Ezekiel 15:6

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 15:6-8. As the vine-tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given for fuel — That is, as the vine-tree, when barren and fruitless, like the wild trees of the forest, is given for fuel, being fit for nothing else; or as a vine, when barren and cut up, is thrown among other wood which is intended to be fuel for the fire; so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem — So will I destroy them by the Chaldeans, among other nations which are destroyed by them. For they are so degenerated, and grown so corrupt and wicked, that they are of no use any longer in the world; but are rather injurious to civil society, and therefore are only fit to be consumed. And I will set my face against them — To thwart all their counsels and confound their schemes, as they have set their faces against me to contradict my word and defeat my designs: or, I will look upon them with indignation. They shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them — The end of one judgment shall be the beginning of another; and their escape from one only a reprieve till another come. They shall go from misery in their own country to misery in Babylon. They that kept themselves out of the way of the sword, perished by famine or pestilence: when one descent of the Chaldean forces upon them was over, and they thought, Surely the bitterness of death is past; yet soon after these enemies returned again with double violence till they had made a full end. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have set my face against them — You that are in Chaldea, when you shall hear what mischiefs, one after another, are heaped on Jerusalem, shall know that I am Jehovah, a God of almighty power, that it is my wrath and vengeance that is poured upon them. Observe, reader, God shows himself to be the Lord by the destruction of his implacable enemies, as well as by the deliverance of his obedient people. And, observe also those against whom he sets his face, though they may come out of one trouble little hurt, will fall into another; though they come out of the pit, will be taken in the snare, Isaiah 24:8; though they escape the sword of Hazael, will fall by that of Jehu, 1 Kings 19:17 : for evil pursues sinners. Nay, though they go out from the fire of temporal judgments, and seem to die in peace, yet there is an everlasting fire that will devour them; for when God judgeth, first or last, he will overcome, and will be known by the judgments which he executeth.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:1-8 Jerusalem like an unfruitful vine. - If a vine be fruitful, it is valuable. But if not fruitful, it is worthless and useless, it is cast into the fire. Thus man is capable of yielding a precious fruit, in living to God; this is the sole end of his existence; and if he fails in this, he is of no use but to be destroyed. What blindness then attaches to those who live in the total neglect of God and of true religion! This similitude is applied to Jerusalem. Let us beware of an unfruitful profession. Let us come to Christ, and seek to abide in him, and to have his words abide in us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Behold, it is cast into the fire - The wood is in itself useless for any purpose; but what if it have been cast into the fire, and half burned, what of it then?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. So will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as being utterly unprofitable (Mt 21:33-41; 25:30; Mr 11:12-14; Lu 13:6-9) in answering God's design that they should be witnesses for Jehovah before the heathen (Mt 3:10; 5:13).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Either thus, When the vine is, as the wild trees of the forest, barren and fruitless, it is less worth than the forest tree; so are you, O house of Israel, in my account: or else, As trees of the forest are for the fire in all the less valuable parts of them, so are all the branches and body of the barren vine, which you are, O Jerusalemites.

I have given; designed and doomed for food to the fire.

So will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem; for by their sins they have kindled a fire, which shall burn every barren branch in the degenerate and fruitless vine.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Now follows the application of the simile:

as the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel; to be burnt, as other trees of the forest are, and along with them:

so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem; to be destroyed along with other nations by the Chaldeans; they being no better, but as bad, if not worse, like wild vines among forest trees; and therefore must fare no better: this was the decree and determination of the Lord.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6–8. Application of the figure to Jerusalem

6. which I have given] The reference is to the supposition in Ezekiel 15:4. It is nowhere said in the passage that the vinewood is fit only fur fuel, nor that it has been appointed (when created by God) to be burnt; Ezekiel 15:4 is a supposition that in a particular case it has been flung into the fire for fuel, and its ends burnt, and the inference is drawn that, good for little when whole, much less will it be good for anything in that condition. The use of the first person “I have given” is peculiar. Cornill suggests “it has been given,” considering “I have given” which follows immediately to have been the source of the error.

so will I give] Lit., so have I given. The comparison is not between Jerusalem and a vine when whole, but between Jerusalem and a vine with its two ends burnt. Naturally the supposition is made that the vinewood flung into the fire has been plucked out after having been burnt and charred, and the question is asked, Is it good for anything now? This is the condition of Jerusalem: it has been given into the fire for fuel, plucked out of it, as it were, half-burnt; is it good for anything?

Ezekiel 15:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Ezekiel 15:2. Son of man, what advantage has the wood of the vine over every wood, the vine-branch, which was among the trees of the forest? Ezekiel 15:3. Is wood taken from it to use for any work? or do men take a peg from it to hang all kinds of vessels upon? Ezekiel 15:4. Behold, it is given to the fire to consume. If the fire has consumed its two ends, and the middle of it is scorched, will it then be fit for any work? Ezekiel 15:5. Behold, when it is uninjured, it is not used for any work: how much less when the fire has consumed it and scorched it can it be still used for work? Ezekiel 15:6. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, As the wood of the vine among the wood of the forest, which I give to the fire to consume, so do I give up the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Ezekiel 15:7. And direct my face against them. They have gone out of the fire, and the fire will consume them; that ye may learn that I am Jehovah, when I set my face against them. Ezekiel 15:8. And I make the land a desert, because they committed treachery, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - Israel is like the wood of the wild vine, which is put into the fire to burn, because it is good for nothing. From Deuteronomy 32:32-33 onwards, Israel is frequently compared to a vine or a vineyard (cf. Psalm 80:9.; Isaiah 5; Hosea 10:1; Jeremiah 2:21), and always, with the exception of Psalm 80, to point out its degeneracy. This comparison lies at the foundation of the figure employed, in Ezekiel 15:2-5, of the wood of the wild vine. This wood has no superiority over any other kind of wood. It cannot be used, like other timber, for any useful purposes; but is only fit to be burned, so that it is really inferior to all other wood (Ezekiel 15:2 and Ezekiel 15:3). And if, in its perfect state, it cannot be used for anything, how much less when it is partially scorched and consumed (Ezekiel 15:4 and Ezekiel 15:5)! מה־יּהיה, followed by מן, means, what is it above (מן, comparative)? - i.e., what superiority has it to כּל־עץ, all kinds of wood? i.e., any other wood. 'הזמורה אשׁר וגו is in apposition to עץ הנּפן, and is not to be connected with מכּל־עץ, as it has been by the lxx and Vulgate, - notwithstanding the Masoretic accentuation, - so as to mean every kind of fagot; for זמורה does not mean a fagot, but the tendril or branch of the vine (cf. Ezekiel 8:17), which is still further defined by the following relative clause: to be a wood-vine, i.e., a wild vine, which bears only sour, uneatable grapes. The preterite היה (which was; not, "is") may be explained from the idea that the vine had been fetched from the forest in order that its wood might be used. The answer given in Ezekiel 15:3 is, that this vine-wood cannot be used for any purpose whatever, not even as a peg for hanging any kind of domestic utensils upon (see comm. on Zechariah 10:4). It is too weak even for this. The object has to be supplied to לעשׂות למלאכה: to make, or apply it, for any work. Because it cannot be used as timber, it is burned. A fresh thought is introduced in Ezekiel 15:4 by the words 'את שׁני ק. The two clauses in Ezekiel 15:4 are to be connected together. The first supposes a case, from which the second is deduced as a conclusion. The question, "Is it fit for any work?" is determined in Ezekiel 15:5 in the negative. אף כּי: as in Ezekiel 14:21. נחר: perfect; and יחר: imperfect, Niphal, of חרר, in the sense of, to be burned or scorched. The subject to waויּחר is no doubt the wood, to which the suffix in אכלתהוּ refers. At the same time, the two clauses are to be understood, in accordance with Ezekiel 15:4, as relating to the burning of the ends and the scorching of the middle. - Ezekiel 15:6-8. In the application of the parable, the only thing to which prominence is given, is the fact that God will deal with the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the same manner as with the vine-wood, which cannot be used for any kind of work. This implies that Israel resembles the wood of a forest-vine. As this possesses no superiority to other wood, but, on the contrary, is utterly useless, so Israel has no superiority to other nations, but is even worse than they, and therefore is given up to the fire. This is accounted for in Ezekiel 15:7 : "They have come out of the fire, and the fire will consume them" (the inhabitants of Jerusalem). These words are not to be interpreted proverbially, as meaning, "he who escapes one judgment falls into another" (Hvernick), but show the application of Ezekiel 15:4 and Ezekiel 15:5 to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Out of a fire one must come either burned or scorched. Israel has been in the fire already. It resembles a wild vine which has been consumed at both ends by the fire, while the middle has been scorched, and which is now about to be given up altogether to the fire. We must not restrict the fire, however, out of which it has come half consumed, to the capture of Jerusalem in the time of Jehoiachin, as Hitzig does, but must extend it to all the judgments which fell upon the covenant nation, from the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes to the catastrophe in the reign of Jehoiachin, and in consequence of which Israel now resembled a vine burned at both ends and scorched in the middle. The threat closes in the same manner as the previous one. Compare Ezekiel 15:7 with Ezekiel 14:8, and Ezekiel 15:8 with Ezekiel 14:15 and Ezekiel 14:13.