Ezekiel (Part 4)

Ezekiel — Steve Gregg

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Ezekiel (Part 4)

EzekielSteve Gregg

Ezekiel (Part 4) by Steve Gregg explores the intricate spoken parables found in the book of Ezekiel. One of these parables, spanning almost 50 verses, depicts the nation of Israel as a woman who was once prosperous and beautiful but eventually became miserable after seeking the attention of lovers. Through this parable, Gregg highlights God's disappointment with Israel's unfaithfulness and draws attention to their corrupt and abominable actions. The talk also delves into the symbolism of other parables in Ezekiel, emphasizing the importance of bearing fruit and the consequences of shedding innocent blood.

Transcript

In today's class we want to talk about the spoken parables of Ezekiel. We've talked about his first two visions, which were in chapters 1 and 8-11 respectively. Then we talked about his enacted parables, which occupied chapters 4 and 5, 12, 24, and 37.

Now we come to his spoken parables. They will bring us also into parts of chapter 24 and fill in some of the chapters we've passed over. We're not going to take these spoken parables in the order that they appear in the book, but rather in a logical sequence, it seems to me.

There are six spoken parables that he gave. Each of them is lengthy. Most of them occupy a whole chapter.

Although a few of them are short chapters, like chapter 15 is a very short chapter and is one of them, we will find them in chapters 15, 16, 17, and 19, and then we'll be in chapters 23 and 24 also. Those are the chapters that we'll be in today. I would like to organize these six parables into three categories, which seems to me a natural division.

We will have three sets of two parables each. The first set are parables that compare the state of Judah with that of an adulterous wife. If you've read those chapters already, you've been probably a bit stunned by them.

Chapter 16, you will certainly have read. I don't know if you've read as far as chapter 23, but that is the other one. There are two parables very much like each other, though there are some distinctive characteristics of them.

One thing they both have in common is that they're both very long. Chapter 16 is 63 verses long, and that's all occupied with one parable. Chapter 23, which is also occupied with one parable, is almost 50 verses long, 49.

I don't wish to read them in their entirety in order for us to study them. We can study them without reading every verse. It would be very time consuming to read every verse.

They tend to be somewhat repetitious and verbose, and to tell you the truth, a bit unedifying. They're so graphic in the description of the adultery of the woman that represents Judah in these parables. It's very graphic.

He describes in gross detail the lewdness of her actions. Of course, when I say it's unedifying, in a sense it can be edifying if we learn the lessons from it that we're to learn. But in the way that it's portrayed, it is deliberately grotesque.

He portrays the nation Israel as a woman whom God saved at its birth and claimed for himself and married and took as his wife, but then which, as soon as he had beautified her with ornaments and beautiful clothing and had brought her to a place of voluptuous health and maturity, that as soon as she was miserable, then she exploited her beauty by attracting other lovers. Of course, in the parable, the lovers are depicted as men coming to her, yet of course we know that what he's referring to is other gods, the gods of the heathen. The parables speak of her playing the harlot, committing adultery against her husband, which is God, with the men of Egypt, the men of Assyria, but of course the parables are not really referring to the men of those countries, but the gods of those countries.

It's got some things that are interesting in these parables. Of course, they're very long. I think the impact of these parables should have been great upon the hearers because it was an apt description of what the nation had done.

Chapter 16 basically talks about the nation as a whole. Chapter 23 has almost an identical kind of parable, but the difference is that he divides the nation into the two nations, the northern and southern kingdoms, and treats them separately, and shows how the northern kingdom took the course first, and then when she fell under judgment, the southern kingdom took the same course. So the effect of the two parables is the same.

Both of them are parables that describe Israel as God's wife, or in the case of the second parable in chapter 23, wives, because it breaks up the northern and southern kingdom into two women. It's interesting how he uses the custom which was taken for granted of polygamy in those days, and God himself in the parable has two wives, both of whom play the harlot against him. But in the first parable in chapter 16, he's talking about the nation as a whole.

He doesn't divide it into the two kingdoms, but just gives a running history and parabolic form of Israel. We will read some of those verses. Again, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations.

He wanted to impress upon Jerusalem the magnitude of her sins against God. You know, when we're in sin, we often are not thinking of what this is doing to God or how wrong it is for us to do such things when God has treated us so well. We're usually only thinking about the temporal benefits or desirableness of the actions, and in some cases God is not even considered at all.

But as soon as we compare our sins against God, and we see our sins as something that are done against God, as opposed to just naughty things that we do which are fun, but they are acts of rebellion against God, and then when we compare that with the mercy and grace that God has shown toward us, then the magnitude of the crimes takes on its proper perspective, instead of just being actions of momentary self-indulgence, which are in some cases we might say victimless sins, victimless crimes, as people sometimes use that term, yet when we see them in connection with our relationship with God, and see that God has shown us special mercies and called us to be his holy people, and given us a lofty standard by which he requires us to live, but also gives us much grace and enables us to live by that standard, and yet when we see that, when we fly in the face of that, and that we insult God, and we as a woman departing from her husband who has been good to her, we go off and commit adultery, then of course our sins take on their proper view in our eyes. And so here's what he's doing, instead of making us Jerusalem to know her abominations, that is to be able to correctly understand how abominable her actions are, and say, let's say if the Lord got into Jerusalem, thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan, thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. As for thy nativity, in the day that thou wast born, thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee, thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all, none eye pitied thee to do any of these things unto thee, to have compassion upon thee, but thou wast cast out into the open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born.

Now, here he compares Israel in the opening stages of its history as a baby, a female baby in this case, as the story goes on, because it's a female baby that God adopts, finds languishing and saves, and then when at a certain point marries her, the customs, the Middle Eastern customs of course are all the way through the story, imply some of the things seem a bit strange to our ears because marriages are not conducted the same, nor are infants treated the same in our days. We live in a time where, especially in the Western world, human life has historically been treated as something of value, and infants, you can't just leave your infants out to die legally unless you're a doctor, then you can do it, but anyone else who does that would be considered a murderer. But in the Middle East, of course, female babies were not valued as highly as male babies, and it was not uncommon, and even today in some oriental countries it is done, that if a female baby is born and the parents don't want the burden of raising a female, they'll just put it out and let it die of exposure.

In this case, he pictures Israel at her beginning as such a neglected and abandoned child. A female baby, even the navel, they didn't give the child so much care as even to cut the umbilical cord. He just finds it laying out there in the field with the umbilical cord still attached to the afterbirth.

And they didn't wash it, they didn't salt it or swaddle it. The salting refers to the custom where the midwife would put salt over, they'd wash the baby, rub the baby with salt, wrap it up in swaddling clothes for a week, and then they'd unwrap it and wash it again and salt it again and wrap it up again. And I don't know why this was done, I don't know if this had some positive effect on the skin or if it was intended to kill germs or what the purpose was, but that was what was done.

And what he's saying is that nobody did these things to you. No one cared for you but me, is what he's saying. When Israel was in Egypt, of course, they were lost.

I mean, there was no hope for them. They would never escape from Egypt on their own. If God had not come to the rescue, they would to this day be slaves in Egypt, it would seem.

But no one pitied them but God, and that's what he's pointing out, that when they were not even yet worthy to be called a nation, they were just a small family that had grown into a large family. No one cared for them but him. Now it says something very hard to understand in verse 3. It says, your nativity is in the land of Canaan.

Your father was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite. The fact of the matter is, the Amorites and the Hittites were Canaanite tribes and there was no Amorite or Hittite blood in the Jew. So it seems strange that he'd say your mother and father were these, but he's apparently saying your spiritual ancestry, that is the nature that is in you does not seem to be any different than that of the Canaanites.

When I drove the Canaanites out of the land and gave you their land, you quickly went the same direction they did. You seem to have their nature. You seem to have their blood in you.

So he's saying spiritually speaking, you've got Canaanite genes in you and you're not really any different than the Canaanites that I wiped out before. Nonetheless, although they are that corrupt, he showed pity upon them. In verse 6 he goes on, and when I passed by thee, I saw thee polluted in thine own blood.

I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live. I told you Ezekiel's repetitious.

I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field. Thou hast increased and waxen great. Thou art come to excellent ornaments.

Thy breasts are fashioned and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now, when I passed by thee and looked upon thee, behold, the time was the time of love. In other words, he skips over a few years here.

When he first found her, she was a abandoned baby, but he cared for her. As a nation, he caused the nation to flourish, and especially in the time of David, the nation was an extremely powerful nation, probably the most powerful nation in the Middle East at that time. This weak and helpless group of people who were slaves in Egypt, God honored, enriched.

Solomon was the wealthiest king of all the kings in the world in his day, as well as the wisest. David and Solomon were ruling over a nation that was one of the chiefest nations in the world. Though small, it nonetheless was disproportionately rich and great and prestigious, disproportionate to its small size.

So what he's saying here is that there came a time when he found her grown up. I suppose maybe I'm getting a little ahead of the parable here, because it may be that he's thinking of when she was a baby as when it was Jacob's family going into Egypt, and when he passed by and found her more mature might be when they were a great multitude in Egypt, and he called her to be his wife. To connect the events of the parable with exact events in their history is not always possible.

It's mainly the effect that he's trying to give. Here's a man who adopted a helpless baby girl, and she grew up, and when she came of age, and in the Middle East that would be about 12 or 13 years old, she was a beautiful woman. She was fully mature.

It was the time of love, which simply means she was of sexual maturity, and in those days sexual maturity was their cue to get married. I mean women didn't just hang around single when they were sexually mature. They went about the business of having children as quickly as they could, and it was not uncommon for a man in his 40s or 50s to marry a teenage girl.

I mean that would seem a bit strange to us in our society, and most teenage girls would not feel like they'd want to marry a 40 or 50 year old man, but often the desires of the girl were not taken very much into consideration. It was just strictly custom. Women were, for the sake of having children, principally as how they were understood in those cultures.

Therefore, the image is, here he was maybe, he was an adult when he found her, and 12 or 13 years later, she is now an adult, and he's probably in the image of a man in his 40s or 50s at this time, but he decides he wants to marry her. She's the most beautiful girl around, and he's done everything for her. She owes him her life, and just the very fact that she's survived is due to his mercy on her.

Furthermore, he's gone so far as to decorate her with ornaments and with beautiful clothing. This certainly would speak of Israel at the time of David and Solomon. And so, he says, she became his.

It says in verse 8, Now when I passed by thee, I looked, behold, it was the time of love. She was mature, ready to be married, and I spread my skirt over thee, which was the Middle Eastern custom. You remember from the book of Ruth? Ruth asked Boaz to spread the skirt of his garment over her.

This was the customary way of claiming a woman as your bride. And I covered thy nakedness, yea, I swear unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee. This would be at Sinai.

It's not exactly in chronological order of how it really happened, but that's not the point. Saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine. You were my wife.

Then washed I thee with water, yea, I thoroughly washed thy way thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered work, shod thee with badger's skin. I girded thee about with fine linen, and covered thee with silk.

I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain upon thy neck, and put a jewel on your forehead, according to Middle Eastern customs, earrings in thy ears, and a beautiful crown upon thy head. Thus was thou decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and silk, and broidered work, thou didst eat fine flour, honey, and oil, and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. So he kind of shifts images here and goes back to what really was, he's talking about her like she was a woman, but he mentions that she became a great kingdom, and this would be in the days of David and Solomon.

So she was beautified by the prosperity that God gave her. And she, whereas no one paid any attention to her when she was young, and no one cared about her. Now all of a sudden, because of the mercy and prosperity bestowed upon her by God, suddenly everyone's taking note of her, like a woman who was an ugly duckling, and no one kept her when she was little, but suddenly she's grown up and matured, and she's the most beautiful woman in town.

It says, And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty, and it was perfect through my comeliness, that is, I'm the one who gave you all these things that made you attractive, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God. But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and played the harlot because of thy renown, and poured out thy fornications on every one that passed by, his it was." In other words, after God made them desirable, in the sense that they were prosperous, they were powerful, they had powerful armies, David in his day had won over all the enemies around about, they were wealthy, kings and queens from all over came, all over the world came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, I mean the nation of Israel was prestigious, and they began to think, well, we're really quite a something. And he says, you began to trust in your own beauty.

This is of course talking about the fact that they were wealthy, they began to not feel, they forgot that God was the one that made them wealthy, they began to feel like they had some strength of their own, some power, and they got a little cocky, and they began to entertain other religious notions, and brought in the gods of the heathen, and that's what it's really describing here, how they, in Solomon's day, and then of course afterward Jeroboam and the successors of Solomon in Jerusalem brought idolatry into the camp. It says, "...and of thy garments," verse 16, "...thou didst take and deck thy high places with diverse colors, and played the harlot thereupon, the like thing shall not come, neither shall it be so. Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels, and my gold, and of my silver, which I had given thee, and made to thyself images of men, and did commit whoredom with them." Now, he's saying that all the gold and silver that I gave you, which is compared to the ornaments he put on his bride, they took and melted them down and made idols.

Now the idols they made were usually of animals and such, but because he's using the imagery of a woman playing adultery, so she made images of men and committed adultery with the images. The impression is here that she actually had simulated sexual intercourse with statues that she made out of gold and silver, which is obviously very gross to contemplate. It would hardly be tasteful to even mention it in a classroom if it wasn't right here in the Bible.

The point is he's trying to make it gross. He's trying to say, look how perverted you became. Here I gave you everything and you turn and just treacherously give yourself away to everyone except me.

That's what he's saying. He goes on and describes further about how they did that. We won't read all the details.

It goes on in verse 25, it says, "...thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way." That is, all the high places were idols for worship. "...thou hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, thou hast opened thy feet to everyone that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms." Notice, he's totally indiscriminate about who she would sleep with, anyone who came along would do. Again, that means if they'd accept any gods, any religious notions that came from anywhere else, they'd accept it right in.

"...thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians, thy neighbors, great of flesh, and hast increased thy whoredoms to provoke me to anger. Behold, therefore, I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines," which is alternately translated, the cities of the Philistines, "...which are ashamed of thy lewd way. Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast insatiable.

Yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, yet couldst thou not be satisfied." And he goes on to talk about more and more of the same kind of thing. We won't go into it because it's so lengthy, but he gets his verdict. He says in verse 35, "...Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord.

It does say of the Lord God, because thy filthiness was poured out, thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children." Oh, he does mention earlier, I did skip over that, I probably shouldn't have. Let's see, where is that place? He talks about how the children that she bare unto him. Verse 20? Okay, yeah.

"...Moreover, thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter?" I mean, what he's talking about here is how they took their babies and burned them alive in worship of Molech. But, I mean, the picture he paints is of the most detestable kind of woman you could imagine.

Here, she's been shown every mercy she owes her life to this man, who treated her so well, and yet she totally betrays him in every way, including taking his children that she has borne and offering them as sacrifices to her lovers. You know, I mean, this is, how low can you go? And, you know, when you see it that way, obviously he is declaring how abominable their deeds are, and I'm sure that they never thought of their deeds quite in that light before, but it's quite accurate. That's exactly an apt illustration and parable of what was going on.

And then he says, in verse 36, "...Thus saith the Lord God, because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers and with all thy idols and abominations, and by the blood of thy children which thou didst give unto them, behold, therefore, I will gather all thy lovers with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, all them that thou hast hated. I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness." So, since you've uncovered your body privately for these people, your judgment will involve, among other things, you being stripped naked in their presence publicly. Somehow that would be more shameful for them all together to be looking upon her totally stripped naked in public would be a shameful thing, although she had stripped herself naked privately with them all.

Verse 38, "...And I will judge thee as women that break wedlock." And of course, women that break wedlock in the law were to be put to death. Adultery was punishable by death, according to the Jewish law. And when he says, "...I will judge thee as women that break wedlock," he's basically saying I'm going to kill you.

I'm going to destroy Jerusalem, is what he's saying, because this is all a parable about Jerusalem. "...And I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy, and I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place," and so on. So, those who had been her lovers, of course, they care nothing for her, really, and so he's going to just deliver her over to them, and they'll abuse her and strip her and mistreat her.

Verse 44, "...Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter. Thou art thy mother's daughter that loatheth her husband," she hates or despises or something along those lines, her husband, "...and her children. And thou art the sister of thy sisters, which loath their husbands and their children.

Your mother was a Hittite, your father was an Amorite, your elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand, and thy younger sister that dwelleth at thy right hand is Sodom and her daughters." Now, why Samaria was at the left hand and Sodom at the right hand is simply because Jerusalem is always considered to be facing east, because the temple faces east, and therefore, facing east, north is to the left, and the south is to your right, and Sodom was to the south, therefore, on the right hand, and Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, is to the north and on the left hand. Now, here he says that Samaria and Sodom were both sisters of Jerusalem. Now, we can understand Samaria being called the sister of Jerusalem because they were racially related.

Of course, the northern kingdom was ethnically one with the southern kingdom. So, to say that Samaria was the sister of Jerusalem is not unusual. In fact, in the parable in chapter 23, the two sids are considered to be two sisters that God takes to be his.

But Sodom, we would not think of as Jerusalem's sister, except in the sense of spiritually, they're like Sodom, which, of course, Sodom was a Canaanite city, just like the Hittites and the Amorites were Canaanites. So, he's saying that their spiritual connections, their spiritual relationship and bloodline seems to be Canaanite, and they seem to be related, sisters, to not only Samaria, but also to Sodom. And this is something that others bring up elsewhere.

For instance, Isaiah brought it up in the first chapter of his book, and he was talking to Jerusalem also, and he compares her to Sodom. He says in Isaiah 1.10, Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

Now, he's talking to Jerusalem. He's not talking to Sodom and Gomorrah. Those things were destroyed over a thousand years before he ever uttered these words.

But what he says in verse 9 is, Except the Lord of hosts hath left us a very small remnant, we should have been like Sodom, and we should have been like Gomorrah. In other words, he would have judged us, and we'd be wiped out like Sodom and Gomorrah. And then he begins to speak to them, and he calls them Sodom and Gomorrah, because spiritually, they're no better.

And so, here in Ezekiel 16.46, he says, basically, that Sodom is the sister of Jerusalem. And by that, it's saying that you're like each other. He says there's a proverb that says, As is the mother, so is the daughter.

Okay? Well, you daughters are all alike. You daughters of the Hittite and the Amorite. In verse 47, he says, Yet hath thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations, but as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they all in thy ways.

So he says, I'm comparing you to Samaria and Sodom, both of which at this time had fallen. Of course, Sodom was wiped out by fire and brimstone from heaven. Samaria had long since been wiped out by the Assyrians.

And so, both cities that she's being compared to have already suffered judgment. And of course, the Jews in Jerusalem consider themselves far superior to either of those two cities. And now he says, You're not like them.

You're worse than them. And he says, You've corrupted yourself more than they did. As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you have done.

Now, in thy words, behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. Pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

For they were haughty and committed abominations before me. Therefore, I took them away as I saw good. Neither has Samaria committed half of thy sins, but thou has multiplied thine abominations more than they and has justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done.

Now he's saying that you've made Samaria and Sodom look good. You've justified them by exceeding them so greatly in your iniquity. Now, what is the point of pointing out Sodom's iniquity here in chapter, in verse 49 and 50? Some have made use of this verse to try to indicate that the sin of Sodom was not homosexuality.

And those especially who are soft on homosexuality and trying to reconcile homosexuality with Christianity point out, he says, Sodom's sin was not homosexuality. It was pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness, and they didn't strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And therefore, we shouldn't say it was homosexuality.

But if you read in Genesis chapter 19, it's very clear homosexuality was at least a very great grievance in that city and one of the serious problems that God judged. By the way, in verse 50, it says they committed abomination and that could well be a reference to the homosexuality. But what he's saying is that these are essentially what were Sodom's sins.

Things like this, pride, fullness of bread, they didn't help the poor. Those are bad things. But the things you're doing are far worse.

That's what he's saying. He's saying, think of it, Sodom, you think of Sodom as that horrible city that I had to wipe out. But what were they really doing wrong? Well, they did abominable things, sure.

They did some. And, you know, they had all the regular kinds of sins that people have, pride and gluttony and, you know, callousness toward the poor. But he's saying your sins are far more corrupt, far more abominable than these.

You're not guilty of just the ordinary sin. I mean, not all women remain true to their husbands. If they commit adultery, of course, they're obviously worse than normal.

But not even all women who commit adultery do what this woman in this parable has done. I mean, she's done more than just commit adultery. I mean, some women commit adultery against husbands that are not very nice to them or who don't give them any satisfaction or don't support them or something.

But here is a woman who has been treated by her husband with nothing but kindness, owes her whole life to him, and then she not only commits adultery against him, but she goes into all kinds of sexual perversion, takes his children and burns them in fire as sacrifices to her lovers. I mean, this is not ordinary corruption. This is total depravity.

You know, this is perversion to the utmost. And that's what's saying. Sodom was, sure, they had their perversion.

But for the most part, their social life was just about like others. They had all the normal sins that most societies have. But you have unusually perverted and corrupt sin.

Therefore, you've made Sodom look good by comparison. Samaria 2, Thou also which hast judged thy sisters, verse 52, bear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed, more abominable than they. They are more righteous than you.

Yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame in that you have justified your sisters. Then he goes on to talk further along some of the same lines. Let's see, what do we want to say now? Let's go down to verse 60.

Nevertheless, I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant. Now, here is the ray of hope at the end. Of course, it's a New Testament prediction.

The everlasting covenant is the covenant that Jesus instituted at the Last Supper. Now, he does this with them because he remembers the old covenant. He says, I will remember the covenant with thee that I made in the days of your youth.

That would be at Mount Sinai when their nation was still young. Because he had made covenant with them once, he will remember them. He will not just forget them altogether.

And he will offer them a new covenant that will be an everlasting covenant, which states very clearly that the first one wasn't everlasting. The Sinai covenant was not eternal. And Paul makes that clear too in Galatians 3. He says it was just like a schoolmaster.

The law was a schoolmaster that was given temporarily until faith should come, until Christ would come. And now that faith has come, we're no longer under the schoolmaster. So the first covenant at Sinai was temporary.

But God says, because I entered into covenant with you in the first place, because we have a history of being married to each other, I will come and bring another covenant that will be everlasting, which you can have part of. But he made it clear in the other prophets, and also in Ezekiel, he brings it out, that only a remnant of them who were ethnically related to him in the old covenant will ever come into the new covenant. Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, and when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger, and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant.

Not by thy covenant probably means not by the old covenant that they now have, but it will be a new covenant. Now you will receive your sisters. Who are the sisters? Samaria and Sodom.

Now who do they represent? Obviously Sodom as a city is not going to be restored, although you could get that impression from reading this if you took it too literally. And Samaria as a city is not going to be restored. So what do they represent? Well Samaria of course was the capital of the Northern Kingdom.

At the time that Jesus came, some hundreds of years later than this, that Northern Kingdom was, the whole Northern Kingdom was called Samaria. And the Samaritans were despised by the Jews. And yet when Jesus gave his great commission in Acts chapter 1, he said, you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

Now there's the Gentile regions as well which Sodom represents. Sodom is a typical Gentile city. Samaria represents the Samaritans of Jesus' day.

And of course what he's saying is under this new covenant you will have no grounds for rejecting these others that you have historically rejected. The Gentiles, the Samaritans, they will be one with you under this covenant. They will be your daughters.

You will receive them. And I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. Verse 63, that thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.

So he says I'm going to send judgment upon you for your crimes. You're certainly worthy of it. I should have done it sooner maybe, but you certainly can't claim that you don't deserve what you're getting.

On the other hand, as I showed original mercy to you at the very beginning, so I will not show myself to be otherwise. Now I will remain merciful and I will make a new and everlasting covenant with you, and this of course means to certain remnants of them who would come into it and join them with Sodom and Samaria, that is with the Gentiles and with the Samaritans, and all would be one in Christ, and that's what is predicted there. The similar parable we won't take in as much detail because it has so much that is almost identical.

In chapter 23, this time the two cities Samaria and Jerusalem are called sisters. It says in verse 2, Son of man, there are two women, the daughters of one mother, so they're sisters. And they committed whoredoms in Egypt.

They committed whoredoms in their youth. There were their breasts pressed, and they bruised their teats of their virginity. And the names of them were Ahola the elder, and Ahola her sister.

Now these are symbolic names, he tells us later in verse 4, thus were her names. Samaria is Ahola, Jerusalem is Aholaba. Now Ahola means her tent, or his tent.

Aholaba means my tent, or my tabernacle is in her. Probably what is implied by these names is Jerusalem, Aholaba is called my tent is in her, meaning God's tabernacle was in Jerusalem, his temple was there. He had set his house there in Jerusalem, his tent was in her.

Ahola, which means her tent, or his tent, depending on the way the Hebrew vowel pointed, it seems to imply that Samaria, the northern kingdom, had a tent too, but it wasn't God's, it was theirs, it was hers, not his. God's tent was in Jerusalem, but the tent in Samaria was not God's. That is to say the shrines and the places of worship in Samaria were set up by the Samaritans themselves, but not by God.

Anyway, these names are symbolic for the two northern and southern kingdoms. And it says, it first talks about Samaria, Ahola, the northern kingdom. Ahola played the harlot, verse 5, and she was mine.

I might just mention in verse 4 it says, these were the sisters and they were mine, and they bear sons and daughters. So it's clear that he's saying that he was married to both these women. Now, we know from the New Testament that the ideal for marriage is not polygamy.

The ideal for marriage is to portray Christ and the church. And we have more light on this subject than Old Testament people did. And God apparently did not judge anyone for having less light on this in Old Testament times.

I think that Christians would be out of order to entertain the notion of polygamy simply because that would go against what we know about the purpose of marriage. Because Ephesians 5 and other passages have given us a clear picture of what God's model for marriage is. But in the Old Testament, Christ had not yet come, and that revelation of Christ and the church was not yet given.

And the people did not know anything more about the meaning of marriage except that it was a means of promoting family life. It was a means of bearing children and propagating the family name. And as such, polygamy seemed as valid a practice as any other, especially since if a man had several wives he could have more children that way.

And that was mainly the point. Wives in Old Testament times and those unenlightened times were seen mainly as childbearing units. And that's what they were for.

A man could have a thousand wives, as Solomon did. And it wouldn't seem strange. I mean, obviously you'd know, in our society, if a man even had two wives, you'd know that he must not be loving either of them like Christ loved the church, because how could he do so when he was promoting jealousy between them? Every polygamous relationship in the Old Testament, even though nothing is said against them editorially, like Jacob's wives, Abram's wives, Elkhanah's wives, Hannah and Peninnah, these polygamous relations that are mentioned in the scripture are not necessarily said to be bad, but they all are shown to be bad.

Because in every case, the women are rivals. In every case, there's strife in the home and the children of the different wives are rivals of each other too. So that we see Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery because he's of a different mother and partly because he was of a different mother, he was favored by his father.

But the point is, the Bible everywhere where polygamy is practiced demonstrates it to be not an ideal situation. Nonetheless, the law did not forbid it. There were certain things about it that served a purpose that was tolerable.

For instance, in days where wars would take place and all the male population practically would be wiped out in a sea, there'd be left a disproportionately large number of women to men. War would wipe out a lot of the men, and therefore a lot of women would have to either remain old maid or else share a man with someone else. And in that society, for a woman to be an old maid and childless and couldn't go out and get a job like she can now, it was considered a reproach.

So they'd rather. Because they didn't consider marriage as a thing where there was an intimate thing between a man and a woman that was like Christ and the church, as we now view marriage. And even unbelievers have been affected by our Christian perspective in the West, because the Christian perspective has permeated the whole Western culture.

And even unbelievers who know nothing about Christ and the church still have adopted the idea that marriage is for love, which is a Christian idea. The heathen idea never was that marriage was for love. Not that people never did love each other.

Of course, they often did love each other, but that's not what marriage was for. Marriage was for reproduction only. And so the women weren't thinking of marriage principally as a thing for love, although I'm sure they always enjoyed it if they had some.

But it was a thing for reproduction. And they'd rather have one man among several wives than no man at all. And so polygamy was practiced and it was not condemned, but we can now see in light of the New Testament revelation that it was not the highest thing.

Well since polygamy was not an abomination in itself or something that God absolutely forbade in the Old Testament, there was nothing out of line about God using a parable depicting himself as a polygamist, depicting himself as having two women for wives. Certainly he as the polygamist in the parable is not shown to be the evil one. It's the wives who are the evil ones in this parable.

Aholahba, his first wife, or one of them, played the harlot and it talks in great detail how she did that. It goes quite along the same lines as the previous chapter we read. And in verse 10 he dispatches her in judgment.

In verse 10 it says, These discovered her nakedness. They took her sons and her daughters, they slew her with a sword. She became famous among women, largely famous for her defeat by the Assyrians, for they had executed judgment upon her.

This is a description of Assyria destroying Samaria in 722 B.C. Then verse 11 says, And her sister Aholahba, which you remember is Jerusalem, saw this. When she saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms. So this agrees with chapter 16 which said that Jerusalem went more into coercion and idolatry than Samaria had.

However, it implies of course the irony here. She saw what happened to her sister. She saw the judgment of Samaria which should have given her warning.

It should have put the fear of God in her, but it didn't. And she played foolishly the harlot even worse than her sister and therefore gave cause for God to bring the judgment that he says he's going to. Now most of this chapter has very little in it that is unlike chapter 16, therefore we will not take it verse by verse.

These are two chapters that both portray the same idea, namely that Israel was God's wife and owed everything to God. They were nothing when he found them. He nurtured them.

He clothed them. He bedecked them with ornaments. He beautified them.

He enriched them and they just took everything he gave them and used it to honor other gods. And that is what his complaint is in these parables. And so he shows their fitness for judgment as an adulterous wife under the law to be stoned to death.

So God shows that he is quite justified in sending judgment, utter judgment upon them. Although he actually shows more mercy on them than we would expect a man to do toward a wife like this. So these are two of the spoken parables of Ezekiel.

Now we go to a couple other ones. This is one that shows, two other parables show Jerusalem's fitness for judgment in a striking way. Both of these parables, the one in chapter 15 is the one we'll take first and then the one at the beginning of chapter 24, basically have one thought that they're trying to get across and that is Jerusalem is good for nothing.

That's all they're saying. It's good for nothing. So why keep it around? And in the first point, the first time that is being said is in chapter 15.

It's a short chapter, only eight verses and it's about a vine. It says, the word of the Lord came unto me saying, son of man, what is the vine tree more than other trees? Or than a branch that is among the trees of the forest? Would be taken from it to do any work? Or will men take a pin of it and hang any vessel on it? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel. The fire devoureth both the ends of it and the midst of it is burned.

It is meat. Is it meat for any work? Is it suitable for any kind of work? Behold, when it was whole, it was meat for no work. How much less shall it be meat yet for any work when the fire has devoured it and it is burned? Therefore, thus sayeth the Lord God as the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel.

So will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem and I will set my face against them. They shall go out from one fire and another fire shall devour them. And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I set my face against them and I will make the land desolate because they have committed a trespass, sayeth the Lord God.

Now, Ezekiel is not the first, as you know, to use the vine as a picture or a parable for Israel. The first to do that was probably Isaiah, although others may have before that I am not aware of. Isaiah chapter 5, of course, is the classic parable of the vineyard and the vine and how that it produced no fruit, therefore God was going to bring judgment upon them.

The story is a classic in Isaiah chapter 5. Here, the same idea is. Jerusalem is a vine. Now, what is a vine good for? What is it good for? Well, of course, it is good for fruit.

That is all it is good for. It is good for bearing grapes. If it doesn't bear grapes, what is it good for? Nothing.

And here he doesn't even mention the question of bearing fruit. He is taking it for granted that the vine in question has no fruit. This goes without saying.

Now he says, since they have no fruit. He doesn't even say since they have no fruit, but the main purpose and function of a vine is not even brought into consideration in the thing. That there is no fruit on this vine goes without saying.

Now, since there is no fruit, what is it good for? Now, some trees are principally good for bearing fruit, but if they don't bear fruit, at least you can take the wood and do something with them. Make fence posts or plane it and make boards and build something out of them. Trees at least have a secondary use.

If they don't bear fruit, they at least have some value still, but a vine is not this way. You can't use a vine to build anything with. That is what he is saying.

You can't take wood from it to do any work. It is not even useful for making a pin to hang a vessel on. The pin branches of a vine.

So he is basically saying if a vine doesn't bear fruit, it has no use. The best you can do to it, the only use you can get out of it at all is to use it for fuel for a fire. Fire at least has some value.

It can heat your home or cook with it. The vine serves its only alternate purpose, alternate to bearing fruit, by being burned. It is not the best even for that.

He says if it was worthless when it was not burned, after it is burned it is of course worth even less. So he is saying he is going to give Jerusalem over to burning. They are not good for anything.

They haven't produced fruit and there is not an alternative function for them. God made them entirely for the sake of bearing fruit, which of course he told us in Isaiah is righteousness and justice. That is the fruit he was looking for.

He formed them as a nation to bring forth in the earth justice and righteousness, which they did not do. He says since they don't do have a plan B, plan B is going to have to be burn them because there is nothing else they are good for. That is kind of a severe word said in a very few words.

Chapter 24 then has a different parable, a different image, but the same message. It is just the first half of this chapter. We already talked about the second half because the second half of chapter 24 is the death of Ezekiel's wife.

We talked about that in his enacted parables. But in the first half, the first 14 verses, we have this parable. Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day.

The king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day. And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, saying unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, set on a pot, set it on, and also pour water into it. Gather the pieces thereof into it, even every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder, fill it with the choice bones.

Take the choice of the flock and burn also the bones under it and make it boil well and let them see the bones of it therein. Wherefore, thus saith the Lord God, Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein and whose scum is not gone out of it. Bring it out piece by piece, let no lot fall upon it, for her blood is in the midst of her.

She set it upon the top of a rock. She poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust, that it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance. I have set her blood upon the top of a rock that it should not be covered.

Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Woe to the bloody city. I will even make the pile for fire great. Heap on wood, kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned.

Then set it empty on the coals thereof, that the brass of it may be hot and may burn, and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed. She hath wearied herself with lies, and her great scum went not forth out of her. Her scum shall be in the fire.

In thy filthiness is lewdness, because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged. I shall not be purged from thy filthiness any more till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee. I the Lord have spoken it.

It shall come to pass, and I will do it. I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent. According to thy ways and according to thy doings shall they judge thee, saith the Lord God." Now, there's three parts to this prophetic utterance.

The first part is in the first five verses. Actually, the first two verses give sort of the setting for the parable. This is a significant setting, more than almost any of the other dates that are set on the parables or the utterances, because this is the day of the siege.

Now, only by revelation could Ezekiel know that, because Ezekiel was a thousand miles away from Jerusalem. God told him, this is the day that Nebuchadnezzar has laid siege to Jerusalem. Now, Jerusalem didn't fall that day.

They were under siege for a period of time before they fell, but they were under siege as of this day. So he marks the day. This is a significant day, and it gives rise not only to this parable, but also, of course, to the death of Ezekiel's wife the same day, which was symbolic also.

But the point here is that by revelation he knows that on this day Nebuchadnezzar has laid siege to Jerusalem a thousand miles away. And he gives this parable. The first part of the parable actually is using what was apparently a little household rhyme.

It seems strange when we read it in verses three through four. It seems strange. It's sort of like a Pauly put the kettle on kind of a kitchen rhyme that children would say in their homes.

It goes, set on a pot, set it on, and also pour the water into it. Gather the pieces thereof into it, even every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder, fill it with the choice of bones. Take the choice of the flock and burn also the bones under it, and make it boil well, and let them see the bones of it therein.

You notice the repetition of each line shows that it's a Hebrew poem, and that it's sort of like if we would take some poem like Mary had a little lamb or twinkle, twinkle, little star and somehow give a sermon that used some of that language to convey something. If you wanted to talk about the scripture that said how those who turn men to righteousness would shine like the stars in heaven, and somehow in your sermon you included twinkle, twinkle, little star. Or if you wanted to talk about Jesus being born of Mary and you somehow incorporated a nursery rhyme about that, or Humpty Dumpty, or anything like that, it would be the same kind of thing.

Taking a well-known little rhyme that the children in every Jewish home knew, and using that as the basis for prophecy. Now he says, basically, what is this little rhyme? It's basically talking about cooking things in a pot. And here, Jerusalem is considered to be a pot.

And we saw this image already earlier, I think it was in chapter 10, when he said there was an utterance spoken by the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, this city is the cauldron and we are the flesh in it. In that they were suggesting that, of course, they were holy, because the flesh in the cauldron referred to the holy flesh, the holy part of the sacrifices that was boiled in the cauldron for the priest to eat. So they were saying being in Jerusalem makes us ipso facto holy and therefore we can expect mercy from God just because we're Jerusalemites, just because we're citizens of this city.

We're like flesh in the pot. It's the pot that makes the flesh holy, therefore the very fact that we're in a city means we're exempt from judgment or whatever. That was their misunderstanding.

Well, here he brings up the idea of the pot or the cauldron also. The city is a cauldron with meat in it, with flesh in it. However, he points out that the flesh is going to be removed from it and thrown away.

Now, there's two parts to the utterance that follows this little rhyme or this little poem. Verses 6 through 8 is one of the oracles that are spoken, then verses 9 through 14 is the other. And you can tell that there are two because they both begin with the expression, Wherefore, thus saith the Lord God, Woe to the bloody city.

Woe to the bloody city is the beginning of each of these two oracles. The first oracle talks about how Jerusalem is like a pot with scum in it. The word scum in the Revised Standard Version would be translated rust.

That's probably what is more implied. Because in the second oracle he points out that he's tried to get this scum out and he just can't get it out, therefore he's just going to burn it out. He's going to burn the pot up.

Like the vine that is no longer useful for anything, since it doesn't bear fruit, it's going to be burned. That's the idea here in these parables too. Jerusalem is like a pot that's got this incipient rust, which though he's scrubbed it many times, the rust seems to always reappear.

Therefore he finds nothing else he can do but just burn the pot up and dispense with it. It's of no good. That's essentially the bottom line of what these parables are saying.

But in the first oracle, verse 6, he says, Woe to the bloody city, the pot whose scum, the rust is in it, whose scum is not gone out of it. Bring it out piece by piece. Now these are the pieces of meat in the pot.

The pot is discovered to be polluted so you want to get the meat out of it. You can't eat the meat, it's now defiled. And he's talking about how they had considered themselves to be like the flesh in the cauldron.

He says, Well, the cauldron is scummy. The cauldron is busted. The meat is unclean.

It's defiled by the filthiness of the pot. Therefore take the meat out and cast it forth. It's not good for anything but the dogs to eat.

You can't eat it. It's unclean. And he's talking about how he's going to take the people out of Jerusalem and cast them out.

Of course many of them will go into Babylon as exiles. Let no lot fall upon it. I'm not sure exactly how that is meant except perhaps that the priest would cast lots for the individual pieces of meat that were to be divided among them.

For her blood is in the midst of her. She set it upon the top of a rock and poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust. Now when Abel was slain by Cain, remember how God confronted Cain about that and said that the blood of Abel has called to me from the ground.

The idea being that Cain had hidden, tried to hide the blood that he had shed by covering it over at the ground. But God says, No, it's quite out of the ground where you've shed it, where you've poured it out, where you've concealed it. It nonetheless calls out to me.

Cain, the first murderer, at least had the good sense to try to conceal his act. I mean, he at least knew it was something wrong. Even though there was no law telling him that I shall not kill, he knew it in his conscience.

And he had the good sense to at least want to conceal his wickedness. I mean, he felt guilty, in other words. They have not even done so much as that.

They shed innocent blood, but they don't even try to cover it with dust and the earth. They pour it on the top of a rock where it won't soak in, where it's just going to lay there for all to see. And they feel no shame whatsoever.

That's what he's saying. They're more callous in their murder even than Cain was. It says that it might cause fury to come up in the face of vengeance.

Therefore I have set her blood upon the top of a rock that it should not be covered. They didn't try to cover it, so he's going to display it too, display their blood guiltiness is what's in mind there. Then the next oracle says, Row into the bloody city.

I will even make the pile of her fire great. Heap on the wood. Kindle the fire.

These are all parts of that rhyme he's picking up again. Consume the flesh and the spice it well and let the bones be burned. This is obviously borrowing language from that rhyme.

Then set it empty upon the coals thereof. Now he's saying he's really set the empty pot on the coals that the brass of it may be hot and may burn and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it that the scum of it may be consumed. Now whether he's saying he's going to consume the whole pot because of the incorrigible scum or whether he's going to burn it or the brass will survive the fire but the scum will be burned out yet not without becoming molten is not maybe all that clear at least to me.

What he's saying is that there's nothing more he can do but subject the pot to fire to try to get out that which never came out any other way. He's talking about the burning down of Jerusalem. She hath wearied herself with lies and so forth.

She's got this scum in her. He says in verse 13, And thy filthiness is lewdness because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged. He has many times sent the prophets.

He has many times even sent revival to Jerusalem prior to this in the days of Josiah and Hezekiah and other kings but they've not been purged. The scum comes back. He says there's nothing else not to do.

So he says I'm going to put it on the fire and burn it out. So the parable in chapter 15 about the vine that is worthless because it doesn't bear fruit and in this chapter, chapter 24, the pot that is worthless because it defiles everything it touches because it's got this scum that won't be purged out. Therefore both of them end up with burning and judgment because that's all there.

That's the last resort. That's all God can do to Okay, so he's saying they're fit for nothing but burning. Now, there are two other spoken parables and they also go together well because both of them are parables about the kings of Judah.

There's one of them in chapter 17 and one in chapter 19. In chapter 17, it is a parable about two eagles. The eagles in the parable are Gentile kingdoms.

The first great eagle in verse 3, chapter 17, verse 3 is Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. The second great eagle is in verse 7, that's Egypt and both of these kings are mentioned because they took kings of Judah into captivity. Now let me read the parable then I'll give you the historic fulfillment of it.

And the word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, put forth a riddle and speak a parable unto the house of Israel and say, Thus saith the Lord God, a great eagle with great wings, that's Nebuchadnezzar, long-winged, full of feathers, which had diverse colors came to Lebanon. Now Lebanon in this illustration is actually Jerusalem. Why? Why is it called Lebanon? Probably because Lebanon was known for cedars and the temple in Jerusalem, which was the major building in Jerusalem, was of course made of cedars from Lebanon.

Hiram, the king of Tyre, had provided the wood for Dave and Solomon to build this temple out of the cedars of Lebanon. And since the temple was the prominent part of Jerusalem and it was made of cedars of Lebanon, Lebanon then becomes, and its cedars become an image for Jerusalem. This thing came to Lebanon and took the highest branch of the cedar, and that would be the king.

He's talking about Jehoiakim, the king that was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar. He cropped off the top of his young twigs and carried it to a land of traffic, back into Babylon. He set it in a city of merchants.

He took also of the seed of the land and planted it in a fruitful field and placed it by great waters and set it as a willow tree. This is referring to the fact that after he took Jehoiakim, after Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiakim into captivity in Babylon, he set up Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's uncle, as king in his place. And so he took the seed of the land, which was a relative of the king's, and put him up as, and planted him as the new king.

Verse 6, And it grew and became a spreading vine of low stature. Zedekiah never became much of a king. In fact, he just became a rebel and he had to be killed, or actually blinded and taken into captivity too.

Whose branches turned toward him and the roots thereof were under him. So it became a vine and brought forth branches and shot forth sprigs. There was also another eagle, this is Egypt, with great wings and many feathers.

And behold, this vine, which is Zedekiah, did bend her roots toward him. Zedekiah actually sought aid from Egypt to overthrow the yoke of Babylon. See, Nebuchadnezzar set up Zedekiah to be a public king, but Zedekiah was disloyal and he sought military assistance from Egypt to overthrow the connection there between him and Babylon.

So his roots were spreading toward this other eagle, Egypt, and shot forth her branches toward him that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation. It was planted in a good soil by great waters that it might bring forth branches that it might bear fruit that it might be a goodly tree. Say thou, thus saith the Lord God, shall it prosper? Shall he not pull up the roots thereof and cut off the fruit thereof that it wither? Now he's saying that Zedekiah is going to get in trouble.

Now this was prophesied before Zedekiah was caught in his action. This was after Jehoiachin's captivity, but before Nebuchadnezzar came back and punished Zedekiah. So he's saying, here Zedekiah, apparently at the time this parable is uttered, is in the process of seeking aid from Egypt.

And that's what the parable is talking about. And he's saying it's not going to prosper. You shouldn't do this.

This is going to be troublesome for you. He says in verse 10, Yea, behold, being planted, shall it prosper? Shall it not utterly wither when the east wind toucheth it? It shall wither in the furrows where it grew. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Say now to the rebellious house, Know ye not what these things mean? Tell them, Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, and hath taken the king thereof, Jehoiachin, and the princes thereof, and led them with him to Babylon.

He gives the interpretation that I already just gave you. And then he says what's going to happen in verse 17. Neither shall Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company make for him in the war by casting up mounts and building forts to cut off men and persons.

Seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, that is Zedekiah despised the covenant he made with Nebuchadnezzar by turning against him and to his enemy Egypt. When lo, he had given his hand and done all these things, he shall not escape. Now notice, God is in favor of Nebuchadnezzar in all this.

He's punishing Zedekiah for rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar was a wicked heathen king, and yet God is in favor of Nebuchadnezzar in this situation. You remember in the book of Jeremiah, the prophet there also told the people that God was with Nebuchadnezzar and that the people should actually surrender to him and accept their fate.

And for that Jeremiah got himself in trouble because obviously he sounded like a traitor. You know, here you're besieged by Jerusalem outside your walls, I mean by Nebuchadnezzar outside your walls, and there's a guy inside saying, surrender, surrender, you know, this is God's judgment and don't fight it. You're fighting against God.

I mean, that sounds like rebellion. It sounds like traitor stuff, and so he's put in jail for that. But here again we see God is pushing Zedekiah because he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar.

Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, verse 19, As I live, surely mine oath that he hath despised in my covenant that he hath broken, even it will be recompensed upon his own head, and I will spread my net upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare, and I will bring him to Babylon, and plead with him there for his trespass that he has trespassed against me. And all his fugitives with all his band shall fall by the sword, and they that remain shall be scattered toward all the winds, and ye shall know that I the Lord have spoken it. So it's talking about the fact that Zedekiah would also now be taken by Nebuchadnezzar into Babylon, and we know that was true.

He sought to escape. By night he was captured. His eyes were poked out after his sons were slain in his sight, and then he was taken to Babylon where he died.

So that's what's being predicted here. Then there is a look forward to the Messianic kingdom, which is always nice. It's always a relief in the midst of these kinds of prophecies that he now looks to the coming of Christ.

It says, Thus saith the Lord God, I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar. Now, the high cedar in this case, of course, was the kingly line of David in Lebanon, in Jerusalem. We know that because Jehoiakim, the king who was taken into captivity, was called the highest branch of cedar.

That is, he was the king of the Davidic line. Jehoiakim was David's descendant. So the highest branch of cedar represents the king, the king of the Davidic family tree.

And now it says, Thus saith the Lord, I will take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and I will set it. Now, this is in contrast to the fact that the eagle in the parable took one of those branches and planted it. That was Zedekiah.

Zedekiah was planted by Nebuchadnezzar. However, this one, this king will be planted by God. God will plant a king over Jerusalem out of David's family line, family tree.

I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and I will plant it upon a high mountain and eminent. The tender branch that he would crop off and plant, transplant, is Jesus. We know from Isaiah 53, it says, He shall grow up like a tender branch, or a tender plant before him.

Same kind of picture here. It's Isaiah 53 and verse 2. This is talking about Jesus. For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground, he shall have no form or tenderness that we should desire.

So here it says, He will take the young twigs, a tender one, and will plant it upon a high mountain and eminent. The high mountain refers to, of course, the spiritual mountain, Zion, the church. In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it, and it shall bring forth boughs and bear fruit.

Jesus would. Jesus compared his kingdom to that very thing. In fact, he apparently referred back to this particular verse when he did so.

And be a goodly cedar, and under it shall dwell all the fowl of every wing, in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell. This is very much like the image of the fig tree. No, I'm sorry, the mustard seed.

All these trees are used as images in the scripture, but in the case of Jesus' parable, in Matthew 13, 32, he said the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which is small but grows into a great tree, and birds lodge in its branches. The same imagery here. This time it's a cedar tree.

But the idea is that it will stretch out its branches. One thing is clear, he shifts metaphors frequently. He talks about it bearing fruit, and then he calls it a cedar tree.

Is it a cedar tree, or is it a fruit-bearing tree? Make up your mind. But the prophet doesn't have to make up his mind. He can shift images any time he wants to.

I mean, after all, the cedar twig that was cut off by Nebuchadnezzar and planted in the parable became a vine. It's clear that he's not trying to describe something that is true to life, but something that's just conveying a whole lot of different thoughts, including fruitfulness, greatness, strength. He's talking about the fact that the kingdom of God, planted by Jesus, would spread out its branches to fill the whole earth, very much like what Jesus said in Matthew 13, 32 about the mustard seed doing that.

And all the trees of the field shall know that I, the Lord, have brought down the high tree, and have exalted the low tree. I have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish. And I, the Lord, have spoken and have done it.

Now, God has brought down the high tree and exalted the low tree. Jesus was the low tree. Israel and Jerusalem in the days of Jesus was the high tree.

And God brought down the city of Jerusalem by the Romans and exalted the new city, the spiritual city, spiritual Jerusalem that Jesus established, which in his lifetime was a low tree, but became a great tree after his death and ascension and after the destruction of Jerusalem. So that's what he's talking about there. Now, interesting, he says, I have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish.

So Jesus is compared to a dry tree in this place where Israel had been a green tree, but they get dried up just like Jesus cursed the fig tree, and it dried up from the roots, symbolic of what's to happen to Israel. Jesus seemed to be a dry tree. He didn't seem to reproduce that much in his lifetime.

At the end of his ministry, he only had 11 people loyal to him. It didn't seem like a big movement. It didn't seem like a lot of fruit for his efforts, but God exalted that anyway and caused him to flourish.

So this is a prophecy about Jesus and the Messianic kingdom. Now, as I said, this parable is about the kings of Judah. It talks about Jehoiakim and Zedekiah and Jesus, three different kings.

Now there's another parable of the kings of Jerusalem, or kings of Judah, in chapter 19. This is a shorter chapter, and it also deals with three kings, but different three. Jehoiakim is in this one also, but there are other kings besides.

Jehoiaz is actually the first one in this parable. Jehoiakim is the second, and Zedekiah is the third, as we shall see. Chapter 19.

Moreover, take thou up a lamentation for the princes or kings of Israel, and say, What is thy mother? A lioness. Now they are, of course, of the tribe of Judah. They are David's thoughts, so they are of the tribe of Judah.

Judah is elsewhere compared, of course, to a lion. In Jacob's oracle over his son Judah, he said, Judah is a lion's wealth. And, of course, Jesus is called the lion of the tribe of Judah.

The standard on Judah's banners had a picture of a lion on it when they marched through the wilderness, according to Jewish tradition. So a lion was always the symbol of that particular tribe of Judah. What is your mother? That is, the kings were all from this tribe, this mother, a lioness.

She lay down among the lions. She nourished her whelps among the young lions. Now the whelps of this lioness are the kings in the parable.

And she brought up one of her whelps. It became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey, and it devoured men. The nations also heard of him, and he was taken into their pit.

And they brought him with chains into the land of Egypt. This is a reference to King Jehoahaz, who was taken captive into Egypt by Pharaoh Necho. And then it says in verse 5, Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, that he never returned from Egypt, then she took another of her whelps and made him a young lion.

Now this is a reference to Jehoiakim, whom we have also seen discussed in the previous parable. Now between Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, there was another king, Jehoiakim, who is not mentioned in this parable. The reason Jehoiakim is not mentioned is because he is the only one of the four, if we consider there are three in this parable plus him, there are the one of the four that was not taken into captivity in a foreign country.

The reason there are three specific kings mentioned here, Jehoiahaz, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, is because they have this in common, they are all taken into captivity. Jehoiahaz into Egypt, and Jehoiakim and Zedekiah into Babylon. And that is the point of the parable, to show that this lioness lost three of her whelps into foreign lands.

And so it skips over the reign of Jehoiakim, to whom that principle would not apply, he did not go into foreign lands. It skips over to Jehoiakim, and says, she took another of her whelps and made him a young lion, and he went up and down among the lions and became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey and devoured men. And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities, and the land was desolate, and the fullness thereof, by the noise of his roaring.

Then the nations set against him, this would be Babylon, on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him, he was taken in their pit. Jehoiakim was taken to Babylon. 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.

Now, he's been very clear about where these men went. It says in verse 4 that the first whelp went into Egypt, which clearly identifies that as Jehoiaz, who was taken by Pharaon Jehoiakim in Egypt. And then the second whelp that is mentioned is said to have been taken into Babylon perpetually, that is Jehoiakim, obviously.

Then it says in verses 10-14, we deal with Zedekiah, however the metaphor shifts. He now talks about a plant, rather than a lion. He says, thy mother is like a vine.

Well, in verse 2, his mother was like a lion. So he's changed images again, but brought up a familiar one, comparing Judah or Jerusalem with a vine. Your mother is like a vine, in thy blood.

Now that's a strange expression. The revised standard says in thy vineyard, which would make a lot more sense. I'm not sure how they get vineyard out of blood.

It seems likely that it has to do with the vowel pops added to the Hebrew word. Probably the same consonants could either be translated blood or vineyard, depending on which vowels are added. Remember, the original Hebrew doesn't have vowels, it just has consonants.

And therefore it's up to the translators to guess which vowels are applicable. And so the King James translators have in thy blood, it would seem more likely in thy vineyard is a better way to see it. Thy mother is like a vine in thy vineyard.

Let's take it that way. Planted by the waters, she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters. This agrees with other parables where she's considered with a vine.

And she had strong rods for scepters, of them that bear rule. And her stature was exalted among the thick branches. And she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.

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 and the fire consumed them.

And now she is planted in the wilderness in a dry and thirsty ground. And fire has gone out of a rod of her branches. This would be that a kayak which has devoured her fruit so that she has no strong rod to be a scepter to rule.

This is a lamentation and shall be for a lamentation. So in this parable we've got Judah compared to a lioness and two of her whelps, two of her kings are taken into captivity. Then the metaphor changes.

It becomes actually more obscure, a little harder to understand what's being said. But we know how history has borne out the fulfillment. The image is changed to a vine and talks about individual kings as scepters.

The vine has its branches. Now that wasn't suggested in chapter 15 as one of the values of the vine that produces rods for scepters. But perhaps we should realize that if a vine's branch was used for a scepter it would be a rather crooked scepter.

And that might even be implied that the kings were crooked of Judah. At any rate it says fire has gone out of a rod of her branches in verse 14 which means that the rod Zedekiah, the king, by his foolish rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar has brought fire upon the whole plant. Fire has gone out of him as it were by his doings has caused it to happen.

And it's devoured the whole vine so that there are no more rods. There are no more kings of Judah to replace Zedekiah. And so we see that of the six parables, two of them we have studied consider Jerusalem like an adulterous wife that needs to be judged and punished for her adultery.

Two of them compare Israel or Jerusalem to something that has no value but to be burned, a vine that has no fruit or a pot that has scum that won't come out any other way or rust. And then there's two of them that talk about the kings of Judah. Jehoiakim and Zedekiah are common to both of them.

Although one of them also mentions Jehoiachin, one goes so far as to look forward to the king Messiah who would come and prosper and be fruitful unlike any of the kings of Jerusalem before him. Well that's as much as I wanted to cover today. For more information visit www.fema.org