“Now 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.
And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion.
And he learned to catch the prey. He devoured men.
And he humbled (or ‘knew' - the root yth‘ can mean either as we know from Ugarit) their palaces, and laid waste their cities,
And the land was desolate, and the fullness of it,
Because of the noise of his roaring.
Then the nations set against him on every side, from the provinces,
And they spread their net over him, he was taken in their pit,
And they put him in a cage with hooks, and brought him to the king of Babylon.
They brought him into strongholds, that his voice should no more be heard,
On the mountains of Israel.”
Jehoahaz was succeeded by Jehoiakim, who reigned for eleven years, but he is ignored for he does not illustrate the point of the disaster that came on their princes. Thus the next prince in mind is Jehoiachin. He is described as being powerful and trained up in war, and some of his exploits prior to becoming king are indicated, even though he was only eighteen years old when he began to reign.
Again he only reigned for three months, for he took the throne while Nebuchadnezzar was attacking Jerusalem due to his father's refusal of tribute, and yielded it to Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 24:8-15). He was still rated as king in Babylon and we have archaeological evidence concerning the rations of his household there (2 Kings 25:27-30), where he is referred to as ‘Ya'u-kinu, -- king of the land of Yahudu'.
‘Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost.' Judah had ‘waited' in a brief hope that God would step in and give them victory, either by the return of Jehoahaz from Egypt, which never happened, or through Jehoiakim, but she soon realised that there was no hope in either of them. ‘Her hope was lost'. Thus they looked to the young Jehoiachin as their future deliverer.
‘Then 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 he learned to catch the prey. He devoured men. And he knew (or ‘humbled') their palaces, and laid waste their cities, And the land was desolate, and the fullness of it, because of the noise of his roaring.'
Jehoiachin was a warlike young man and gained a certain local reputation, raising hopes. The result of his warlikeness was devastation for his neighbours' land. But he quickly turned out not to be the expected deliverer.
‘Then the nations set against him on every side, from the provinces, and they spread their net over him, he was taken in their pit, and they put him in a cage with hooks, and brought him to the king of Babylon. They brought him into strongholds, that his voice should no more be heard, on the mountains of Israel.' Like Jehoahaz before him he was attacked by forces of a foreign king, this time loyal to Nebuchadnezzar, hunted down like a lion, captured and handed over to a king, but this time it was the king of Babylon. He was no more a free man ‘on the mountains of Israel'. There may be an indication here of his idolatry (see Ezekiel 6:3-5). The word rendered ‘cage' may also mean ‘prisoner's neck band'.
So the mighty princes of Israel had proved a disappointment, and all Ezekiel and the people could do was sing a song of despair and lament over them. It was a reminder that Israel-Judah was a small nation and without God's protecting hand could do nothing against the wider world.