Ezekiel 19:1

Moreover take thou up a lamentation - Declare what is the great subject of sorrow in Israel. Compose a funeral dirge. Show Be melancholy fate of the kings who proceeded from Josiah. The prophet deplores the misfortune of Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, under the figure of two lion whelps, which were taken by hunters, and confined in cages. Next he shows the desolation of Jerusalem under Zedekiah, which he compares to a beautiful vine pulled up by the roots, withered, and at last burned. Calmet justly observes, that the style of this song is beautiful, and the allegory well supported throughout.

ELEGY OVER THE FALL OF DAVID'S HOUSE. (Eze 19:1-14) princes of Israel--that is, Judah, whose "princes" alone were recognized by prophecy; those of the ten tribes were, in respect to the theocracy, usurpers.

Moreover, take thou up a lamentation,.... These words are directed to the Prophet Ezekiel, to compose a doleful ditty, a mournful song, such as was used at funerals; and by it represent the lamentable state of the nation of the Jews and their governors, in order to affect them with it, with what was past, and present, and yet to come: for the princes of Israel; or, "concerning them" (s); the princes meant are Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, who were kings, though called princes, these words being synonymous; or, if so called by way of diminution, the reason might be, because they were tributary, either to the king of Egypt, or king of Babylon. (s) "de principibus Israel", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus, Starckius; so Ben Melech.

Capture and Exile of the Princes Eze 19:1. And do thou raise a lamentation for the princes of Israel, Eze 19:2. And say, Why did thy mother, a lioness, lie down among lionesses; bring up her whelps among young lions? Eze 19:3. And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion, and he learned to take prey; he devoured man. Eze 19:4. And nations heard of him; he was caught in their pit, and they brought him with nose-rings into the land of Egypt. Eze 19:5. And when she saw that her hope was exhausted, overthrown, she took one of her whelps, made it a young lion. Eze 19:6. And he walked among lionesses, he became a young lion, and learned to take prey. He devoured man. Eze 19:7. He knew its widows, and laid waste their cities; and the land and its fulness became waste, at the voice of his roaring. Eze 19:8. Then nations round about from the provinces set up against him, and spread over him their net: he was caught in their pit. Eze 19:9. And they put him in the cage with nose-rings, and brought him to the king of Babylon: brought him into a fortress, that his voice might not be heard any more on the mountains of Israel. The princes of Israel, to whom the lamentation applies, are the king (נשׂיא, as in Eze 12:10), two of whom are so clearly pointed out in Eze 19:4 and Eze 19:9, that there is no mistaking Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin. This fact alone is sufficient to protect the plural נשׂיאי against the arbitrary alteration into the singular נשׂיא, proposed by Houbigant and Hitzig, after the reading of the lxx. The lamentation is not addressed to one particular prince, either Zedekiah (Hitzig) or Jehoiachin (Ros., Maurer), but to Israel as a nation; and the mother (Eze 19:2) is the national community, the theocracy, out of which the kings were born, as is indisputably…

Here are, I. Orders given to the prophet to bewail the fall of the royal family, which had long made so great a figure by virtue of a covenant of royalty made with David and his seed, so that the eclipsing and extinguishing of it are justly lamented by all who know what value to put upon the covenant of our God, as we find, after a very large account of that covenant with David (Psa 89:3, Psa 89:20, etc.), a sad lamentation for the decays and desolations of his family (v. 38, 39): But thou hast cast off and abhorred, hast made void the covenant of thy servant and profaned his crown, etc. The kings of Judah are here called princes of Israel; for their glory was diminished and they had become but as princes, and their purity was lost; they had become corrupt and idolatrous as the kings of Israel, whose ways they had learned. The prophet must take up a lamentation for them; that is, he must describe their lamentable fall as one that did himself lay it to heart, and desired that those he preached and wrote to might do so to. And how can we expect that others should be affected with that which we ourselves are not affected with? Ministers, when they boldly foretel, must yet bitterly lament the destruction of sinners, as those that have not desired the woeful day. He is not directed to give advice to the princes of Israel (that had been long and often done in vain), but, the decree having gone forth, he must take up a lamentation for them. II. Instructions given him what to say. 1. He must compare the kingdom of Judah to a lioness, so wretchedly degenerated was it from what it had been formerly, when it sat as a queen among the nations, Eze 19:2. What is thy mother? thine, O king? (we read of Solomon's crown wherewith his mother crowned him, that is, his people, Sol 3:11), th…

19:1-14 An ancient Near Eastern funeral song had a distinctive rhythm and style and usually extolled the virtues of the person who had died, contrasting past glory with the current loss. In this case, those being lamented were not yet dead, and the dirge contained a catalogue of their faults. This dirge profoundly communicated the certainty of their fate and the reasons for it. • The lion (19:2-9) and the vine (19:10-14) were familiar images for the princes of Israel, the royal dynasty of Judah.