Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
The Two Eagles and the Tender Twig
Ezekiel 17:1-24
1 Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, · WEB
A riddle about eagles and vines turns out to be a treason trial, and the oath Zedekiah broke was sworn to a pagan king and still counted.
The parable is set as a riddle, and its pieces are decoded in the same chapter. A great eagle comes to Lebanon, crops the top of a cedar and carries it to a city of merchants. It takes seed of the land and plants it as a willow by many waters, where it grows into a low, spreading vine. Then a second eagle appears, and the vine bends its roots toward it.
The interpretation is supplied without ceremony. The first eagle is the king of Babylon, who took the king and princes of Jerusalem to his own city and set up a member of the royal family in their place under oath. The vine was deliberately planted low — that is the point of the description — so that it might stand rather than be uprooted. The second eagle is Egypt, and the bending of the roots is Zedekiah's revolt.
What makes the chapter unusual is the ground of the condemnation. It is not idolatry, and it is not even the folly of trusting Egypt, though that is mentioned. It is a broken oath: he has despised the oath by breaking the covenant. The oath had been sworn to Nebuchadnezzar, a pagan king, in a treaty imposed by force. And God calls it my covenant that he has broken, because it had been sworn in his name. A promise made under duress to an enemy is treated as binding, and its violation is treated as a sin against God rather than merely against Babylon. Few passages state the seriousness of a sworn word so plainly.
And then the chapter takes its own imagery back and does something else with it. God says that he will take a tender twig from the top of the cedar and plant it himself — not on a plain by a canal, but on a high and lofty mountain, where it will become a good cedar bearing fruit, with birds of every kind in its shade. The first eagle transplanted a shoot to make it manageable. The last planting is done by God, on a height, and it grows into shelter for every kind of bird. The closing line explains the whole method: he brings down the high tree, exalts the low tree, dries the green tree and makes the dry tree flourish.
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