Two Metaphors, One Lesson
Ezekiel 19:1-14
We left chapter 18 with the clear and powerful truth that each of us is responsible for our own actions.
We are not tied inexplicably to the sins of our father or mother.
We have a just and holy God, Whose desire was expressed most significantly in the last verse:
Ezekiel 18:32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
God wants us to live under the blessings of righteousness rather than the penalties of sin.
Our prophet Ezekiel is God's man sent to Judah and Israel with what has been at times a severe message of judgment.
However, we have seen at the edge of each dark cloud of judgment a silver lining of hope and bright rays of mercy and love from Heaven.
This morning we will be reading chapter 19, in which there are two intriguing metaphors to communicate God's predictions concerning the nation of Judah.
READ TEXT
Ezekiel 19:1 ¶ 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, 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.
PRAY
On the face of it, the passage we have just read may seem a little dark.
However, upon closer examination and deeper study, we learn how relevant and powerful God's word for His people really was.
Remember that the prophecy we have just read was given to the people before any of it took place.
It was a prediction and a warning of coming events.
Let's take a look:
Right away, we are given notice that the theme of the passage is a lamentation - that is a sad statement, a mournful cry if you will.
Particularly, the sadness is regarding the leadership, the princes, of the nation.
Then, the first metaphor is laid out for us:
The nation of Judah and the city of Jerusalem in particular is the lioness in Verse 2.
Notice what is said of her in that verse.
The first thing is that she is laying down among the lions.
What does this mean?
Judah had become comfortable among the worldly nations and was learning the ways of the world and even raising the next generation according to the standards and customs of the world.
We get the idea that the hope of the nation, its youth and upcoming leadership, has been squandered on the ways of the world.
What kind of men will come from this sort of compromise?
Can we allow our children to sit in the seat of the scornful, watch their parents strive to be like the world and be nourished by the entertainment venues of a worldly system and expect them to not be affected by this?
Verse 3 shows us what kind of leader this compromise produced.
The lioness's whelp grew into a violent young man who had a penchant for hurting people.
Verse 4 reveals that the prince of Judah, Jehoahaz, had gained a reputation in his short reign for being violent and threatening.
The King of Egypt, Pharaoh Nechoh, sent his armies in to capture Jehoahaz and take him to Egypt.
2Kings 23:33 And Pharaohnechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.
King Jehoahaz died in chains in a foreign land because he wouldn't be the kind of leader that God wanted him to be.
As we see in the next verse of our text, Judah produced another ruler.
Unfortunately, as Verse 6 shows, Jehoiachim's first order of business was to look at the leadership of the nations around him and learn from their wicked ways.
He also became a menace and grew only in his ability to oppress his own people.
Verse 7 reveals a leader who was bent on destruction and produced nothing but desolation during his oppressive regime.
All the land was filled with his roaring.
He ruled for 11 years before the world could stand him no longer.
We see in Verse 8 that all the nations came together to take Jehoiachim in a trap.
In Verse 9 they put this troublesome king in chains and threw him into a dungeon in Babylon, never to bother his own country again.
From this first metaphor we learn an important lesson:
Compromise in child rearing produces leadership failures.
Now we get into the second metaphor in our text.
The nation is now likened to a vine.
Remember that the picture of Israel as a vine always emphasizes the personal relationship that God has with his people.
In Verse 10 we see the great advantage that God had given His nation.
She was planted by the waters, most likely this is in reference to the well watered lands of Canaan.
She did grow strong at first, and as shown in Verse 11, she produced the means by which a king could rule her faithfully.
Such is the blessing of God upon a nation that He loves and upon a people that He loves.
God puts us in an advantaged position today:
> with the water of the word in such close proximity and within our grasp,
> with the person of the Holy Spirit as our advisor, teacher, comforter, leader and guide,
> and with all the blessings of this church age in which we live.
We can grow into a people that produces powerful leaders that will point many to God.
The nation of God's choosing in the Old Testament, however, did not maintain that close relationship with God that was necessary to flourish as a vine.
God was not pleased with His people and Verse 12 shows that in His fury God Himself plucked her out of the ground and cast her down.
This was the final prediction that Babylon would come and ravage the kingdom of Israel.
Suddenly, what was full of potential was fruitless and dry.
Suddenly, what used to have such a plethora of leadership capability was devoid of any leadership at all.
Verse 13 predicts the carrying away of the Jewish nation into Babylon, which did take place in 586 BC.
To a nation that had once enjoyed the blessings of a close relationship with God, Babylon was indeed a dry and thirsty ground.
When we turn away from our abiding relationship with Him, we turn from the refreshing nourishment of the True Vine to a wilderness that is dry and barren.
Verse 14 wraps up the prophecy with a specific prediction that one of the rulers from Jerusalem, this is Zedekiah, would be the instrument of disaster that God would use to drag a nation into captivity.
While this passage may seem sad, and a lamentation it is, it is clear that we can take from it a positive lesson:
Compromise in our personal relationship with God produces enslavement, barrenness and destruction.
The two metaphors of this chapter remind us of the price of compromise in our family and in our personal walk with God.
Let us determine that we will not compromise.
> We will not raise our children in the ways and customs of this world.
> We will not be dragged away from an abiding relationship with God.
If you are here today and you have never accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, let me challenge you to enter into a relationship that has all the potential of this life and eternity.
Then you can enjoy the blessings of a life without compromise.
Ezekiel 19:1-14
We left chapter 18 with the clear and powerful truth that each of us is responsible for our own actions.
We are not tied inexplicably to the sins of our father or mother.
We have a just and holy God, Whose desire was expressed most significantly in the last verse:
Ezekiel 18:32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
God wants us to live under the blessings of righteousness rather than the penalties of sin.
Our prophet Ezekiel is God's man sent to Judah and Israel with what has been at times a severe message of judgment.
However, we have seen at the edge of each dark cloud of judgment a silver lining of hope and bright rays of mercy and love from Heaven.
This morning we will be reading chapter 19, in which there are two intriguing metaphors to communicate God's predictions concerning the nation of Judah.
READ TEXT
Ezekiel 19:1 ¶ 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, 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.
PRAY
On the face of it, the passage we have just read may seem a little dark.
However, upon closer examination and deeper study, we learn how relevant and powerful God's word for His people really was.
Remember that the prophecy we have just read was given to the people before any of it took place.
It was a prediction and a warning of coming events.
Let's take a look:
Right away, we are given notice that the theme of the passage is a lamentation - that is a sad statement, a mournful cry if you will.
Particularly, the sadness is regarding the leadership, the princes, of the nation.
Then, the first metaphor is laid out for us:
The nation of Judah and the city of Jerusalem in particular is the lioness in Verse 2.
Notice what is said of her in that verse.
The first thing is that she is laying down among the lions.
What does this mean?
Judah had become comfortable among the worldly nations and was learning the ways of the world and even raising the next generation according to the standards and customs of the world.
We get the idea that the hope of the nation, its youth and upcoming leadership, has been squandered on the ways of the world.
What kind of men will come from this sort of compromise?
Can we allow our children to sit in the seat of the scornful, watch their parents strive to be like the world and be nourished by the entertainment venues of a worldly system and expect them to not be affected by this?
Verse 3 shows us what kind of leader this compromise produced.
The lioness's whelp grew into a violent young man who had a penchant for hurting people.
Verse 4 reveals that the prince of Judah, Jehoahaz, had gained a reputation in his short reign for being violent and threatening.
The King of Egypt, Pharaoh Nechoh, sent his armies in to capture Jehoahaz and take him to Egypt.
2Kings 23:33 And Pharaohnechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.
King Jehoahaz died in chains in a foreign land because he wouldn't be the kind of leader that God wanted him to be.
As we see in the next verse of our text, Judah produced another ruler.
Unfortunately, as Verse 6 shows, Jehoiachim's first order of business was to look at the leadership of the nations around him and learn from their wicked ways.
He also became a menace and grew only in his ability to oppress his own people.
Verse 7 reveals a leader who was bent on destruction and produced nothing but desolation during his oppressive regime.
All the land was filled with his roaring.
He ruled for 11 years before the world could stand him no longer.
We see in Verse 8 that all the nations came together to take Jehoiachim in a trap.
In Verse 9 they put this troublesome king in chains and threw him into a dungeon in Babylon, never to bother his own country again.
From this first metaphor we learn an important lesson:
Compromise in child rearing produces leadership failures.
Now we get into the second metaphor in our text.
The nation is now likened to a vine.
Remember that the picture of Israel as a vine always emphasizes the personal relationship that God has with his people.
In Verse 10 we see the great advantage that God had given His nation.
She was planted by the waters, most likely this is in reference to the well watered lands of Canaan.
She did grow strong at first, and as shown in Verse 11, she produced the means by which a king could rule her faithfully.
Such is the blessing of God upon a nation that He loves and upon a people that He loves.
God puts us in an advantaged position today:
> with the water of the word in such close proximity and within our grasp,
> with the person of the Holy Spirit as our advisor, teacher, comforter, leader and guide,
> and with all the blessings of this church age in which we live.
We can grow into a people that produces powerful leaders that will point many to God.
The nation of God's choosing in the Old Testament, however, did not maintain that close relationship with God that was necessary to flourish as a vine.
God was not pleased with His people and Verse 12 shows that in His fury God Himself plucked her out of the ground and cast her down.
This was the final prediction that Babylon would come and ravage the kingdom of Israel.
Suddenly, what was full of potential was fruitless and dry.
Suddenly, what used to have such a plethora of leadership capability was devoid of any leadership at all.
Verse 13 predicts the carrying away of the Jewish nation into Babylon, which did take place in 586 BC.
To a nation that had once enjoyed the blessings of a close relationship with God, Babylon was indeed a dry and thirsty ground.
When we turn away from our abiding relationship with Him, we turn from the refreshing nourishment of the True Vine to a wilderness that is dry and barren.
Verse 14 wraps up the prophecy with a specific prediction that one of the rulers from Jerusalem, this is Zedekiah, would be the instrument of disaster that God would use to drag a nation into captivity.
While this passage may seem sad, and a lamentation it is, it is clear that we can take from it a positive lesson:
Compromise in our personal relationship with God produces enslavement, barrenness and destruction.
The two metaphors of this chapter remind us of the price of compromise in our family and in our personal walk with God.
Let us determine that we will not compromise.
> We will not raise our children in the ways and customs of this world.
> We will not be dragged away from an abiding relationship with God.
If you are here today and you have never accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, let me challenge you to enter into a relationship that has all the potential of this life and eternity.
Then you can enjoy the blessings of a life without compromise.
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