Ezekiel 19
McGeeEzekiel 19:1
ELEGY OF JEHOVAH OVER THE PRINCES OF ISRAELIn chapter 19 we have two lamentations: the lamentations over the princes of Israel (vv. Eze_19:1-9), and the lamentation over the land of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel (vv. Eze_19:10-14). This is not the lamentation of Ezekiel, as some Bible commentators have attempted to say. This is the lamentation of the Lord, actually the lamentation of the same One who later wept over Jerusalem (Mat_23:37-39). He is the One who is here weeping over the princes of Judah. The princes were a group of people in that land who had very few who were concerned about them. But God was concerned. Who shed tears over them? God did. By the way, who is concerned about you today? I suspect there are very few. Are the people where you work really concerned about you? Are the people in your church really concerned about you? Is your family concerned? A successful businessman once told me, “I honestly wonder who really cares about me today. Everybody, including my family, is only interested in what they can get out of me.” How sad that is! But God is concerned about you, and He is concerned about me. That’s quite comforting in this tremendous universe in which I live. I could get lost in it, I am so small. But He has His eye out and has a concern for each one of us. The princes of Judah were people for whom not too many in that day wanted to shed tears. They were Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin, two kings who were about as sorry as they come. God alone is concerned over them. When He begins to speak of the “lion,” He is speaking of the lion of Judah. “Judah is a lion’s whelps …“that is the way Judah was marked out by Jacob in Gen_49:9 as he gave his prophecies concerning each of his twelve sons. In Num_23:24 we read, “Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion….” The Lord Jesus is called the Lion of the tribe of Juda in Rev_5:5: “And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.”
Ezekiel 19:10
This now is the lamentation over the land of Judah. These people came into that land, and God blessed them. They were like a vine planted in the land. Now He has plucked up the vine, and they are carried away into captivity. This is a sad song depicting the sordid history of the nation.