Page 85 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER XVII. 79
and its roots be under him: so it became a vine and
brought forth branches and sent out shoots.” (Yer. 1-6.)
The great eagle is none other than the king of Baby­
lon whom God in sovereign wisdom made head of the
Gentile imperial system, after Israel’s proved moral
ruin and rebellion against Jehovah, Indeed another
prophet had already employed a similar figure of Ne­
buchadnezzar. (Jer. xlviii. 40; xlix. 22.) But here it
is wrought into a complete allegory, for the cedar on
Lebanon denotes royalty in Israel vested in the house
of David, which was now for its sins in servitude to
the head of the Gentiles. Jehoiakim is the king of
Judah who is here described as the broken-off topmost
bough, whom Nebuchadnezzar took away with himself
to Babylon, then the most famous city of antiquity
not only for grandeur but for commerce. (Isaiah
xiii. 19; xliii. 14.) Nor this only; for the conqueror
set over Jerusalem another king, yet from the seed
of the land, not a stranger lord but from the
house of David, Mattaniah, uncle (“ brother”) of the
exiled king, under the new name given by his Gentile
master.
There Zedekiah might have flourished under the
fealty due to the Babylonish king of kings. But the sole
condition under which God would have secured peace
and a measure of prosperity was subjection to the
Gentile empire, recognizing it as God’s discipline of
His people because of their incurable disobedience and
of their kings. Zedekiah was as a willow, yet placed
beside great waters. His safety lay in acquiescing in
faithful vassalage to Nebuchadnezzar, humbling him­
self under the mighty hand of God; or according to the