Ezekiel 15

When the sons of Asaph wanted to describe the city of Jerusalem, they wrote, “Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King” (Ps. 48: nkjv). The Babylonian Talmud says, “Of the ten measures of beauty that came down to the world, Jerusalem took nine” (Kidushin 49b), and, “Whoever has not seen Jerusalem in its splendor has never seen a lovely city” (Succah 51b). Of modern Jerusalem, Samuel Heilman wrote, “It is a place in which people actually live; it is a place that lives in them.” One of the Jewish exiles in Babylonian wrote: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her skill! If I do not remember you, let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth—if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy” (Ps. 137:5–6 nkjv). When Jewish families around the world celebrate Passover, they conclude the meal with, “Next year in Jerusalem!”

The Jewish exiles wouldn’t be happy with the three messages Ezekiel would bring them from the Lord, for he was going to announce the destruction of Jerusalem and the ravaging of the Promised Land. It was bad enough that the Jews were exiles in a pagan land, but to be told that they would have no city to return to was more than they could bear. No wonder they preferred the encouraging messages of the false prophets.

The prophet Ezekiel remained silent except when the word of the Lord came to him and God permitted him to speak (3:25–27). The three messages recorded in these chapters were given to the elders who were seated before him in his own house, men who outwardly appeared interested in hearing God’s word but inwardly were idolatrous (14:1–3). The Lord knew that neither the elders nor the people took Ezekiel’s messages seriously because they saw him as a “religious entertainer” whose words were only “beautiful music” (33:30–33). Whenever God’s people turn from His Word and become satisfied with substitutes, they are indeed headed for failure.

Because the people who heard him were spiritually blind and deaf, Ezekiel had to hold their attention, arouse their interest, and motivate them to think about God’s truth. One way he did this was through his “action sermons,” and another way was by means of sermons filled with vivid and arresting vocabulary and intriguing imagery. In these three messages, Ezekiel spoke about a vine, an unfaithful wife, and three shoots from a tree, and each of these images conveyed God’s truth to those who really wanted to understand. These pictures and parables not only described the sins of the nation of Israel, but they also declared her terrible judgment. Ezekiel spoke to his people in the most vivid language found anywhere in Scripture, but the messages fell on deaf ears.

One more fact should be noted: these three “parables” answered the complaints of the people that God had rejected His people and was breaking His own covenant. False prophets in both Jerusalem and Babylon were building up the confidence of the people by telling them that the Lord would never allow Jerusalem and the temple to fall into the defiled hands of the Gentiles (Jer. 29:20–32). After all, Israel was Jehovah’s special vine, planted by Him in the Promised Land. The nation was married to Jehovah in a divine covenant, and He would never divorce her. But even more, didn’t the Lord promise David an endless dynasty? (2 Sam. 7) The Davidic dynasty was like a tall sturdy cedar tree that could never be felled by the Gentiles. Ezekiel used these same three images to teach the nation that the Lord was judging His people because He did have these special relationships to them! Privilege brings responsibility, and responsibility brings accountability.

The vine is an image found frequently in Scripture. Jesus compared Himself to a vine and His disciples to branches in the vine, because we depend wholly on Him for life and fruitfulness (John 15). Without Him, we can do nothing. Revelation 14:17–20 speaks of “the vine of the earth,” a symbol of corrupt Gentile society at the end of the age, ripening for judgment in the winepress of God’s wrath. But the image of the vine is often applied to the nation of Israel (Ps. 80; Isa. 5:1–7; Jer. 2:21; Matt. 21:28–46; Luke 20:9–19). In fact, Ezekiel will bring the image of the vine into his parable about the “shoots” (Ezek. 17:6–8).

When you study the references listed above, you learn that Israel was a lowly vine when God planted her in the Promised Land, but by His blessing she increased and prospered. During the reign of David and the early years of Solomon, the vine was fragrant and fruitful, a witness to the Gentile nations of the blessing of the God of Israel. However, Solomon introduced idolatry into the nation, the kingdom divided, and the Jewish people began to bear “wild grapes” (Isa. 5:2) instead of fruit for God’s glory. Subsequent kings, both of Israel and Judah, worshipped idols and engaged in the evil practices of the neighboring nations. God allowed the Gentiles to invade the land and eventually destroy Jerusalem and the temple (Ps. 80:12–13). The holy vineyard was defiled and devastated.

Ezekiel’s contribution to the “vineyard story” is to point out the worthlessness of the vine if it doesn’t bear fruit. If a tree becomes useless, you can at least cut it down and make something useful out of the wood; but what can you make out of the wood of a vine? You can’t even carve a tent peg or a wall peg out of it! It’s good for only one thing, and that’s fuel for the fire. If the wood was useless before it was thrown into the fire, it’s even more worthless after it’s been singed and marred by the flames.

Ezekiel saw the nation’s first taste of the fire in 605 BC when Nebuchadnezzar took the temple treasures to Babylon along with some of the best of the young men, including Daniel. In 597 BC, there was a second deportation of exiles, Ezekiel among them, so the fire was growing hotter. The siege of Jerusalem began in 588 BC and the fire began to blaze; and in 586 BC, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and took thousands of Jewish captives to Babylon. The vine was burned at both ends and in the middle! The inhabitants of the Holy City certainly went from the “fire” of invasion and assault to the literal fire of destruction. “Then they [the Babylonians] burned the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions” (2 Chron. 36: nkjv).

Those of us who are branches in Jesus Christ, the true vine, need to take this lesson to heart. If we fail to abide in Christ, we lose our spiritual power, wither, and fail to bear fruit for His glory. The fruitless branch is tossed aside and eventually burned (John 15:6). I don’t think this burning means condemnation in the lake of fire, for no true believer can be condemned for sins for which Jesus died (John 6:37; 10:27–29; Rom. 8:1). The image of the burning branch is that of a worthless life, a life useless to God. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, prayed, “Lord, let me not live to be useless!”