January 26, 2023
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Ezekiel? Here’s today’s reading:
Ezekiel 17 (NIV)
Two Eagles and a Vine
1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, set forth an allegory and tell it to the Israelites as a parable. 3 Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: A great eagle with powerful wings, long feathers and full plumage of varied colors came to Lebanon. Taking hold of the top of a cedar, 4 he broke off its topmost shoot and carried it away to a land of merchants, where he planted it in a city of traders............Continue Reading
I definitely had to look up what the parable in this chapter was referring to. While beautiful I wasn’t sure of the reference. Ultimately it spoke to the importance of keeping covenants and that God’s way is always the best way. The end of the chapter was my favorite part reminding me that God has ultimate control of all things and has the power over death and life. That while we make to other people as Jerusalem looked to other nations for help our help comes from God and God alone.
Yikes. Confusing
The weak the poor the last will be the ones that God puts 1st and will grow strong. This was a very deep chapter so could be all wrong. Waiting on you Peter Atkin.
Ok, so I am finally on this chapter. The first eagle is Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who came through the region of Palestine and took with Him in exile the best of the best in a first wave. These powerful, educated or young Jews were brought to Babylon (where God had said they would spend 70 years) and they started to get rooted and grown. I am not sure if it is before or during the second wave of exile that Nebbie sets up one of Judah’s royal family as a puppet king back in Judah to help him manage the area. He is the second eagle the Jews had a measure of hope in (the vine that was drawn to him). But he ends up rebelling against Nebbie, turns to Egypt as an ally, and he is put down. He (or the hope the Jews had in him) is the vine that withers when the wind blows. He is also the one who would be brought back to Babylon and die there. God had used Babylon as a tool against His people and He would not support them to establish a kingdom in Judah that would continue in the evil ways the Jews had participated in. I believe it was after these events that the third wave of exile happened and Nebbie retaliated for their disobedience to him. But even though God could not ultimately condone either eagle or the cedar shoot they planted, it doesn’t mean that He wouldn’t do it. Eventually He would establish a thriving society in Israel represented by this tree that grows and others are benefited by it. He alone is the one who establishes kings and kingdoms and they stand or fall based on the permission that He gives and nothing else!
Does that make more sense now?
Yes. Thank you Pastor Peter!
Ezekiel 17
Ezekiel 17
The vine was planted in good soil by abundant water, but will it thrive? says the Lord. This is a good question to reflect upon. Will we thrive when we have been given the Holy Spirit to produce good fruit? The king of Jerusalem did not honor his oath and the covenant he made with the king of Babylon. He also broke the oath and covenant that was made with the Lord. So God will bring destruction upon his land, but he will build up the tender root that was replanted, a remnant of the people that were exiled from Israel. He will keep the covenant he made with his people, and he will restore them again.
“Say now to the rebellious house, Know ye not what these things mean? tell them, Behold, the king of Babylon is come to Jerusalem, and hath taken the king thereof, and the princes thereof, and led them with him to Babylon;
And hath taken of the king’s seed, and made a covenant with him, and hath taken an oath of him: he hath also taken the mighty of the land:
That the kingdom might be base, that it might not lift itself up, but that by keeping of his covenant it might stand.
But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people. Shall he prosper? shall he escape that doeth such things? or shall he break the covenant, and be delivered?”