a word · noun, common masculine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֖הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
saying
לֵאמֹֽרle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 17:1-21
We must take all these verses together, that we may have the parable and the explanation of it at one view before us, because they will illustrate one another. 1. The prophet is appointed to put forth a riddle to the house of Israel (Eze 17:2), not to puzzle them, as Samson's riddle was put forth to the Philistines, not to hide the mind of God from them in obscurity, or to leave them in uncertainty about it, one advancing one conjecture and another another, as is usual in expounding riddles; no, he is immediately to tell them the meaning of it. Let him that speaks in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret, Co1 14:13. But he must deliver this message in a riddle or parable that they mig…
being planted--that is, "though planted."
east wind--The east wind was noxious to vegetation in Palestine; a fit emblem of Babylon, which came from the northeast.
wither in . . . furrows where it grew--Zedekiah was taken at Jericho, on Jewish soil (Jer 52:8). "It shall wither, although it has furrows from which it expects continual waterings" [CALVIN], (Eze 19:12; Hos 13:15).
Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 17:10
Shall - utterly whither - The regal government shall be no more restored. Zedekiah shall be the last king, and the monarchy shall finally terminate with him.
John Gill on Ezekiel 17:11
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. Here follows the explanation of the above riddle and parable, which the prophet from the Lord had orders to deliver.
John Calvin on Ezekiel 17:11-16
Ezekiel 17:11-16
11. Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
11. Et fuit sermo Iehovae ad me, dicendo,
12. Say now to the rebellious house, Know ye not what these things mean? tell them, Behold the king of Babylon is come to Jerusalem, and hath taken the king thereof, and the princes thereof, and led them with him to Babylon;
12. Dic quaeso, [179] domui rebelli [180] an non cognoscitis quid hoc sit? dic, Ecce venit rex Babylonis Hierosolymam, et abstulit regem ejus, et proceres ejus, et adduxit eos ad se Babylonem.
13. And hath taken of the king's seed, and made a covenant with him, and hath taken an oath of him: he hath also taken the mighty of the land:
13. Et sumpsit e s…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 11 and following) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Say to the rebellious house: Do you not know what these things mean? Say: Behold, the king of Babylon is coming to Jerusalem. He will take the king and his princes and bring them to Babylon. And he will take one of the royal offspring, make a covenant with him, and take an oath from him. He will also take away the mighty of the land, so that the kingdom will be humble and not exalted, but will keep his covenant and obey it. When he departs from there, he sends messengers to Egypt, to give him horses and a great population. Will he prosper? Will he escape the one who does these things? Can anyone who breaks a covenant escape? As I live, declares the Lord God, surely in the place where the king who made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant with him he broke, in Babylon he shall die. Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company will not help him in war, when mounds are cast up and siege walls built to cut off many lives. For he despised the oath to break the covenant. And behold, he stretched out his hand, and when he has done all these things, he shall not escape. This is the riddle, this is the parable, which the Scripture showed under the two eagles and the vine, the two kings of Babylon and Egypt; and King Zedekiah, who, against his oath, abandoned the friendship of Nebuchadnezzar and transferred himself to the king of Egypt. He shall strike a covenant with him, and he shall take an oath to him, to keep his pact and observe it. He who breaks a covenant, it is said, will not escape. From this we learn that even amongst enemies, faith must be kept, and it is not important to whom you swore, but through whom. For he who believed in you because of the name of God, and was deceived by you, who, taking advantage of the divine majesty, plotted against your enemy, or rather your friend, has proven to be much more faithful. For, as it is said, in the place of the king who made him king, whose oath he made void, and broke the covenant he had with him, he will die in the midst of Babylon. For we read that Sedecias was captured, brought to Reblatha, and there his sons were killed and he was blinded like a wild animal enclosed in a cage, and then taken to Babylon (4 Kings 25). Therefore, Scripture, although it may seem contradictory to itself, is nonetheless very true in both…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Pharaoh — The official title borne by the Egyptian kings down to the time when that country was conquered by the Greeks. (See EGYPT.) The name is a compound, as some think, of the words Ra, the “sun” or…
Riddle — (Heb. hodah). The oldest and, strictly speaking, the only example of a riddle was that propounded by Samson (Judg. 14:12-18). The parabolic prophecy in Ezek. 17:2-18 is there called a “riddle.” It…
Babylon · Revolt of the Jews from, and their punishment illustrated — Revolt of the Jews from, and their punishment illustrated
Prophecy · .Ezekiel — .Ezekiel
Zedekiah · .Forms an alliance with the king of Egypt — .Forms an alliance with the king of Egypt
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Interpretation of the Riddle
Eze 17:11. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 17:12. Say to the refractory race: Do ye not know what this is? Say, Behold, the king of Babel came to Jerusalem and took its king and its princes, and brought them to himself to Babel. Eze 17:13. And he took of the royal seed, and made a covenant with him, and caused him to enter into an oath; and he took the strong ones of the land: Eze 17:14. That it might be a lowly kingdom, not to lift itself up, that he might keep his covenant, that it might stand. Eze 17:15. But he rebelled against him by sending his messengers to Egypt, that it might give him horses and much people. Will he prosper? will he that h…
The first eagle was Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The cedar sprig was Jehoiachin, who was carried off to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. The replacement that grew into a low vine was Zedekiah, and the second eagle was Egypt, from whom Zedekiah was seeking help in his bid to break free of the Babylonians. The hot east wind of judgment blew from Babylon, uprooting and withering Jerusalem. • The image of the eagle that spared no effort in providing for the vine seems to describe God’s care for Israel more than Nebuchadnezzar’s concern for Zedekiah. These connections point us to a fundamental analogy between Zedekiah’s rebellion against his overlord, Nebuchadnezzar, and Israel’s rebellion against…
And behold now it is planted as they wished.
will it prosper Is it possible that it will prosper, this one that betrayed the one who planted it originally?
