Ezekiel 17:3 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bible Comments

A great eagle ... - Probably the golden eagle, whose plumage has the variety of color here depicted. The eagle (the king of birds) is a natural representative of monarchs (compare, Jeremiah 48:40), and was an Assyrian emblem.

With great wings, Iongwinged - literally, “great of wing, long of pinion,” because he has swept victoriously over widely distant lands - of divers colors, because his subjects are of various races and tongues. Jerusalem is here called “Lebanon” because Lebanon is the proper home of the cedar. The “highest branch” or “topshoot” is Jeconiah, the rightful king of Jerusalem, the “young twigs” are his children and the princes carried by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon.

Ezekiel 17:3

3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; A great eagle with great wings, longwinged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar: