Ezekiel 17:22 - Meaning and Application

When the royal family of Judah was ruined by the captivity of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, people might have asked, “What happened to God’s covenant with David? Was not his family supposed to sit on the throne forever? Have the sure mercies promised to David proved unsure?” The answer is enough to silence such objections: the promise had a condition. God had said, “If they keep my covenant, then they will continue” (Psalm 132:12). David’s descendants broke that condition, so they lost the promise. But human unbelief does not cancel God’s faithfulness. He will raise up another son of David through whom the promise will be fulfilled, and that is what these verses speak about.

The house of David will be honored again, and from its ruins another branch will rise. The tree picture used in the warning is now used in the promise (Ezekiel 17:22, Ezekiel 17:23). This was partly fulfilled when Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, led the Jews back from exile and helped rebuild the city and temple, restoring their worship and national life. But the full meaning points to the kingdom of the Messiah, who came like a shoot from dry ground, and to whom God gave the throne of his father David as promised (Luke 1:32).

God himself will take care of restoring David’s house. Nebuchadnezzar, the great eagle, had tried to set up David’s line in a way that depended on him, but that effort failed. His planting withered and was pulled up. God says, in effect, “Then the next one will be my own planting. I will take from the highest branch of the high cedar and set it up.” People make plans, but God also has his plans, and his will succeeds when theirs fails. Nebuchadnezzar was proud of setting up kingdoms as he pleased (Daniel 5:19), but those kingdoms came to nothing. God of heaven sets up a kingdom that will never be destroyed (Daniel 2:44).

David’s house would be revived in a tender shoot cut from the top of its young twigs. Zerubbabel was such a shoot, and what seemed hopeful in him was only “the day of small things” (Zechariah 4:10), yet great mountains were made level before him. Our Lord Jesus was the highest branch of the high cedar, farthest from the root because David’s house soon ended after his appearing, but nearest to heaven because his kingdom is not of this world. He was taken from the top of the young twigs, for he is the man, the branch, a tender plant, and a root out of dry ground (Isaiah 53:2). Yet he is also a righteous branch, planted by the Lord for his glory.

This branch is planted on a high mountain (Ezekiel 17:22), on the mountain height of Israel (Ezekiel 17:23). God brought Zerubbabel there in triumph. There he raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to gather the lost sheep of Israel scattered on the mountains, set him as king on his holy hill of Zion, and sent the gospel from Mount Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. There, in the height of Israel, a nation that all its neighbors watched as famous and important, the Christian church was first planted. The churches of Judea were the earliest churches. Unbelieving Jews did all they could to stop that planting, but no one can uproot what God plants.

From there it would spread far and wide. The Jewish state began very low in Zerubbabel’s time, like a tender branch that could easily be pulled up, yet it took root, spread in a remarkable way, and later became very important. People from other nations, birds of every wing, put themselves under its protection. The Christian church began like a mustard seed, but it became, like this tender branch, a great tree. Its beginning was small, but its end grew to amaze people. When the Gentiles came into the church, then the birds of every wing, even those that had once preyed on others, came and lived under the shade of this beautiful cedar. See Daniel 4:21.

God himself will be glorified in all this (Ezekiel 17:24). The setting up of the Messiah’s kingdom in the world will make it clearer than ever that God is the King of all the earth (Psalm 47:7). Never was there a fuller proof that everything is governed by an all-wise and all-powerful providence than in the exaltation of Christ and the establishment of his kingdom among people. Through that, it became plain that God holds all hearts in his hand and rules every matter as he chooses.

All the trees of the field will know two things. First, the tree God chooses to bring down and dry up will certainly come down, no matter how high, strong, green, or flourishing it seems. Neither honor nor wealth, neither outward success nor inward gifts, will protect anyone from God’s humbling hand. Second, the tree God chooses to lift up and make fruitful will surely do so, no matter how low and dry it is. The house of Nebuchadnezzar, now so impressive, will be cut off, while the house of David, now so weak and unnoticed, will become famous again. The Jewish nation, now despised, will become important. Satan’s kingdom, which has long held such wide power, will be broken, and Christ’s kingdom, once treated with contempt, will be established. The Jews, who had once been high and green in the privileges of God’s people, will be put out, and the Gentiles, who had been like low and dry trees, will be brought in their place (Isaiah 54:1). All Christ’s enemies will be brought low and made his footstool, and his cause will be confirmed and advanced.

“I the Lord have spoken” is the declared decree that Christ must be exalted and must become the headstone of the corner. “I have done it” means, “I will do it in due time,” but it is as certain as if it were already finished. With people, saying and doing are often two different things, but it is not so with God. What he has spoken, he will do. Not one letter of his word will fail, for he is not a man who lies, or a son of man who changes his mind about either his warnings or his promises.