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Israel Degraded

As for you, raise up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, ²and say:

What a lioness was your mother

among lions!

She lay down among young lions,

rearing her cubs.

She raised up one of her cubs;

he became a young lion,

and he learned to catch prey;

he devoured humans.

The nations sounded an alarm against him;

he was caught in their pit;

and they brought him with hooks

to the land of Egypt.

When she saw that she was thwarted,

that her hope was lost,

she took another of her cubs

and made him a young lion.

He prowled among the lions;

he became a young lion,

and he learned to catch prey;

he devoured people.

And he ravaged their strongholds,

and laid waste their towns;

the land was appalled, and all in it,

at the sound of his roaring.

The nations set upon him

from the provinces all around;

they spread their net over him;

he was caught in their pit.

With hooks they put him in a cage,

and brought him to the king of Babylon;

they brought him into custody,

so that his voice should be heard no more

on the mountains of Israel.

Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard

transplanted by the water,

fruitful and full of branches

from abundant water.

Its strongest stem became

a ruler’s scepter;

it towered aloft

among the thick boughs;

it stood out in its height

with its mass of branches.

But it was plucked up in fury,

cast down to the ground;

the east wind dried it up;

its fruit was stripped off,

its strong stem was withered;

the fire consumed it.

Now it is transplanted into the wilderness,

into a dry and thirsty land.

And fire has gone out from its stem,

has consumed its branches and fruit,

so that there remains in it no strong stem,

no scepter for ruling.

This is a lamentation, and it is used as a lamentation.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Here the Prophet, under the image of a lion, informs us that whatever evils happened to the Israelites could not be imputed to others. We must understand then his intention: it is not surprising that the Spirit of God insists on a matter not very obscure, since nothing is more obstinate than the pride of men, especially when God chastises them, although they pretend to humility and modesty, yet they swell with pride and are full of bitterness, and, lastly, they can scarcely be induced to confess God to be just, and that they deserve chastisement at his hand. For this reason, therefore, Ezekiel confirms what we formerly saw, that the Jews were not afflicted without deserving it. But he uses, as I have said, a simile taken from lions. He calls the nation itself a lioness: for when he treats of the mother of the people, we know that the offspring is considered. He says, therefore, that the people was full of insolence. The comparison to a lion is sometimes taken in a good sense, as when Moses uses it of the tribe of Judea, as a lion’s whelp shall he lie down, (Genesis 49:9,) a, phrase used in a good sense. But here Ezekiel denotes cruelty, as if he had said that all the Jews were fierce and savage beasts. For under the name of mother, as I said, he embraces the whole nation. At the beginning he orders his Prophet to take up a mournful wailing: for thus I interpret the word קינה, kineh, but there is in my judgment an indirect opposition between this lamentation which God dictated to them by his Prophet, and the common complaints which sounded constantly from their tongues. For when their condition was not only ruinous, but utterly deplorable, they made many groanings and bewailings. But at the same time no one extended his thoughts beyond the pressure of present evils they all exclaimed that they were wretched, but no one was anxious to inquire why they were so or whence their miseries arose; nay, they avoided this contemplation. The Prophet then indirectly reproves them, by stating that this mournful complaint was suggested by God, but yet was very different from that ordinary lamentation and howling in which the Jews stopped at blind grief, and never inquired why God was so hostile to them. Take up, therefore, a lamentation, says he, regarding or against the princes of Israel. In this way God does not excuse the people from blame, he only means that not only the common people were lost, but the very flower of the nation and all who were held in honor.

He says next, that their mother lay down among lions, alluding to the people’s origin from lions, as we said before, when the Prophet calls Judea the descendant of Canaan, and the sister of Sodom and Samaria. When he now says, their mother lay down among lions, he means that they were shamefully mixed with the corruption of the Gentiles, so that they did not differ from them. But God had chosen them as his peculiar people on the very condition of being separate from all the filth of the Gentiles. There was, therefore, a certain withdrawing of God’s favor when the mother of the people lay down among the lions, that is, when they all promiscuously gave themselves up to the perverse morals and superstitions of the Gentiles. He says, that she brought up whelps, or young lions, which she produced to these lions; since their origin was impure, being all Abraham’s children, but, as I have said, a degenerate race. He afterwards adds, that the lion’s whelp, or young lion, grew up till it became a lion: then it learnt to seize prey, says he, and to devour men. He refers to King Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, (2 Kings 23:30-32:) but he had before asserted that the whole people had a lion’s disposition, and that the princes, who were more exalted, were like whelps. As only one lion is here brought forward, it ought to be referred to the violence by which that wicked king manifested his real disposition. But if it be asked whence the lion went forth, the reply is, from amidst his brethren, for they were all lions’ whelps, or young lions. They could not administer the government either together or singly, but each devoured his brother, and was devoted to robbery and rapine. The king only, because freed from all fear, could surpass the rest in rapine and robbery with impunity. We see, then, that not only the king was here condemned, but that he becomes the type of the whole nation; because, since no one could restrain his passions, he could rob and devour mankind with unbridled freedom.