Ezekiel 19

Israel Degraded

Ezekiel 19:¹ “Moreover take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

Ezekiel 19:² and say:

‘What is your mother? A lioness:
She lay down among the lions;
Among the young lions she nourished her cubs.

Ezekiel 19:³ She brought up one of her cubs,
And he became a young lion;
He learned to catch prey,
And he devoured men.

Ezekiel 19:⁴ The nations also heard of him;
He was trapped in their pit,
And they brought him with chains to the land of Egypt.

Ezekiel 19:⁵ ‘When she saw that she waited, that her hope was lost,
She took another of her cubs and made him a young lion.

Ezekiel 19:⁶ He roved among the lions,
And became a young lion;
He learned to catch prey;
He devoured men.

Ezekiel 19:⁷ He knew their desolate places,

 AKA: (LXX He stood in insolence; Tg. He destroyed its palaces; Vg. He learned to make widows)

And laid waste their cities;
The land with its fullness was desolated
By the noise of his roaring.

Ezekiel 19:⁸ Then the nations set against him from the provinces on every side,
And spread their net over him;
He was trapped in their pit.

Ezekiel 19:⁹ They put him in a cage with chains (Or hooks),
And brought him to the king of Babylon;
They brought him in nets,
That his voice should no longer be heard on the mountains of Israel.

Ezekiel 19:¹⁰ ‘Your mother was like a vine in your bloodline,

“Bloodline” – Lit. blood, so with MT, Syr., Vg.; LXX like a flower on a pomegranate tree; Tg. in your likeness)

Planted by the waters,
Fruitful and full of branches
Because of many waters.

Ezekiel 19:¹¹ She had strong branches for scepters of rulers.
She towered in stature above the thick branches,
And was seen in her height amid the dense (Or many branches) foliage.

Ezekiel 19:¹² But she was plucked up in fury,
She was cast down to the ground,
And the east wind dried her fruit.
Her strong branches were broken and withered;
The fire consumed them.

Ezekiel 19:¹³ And now she is planted in the wilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land.

Ezekiel 19:¹⁴ Fire has come out from a rod of her branches
And devoured her fruit,
So that she has no strong branch—a scepter for ruling.’ ”

This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.