Bible Commentaries

Prophecy In Parable

Ezekiel 17:2

The word "riddle" may in this connection mean parable, picture, symbol; whatever will excite and interest the imagination. "A great eagle with great wings, longwinged, full of feathers, which had divers colours"—this is a parabolical representation of Nebuchadnezzar—"came unto Lebanon"—came unto Jerusalem—"and took the highest branch of the cedar"—there was so much cedar in Jerusalem and in the holy edifice that the term "Lebanon" became not inappropriate as a description of the holy city itself. "He cropped off the top of his young twigs"—the reference here is to Jehoiakim; there was also a "vine of low stature," the reference being to Zedekiah; "There was also another great eagle"—the reference here is to Pharaoh. In order to see the whole image in its proper historical relation and perspective, compare 2 Kings 24:8-20; 2 Chronicles 36:9-13; Jeremiah 52:1-7 : put all these passages together, and you feel the atmosphere of the sacred riddle or pictorial representation of a chapter in the marvellous history of divine providence.

Note God's method of creating interest in his administration or way of doing things—"Son of Ezekiel 17:22-24. These verses have been accepted by Jewish commentators and by Christian commentators alike as referring to the Messiah, to be read and pondered and grasped as to their inner meaning and effect. God winds up the whole parable and its application by some marvellous words; he says, "And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I the Lord have spoken and have done it." Then what mistakes we have to correct! We had been thinking otherwise of the whole schemes of things. What a revelation there will be at last, what a different view, what a correction of our misinterpretations of providence! Everything has been of God. Is the high tree down? God felled it. Is the low tree exalted? God lifted it upwards to the blue heavens. Is the green tree dry, withered, utterly desiccated? God hath sucked its juice, and left it a barren, blighted thing in the meadow. Is the dry tree flourishing? Is the tree that men thought dead beginning to show signs of vitality? Are there spring buds upon it? Are the birds looking at it curiously, as if by-and-by mayhap they may build even there? The Lord hath made the dry tree to flourish. This is divine sovereignty. The God of the riddle and the God who works his will among the trees must be regarded as the same God. What is true in this verse which closes the chapter is true to all human life. Is one man successful? God made him so, in the degree in which his success was legitimate, healthy, righteous. Is a man vainly, viciously successful? The green tree shall be dried up. Is a man humbled, laid low in the dust? God may have done that for the man's salvation; after a day or two who can tell what may happen, if the overthrow has been accepted in the right spirit, and if instead of being turned in the direction of despair it has been turned in the direction of self-examination and self-accusation, and penitence, and broken-heartedness? Is the nation suffering from singular visitation? Is trade going away? Are men working much for nothing? Do men rise in the morning simply that they may sting themselves with disappointments all the day, and come back at night to seek rest from a world of tumult and worry? God is looking on, and he will know when to send the ships back to the ports, and when to revive commerce, and when to make the desert blossom as the rose. Is an enemy hard upon me? It is not the enemy, it is God: I have been doing wrong; when I have opposition to encounter I must ask myself serious questions; as for any man that can assail me, who is he? what faculty has he? what can he do? "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do." The king of Babylon may be sent to smite me because I have forgotten the King of heaven. Have no fear of your enemies, but interpret their enmity aright. If a man's ways please the Lord he will make even his enemies to be at peace with him; if a man shall try to be right and good, virtuous, generous, and to live a divine life, no weapon that is formed against him shall prosper; it shall be forged, it shall be whetted, it shall be lifted up, but it shall never come down upon the head of him for whom it was intended. How joyous would be our life if we could live in this strong conviction! Some of us have had opposition enough, and we have now lived long enough to thank God for it. Opposition made us. Patronage will kill any man; success will turn almost any head. We cannot be helped by recommendation beyond a very little degree; but we can be helped all but infinitely by contempt, neglect, sneering, mockery, foolish, baseless reproach and accusation. There is no man in the front line of the section of life to which he belongs who has not been set there by hostility. But the hostility has been rightly interpreted, rightly accepted, piously applied. The man on whom the stroke has fallen has kissed the rod and said it is in the hand of God.

The Lord having discoursed by the medium of a parable upon the greatness and the glory of certain men, says, "Shall it prosper? shall he not pull up the roots thereof, and cut off the fruit thereof, that it wither? it shall wither in all the leaves of her spring, even without great power or many people to pluck it up by the roots thereof. 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." "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found." Asaph beheld the world, and thought it had turned itself upside down, that virtue was somewhere wailing like a lost child, and vice was eating up the banquet of heaven. He stepped into the sanctuary, and all was explained.

Prayer

Almighty God, we know that thy word is right. We see the good: how to perform it we know not. We are assured that thy word is good and right, and the only word worth attending to; yet, how to do that which we know we find not. We cannot tell how this is. Thou hast made us, and not we ourselves: yet we feel that we have found out many inventions; that ours is a perverted judgment and a debased will. We know that, but we cannot account for it. We see the wrong thing, and go straight to it and do it: we could not do it more heartily had it been commanded from heaven to be done. We have done the things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone the things we ought to have done; and this we will do tomorrow, and do on our dying day; and all this afflicts us like a strange mystery in the night-time. We have no answer, we have no explanation. We mock ourselves with vain arguments, but still there remains the deadly fact that we are living away from God, turning our back upon the light, mistaking an opinion for a revelation, and regarding bigotry and obstinacy as religious veneration and firmness. Then how ignorant we are! We do not know the meaning of our own words; we fill our mouth with them, but the heart knows nothing of their meaning. God pity us! Let the Lord in heaven cry over us with tears of his own heart; for verily we are lost and undone, and we are strangers to ourselves, and in our heart there is a tremendous schism. Oh that we might recover ourselves by thy power, that we might hearken to the voice of thy Son , and answer his call with instant and glad obedience! Oh that we might keep thy law and walk in the way of thy commandments! then would our peace flow like a river, and our righteousness would be as the waves of the sea. May we fall into the divine movement; may we accept the divine will, and have no will of our own: then shall we revolve with the stars, and move on with the solemn forces of the universe; and wherever we are we shall see the gate of heaven standing wide open, and hear voices tender as the music of heaven. Amen.