Chapter xv.
The next three chapters contain divinely given parables. The object of
these parables is to expose still further the false hopes which the
people had during the reign of Zedekiah, the last King of Judah. He
rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar after the second invasion (2 Kings
xxiv:20). He hoped, and the people with him, that deliverance would
come through the alliances Zedekiah had formed with Edom, Ammon, Tyre
and Sidon. He also had sent to Egypt for help. "But he rebelled against
him (the king of Babylon) in sending ambassadors into Egypt that they
might give him horses and much people" (Ezek. xvii:15). In all this
Zedekiah and the remnant of people left in the land despised the Word of
Jehovah. Prophet after prophet had delivered the same message concerning
the ultimate and complete overthrow of Jerusalem. During Josiah's reign
in the midst of the great reformation-revival, Hulda the prophetess, had
given the warning, "I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the
inhabitants thereof" (2 Kings xxii:16). The great reformation could not
keep back the decreed judgment. Nor can any reformation movement in the
close of our own age avert the judgment which is predicted upon an
ungodly world and an apostate church. Josiah's reign was followed by the
reign of Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. It went from bad to worse.
Twice Nebuchadnezzar had come and spoiled Jerusalem. It was evident that
Jehovah's judgment was being gradually executed upon the land and the
city. We have learned from the preceding chapters how often and in how
many different ways the Lord had repeated through Ezekiel's visions and
utterances that the judgment would surely do its complete work, and that
nothing would be able to arrest it. Yet Zedekiah, in the awful blindness
characteristic of all who deliberately reject the Word of God and
continue in an impenitent state, hoped for better things. And the exiles
also shared more or less this false hope.
Three parables were therefore given to Ezekiel to demonstrate still
further the false and vain hope and the delusion that there would be
deliverance. The Parable of the unfruitful vine shows that the nation
was good for nothing, and burning awaited the city. This is followed by
a second parable, one of the most beautiful in the Word of God: the
parable of the abandoned child in the field. That child, Jerusalem, had
bestowed upon it all the mercy and grace a loving God could give. And
after all had been done she became a wanton harlot and turned from Him
who loved her so much. Linked with the second parable is the restoration
promise, still unfulfilled. The third parable is the parable of the
great eagles. Here judgment upon the nation is once more announced. And
after that Ezekiel spoke in Jehovah's name the final word: "As I live,
saith the Lord God, surely in the place where the king dwelleth
(Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon) that made him king (Zedekiah was made king
by Nebuchadnezzar), whose oath he despised (Zedekiah had sworn to
Nebuchadnezzar and then broke the oath), even with him in the midst of
Babylon he shall die." "And I will spread my net upon him, and he shall
be taken in my snare, and I will bring him to Babylon, and will plead
with him there for his trespass that he hath trespassed against me"
(Ezek. xvii:16, 20).