Ezekiel 15:6
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Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give up the people of Jerusalem.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Ezekiel has again and again, in God's name, foretold the utter ruin of Jerusalem; but, it should seem, he finds it hard to reconcile himself to it, and to acquiesce in the will of God in this severe dispensation; and therefore God takes various methods to satisfy him not only that it shall be so, but that there is no remedy: it must be so; it is fit that it should be so. Here, in this short chapter, he shows him (probably with design that he should tell the people) that it was as requisite Jerusalem should be destroyed as that the dead and withered branches of a vine should be cut off and thrown into the fire. I. The similitude is very elegant (Eze 15:1-5), but, II. The explanation of the similitude is very dreadful (Eze 15:6-8).
Open source ↗15:6 The people of Jerusalem are like grapevines: Cp. Ps 80:8-9; Isa 5:1-7; Jer 2:21; John 15:1-6. • If grapevines grow among the trees of the forest, they do not bear fruit because they lack sufficient sunlight.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
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Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.
A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his lair to lay waste your land. Your cities will be reduced to ruins and lie uninhabited.
But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers? They repented and said, ‘Just as the LORD of Hosts purposed to do to us according to our ways and deeds, so He has done to us.’”
‘After that,’ declares the LORD, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’
to make them a ruin, an object of horror and contempt and cursing, as they are to this day—Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials;
“Son of man, how does the wood of the vine surpass any other branch among the trees in the forest?