Ezekiel 19King James Version
A lament for the princes of Israel. The lioness and her cubs. The young lion that was caught and taken to Egypt. The second cub taken to Babylon. Then the mother, the vine, plucked up and withered. One of the last songs for the royal house.
A lament for the princes of Israel told in two images: a lioness raises a cub that becomes a man-eating lion, carried off in chains to Egypt; she raises another that destroys cities, then is caged and taken to Babylon. Second image: a vine planted by waters, strong and fruitful, but now plucked up, the east wind drying it and fire consuming it. The lament mourns the extinction of the royal line.
Power that turns to violence destroys itself: two kings given every advantage become prey in the end, and the vine that towered above is stripped bare.
14: "And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation." The last line confirms the genre: this is not prophecy but funeral music.
Around 591 BC. Jehoahaz was deposed after three months and died in Egypt. Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon in 597 BC. Zedekiah was still reigning in Jerusalem but already compromised. Ezekiel's lament is premature by some historical measures but accurate in its assessment: the royal line is effectively over.
The mother lioness as Judah; two lion cubs as King Jehoahaz (taken to Egypt in 609 BC) and King Jehoiachin or Zedekiah; the vine also representing the royal line.
The lament form is used only here and in chapter 27 for Tyre and chapter 32 for Pharaoh among Ezekiel's oracles. Its use for Judah's kings signals something important: Ezekiel can hold grief and judgment at the same time. The extinction of the Davidic ruling line in practice is being mourned even as it is being interpreted as deserved.
For when something that had great potential has ended badly and the ending deserves grief, not just analysis. The chapter gives permission to mourn the lost potential of what could have been.
1Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
2And say, What is thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.
3And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men.
4The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt.
5Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.
6And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.
7And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, by the noise of his roaring.
8Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, 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: they brought him into holds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.
10Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.
11And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.
12But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.
13And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.
14And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.