Ezekiel 17
When Jesus taught He often used parables. He was not the first person to do this. Some of the Old Testament prophets used parables in their teaching. What was unique about Jesus’ teaching is that many of His parables were spoken without any explanation of the riddles that they contained. Others were explained only to His closest disciples. The crowd was left wondering about the meaning of the story. This method of teaching was a form of judgment speech, where God chose to conceal His message from the rebellious nation, since they had hardened their hearts, and would not listen to Him.
In the case of Ezekiel 17 we are given a judgment story against the people of God, but the story is explained. There is a great eagle who comes and takes something from the top of a tall cedar tree. He takes the topmost of its twigs and takes it far away to a land of trade. He also takes a seed of the land and plants in the home soil, not in the land of trade. That seed does very well, becoming a spreading vine. The vine grows and begins to bend its roots and shoot forth its branches to a second great eagle, different from the first one.
The question is posed: Will this vine thrive? We had been told that the vine was doing very well. We might have thought that it certainly would survive. Instead, the answer to the question seems angry, as if someone powerful has been insulted. Who was insulted? Was it the first eagle, jealous over the vine’s interest in the second eagle? Is there some other figure who is concerned about this vine and this land? In any case, it appears from the way the questions are asked that this vine has done something horribly wrong and presumptuous by going off to the second eagle. It will easily be pulled up from its roots. There is no word in the story itself about what happened to the first twig mentioned earlier that was taken from the very top of the cedar tree. We do not yet know what the fate of that plant will be, only that it was taken away to a land of trade.
If this were one of Jesus’ parables we would perhaps be left to wonder, but here God gives the interpretation of the story to Ezekiel who communicates it as a part of his prophecy. The king of
While the angry party in the story could easily be the Babylonian king, it appears likely that we should look beyond the human instrument of judgment to God Himself. God declares His intentions using the words “as I live” to express His own solemn commitment to overturn the rebellion of Zedekiah, who was the official left in the land. God was the one using the Babylonians as agents of discipline against His people. An appeal to
As the Lord’s speech continues it becomes very clear that the ultimate problem that the people of
We might have though that this could be the end of the story for now, but the Lord returns to the detail of the sprig taken from the top of the cedar tree. Somehow from that twig will come a great tree that the Lord will plant on a high and lofty mountain. That tree will be like the one that Jesus speaks about in the parable of the mustard seed. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” The Lord does not explain this little story to us in Matthew 13. We are not even told whether the details in the parable are to be thought of as good or bad.
It is very surprising in our Old Testament story of judgment from Ezekiel 17 that we are ending with a note of hope in a detail about a coming kingdom tree. There will be a descendant of the King of Judah, the one brought off to
posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM
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