Ezekiel 19:10 - Meaning and Application

Jerusalem, the mother city, is pictured here by another image: she is a vine, and the princes are her branches. We saw this picture before (Ezekiel 15:1). The Jewish nation was like a vine, and in verse 10 it is described as “a vine in your blood,” or the royal bloodline, like a vine planted and watered with blood. That is, so much blood had been shed that it seemed as if the blood itself had helped the soil become rich and fertile.

For a time, that seemed true. Jerusalem was fruitful and had many branches because of the many waters near which it was planted. Even places marked by great evil may prosper for a while, and a vine set in blood may still be full of branches. Jerusalem was full of able leaders, men of sense, learning, and experience, strong rods, like branches of unusual size and strength, or like poles that support a vine. Good rulers are like that, because they steady and uphold the life of a nation.

The branches of this vine grew so mature that they were fit to make white staves, that is, royal sceptres, the symbols of rule (Ezekiel 19:11). Men fit to bear a sceptre are men with strong judgment and firm resolve, people suited to public office. When the royal family of Judah was large, and the courts were filled with honest, sensible men, Jerusalem stood high among thick branches. When government is in capable hands, a nation becomes more respected and important.

Then she did not look like a weak or lowly vine. She appeared tall and distinguished, with many branches. Some understand the phrase “in your quietness” to mean that when Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, was quiet and easy under the king of Babylon’s rule, his kingdom flourished in this way. This shows how slow God is to anger, how long he waits before judging, and how willing he is to be gracious.

Now this vine is completely ruined. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, was deeply angered by Zedekiah’s treachery, so he tore it up in fury (Ezekiel 19:12). He destroyed the city and kingdom, and cut off all the branches of the royal family that fell into his hands. The vine was cut off near the ground, though not pulled up by the roots. The east wind dried up its fruit, and the young people fell by the sword or were taken into captivity.

Nothing about it was pleasant to look at anymore, and nothing about it gave hope for the future. Its strong rods were broken and withered, and its great men were removed, with judges and magistrates pushed aside. The vine itself was planted in the wilderness (Ezekiel 19:13). Babylon was like a wilderness to the captives taken there, and Judah was like a wilderness to Jerusalem, because the Chaldean army had ravaged and emptied the land. A fruitful land had turned into barrenness.

“It is burned with fire” (Psalm 80:16), and that fire came out of a rod from her own branches (Ezekiel 19:14). The king himself, by rebelling against the king of Babylon, had brought this disaster on the nation. She had only herself to blame for the fire that consumed her. By her own wickedness she had made herself like tinder for God’s wrath, so that her own branches became fuel for her destruction. The fire was kindled among them, and it devoured the fruit. The sins of the elders became the judgments that destroyed the younger people.

Her fruit was burned along with her branches, so there was no strong rod left to serve as a sceptre for ruling. None were found now who were fit to govern, or willing to take this ruin into their hands, as in the complaint of (Isaiah 3:6, 7). There was no one left from David’s house with the right to rule, and no wise men, no sensible men, able to govern. It goes badly with any nation, and is likely to go worse, when it loses the blessing of good government and has no strong rods for sceptres. “Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child,” for it is almost as bad to have no rod as to have a weak one.

Those strong rods had likely been used for oppression, helping the king catch prey and devour people. Now they were destroyed with him. Tyranny leads to chaos. When the rod of government turns into the serpent of oppression, it is only right for God to say, “There will be no strong rod to serve as a sceptre to rule.” Then people are left like the fish of the sea, where the larger devour the smaller.

This is a lamentation, and it will remain a lamentation. The prophet was told to take up a lamentation (Ezekiel 19:1), and having done so, he leaves it for others to use. It is a lament for his own time, and because the desolation lasts so long, it will still be a lament for those who come after. Even the unborn will suffer from the destruction brought on Judah and Jerusalem by these judgments. They took a long time to come, as if the bow had been drawn for a long time, but now that they have come, they will continue, and their sad effects will reach later generations.

Those who fill up the sins of their fathers are storing up sorrow for their children and giving them reason to grieve. Nothing does that more than the overthrow of government.