turned in malam partem, all the more would the contrast suit as a set-off to the promise in Genesis 49. Comp. Num_23:24; Num_24:9. The royal nature is meant to be depicted (“of equal birth with other independent and powerful nations, as this royal nature was historically displayed, especially in the times of David and Solomon,” Hengst.): Jerusalem the royal city (Rev_5:5). The complaint fairly begins with מָה. [Klief., on the other hand, assumes a double reproach, that Israel conforms itself to the heathen world-powers, and that it thus destroys its kings (!). Hence it is rather a complaint against the Israel of that time.]—That she lay down among the neighbouring royal states betokens majestic repose and conscious security,—the fearless one exciting fear by imposing power. (Comp. further Eze_16:14.)—The simple result is, that among young lions (בּפִיר is the young lion which already goes after prey; בּוּר is any young creature which is still with its mother, in particular the young of the lion) Jerusalem brought up her royal children in royal splendour, for a kingly destiny. Perhaps also a hint at the first establishment of the kingdom of Israel, which would be “like all the nations” (1Sa_8:5-20)!
Eze_19:3. She—the royal mother-city (Lam_1:1).—The one of her young ones, so that in רִבְּתָה may be included the idea of the increase of the family, is described entirely from the natural side as a real young lion. טָרַף is: to snatch away; hence: to acquire as booty; also: to tear asunder, into which sense the clause, he devoured men, immediately passes over. Comp. as to Jehoahaz, 2Ki_23:32. What is there said (2Ki_19:30) of the “people of the land” in reference to the anointing of Jehoahaz is taken by Hengst. in connection with this verse. He became a young lion, can also be equivalent to: became a king; and what follows may betoken the political development of kingly power.
Eze_19:4. Heard of him: as when the rumour of the proximity of a devastating lion spreads, and the hunting of the ravenous beast now begins; or, that their attention was directed towards him by his roaring, so that they proceeded to hunt him. As to the fact, see 2Ki_23:33-34—חָח is a hook, a ring, which one puts through the nose of animals that require to be restrained (2Ki_19:18), to attach to it the bridle by which they are led, by which also their power of breathing can be lessened.
Eze_19:5. Up to this point, Egypt; now the other world-power, Babylon (2Ki_24:7). Comp. Ezekiel 17. Pharaoh Necho had appointed Jehoiakim king, who is left out of account in the lament, because death had deprived him of his crown, 2Ki_24:6. For the connection, he is omitted as Egyptian, and therefore not answering to the representation of Eze_19:3 (comp. Eze_19:6). After Jehoahaz only Jehoiachin can come into view.—נוֹחְַלָה, Niphal from יָחַל (חוּל), to expect; Ewald: to be in pain, to feel feeble, hence to despair; she saw that she was deceived—her hope lost. Häv. as Gen_8:12 : and she saw that her hope was deferred and had come to nothing, to wit, the hope entertained at first of possibly procuring the deliverance of Jehoahaz through the humiliation of Egypt. Expectations from the other world-power, to which the eye could turn, are here most appropriate, since the Babylonish world-power was forming itself at that very time, כִּי׳ is simply: while (when) she waited, she saw; her hope touching the one royal son had perished. Then she took, etc., 2Ki_24:8 sq. כְּפִיר׳ answers perfectly to the youthful age of Jehoiachin.
Eze_19:6. Jehoiachin conducted himself as a king, exactly like other kings; comp. Eze_19:3. If אֲרָיוֹת is to be translated lionesses, then the idea might thereby be made prominent that he acted after the manner of his mother, Eze_19:2-7. וַיֵּדַע. Against the sense which Häv., Hengst., and others adopt, it may be said that the figure would be abandoned, and that 2Ki_24:9 refers to nothing so special as the defilement of widows. Häv.: their (collective: of the slain, Eze_19:6); Hengst.: his (whom he as king was bound to protect), at the same time the people’s widows, the personœ miserabiles. Others: he observed his widows (whom he had made so by devouring their husbands). He had them before his eyes. אַלְמְנוֹתָיו can hardly signify here “widows” in the ordinary sense, it would be so entirely against the parallelism (וְעָריהֶם). The passage remains figurative; although the king referred to breaks through the figurative drapery, he is spoken of in a still more appropriate pictorial manner. As in Isa_13:22, the word in question is used poetically of widowed palaces, i.e. forsaken of their inhabitants, so here ironically. Jehoiachin is described (2Ki_24:9) as altogether like his father (Jehoiakim), which must not be overlooked; while (2Ki_23:32) it is said of Jehoahaz, more generally that he did as “his fathers.” If we were entitled to colour the portrait of Jehoiachin from our knowledge of Jehoiakim, then Jeremiah 22, especially Eze_19:13 sq., offers, in what is said of his despotic passion for building, all that is necessary for a good understanding of our passage. יֵדַע is therefore: he perceived, i.e. was anxious about (Gen_39:6), knew—his palaces, built by his father, which so soon (after three months) became widowed palaces. And as that was the object of his anxious thought and longing, his conduct corresponded, inasmuch as, for his palaces, he devastated the cities of others (their). [Ewald (like the Chald.) reads וַיָּרַע, from רעע: “shattered their palaces.”] The words וַתֵּשַׁם׳ describe the disorder of the land. Eze_12:19.
Eze_19:8. The object of וַיִּתְּנוּ is completed from what follows. The heathen peoples round about, etc. Ewald: The gay Chaldean host (Eze_17:3). Hengst.: “The provinces are the surrounding countries, as parts of the Chaldean empire; comp. 2Ki_24:2, according to which the Syrians, Ammonites, and Moabites were summoned against Jehoiakim, the father of Jehoiachin.”—Comp. Eze_19:4; Eze_12:13.
Eze_19:9. “It is customary to transport lions in large and very strong cages” (J. D. Mich.).—The heathen-world thus made an end of the dominion. וַיִּתְּנֻהוּ recalls Eze_19:8. In chains, as Eze_19:4. To the king of Babylon, counterpart to “to the land of Egypt.” As to further parallels, see the verses. Stronghold (Heb. pl.), an indefinite, poetic, general] term (Jdg_12:7). That his voice, etc., points back to Eze_19:7. 2Ki_24:12 could not be expressed otherwise, by means of the foregoing figure, than in terms parallel to Eze_19:4. The more special element of the history is concealed by the poetic veil.
Eze_19:10-14. The Mother of Kings
Just as in Ezekiel 17, a transition to another figure, namely, to that which is there (Eze_19:5 sq.) used as to King Zedekiah, the subject still remaining the kingdom.
Eze_19:10 The address, as in Eze_19:2, and the mother, who is compared to a vine, is also, as there, Jerusalem (Psa_80:9 [8]). In thy blood; Ewald: in his likeness, like thee (Zedekiah!):—analogous to in thy name.—Hengst.: “it concerns thee” (דְּמוּח = דָּם, comp. ἐν παραβολῇ, Heb_11:19), i.e. what is here said of the mother applies pre-eminently to the people of the present—tua res agitur, etc. Kimchi and Rashi fix on בִּדְמוּתְךָ, others derive דָּם from דָּמָה, or read נִדְמָה; where as Piscator, Häv., and others adopt דָמָה, דּוּם, in silentio tuo, in thy rest, the happy peaceful time (Isa_38:10), which hardly suits the line of thought, and doesn’t at all fit into the figure of the vine. Gesen. reads: בַּרְמְךָ, “in thy vineyard.” The Sept. reads: בָּרִמּוֹן, “by the pomegranate tree,” because vines and pomegranates were often found together (Num_20:5). Hitzig: He had thus a support in contradistinction to Eze_17:4. The simplest rendering is “in thy blood,” i.e. in the life of the stem of Judah. Eze_19:2 looked back to Gen_49:9 sq., and this verse looks back to Eze_19:11 of the same chapter, where the figurative allusion to the blood of the grape (Deu_32:14) suggests the point of connection with the vine figure. Comp. further at Eze_17:8; Eze_17:5.
Eze_19:11. There grew up in Jerusalem-Judah strong shoots of David, able to rule (Gen_49:10).—קוֹמָתוֹ, Eze_17:6. The singular suffix refers not to נֶּפֶן, but rather to מַטֶּה, either to the one who was before their eyes, i.e. Zedekiah, or better still, with Hengst., to the sceptres conceived of as one, and thus to the royal race as a whole. The plural עֲבֹתִים, which is peculiar to Ezekiel, has made many think of “thickets,”—a profuse growth between the thick branches, rising above them. According to Ewald and most moderns, it stands for thicket-clouds and darkness. Hengst.: “among the clouds, through and over them.”—And was conspicuous: subject מַטֶּה.
Eze_19:12. Without the intervention of anything farther, there follows its splendid growth, like a lightning flash from the clear heavens, the complete overthrow of the vine, i.e. of Jerusalem-Judah, the birthplace of kings, and therewith the Davidic kingdom. Answering to it, there is here the Hophal of נָתַשׁ, its only instance. Only one must not assume, with most interpreters, that the banishment of the people is what is meant (Ewald also makes “the whole congregation fall with the king”). The distinction between the two paragraphs is merely this, that while Eze_19:2-9 bewailed the existing kings, both as bearers of the Davidic royalty, and at the same time as suggestive, by their fate, to the actual king; now Zedekiah, as he with whom the Davidic kingdom is subverted, becomes the subject of the lament, just as if everything had already happened. (Comp. Deu_29:27; 1Ki_14:15; Jer_12:17.)—Eze_8:18. Through the anger of God. To the ground, etc. Pictorial, but not indicating the expatriation to another land.—Eze_17:10; Eze_17:9.—מַטֵּה׳, collective; comp. with Eze_19:11. The singular, construed with the plural of the verb, comprehends the strong rods in a single view, with reference to Zedekiah. The suffix ־הוּ refers to מַּטֶּה, not to נֶּפֶן. Comp. Eze_15:5; Eze_15:7. The fire, the divine judgment in its consuming character, as is explained by Eze_19:14.
Eze_19:13. And now, spoken in presence of the circumstances of the exile, concerning the remnant of the Davidic royal line. Hence “planting” after the withering and burning can still be spoken of, and this not on account of the people, but because the residue of the Davidic royal line is likewise in exile.—The wilderness (figurative)—without any allusion to Israel’s passing through the wilderness (Hengst.), which was altogether different—simply describes, in contrast to Eze_19:10 sq., a condition of chastisement in which the vine, Judah’s kingdom, cannot prosper.—Drought, objective; thirst, subjective.
Eze_19:14 adds to (1) the wrath of God, and to (2) the Chaldeans as instruments (Eze_19:12), the explanation of the fire (Eze_19:12), to wit, (3) Zedekiah’s offence (according to Eze_17:15 sq.). Comp. Eze_5:4; Jdg_9:15.—Rod of its boughs (Eze_17:6) is the rod which the boughs made, which the strong vitality of the royal vine caused to shoot.—The closing sentence appropriately includes both parts of the chapter,—that which has happened and that which is to happen. וַתְּהי, prophetic perfect. (“It is not the fancy of a gloomy seer, but the prediction of a lamentation which will actually flow in a thousand voices from the mouth of the people,” etc., Hengst.) Häv.: “And it was for,” etc.; as historical notice of the subsequently written prophecy, to attest its true fulfilment.
THEOLOGICAL REMARKS
1. Hävernick describes the fundamental character of this chapter as lyrical, prophetically elegiac. Ewald calls it “the model of an elegy”—“artistic as to the construction of its lines,—the finest and most touching of all in the Old Testament.” As to the form, he says: “The long line prevails, but it is almost always divided in the middle into two complete halves, so that the second half abruptly broken off follows the first only like a brief, transient, sighing echo. And thus, what the construction of the whole song is, as to its two directions, is repeated in the line.”
2. It is a song of three kings; or of two broken, and one breaking sceptre.
3. In regard to the historical relations, the carrying away of Jehoahaz to Egypt is parallel to that of Jehoiachin to Babylon. The intermediate Jehoiakim is left out; but because he is the more important and the characteristic person, for the beginning of the Babylonian servitude, Jehoiachin is retained in his true colours. (As similarly Zedekiah in Jeremiah 27)
4. In the lion-figure, the nobler passes over into the less noble aspect, on which Hengst. remarks: “By the constitution of human nature, arrogance is inseparably connected with high rank, and therewith a rude barbarity towards all who are barriers in its way. He only who walks with God can escape this natural consequence, and the walk of faith is not the attainment of every man. It should, however, be the attainment of every one of the people of God; and where it is wanting, so that the corrupt nature unfolds itself without opposition, there the divine vengeance takes effect. Jehoahaz showed himself a barbarous tyrant towards his own subjects, whereas the kingdom of Israel was designed to exhibit a heroic energy against the enemies of the people of God. On this account he was punished.”
5. The Messianic hope was bound up with the Davidic kingdom, whose subversion is here illustrated from Eze_18:22 sq., and its fulfilment is shown in this, that He who appeared in the world, declared, not without a reference to our chapter, “I am the true Vine.”
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze_19:1 sq.: “In all times the sorrowful and the joyful have been expressed in poetry” (L.).—Sacred poetry a companion on the heights and in the depths of life and feeling. See the Psalms.—“Princes should be pious people, who care for the eternal as well as temporal welfare of their subjects, who judge equitably, avoid tyranny, and corrupt none by their example. But when subjects do not pray for their princes, and descend everywhere to the level of beasts in their habits, God gives them beasts as princes. For the sins of a people tyrants rule over them” (L.).
Eze_19:2. “So long as the Jewish people acted according to the law of God, they rested in safety and without fear” (Schm.).—“Judah brought up, in its princes, the rods of God’s chastisement” (Richt.).—“The society of bad men only makes one become more wicked” (Stck.).
Eze_19:3. “A royal up-bringing, when it is merely that, makes royal sinners. Great lords, alas! frequently bear lions and such like not merely on their escutcheons. That they also do, who drain men of everything, even to their blood” (B. B.).—There are men-eaters who yet devour no men.
Eze_19:4. Violence is always topped by greater violence or cunning.—Many a court, though it be the prince’s own, is the pit in which the lion is taken!—There are also chains for kings—their minions.
Eze_19:5 sq. In the place of one tyrant a second can come.
Eze_19:7. Through a prince, his land also suffers.—“The king’s voice should be terrible to the wicked only, never to the good” (L.).—To the lion’s roaring belong cabinet orders, royal edicts.
Eze_19:8 sq. What a network is woven about princes by court intrigues!—“The fate of tyrants has usually been a sad one. God has pits, nets, hunters, and cages for them even in this world, but certainly in the next” (L.).—“He who lives like a beast, shall be requited like a beast” (Stck.).—At last the lion’s roaring on the mountains dies away.
Eze_19:10. In Judah there was royal blood,—the lion and the vine together.—“Apply that to the blood of Christ!” (Richt.)—“He who can count the drops of water, may count the number of God’s acts of love” (B. B.).—“It is of God’s unmerited grace that some royal houses are blessed beyond others, and for this He will be honoured and praised, 2Sa_7:18” (St.).
Eze_19:11 sq. “The higher the ascent, the deeper the fall; God remains the highest, the highest over all.”—The night before destruction is sometimes full of happiness and splendour.—The bloom of princely houses, as of great cities and famous trading houses, is of a tender and easily withered nature.
Eze_19:13. “Where God’s gracious presence with His word and Spirit is wanting, there a desert is; and the whole world is a land of drought, which can give no refreshment to the soul which hungers and thirsts for God” (B. B.).—The prosperous soil for princes and also for people is true religion.—Where God’s word is despised, kingdoms themselves become a waste.
Eze_19:14. “Each man supplies the fire for his own burning” (Stck.).—“The fire of one’s own unrighteousness kindles the wrathful judgment of God, Isa_1:31” (Schm.).—“Men first become parched, then the fire consumes them” (Stck.).—“A little spark, a single sin apparently, and at first really a little one, can cause a great fire” (Stck.).—“Till Christ no other king from David’s stem” (Richt.).—“Every sin ends in lamentation, even here, but certainly there” (Stck.).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–9 thy mother--the mother of Jehoiachin, the representative of David's…
thy mother--the mother of Jehoiachin, the representative of David's line in exile with Ezekiel. The "mother" is Judea: "a lioness," as being fierce in catching prey (Eze 19:3), referring to her heathenish practices. Jerusalem was called Ariel (the lion of God) in a good sense (Isa 29:1); and Judah "a lion's whelp . . . a lion . . . an old lion" (Gen 49:9), to which, as also to Num 23:24; Num 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.
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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) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On v7 7. And he knew their desolate palaces, etc. —…
7. And he knew their desolate palaces, etc. — R.V., “knew their palaces” (or, “widows”). With a change of one letter the text becomes “he brake down,” etc. Cornill, by some further alteration, obtains the reading which Dr. Skinner has adopted above. Kautzsch refuses to translate because of the evident corruption of the text.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 9 1–4. Captivity of Jehoahaz in Egypt
1–4. Captivity of Jehoahaz in Egypt
2. How was thy mother a lioness!—among the lions;
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In the midst of young lions she couched—she reared her whelps.
3. And she brought up one of her whelps—he grew a young lion;
And he learned to catch the prey—he devoured men.
4. And the nations heard regarding him—he was taken in their pit;
And they brought him with hooks—unto the land of Egypt.
1. princes of Israel] Probably with LXX. prince, as required by the pron. thy mother (Eze_19:2). The “prince” is a general term for the king, applicable to one king after another. The lamentation is for the “king” of Judah, represented by one person after another. On “lament” cf. Jer_7:29.
2. What is thy mother?] Rather to be taken as an exclamation, as rendered above. The mother is the people Israel, a lioness among other lions—kings or states with royalty.
3. The first young lion is Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, carried to Egypt by Pharaoh Necho after the defeat of his father at Megiddo, 2Ki_23:31-35. Cf. the touching reference to him Jer_22:10-12. He also bore the name of Shallum. Coming to the throne at the age of 23 he reigned only 3 months, and died in Egypt. Cf. Jer_5:26.
4. heard of him] This might better be read: raised a cry against him, in the sense of Isa_31:4; Jer_50:29.
with chains] hooks (or, rings) as ch. Eze_29:4, Eze_38:4; cf. 2Ki_19:28.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 (2) Thy mother.—Mother stands for the whole national community—the…
(2) Thy mother.—Mother stands for the whole national community—the theocracy, as is plain from Eze_19:10. This was represented, since the captivity of the ten tribes, by Judah; and her “princes,” of the line of David, were the legitimate kings of the whole nation. The figure of the lion is a common one in Scripture (see Gen_49:9; Num_23:24; Num_24:9), and was also familiar in Babylonia.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 The two sections of this chapter vers. 1-9, 10-14…
The two sections of this chapter vers. 1-9, 10-14 are respectively two parables of the same type as that of Eze_2:10. The former telling nearly the same story under a different imagery, the latter a reproduction of the same imagery, with a slightly different application. Lamentation. The same word as that used in Eze_2:10. The whole chapter finds a parallel in Jeremiah"s review of Josiah"s successors. (Jer_22:10-30) It is noticeable that the princes are described as being of Israel. The LXX gives the singular, "the prince," and Hitzig and Ewald adopt this reading, applying it to Zedekiah.
Ver. 1. A lamentation for the princes of Israel.
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Ezekiel follows up his predictions of approaching judgment and his exhortations to repentance with an elegy on the distresses of the princes of Israel.
I THE FATE OF THE PRINCES STIRRED DEEP FEELINGS. It became the inspiration of an ode. True poetry has its fountains in deep emotion. Thus a living religion naturally finds expression in song, and the spiritual experience of men is uttered in psalms. That religion which is satisfied with the cold statements of intellectual propositions hay not yet touched the heart, and is no living experience. There is a fire of passion in true devotion. On the other hand, when religion has been neglected or outraged, a new range of emotions is called into play, and the fate of sinners stirs feelings of profound grief in all who understand its dire distress and have brotherly hearts to sympathize with others. The Book of Lamentations may be taken as the reverse of the Book of Psalms. Psalmists celebrate the emotions of true religion; the "Lamentations" is a dirge sung over those who have been unfaithful to their religion. In any case, man"s relation to religion is so intimate and vital that it should rouse deep feelings in the heart of every one.
II THE FATE OF THE PRINCES CONTAINED PECULIAR ELEMENTS OF DISTRESS.
1. The princes enjoyed high rank. When they fill, their humiliation and suffering were all the greater. Men envy high stations; but such positions are liable to peculiar calamities, from which the lowly do not suffer.
(1) High positions attract attention. Princes are aimed at when peasants are neglected. The leading families were torn from their homes and carried off to Babylon, while the obscure sons of the soil were left to till their fields.
(2) High rank is no sure protection. A bodyguard surrounds princes. But no guard can ward off the judgment of Heaven. God will judge the great as surely as the low.
1. The princes came of a divinely favoured line. They belonged to the house of David a house which had long enjoyed peculiar marks of God"s favour, and which was thought to be sheltered by promises of everlasting prosperity. (e.g. Ps 69) But no favouritism of Heaven will protect against the consequences of sin. God"s promises of g, ace are conditioned by man"s fidelity.
2. The ruin of the princes was in itself most lamentable. They did not suffer from some temporary reverse of fortune. One alter another they were flung down from the throne and degraded to a miserable fate. The consequences of sin are heavy and disastrous. No soul can face them with equaninity.
3. The fate of the princes involved the sufferings of their people. The princes, being leaders in sin, were first in punishment. Their primacy of guilt was followed by a primacy of doom. But others suffered also in various degrees, and the nation was involved in calamities. Thus the responsibility of those in high stations is enlarged by the fact that they bring trouble upon many by their misdeeds.
Vers. 1-9. The parable of the lion"s whelps.
I THE LION-LIKE CHARACTER OF ISRAEL. This character was especially given to the tribe of Judah, from which the royal family came. (Gen_49:9) There should be something of the better nature of the lion in the people of God.
1. Strength. With one blow of his paw the lion can break the neck of a bull. The nation of Israel was strong. The Church of God is strong with the might of God. God does not only save his children as weak creatures needing his shelter; he inspires them with strength.
2. Freedom. The lion is not a domestic animal, trained to wear the yoke like the patient ox. When he is caught and caged his proud spirit is broken. In a state of nature he roams at large over the desert. God gives liberty to his people. They are not his slaves; they are his free men.
3. Rule. The lion is regarded as the king of the fort, st. Israel in her greatness ruled over her neighbours politically; but spiritually she has since extended that rule over the civilized world. There is power and a ruling influence over minds in the Church of Christ.
4. Majesty. The lion looks more brave than he is. His lordly mane and noble bearing, and the thunder of his roar that echoes through the woods at night, impress men with a sense of awe. God has called his people to a position of greatness and honour.
II THE FATE OF THE TWO WHELPS.
1. The disastrous fate of the first whelp. Jehoahaz behaves ill, and is carried in chains to Egypt. (2Ki_23:32-34)
(1) His great sin is that he worked destruction. "It devored men." Sin is hurtful to ethers as well as to the sinner. When a man is in a position of power and influence this is especially the case. But "no man liveth unto himself." We are responsible for the harm done by our sin.
(2) His punishment is loss of liberty and banishment. The lion is taken in a pit, shackled with chains, and carried off to Egypt. Power to work ill will not last forever. The liberty that is abused in sin will be taken away. They who are unfaithful to God will be banished from God"s inheritance.
2. The similar fate of the second whelp. Jehoahaz is followed by Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, not only on the throne, but in evil conduct and in consequent punishment.
(1) Them is a succession in sin. This is not by natural inheritance nor by inevitable fate, but by a gathering together of various common influences, especially that of example. Yet the fate of former sinners should be a warning to their successors. Men are too ready to copy the misdeeds of predecessors, without waiting to consider the consequences of those misdeeds.
(2) There will be a succession in punishment. The resources of judgment are not exhausted. The band that smote Israel is strong to smite a faithless Christendom. The form of the punishment may vary, but the essence of it will be unchanged. Jehoahaz was sent to Egypt, Jehoiachin to Babylon; but the doom of the two was essentially the same. Moreover, in both cases, as the villagers assemble in a circle to catch a destructive lion, the neighbouring nations joined in the work of Egypt and Babylon. Sinners make many enemies.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Vers. 1-9. The downfall of the princes.
For the interpretation of this figurative and poetical portion of Ezekiel"s prophecies, reference must be made to the close of the Second Books of Kings and of Chronicles, where the obscure and humiliating history of the last days of the monarchy of Judah is briefly recorded. Ezekiel"s dirge concerns partly what had already taken place, and partly what was immediately about to happen. The lessons to be learnt from the history and the lamentation are of a general character. The fate of the kings if so they may be called Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin, is certainly instructive. But it would not be just to separate between the rulers and the ruled, both of whom alike "did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.
I THE ROYAL ORIGIN AND DIGNITY OF THE PRINCES. They are compared to lions, nourished by the lioness their dam, among the whelps.
Sprung from the royal stock, and a knowledged as being in the succession, they occupied in due time the throne of their fathers. This arrangement was in fulfilment of the promise made by Jehovah to David, that there should not fail a man to sit upon the throne of the royal bard.
II THE MISUSE BY THE PRINCES OF THEIR POWERS. It is natural that the young lion should catch its prey and even devour men. But when the princes are compared to such bloodthirsty and carnivorous beasts, it is implied that they were in the habit of oppressing and robbing their subjects, and treating them with violence and cruelty. As a matter of fact, the two princes referred to did conduct themselves in a tyrannical and unjust manner.
III THE FATE WHICH THE PRINCES PREPARED FOR THEMSELVES. The nations are described by the poet prophet as hearing of the ravening of the lions, and as setting themselves against them, spreading a net, digging a pit, and, by the use of customary devices, taking the noxious marauder. The first-mentioned prince was taken captive into Egypt, the second to Babylon. They are depicted as led in chains, as put in ward, and of the second it is poetically observed that "his voice was no more heard upon the mountains of Israel." As far as history enables us to judge, these princes met with the reward due to their ungodliness, violence, rapacity, and treachery.
IV THE NEGLECT OF ONE OF THE PRINCES TO LEARN AND TAKE WARNING BY THE FATE OF THE OTHER. Whether if Jehoiachin had been wise, and had learned the lesson publicly pronounced by the doom of Jehoahaz, he might have escaped ruin, we cannot toll. But by disregarding that lesson he sealed his fate. How often it happens in human affairs that the most obvious and powerful lesson, enforced by striking actual examples, makes no impression upon the mind of the young, self-willed and irreligious!
V A PRACTICAL AND IMPORTANT LESSON IS THUS CONVEYED TO ALL WHO ARE CALLED BY PROVIDENCE TO GOVERN THEIR FELLOW MEN.
1. Princes should not rely upon their high descent, their birth, theirancestral clams to respect.
2. Princes should not use their power and the influence of their station fortheir own personal emoluments or pleasures.
3. Princes should be wise, and order their doings by the precepts of Divinerighteousness.
4. Princes should remember the instability of thrones and the uncertainty oflife and prosperity, and accordingly should be diligent in their endeavours for the public good. T.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-9. Kingly power abused.
Without doubt, the main cause of Israel"s fall was the waywardness and vice of her kings. With few exceptions, they gave themselves up to evil ways. Corruption at the fountainhead became corruption in all the streams of national and domestic life. Idolatry was the root; and tyranny, anarchy, violence, and cruelly were the branches. This soon became intolerable to the surrounding nations.
I KINGLY POWER WAS INTENDED AS A BENEFIT. What the shepherd is to his flock, the king should be to his people. He is intended to live and think and plan for their good. Wisdom, not self-will, ought to be his supreme counsellor. As an army cannot succeed without a commander; as a ship cannot voyage prosperously without a pilot; as a family cannot do well without a parent; so a kingdom must have a ruler. The administration of justice and of defence must have a living head. The appointment of a king, whether he be human or Divine, is a necessity for a nation"s prosperity; and that king will be either a blessing or a curse.
II KINGLY POWER MAY BECOME SELFISH. The man who is exalted to the highest place of honour is so exalted that he may serve the nation. But, in a measure, he holds an irresponsible office. There is no higher power which can control or restrain him. Hence there is a great temptation for the abuse of office. The man may use his power to aggrandize himself, to increase his pleasures or his magnificence. Setting aside prudence, wisdom, benevolent regard for others, he may become arrogant, self-willed, tyrannical. The lower appetites of his nature may rule him, and the effect will be as if a beast ruled the people. Though a lion is chief among wild animals, he is but a beast still; and the worst features of the untamed lion were manifest in the kings of Israel and of Judah.
III KINGLY POWER, IF SELFISH, BECOMES DESTRUCTIVE. This young lion learnt "to catch prey, it devoured men." He who was set over the people to preserve life, to afford protection to their interests, perverted his high office, destroyed those he was appointed to save. The king is set in the stead of God, to reward obedience, and to punish transgression; by the abuse of his office he becomes an Apollyon, an ally of Satan. He destroys his people"s peace, destroys their fortunes, destroys their lives. His misrule encourages violence on the high ways, private murder, civil war, foreign invasion, An evil king is a fount of death the nation"s executioner.
IV KINGLY POWER, WHEN ABUSED, MUST BE FETTERED. The nations set against him on every side and spread their net over him: he was taken in their pit." He who is unjust and violent in dealing with his own people will be unjust and insolent in dealing with surrounding nations. But neighbouring kings are more free to resent and punish royal insole,ice than are the subjects of the monarch. Hence it often happens that retribution comes from the mutual consent of foreigners. There is One who rules among the nations, higher that the highest king, and he can employ a thousand methods to restrain and chastise a tyrant. At times God employs the subjects of the realm; sometimes he employs death; sometimes he employs a foreign army a foreign league. It is a perilous thing to tamper with righteousness. D.
HOMILIES BY W. JONES
Vers. 1-9. A lamentation for fallen princes.
take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, and say, What was thy mother?" etc. Here are three preliminary inquiries.
1. Who is addressed by the prophet? Or, whom are we to understand by the pronoun "thy"? "What was thy mother?" "Jehoiachin is addressed," says the "Speaker"s Commentary." Hengstenberg says, "The address is to the man Judah, the people of the present." And Schroder, "The address is directed to the people." But, as we shall see, the people are probably represented by the lioness; and if such be the case, it is hardly congruous to say that they are addressed in the pronoun "thy;" for that would represent them at once as the "mother" and the offspring.
2. Who is represented by" fly mother, a lioness? According to Schroder, "the mother of the people is Jerusalem". (cf. Gal_4:25, seq.; Lam_1:1) The general opinion is that the mother represents the people of Judah or of the whole Israel. Hengstenberg, "The mother is the people in itself." Matthew Henry, "He must compare the kingdom of Judah to a lioness." Scott, "The Jewish Church and nation is represented under the image of a lioness." "Speaker"s Commentary," "The people represented by Judah.
3. Who are represented by the two whelps? (Vers. 3, 5.) It is generally agreed that by them are set forth the two princes for whom this lamenta tion is made, and that by the first whelp which "became a young lion" is signified Jehoahaz. (2Ki_23:30) But opinion is divided as to whether the other whelp which was "made a young lion" represents Jehoiakim or Jehoiachin. Hengstenberg, Schroder, and the "Speaker"s Commentary" say that it was Jehoiachin, for this amongst other reasons, that he "was not appointed by a foreign prince out of order, like his father Jehoiakim, but succeeded regularly with the consent of the people." (2Ki_24:6) But it is difficult to see how vers. 6 and 7 can be applied to him, seeing that he reigned only three months and ten days. (2Ch_36:9) On the other hand, if we take vers. 5-9 as applying to Jehoiakim, then the ninth verse presents this difficulty, that it represents the prince as being carried into Babylon as a prisoner, and there brought into strongholds, and his voice never more heard upon the mountains of Israel; whereas it is said in 2Ki_24:6 that "Jehoiakim slept with his fathers;" and in Jer_22:19, "He shall be buried with the burial ofan ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem." But, as Dr. Milman remarks, "There is much difficulty about the death of Jehoiakim;" for in addition to the state merits just quoted from 2 Kings and Jeremiah, in 2Ch_36:6 it is said that Nebuchadnezzar "bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon." Whether we conclude that Jehoiakim or Jehoiachin is referred to in vers. 5-9, difficulties meet us which perhaps at present cannot be completely cleared away. On the three questions at which we have glanced, the following remarks of Greenhill are deserving of quota tion: "It is said "thy mother" in reference to each prince. Jehoahaz, "what is thy mother?" Jehoiakim, "what is thy mother?" By "mother" here is meant Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah. Great cities and kingdoms are in a metaphorical sense mothers; they bring forth kings; they elect, crown, and set them up to rule." But leaving questions of disputed interpretation, let us look at those aspects or illustrations of historical and moral truths which this lamentation sets forth. We discover here
I ROYAL POSITION AND POWER SYMBOLIZED. "What was thy mother? A lioness: she couched among lions, in the midst of the young lions she nourished her whelps." "The people appears as a lioness," says Hengstenberg, "on the ground of Gen_49:9, to which passage the couching in particular refers (cf. Num_23:24 Num_24:9; Isa_29:1) because it was a royal people, of equal birth with other independent and powerful nations, as this royal nature was historically displayed, especially in.the times of David and Solomon The whelps of the mother are the sons of the King of Israel The bringing up of these among lions points to the fact that the kingdom of Israel was of equal birth with the mighty kingdoms of the heathen world." And Schroder says excellently, "That she "lay down" among the neighbouring royal states betokens majestic repose and conscious security the fearless one exciting fear by imposing power." The power and prosperity thus indicated were especially realized during the later years of the reign of David and the greater portion of that of Solomon. Of this we have evidence in 1Ch_14:17 1Ch_24:26-28 2Ch
9.
II ROYAL POSITION AND POWER ABUSED. "And she brought up one of her whelps; he became a young lion: and he learned to catch the prey, he devoured men." The young lion is intended to represent Jehoahaz, who was raised to the throne by the people. (2Ki_23:30) "He was an impious man," said Josephus, "and impure in his course of life." "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done". (2Ki_23:32) And, according to our text, during his brief reign he abused his kingly power by oppressing his subjects. Then we have the abuse of kingly power in another sovereign (vers. 5-7). It we take this as referring to Jehoiakim, it is difficult to see how it can be appropriately said that "she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion," seeing that he was raised to the throne by Pharaoh-Necho. (2Ki_23:34) But in other respects the description here given suits him well. (cf. vers. 6, 7 with 2Ki_23:35-37) Josephus says that "he was of a wicked disposition, and ready to do mischief: nor was he either religious towards God or good-natured towards men" ("Ant.," 10:5. 2). Again, if we translate ver. 7 as in the "Speaker"s Commentary," "he knew his palaces" (both Hengstenberg and Schroder translate "his" in this clause, and not "their" as in the Authorized Version), the reference to Jehoiakim becomes yet more clear; for he had a passion for building splendid edifices, and he gratified it by injustice and oppression. (Jer_22:13-19) By both these princes their position and power were wickedly abused. Rank and might should be used in accordance with the will of God and for the good of man. Kings should employ their power for the protection and prosperity of their subjects.
Since by your greatness you Are nearer heaven in place, be nearer it In goodness. Rich men should transcend the poor. As clouds the earth; raised by the comfort of The sun, to water dry and barren grounds. ( Tourneive. )
But these princes used their power for the oppression and impoverishment of their subjects.
When those whom Heaven distinguishes o"er millions, Profusely gives them honour, riches, power, Whate"er the expanded heart can wish; when they, Accepting the reward, neglect the duty, Or worse, pervert those gifts to deeds of ruin, Is there a wretch they rule so mean as they, Guilty at once of sacrilege to Heaven, And of perfidious robbery to men? (Mallet. )
III ROYAL POSITION AND POWER TAKEN AWAY. "The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt". (cf. 2Ki_23:31-34) There is here "an allusion to the custom, when the news arrives that a lion or other savage beast is committing mischief, of assembling on all sides to seize and slay it" (C.B. Michaelis). The "chains," "hooks," or "rings," by which Jehoahaz is said to have been brought into Egypt, refer to the custom of putting a ring "through the nose of animals that require to be restrained, to attach to it the bridle by which they are led, by which also their power of breathing can be lessened". (cf. 2Ki_19:28) Jehoiakim also was stripped of the power which he had abused. "The nations set against him on every side from the provinces; and they spread their net over him," etc. (vers. 8, 9). The historical explanation is given in 2Ki_24:1, 2Ki_24:2; 2Ch_36:5, 2Ch_36:6. Or, if vers. 8 and 9 be applied to Jehoiachin, we have their explanation in 2Ki_24:10-16. When kings and princes abuse their power, in the providence of God it is taken away from them. Many examples of this might he cited; as Saul, (1Sa 31) Zimri, (1Ki_16:8-20) Jehoram, (2Ch 21) Manasseh. (2Ch_33:1-11) And, as Greenhill says, "Tiberius was poisoned or smothered by his own nephew; Caligula slain by his own guard; Vitrellius was overthrown in battle, taken prisoner, and drawn with a halter about his neck along the streets, half naked, and after many outrages done unto him, he was killed and cast into the Tiber. Leander, tyrant of Cyrena, was taken alive, and being sewed into a leathern bag, was cast into the sea. Thirty tyrants were slain in one day at Athens, by Theramenes, Thrasibulus, and Archippns, who did it with seventy men." The measure they had meted unto others was measured also unto them. As they had done, so God requited them. These things call for lamentation on the part of the patriotic and the pious. When splendid opportunities are worse than neglected, and exalted position and power are grievously abused, and princes oppress their people, the wise and good do mourn. National sins and calamities should awaken the sorrow of all lovers of their God and country. W.J.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 LAMENTATION FOR THE MISERABLE FATE AWAITING THE PRINORS AND…
LAMENTATION FOR THE MISERABLE FATE AWAITING THE PRINORS AND PEOPLE OF ISRAEL (Chap. 19)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_19:1-9. The prophet foresees the capture and exile of the Princes into Egypt and Babylon. This judgment to come on Israel is described under the parable of lion’s whelps taken in a pit.
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Eze_19:1. “A lamentation.” “A dirge or elegy: a species of Hebrew poetry characteristic of the melancholy fate of those who are the subject of it, and the doleful feelings to which it gives utterance. Sometimes, as in that over Saul and Jonathan, it is exquisitely tender and pathetic. The royal personages here referred to, designated princes of Israel, were in reality those of the kingdom of Judah. They are so called because they were the only legitimate rulers of the Hebrew people. Those who had reigned over the ten tribes were, so far as the theocracy is concerned, merely usurpers.”—(Henderson.)
Eze_19:2. “Thy mother.” The mother of the people is Jerusalem (Eze_21:20; Gal_4:25). “A lioness.” “The people appear as a lioness on the ground of Gen_49:9, to which passage the couching in particular refers (comp. Num_23:24; Num_24:9; Isa_29:1), because it was a royal people, of equal birth with other independent and powerful nations, as this royal nature was historically displayed, especially in the times of David and Solomon. The highest development of this lion-nature, the true verification of Gen_49:9-10, first came to pass in the future, in the appearance of the Messiah, the Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev_5:5).—Hengstenberg. “She lay down among lions.” These lions are the other kingdoms of the world, the Gentile nations. Jerusalem—the people of Israel—lay down among them when she took her place in the family of nations (2Sa_7:9). “She nourished her whelps among young lions.” “The whelps of the mother are the sons of the King of Israel. The bringing up of these among lions points to the fact that the kingdom of Israel was of equal birth with the mighty kingdoms of the heathen world.”—(Hengstenberg).
Eze_19:3. “It learned to catch the prey; it devoured men.” “The ignoble side of the lion-nature is here brought to view. The distance, however, is not very great: there is a close connection between the two sides. By the constitution of human nature, arrogance is inseparably connected with high rank, and therewith a rude barbarity towards all who stand in the way of self-will. He only who walks with God can escape this natural consequence; and the walk of faith is not the attainment of every man. It should, however, be the attainment of every man among the people of God; and where it fails, and the corrupt nature unfolds itself without resistance, there the vengeance of God takes effect. Jehoahaz proved to be a barbarous tyrant toward his own subjects; whereas, according to its constitution, the kingdom of Israel should exhibit a heroic power against the enemies of the people of God. For this reason he was punished.” (Hengstenberg). “The thought is the following:—Why has Israel put itself upon a level with the heathen nations, and adopted the rapacious and tyrannical nature of the powers of the world? The question involves the reproof that Israel has struck out a course opposed to its divine calling, and will now have to taste the bitter fruits of this assumption of heathen ways.”—(Keil).
Eze_19:4. “And they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt.” The Heb. word means properly hooks, or rings, which were fastened in the noses of wild beasts, to which a chain or cord was attached in order to drag them about (Eze_29:4). This describes the fate of Jehoahaz, which is related in 2Ki_23:31, etc. The fetters which were fastened upon him correspond to the ring by which wild beasts were led about against their will (2Ki_19:28).
Eze_19:5. “Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost.” “While circumstances seemed to hold out some promise of the restoration of Jehoahaz, the Jewish people cherished some hope, but having been disappointed, their hope at last expired.”—(Henderson). “Then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.” This was Jehoiachin (2Ki_24:8, etc.
Eze_19:6. “And he went up and down among the lions.” Jehoiachin affected great magnificence among the kings of the earth. He was ambitious to be numbered among the great lions of the nations (Jer_22:14-15). “And learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.” Jehoiachin, to gratify his ambition was guilty of oppression and bloodshed (Jer_22:13-17).
Eze_19:7. “And he knew their desolate palaces.” Some adopt the reading, “and he knew his widows and laid waste their cities.” “The knowing denotes the practising of brutalities. His, that is, the king’s widows, are the widows whom he, as king, was bound to protect. His widows are at the same time their, the people’s, widows, the wretched and suffering. The subject is the king as a lion, as a hard and cruel man. There is an abridged comparison here: he acts towards the wretched, whom he was called on to protect, as one who injures a widow confided to his protection. The fulness of the land is that which lives and moves in it. The lion roars when he is about to rend; and this rending is to be added to the roar, as only thus the effect ascribed to the roar is explained.” (Hengstenberg). “As in Isa_13:22, the word in question is used poetically of widowed palaces, i.e,. forsaken of their inhabitants, so here ironically.” (Lange).
Eze_19:8. “The provinces.” “The provinces are the surrounding countries, as parts of the Chaldean empire; comp. 2Ki_24:2, according to which the Syrians, Ammonites, and Moabites were summoned against Jehoiakim, the father of Jehoiachin.”—(Hengstenberg).
Eze_19:9. “Brought him to the king of Babylon.” Jehoiachin was carried captive to Babylon, where, though a prisoner, he was treated with kindness by Evil-Merodach (2Ki_25:27-30).
HOMILETICS
LAMENTATION OVER ISRAEL’S FALLEN ROYALTY
This lamentation is in the poetical form. Poetry is the natural companion of man’s spirit through all the heights and depths of life and feeling. The greatest sorrows and joys must find their truest and highest expression in poetry. Hence the Book of Psalms retains its place as the hand-book of devotion for the Church of God.
I. Israel’s kings had a noble origin (Gen_49:9.) Their mother was Jerusalem—the city of God. “She lay down amongst the lions,” she took her place among the family of nations. In King David, God made of Israel a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth (2Sa_7:9). Had the chosen nation continued faithful they would have remained in peace and prosperity. The greatness of the eminence to which they had been raised by the providence of God, gives a depth of sadness to this lamentation now made over them.
II. Israel’s kings were corrupted by evil examples. The society of the great of the earth corrupted them in religion and morals (Eze_19:6-7). They learned the worst vices of kings. Monarchs have special temptations arising from their position. They have opportunity to inflict the greatest wrongs upon mankind; such as tyranny, oppression, etc. They learn to “prey” upon men, yea, to “devour” them. Men are “devoured” when they are bereft of liberty and of life by tyrants.
III. The violence and cunning of Israel’s kings provoked the same in others. The lion had learned to catch the prey, and to affright the nations by the noise of his roaring. But he was not victorious. He only stirred up among the nations the same feelings which raged within himself, and provoked revenge (Eze_19:8). The most powerful tyrants must reap the reward of their own doings. The measure they mete shall surely be measured to them again.
IV. The evil examples of Israel’s kings failed to teach the people wisdom. When they saw that their hope was gone they elected another king. This new king walked after the manner of the rest (Eze_19:5-7). The nation suffered also under him as they must do under all bad kings. His projects were wicked, violent, and wild, fitly represented by the roaring of the lion. Nations some times become so maddened that they repeat those mistakes which, as they ought to know, must plunge them in ruin.
V. God has ways to punish the most powerful princes. God uses the passions and inventions of men to punish those who commit wickedness in high places. He has chains, pits, hunters, nets, and cages for wicked kings. Often by court intrigues and by the jealousies of nations He brings them to judgment. His judgments upon such may be long delayed, but they are sure to come in the end.
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.”
God will bring tyrants to an end. At last the lions’ roaring on the mountains dies away (Eze_19:9). Sooner or later, “the wicked cease from troubling.”
(Eze_19:9)
1. The hopes of the wicked are not long-lived. They are soon dashed and disappointed. “The hope of unjust men perisheth,” and that easily and speedily (Pro_11:7). It is likened to a spider’s web or house, a little thing; a besom sweeps away the house and inhabitant together, and that in a moment: such is the hope of wicked men, it is suddenly and easily ruined. There is a difference between the hopes of the righteous and those of the wicked: “The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the expectation of the wicked shall perish” (Pro_10:28).
2. Corrupt states are so addicted to their princes that they will set them up to rule over them, though it be to their own ruin. Jerusalem, the lioness, sets “up another of her whelps, and makes it a young lion.” She put this whelp into the royal seat, and stirred him up to do lion-like, such things as did unto himself and Jerusalem also. She learned nothing by the loss of her former whelp, but proceeds in her old way, and would have lions, tyrants to be over her, she, being a lioness, very corrupt and wicked, couples with that Egyptian lion, Pharoah, and brings forth, advances a lion like themselves. The men of Shechem made Abimelech king, but he proved not only a bramble to scratch them, but a fierce and fiery lion to consume them. States had better consider whom they set over them, lest they become lions unto them.
3. Such as men live amongst and converse withal, such they prove. “He went up and down among the lions, and became a lion. Those lions he conversed with talked of making themselves great, of having their wills, of ruling by prerogative, and these things, and such like, were soon learned by this whelp. When Nebuchadnezzar was among beasts, he became brutish, and did as they did. Ill company is the Delilah that bewitches, defiles, and ruins many in their estates, bodies, and souls. David knew this, therefore he said, “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity” (Psa_6:8); and “I am a companion of them that fear thee” (Psa_119:63).
4. They who converse with wicked ones do not only become wicked, but many times they prove eminently wicked. They exceed their teachers. Jehoiachin, by his converse with lions, became not only a lion to catch the prey, but such an one as devoured men, defiled widows, made desolate palaces, laid waste cities, and the land also. He went beyond other tyrants, he was an inventor of wickedness, and profited above others in his way, and came to a perfection of iniquity. It is incident to man’s nature to outstrip one the other, if not in good, yet especially in evil.
5. Tyranny is hateful unto heathens. “Then the nations set against him on every side.” Jehoiachin was such a roaring lion that the heathens would not endure him. Doubtless the princes of the nations were tyrannous themselves, yet this man exceeded so in his tyrannical practices that he incurred the displeasure and hatred of them all. Tyrants cease to be men, and become beasts; therefore here are called lions, and are ranked among wild savage creatures; which none can endure. When there are wild beasts in a land, all are against them, and often there is a mutual agreement and concurrence to destroy them. The nations agreed to hunt and take this lion.
6. God hath times, means, ways to catch lions, to deal with covetous and cruel men. When Jehoiachin made desolate the palaces, and wasted the cities and the land; then the Lord stirred up the nations. They were His net, His pit, His instruments to take this lion withal. God wants not means to take them; He hath nations at command, and can call them forth and set them to hunt lions when he pleases (Jer_50:7. Tyrannical princes are not of long continuance. They are usually short-lived; either they lose their power, or their power and lives both. Jehoiachin roared and played the lion eleven years, and then he was taken in the pit of the nations and lost his power. So Jehoahaz before him. He tyrannized months, and then was taken. When potentates oppress and tyrannize, their ruin is at hand. God hath said, “Bloody men shall not live out half their days” (Psa_55:23). And He makes it good. “He cuts off the spirit of princes, and is terrible to the kings of the earth” (Psa_76:12).
8. God takes away wicked and tyrannical princes that it may be well with His people, that Zion may have the benefit of it. Jehoiachin was taken, chained, carried to Babylon, and put in strongholds, and why?—“that his voice should be heard no more upon the mountains of Israel;” that the people of God might not be terrrified with his roarings, nor torn with his teeth, but might enjoy freedom and safety. God, for the good of His people, destroys or drives out the wild beasts. “No lion shall be there” (Isa_35:9).—(Greenhill).
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Section 6 (Eze 19:1-14).
Section 6 (Eze 19:1-14).
The victories of the Gentiles over the line of David, so that under them Israel never obtains her hope.
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In this chapter we return to the lessons furnished by the history of the people. The prevailing of Gentile power over the line of David, spite of the promises of God given to it, is here pointed out. The hope which these promises awakened, Israel seemed not to obtain. We have not this fact merely, however, but the plain reason for it, which its very brevity makes all the more vivid. Two pictures of Israel are set side by side before us, Jerusalem and her king being the representatives of Israel; and these pictures are intended to cast light upon one another. There is a certain incongruity between them which at first sight makes the connection difficult, but which is the very point intended to be pressed. Jerusalem as the lioness among lions is the very secret of Jerusalem’s present broken-down condition as God’s vine.
The lamentation is over the princes of Israel; it is the kingdom that is before us, and the question is asked, "What was thy mother?" The answer is, "A lioness; she lay down among lions; she nourished her whelps in the midst of the young lions." She is a kingdom among the kingdoms of the earth, in a relation to them which makes her offspring as their offspring, and reproduces in them the Gentile characters. There is, truly, a Lion of the tribe of Judah; it is a title of Christ Himself, and He will arise in this character to put down all enemies at last by one decisive stroke. The book of Revelation shows us Christ after this manner, as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. When the seer looks to see this Lion, however, he sees the Lamb. These things are not incongruous or contradictory in Him. The Lamb is His true and inner character; and all the way through it is the Lamb that is upon the throne, and it is the Lamb whose wrath is dreaded. The rod of iron, to use another figure, is in His hand; but it is the Shepherd’s rod none the less. Judgment is not only in behalf of righteousness, but it is the fruit of love itself. He must manifest Himself against the enemies of His people; He must destroy those that destroy the earth.
But the lion which is spoken of here is a very different one. Indeed, Israel was nothing now but a Gentile power, with the lawlessness and selfish spirit that belongs to man in nature. Her offspring manifest this: "She brought up one of her whelps. It became a young lion, and he learned to catch prey; he devoured men." The statement is as decisive as it is short. This is not God’s picture of the "Ruler amongst men," surely. It is not David’s picture in his final song; and we see how truly he realized it when he owned that his house was "not so with God." Indeed, it was not, as the disorders already manifested plainly showed; but this being so, the rule of the line of David could not justify its existence; for even God’s promise would not do this apart from its possessing the characters of true rule, which it had not. Thus it directly follows that when "the nations heard of him, he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with hooks into the land of Egypt." It is the fate of Jehoahaz that is referred to; it is his history generalized for our consideration. What would people do with a man-eating lion? The pit and the hooks were the only right treatment for such.
But Jehoahaz is only one example out of many: "And when she saw that she had waited and her hope was lost, she took another of her whelps and made him a young lion; and he went up and down among the lions; he became a young lion, and learned to catch prey: he devoured men." We scarcely know whether it is Jehoachin who is spoken of here, or Zedekiah who replaced him. It is really of no consequence. In any case, it is but another lion’s whelp, like the former; and as the character is like, so also must be the result.
There is some further description to bring out fully the moral of the whole. The first expression is difficult, and there is some question with regard to the text. "He knew their palaces:" more strictly perhaps, "He knew their widows;" but it may mean, rather, their solitary or widowed places or palaces. Some would read it: "He broke down their palaces," which would seem to connect better with what follows. But we have to be careful in Scripture how we take what seems simplest to be the best. The general thought, however, is plain: "He laid waste their cities, and the land was desolate and its fulness" (i.e., all that was in it), "because of the noise of his roaring." His voice was evidently more pretentious than his power, but his power was enough, such as it was, to make a desolation, whereas there should have been prosperity. This repeats, therefore, only more emphatically, what was the character of these lion whelps. The consequence is that the same destruction comes upon him, only now from another side. "Then the nations set themselves against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him. He was taken in their pit, and they put him into a cage with hooks, and brought him" (this time) "to the king of Babylon. They brought him into strongholds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel." This would make it look more like Zedekiah, the last king; but in any case it is the justification of the Gentile overthrow of David’s house, and it is a complete one. It may be said, of course, that these Gentiles were none of them any better. The answer is plain, that Israel, with all her privileges and her knowledge of God, should have been better; and that the profession of this knowledge could not possibly be permitted to dishonor God, accompanied, as it was, with the full heathen character.
This ends the first picture. Now, in opposition to this, we have what Israel should have been, what it was in the mind of God according to the place in which He had set it for Himself upon the earth. Here the address is, one would say, to Zedekiah: "Thy mother like thee is as a vine planted by the waters." That seems the most probable rendering of another difficult expression. Naturally, the mother was like her offspring in character; but that is not the point here: it is place, not character; and the place of the king in Israel was to exhibit rightly the character corresponding to the place which God had given to the nation, the mass of which had departed from Him. Ezekiel, as Isaiah also, had already used the same figure, reminding us of fruitfulness as the only purpose of a vine, of its weakness and dependence. It was in this weakness that Israel would find her strength; it was in drawing from the one Source of all blessing that all her fruitfulness was to be found; and God had in Israel’s case done all that could be done in this respect. For a short time, intermittently, it was fruitful; but, by reason of many waters with which God had encompassed it, it grew strong rods for sceptres of them that bare rule, and its stature was exalted among the thick boughs, and it became conspicuous by its height with the multitude of its branches. That is all that is said as to its condition; but we have had abundance heretofore to show that, whilst in weakness she was to find strength, she turned her very blessings, alas, into instruments for her weakness.
These strong rods for sceptres were indeed conspicuous in such times as those of David and Solomon, when the kingdom stretched from the Edomite Gulf to the Euphrates; but it was at this very time that the seed was being sown of the disasters which were soon to follow. The idolatry under Solomon blasted it at once; and though God indeed bore with them in long patience, so that the history of the divided kingdom was prolonged for centuries, yet it forebode the end as a sure thing, and it came at last: "It was plucked up in fury, it was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up its fruit; its strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them." So much wood, useful for nothing else when the fruit was gone, as already shown -was proper fuel for the fire. Israel still remained, but in how different a condition! "And now it is planted in the wilderness in a dry and thirsty land, and the fire is gone out of a rod of its branches" (Zedekiah seems clearly intimated here), "it hath devoured its fruit, so that there is in it no strong rod to be a sceptre for ruling." The kingdom had passed -passed with every hope that could be grounded upon man as man. It had passed in the righteous judgment of God upon it; and yet who can forbear to mourn for the blighting? "This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation."
We have thus reached already the close of this sad history. The last section here, extended beyond what is usual, gives us the summary of it all before the final judgment, which we reach in the last chapter of this division, where the siege of the city by Nebuchadnezzar is announced as having begun, and closes therefore the first division of the prophecy.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 A Lament for the Royal House of Judah
A Lament for the Royal House of Judah
This chapter is a poem in which the measure used for a dirge or elegy is more or less traceable throughout. It describes first a lioness, two of whose whelps are successively caught and taken away from her (Eze_19:1-9), and next a vine with lofty branches, which is ruined by a fire proceeding from one of them (Eze_19:10-14). There is no doubt that the branch from which destruction spreads to the vine is Zedekiah. The vine itself may be the nation of Israel, or the royal house, or the mother of Zedekiah. There are two interpretations of the first allegory. The lioness is usually understood to be the nation or the royal family in general, and the two whelps to be Shallum and Jehoiachin. But some take the lioness to be Hamutal, one of the wives of Josiah, and the whelps to be her two sons, Shallum and Zedekiah.
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2. Thy mother] Hamutal, whom some suppose to be meant here, was one of the wives of Josiah, and the mother of Shallum (or Jehoahaz) and Zedekiah (2Ki_23:31; 2Ki_24:18). Jehoiakim, the other son of Josiah who became king, had a different mother (2Ki_23:36).
3, 4. One of her whelps, etc.] Jehoahaz, or Shallum, the youngest son of Josiah (1Ch_3:15), was set on the throne by the people after his father's death, but after reigning three months he was deposed and carried away captive to Egypt by Pharaoh-Necho (2Ki_23:30-34; 2Ch_36:1-4). His fate is lamented in Jer_22:10-12.
5-9 Another of her whelps, etc.] Either Jehoiachin or Zedekiah. Jehoiachin was a grandson of Josiah, who came to the throne as a youth and was carried captive to BabyIon in 597 b.c. after a reign of three months (2Ki_24:8-16; 2Ch_36:9-10). Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, was a son of Josiah and Hamutal. He succeeded his nephew Jehoiachin, and was carried captive to Babylon in 586 b.c.: see. Intro. The high terms in which the second whelp is spoken of do not agree well with Ezekiel's estimate of Zedekiah in Ezekiel 17.
9. In ward in chains] RV 'in a cage with hoops.' Lion cages are represented on the monuments.
10. Thy mother] The language in this allegory is much more applicable to the nation than to Hamutal. In thy blood] a meaningless phrase. Perhaps we should read with RM 'in thy likeness.'
11. Strong rods for the sceptres] a double figure. The rods represent both the kings and their sceptres.
12, 13. These vv. describe the final destruction and captivity of Judah.
14. Out of a rod, etc.] Zedekiah's rebellion was the cause of the ruin of the nation.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Over The Kings
Over The Kings
v. 1. Moreover, take thou up a lamentation, an elegy, for the princes of Israel, evidently the kings then living, namely, Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin,
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v. 2. and say, What is thy mother? the address here referring to the house of David in general, specifically to Jerusalem, as capital of the nation. A lioness, royal, powerful, with the nature of a lion; she lay down among lions, as the equal of all the mighty nations round about; she nourished her whelps among young lions, instilling into them all the cruelty of a beast of prey.
v. 3. And she brought up one of her whelps, namely, Jehoahaz, son of Josiah; it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men, having developed in kingly power until he abused it to the detriment of his people.
v. 4. The nations also heard of him, their attention being called to him by his increasing daring and by his depredations; he was taken in their pit, in this case in that of Egypt, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt, for Pharaoh deposed him and led him into captivity in Egypt, where he died. Cf 2Ki 23:33-34.
v. 5. Now, when she saw that she had waited and her hope was lost, that is, "while she waited, her hope had perished," so far as this one whelp was concerned, then she took another of her whelps and made him a young lion, in this instance Jehoiachin, for Jehoiakim hardly comes into consideration.
v. 6. And he went up and down among the lions, trying to imitate the recklessness and the tyranny of the surrounding kings; he became a young lion and learned to catch the prey and devoured men, thus following in the footsteps of other rulers of Judah who chose their own way.
v. 7. And he knew their desolate palaces, or, "he defiled their widows," taking advantage of their helplessness, and he laid waste their cities, so that his tyrannical behavior ruined his own country; and the land was desolate and the fullness thereof, that is, all it contained, by the noise of his roaring, as he pursued his cruel course.
v. 8. Then the nations set against him on every side, chiefly the Chaldeans, Syrians, Moab, and Ammon, 2Ki 24:2, from the provinces, marching tip against Judah with their armies, and spread their net over him, like a hunter capturing an animal; he was taken in their pit.
v. 9. And they put him in ward in chains, 2Ch 36:10, and brought him to the king of Babylon; they brought him into holds, into one of the fortresses or strongholds of the country, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel, so that he could not continue his insolent and cruel tactics. The Lord has ways by which He curbs the pride of man’s heart, if necessary, by measures of the most strenuous kind.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 5, 8 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh tells Ezekiel to speak to the people of Israel. He tells a story where the nation of Israel is a lioness and some of the past kings in the kingdom of Judah are her cubs. (See: Metaphor)
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take up a lamentation
This idiom means to sing a lamentation. AT: "sing a lamentation" (See: Idiom)
Who was your mother?
Yahweh asks this ask a leading question in order to introduce the answer. AT: "This is who your mother is." (See: Rhetorical Question)
lioness
a female lion
He was caught in their trap
This can be stated in active form. AT: "They caught him in their trap" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
lament
Israel
lions
son
devour
nation
Egypt
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 5, 8 19:1-14 An ancient Near Eastern funeral song had a…
19:1-14 An ancient Near Eastern funeral song had a distinctive rhythm and style and usually extolled the virtues of the person who had died, contrasting past glory with the current loss. In this case, those being lamented were not yet dead, and the dirge contained a catalogue of their faults. This dirge profoundly communicated the certainty of their fate and the reasons for it. • The lion (19:2-9) and the vine (19:10-14) were familiar images for the princes of Israel, the royal dynasty of Judah.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.