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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 Ezekiel places before our eyes the twofold state of the Jews, that they may acknowledge themselves fallen into extreme misery, because they had provoked God. For they did not sufficiently consider their present state, unless the former dignity and happiness with which they were adorned was brought to their remembrance. Now, in some way they had grown callous to all evils: although scarcely anything remained safe but Jerusalem, they did not look back, but were just as wanton as when their affairs were prosperous. Since they had not yet been humbled by so many slaughters, the Prophet, therefore, on the one hand, reminds them of their former condition, and then shows them how they had fallen. This comparison, then, thought to prick their consciences sharply, that they may at length feel that God was hostile to them. We now understand the Prophet’s intention in saying, that the people’s mother was at first like a flourishing and fruit-bearing vine. It is not surprising that he says, the vine was planted near the waters: for there the vines do not require lofty and dry situations, as in cold climates, but rather seek their nourishment from water, as we gather from many passages of Scripture. The Prophet, therefore, stays, that the people at, the beginning was like a vine planted in a mild and choice situation. He says, that the vine was flourishing, or branching, and fruitful, since it drew its juices from the waters.

Respecting the word “blood,” I think those who take it for vigor are mistaken; it rather refers to birth: he says, the mother of the people in her blood, that is, in bringing forth the people. Thus Ezekiel recalls the Jews to their first origin, as we previously saw the word used in this sense. When you was in thy blood, meaning, when you was born, as we know this to be the state of the young offspring, as the metaphor was explained in the sixteenth chapter. Live in thy blood, said God, (Ezekiel 16:6,) since the Jews were still defiled through not being cleansed from pollution. In fine, blood is taken for birth, as if it had been said, that the Jews, when first brought to light, were planted so as to take root, since God led them into the land of Canaan. Here he says they were brought to light when God restored them. He omits the intervening space of time which we saw elsewhere, because he passes directly from the end to the beginning. On the whole, he means that the Jews at their nativity were placed in the land of Canaan, which was very fruitful, so that they should bring forth their own fruit, that is, spend their time happily, and enjoy an abundance of all things. Now we understand the meaning of the phrase, the mother of the people was planted near the waters, as a flourishing and fruitful vine