Ezekiel 19:14 - Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

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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 (Ezekiel 19:1-9), and next a vine with lofty branches, which is ruined by a fire proceeding from one of them (Ezekiel 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.

Related Commentaries of Ezekiel 19:1

Ezekiel 19:1-14

1 Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

2 And say, What is thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.

3 And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men.

4 The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt.

5 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.

6 And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.

7 And 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.

8 Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him: he was taken in their pit.

9 And they put him in ward in chains,a 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.

10 Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.

11 And 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.

12 But 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.

13 And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.

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.