Ezekiel 19:12-14

Ezekiel 19:12-14

[12] But she was plucked up  in fury,  she was cast down  to the ground,  and the east  wind  dried up  her fruit:  her strong  rods  were broken  and withered;  the fire  consumed  [13] And now she is planted  in the wilderness,  in a dry  and thirsty  ground.  [14] And fire  is gone out  of a rod  of her branches,  which hath devoured  her fruit,  so that she hath no strong  rod  to be a sceptre  to rule.  This is a lamentation, 

What does Ezekiel 19:12-14 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

However, others uprooted this vine in their fury, trod it underfoot, and cut off its fruitfulness as with a hot east wind (from Babylon; cf. Ezekiel 17:6-10; Ezekiel 17:15; Psalm 89:30-37). Its strong branch, King Zedekiah, was cut off so it withered and burned up. This was a prediction of Zedekiah"s future. Assuming the chronological order of the prophecies in this book, Ezekiel evidently gave this one between592,591 B.C, which was after the reigns of Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin and during the reign of Zedekiah (597-586 B.C.). Zedekiah went into captivity in586 B.C. He had been responsible for much of the destruction that had overtaken Judah. Perhaps one reason for the change in the figures describing Israel"s kings, from lions to a vine, was that Zedekiah, the branch ( Ezekiel 19:12), was not a king approved by the Judeans but a puppet of the Babylonians, though he was in the Davidic line. Scripture gives us little information about Zedekiah"s domestic policies. The vine was now in the wilderness, a place of limited resources. It had burned up so there were no more strong shoots or fruit left in it. No scepter was in it now; there was no Davidic king who could rule over Israel. The vine was not completely destroyed, but it languished having been transplanted to a hostile environment. Another view sees Zedekiah as the fire that consumed the shoots and fruit of the Davidic line. [1]
The writer identified this piece again as a lamentation, a funeral dirge or elegy that the Jews used to describe their sorrow over the fate of the Davidic rulers of their nation.
It is appropriate that this last section in the part of the book that consists of Yahweh"s reply to the invalid hopes of the Israelites (chs12-19) should be a lament. Judah"s doom was certain, so a funeral dirge was fitting. All the exiles could do was mourn the divine judgment on their nation that was to reach its climax very soon.
"Jerusalem"s fall was so certain that Ezekiel considered it inevitable.... The dirge was not over one individual; it was being sung for the Davidic dynasty and the "death" of its rule." [2]
Not until Jesus Christ returns to the earth to reign will a strong branch and the ruler"s scepter arise in the line of David again (cf. Genesis 49:10; Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5; Jeremiah 33:15).