Ezekiel 19
Lament for the Princes of Israel: Parable of the Lion's Whelps
Prophecies about Judah and Jerusalem before the Captivity1
"Moreover, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
2
and say,'What was your mother?A lioness.She couched among lions,in the middle of the young lions she nourished her cubs.
3
She brought up one of her cubs.He became a young lion.He learned to catch the prey.He devoured men.
4
The nations also heard of him.He was taken in their pit;and they brought him with hooks to the land of Egypt.
5
"'Now when she saw that she had waited,and her hope was lost,then she took another of her cubs,and made him a young lion.
6
He went up and down among the lions.He became a young lion.He learned to catch the prey.He devoured men.
7
He knew their palaces,and laid waste their cities.The land was desolate,with its fullness,because of the noise of his roaring.
8
Then the nations attacked him on every side from the provinces.They spread their net over him.He was taken in their pit.
9
They put him in a cage with hooks,and brought him to the king of Babylon.They brought him into strongholds,so that his voice should no more be heard on the mountains of Israel.
10
"'Your mother was like a vinein your blood,planted by the waters.It was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.
11
It had strong branches for the scepters of those who ruled.Their stature was exalted among the thick boughs.They were seen in their heightwith the multitude of their branches.
12
But it was plucked up in fury.It was cast down to the ground,and the east wind dried up its fruit.Its strong branches were broken off and withered.The fire consumed them.
13
Now it is planted in the wilderness,in a dry and thirsty land.
14
Fire has gone out of its branches.It has devoured its fruit,so that there is in it no strong branch to be a scepter to rule.'This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation."
Eze 19:1-14. ELEGY OVER THE FALL OF DAVID'S HOUSE.
There is a tacit antithesis between this lamentation and that of the Jews for their own miseries, into the causes of which, however, they did not inquire.
1. 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.