Ezekiel 19
Lions of Judah captured
Royal lions of Judah
1Human, here’s what I want you to do. Deliver this funeral song [1] to leaders of Israel: [2]2Your mother [3] was a lioness
A queen among the lions.
She rested with her cubs
And raised them till they were grown.
3She favored one as a leader
And watched him as he grew.
He learned to hunt prey,
With humans on the menu.
4People learned about him
And trapped him in a pit.
They dragged him out with hooks [4]
And hauled him off to Egypt. [5]
Judah’s new lion trapped
5When the lioness got the newsShe lost all hope in him.
She chose another cub [6]
And taught him how to lead.
6He prowled among the pride
And grew into a lion.
He learned how to hunt
With humans among his prey.
7He tore up their cities
And demolished their little towns.
Everyone was horrified
At the thunder of his roar.
8The people throughout the region
Put a target on his hide.
They set their nets
And caught him in a pit.
9Hooked and fitted for a collar,
He was hauled to Babylon’s king,
Arrested and held as captive.
The hills of Israel were quiet again
Free of his mighty roar.
Judah’s vine dead in the desert
10Your mother was like a vineyard vine, [7]Replanted near some water.
She filled her branches with fruit
Nourished by the moist ground.
11Its strongest stem might have been a scepter
For it rose high above the others,
A standout in height
And in shear thickness and strength.
12But torn out by the roots, [8]
It died upon the dirt.
The east wind dried it thin and hard,
Once the fruit was plucked and gone.
Fire took the last it had to offer.
13They had replanted it in the desert
A dry and searing land.
14The fire is finished burning now.
The branches and fruit are gone.
There’s nothing left of its strength,
No scepter for a king.
Footnotes
This is written as a lament, but it would make one odd funeral song unless someone set it to country music. It’s the story of the collapse of the last Jewish nation on earth. The northern nation of Israel fell to Assyrian invaders in 722 BC, more than a century before Ezekiel. He lived in the southern Jewish nation of Judah but was exiled to Babylon a few years before Babylonians leveled Jerusalem in 586 BC.
This isn’t referring to the northern nation of Israel. It’s referring to the southern nation of Judah, which was the only part of ancient Israel that was left.
We’ll start guessing now. Ezekiel doesn’t translate the song into Judah’s history, but Bible scholars make educated guesses. Here, they generally regard King David as the best of the best kings of Israel. The kings of Judah were his descendants. The northern tribes that split off to form the nation called Israel had kings from various other families.
Invaders often put rings in the noses or lips of captive people and animals. Ancient picture show people led that way on a leash—with a chain or rope through the ring.
This clue might point to Jehoahaz, Judah’s king who ruled just three months in about 609 BC. Egypt’s King Necho, the Pharaoh, captured him and deported him to a prison up north in the Syrian town of Riblah (2 Kings 33:33). The problem is there’s no other reference to Jehoahaz ending up in Egypt.
Scholars debate who this lion represents. One common guess is Judah’s last king, Zedekiah. He tried to run away from Babylonian invaders breaking through Jerusalem’s walls. They caught him near Jericho. They executed his sons as he watched. Then they cut out his eyes and deported him to Babylon. He never returned to Israel.
Bible writers sometimes used vines to represent the people of Israel, flourishing like a good harvest—or not flourishing. But here, some scholars say Ezekiel is again referring to David’s family dynasty of kings—just as he had used lions to represent them earlier.
Royal families descended from King David were deported to Babylon. With the fall of Jerusalem and the capture and exile of King Zedekiah, David’s 400-year-old family dynasty died in what is Babylon, now Iran. Israel was no longer a place on the map. It was single dots scattered throughout what is now the Middle East, perhaps mostly in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Iran.
Discussion Questions
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