Sermon Tone Analysis

This is the tenth of our planned 26 sermons on Ezekiel.

Ezekiel has 48 chapters, so to preach through the whole book will require us to cover multiple chapters most weeks.

Today we again are attempting to cover three chapters, Ezekiel 17-19.

How can we do this in one sermon?

Because we believe that the book of Ezekiel is inspired by God as it has come to us, we expect to find it to be a cohesive unity as we move from one chapter to the next.

We also believe that Ezekiel, like the rest of Scripture, comes to us in order to tell us something about the gospel of the kingdom.

The kingdom of God is the central theme of Scripture that gives shape to each one of its parts.

So, as we look at these three chapters, we can look to see what they combine to tell us about the kingdom of God.

And what we shall see is that chapter 17 tells us about the planting of the kingdom of God, chapter 18 tells us about the preservation of the kingdom, and chapter 19 tells us about the predators of the kingdom.

The Planting of the Kingdom

Let’s begin with chapter 17.

Here Yahweh, the God of Israel, instructs Ezekiel to “propound a riddle, and speak a parable to the house of Israel.”

We are prepared to find in what follows something of a puzzle, compounded by the fact that when the puzzle is put together, the picture on it is its own puzzle.

A riddle in the form of a parable.

What is it all about?

The Parable of the Two Eagles

In verses 3-6, the parable tells of “a great eagle” who breaks a twig off a Lebanese cedar “and carried it to a land of trade and set it in a city of merchants.”

After that, the eagle takes “of the seed of the land and planted it in fertile soil” and “beside abundant waters.”

The seed “sprouted and became a low spreading vine” that “produced branches.”

Then, in verses 7-8, the parable tells of “another great eagle.”

The vine bends toward this eagle hoping that it would water the vine even though it had already “been planted on good soil by abundant waters.”

Verses 9-10 present the moral of the tale.

The vine, which could have grown deep, nourishing roots, will end up withering away so that anyone could easily pull it up from the ground.

If you’re wondering what all that means, keep reading.

In verses 11-15 we are given the interpretation by God himself.

And what we find here is essentially the same story that God gave as the interpretation for Ezekiel’s sign-act in chapter 12. Once more, this is the story of the fate of the Israelites who remained in Jerusalem, led by Zedekiah.

The first great eagle is Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

He had taken some of the Israelites into exile, but he had left “one of the royal offspring,” verse 13 says, referring to Zedekiah, in Jerusalem.

He put them under oath to remain loyal to Babylon.

But Zedekiah was now in the process of rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar by appealing to the second great eagle, the Egyptian Pharaoh.

The result of all this, as the moral of the tale goes, is that whatever future Israel might have had has now been forfeited.

History and Theology

Because Zedekiah had broken his oath with Nebuchadnezzar, God declares in verse 16 that he will die in Babylon and that Pharaoh, the second great eagle, will be of no help to him in his rebellion (v.

17).

But take a look at verse 19.

“Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: As I live, surely it is my oath that he despised, and my covenant that he broke.

I will return it upon his head.”

Notice that God says that Zedekiah’s obligations to Nebuchadnezzar were also his obligations with God.

God claims to be the real actor, the true king, in these historical events.

And verses 20-21 make it plain that when Nebuchadnezzar hauls Zedekiah off to Babylon, it is God himself who is bringing down this judgment.

Now, one thing becomes quite plain here, if it hasn’t already been plain before.

The God of the Bible is the God of history.

He claims to be at work in the real moments of time and the things that happen day by day.

It is easy enough for us to forget this and relegate God’s activity to the miraculous or otherwise unexplainable mysteries of life.

But in verse 20, Zedekiah’s treachery against Nebuchadnezzar is even more so his treachery against Yahweh.

There’s no reason to suggest that God has pulled away from the everyday moments of life.

If you want to know what God is up to, you can keep up with the news of the day, or better yet read some older history, or maybe just invite someone over and have them tell you the story of their life.

It’s one of the best ways we Christians can come to know our God.

History is theology.

The Interpretation of History

Now, having said that, we know that history can be misinterpreted.

Beware of those who claim to know the real “meaning” behind every historical event.

Were it not for the revelation of God’s interpretation of these historical events, a case could have just as easily been made that the “good guys” had lost, that God had abandoned his people, and that the gods of Babylon were greater than Yahweh.

This was, in fact, what many in Israel thought was the only possible conclusion one could draw from what was happening right before their eyes.

The events of history often remain “a riddle” and “a parable” that defy easy interpretations.

Don’t make the mistake of claiming to know God’s intention behind every event in history.

But also, don’t make the mistake of ignoring the intention of God that has been made plain through his word.

The Bible gives us plenty historical interpretations that greatly impact everything else in history.

Remember in the parable that the first great eagle took a twig from a Lebanese cedar “and carried it to a land of trade and set it in a city of merchants” (v.

4).

We know that this refers to the exiles of Israel like Ezekiel who had been deported to Babylonia.

But the Hebrew text, translated here as “a land of trade,” literally reads “the land of Canaan.”

It reminds us of Psalm 80 which reminisces on the Exodus, describing it as God bringing a vine out of Egypt and planting it in Canaan to become a great vine higher than the mountains and the famed Lebanese cedars (Psa 80:8-13).

This, then, is the riddle.

God, having brought exiles to Babylon, was beginning a new exodos, and replanting his vine in a new Canaan.

So, the little detail at the beginning of the parable, quickly forgotten as the attention turned to the “see of the land” and the vine that grew there, this little detail, this little sprig, is where God’s activity, where his salvation, was to be found.

The Davidic dynasty appears to be dead with Zedekiah’s failed rebellion.

But the kingdom of God is alive and well, though it will take some time for it to grow into the “noble cedar” described in verses 22-24.

Those verses, by the way, remind us of Jesus’s own comments about the kingdom of God.

“What is the kingdom of God like?

And to what shall I compare it?”

Jesus asked in Luke 13. “It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches” (Lk 13:18-19).

This is the story of the kingdom of God, preserved through Israel’s long and tragic story, but slowly growing into a dominant, life-giving tree that brings life to all creation.

The Preservation of the Kingdom

When we turn to chapter 18, we move from a parable to a proverb.[1]

The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?

(Ezek 18:1-2)

In verse 3, God repudiates the proverb, and the rest of the chapter explains why.

What this chapter has in common with the preceding may be detected by what it also has to say about the kingdom of God.

Chapter 17 tells us about God’s planting of the kingdom in another Canaan.

This chapter can tell us about God’s preserving of the kingdom in succeeding generations.

All Souls Are Mine

The proverb under consideration here essentially teaches that the children suffer the consequences for their parents’ choices.

The proverb exists because it is a generally true statement.

All of us can see how it is true in many ways.

God does not reject the proverb wholesale; in the Ten Commandments, God says that those who serve other gods will negatively affect their children “to the third and the fourth generation.”

The deal with a proverb is not in its general truthfulness but in what particular cases a proverb is applied.

For example, we understand what is meant by the proverb “opposites attract,” but we also know what is meant by “birds of a feather flock together.”

The truthfulness of a proverb depends on the situations in which it is applied.

Here we see that God rejects the application of this proverb to the fate of “the land of Israel.”[2]

It seems that the proverb was used in the debate between the exiles and those still living in Jerusalem to the question of who had the right to the land.

But God says that this proverb doesn’t apply to this question.

Instead, God declared, “all souls are mine,” and “the soul who sins shall die” (v.

4).

This first point (“all souls are mine”) sets up God’s claim over his people.

His desire is for them.

He wants them to live and reign with him over his world.

But, “the soul who sins shall die” is God’s claim to absolute justice, first stated in Genesis 2:17 when God told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or he would die.

So, the question about who has rights to the land is not a cause-and-effect relationship between parent and child.

It is a cause-and-effect relationship between God and his people.

The Choice of Each Generation

At the same time, as we read through the chapter, we notice it is built on the test case of three succeeding generations.

In verses 5-9, we are told of the actions of a righteous man.