Chapter Fifteen

Israel – the Useless Vine Tree

In preparation (in chapter XVI) to give a detailed review of Israel’s past, in order to present all its history as a long chain of impiety and idolatry, and its present destruction as an inevitable consequence of its terrible past, the prophet prefaces this great historical survey with a brief characterization of the people from the standpoint of their natural capacities, and, using an old comparison of Israel with a grapevine, proves that the chosen people is not only not better, but worse than other nations, as a grapevine tree, apart from its fruit, is worse than other kinds of wood. The ideal for the prophet was not at all the development (culture) which Israel attained in Canaan and of which it was so proud. With some justice modern interpreters see in the present chapter a complete renunciation by Ezekiel of hope that Israel would ever, at least in the near future, become a political entity. The calling of Israel according to the prophet’s view was different.

Ezekiel 15:2. Son of man! What is the wood of the vine, the vine branch that is among the trees of the forest, more than any wood? The comparison of Israel with a vine, that noblest product of Canaan, was natural (cf. Matt 21:33) and old. Folk singers could have invented it to praise the nation (Herod’s temple was decorated with this symbol of Israel. Josephus, De bello jud. 5:5, 4). Writers and prophets, first Hosea (Hos 10:1), then Jeremiah (Jer 2:21), and also Isaiah (Isa 5:1 and following) apparently adopted it and turned it to bad account: Israel, like a noble vine branch, became wild. The prophet Ezekiel develops this comparison also to bad account, but in completely different respect. Israel apart from covenant relationship to Jehovah is below other nations in all respects – in extent of country, wealth, military might, arts. The allegory is skillfully developed in a series of questions, all demanding negative answers, each following indicating worse quality than the preceding.

Ezekiel 15:3. Can wood be taken from it to make anything? Can you make a peg from it to hang any vessel on? Even something as trifling as a nail cannot be made from vine wood: it is not hard enough for this. Cf. Pliny, Hist. nat, XIV, 1, 2.

Ezekiel 15:4. Behold, it is given to the fire for fuel; the fire consumes both ends of it, and its middle is charred. Is it useful for anything? Now this wood is even more useless, as it has suffered from fire. The two burned ends – the destroyed in 722 BC the Israelite kingdom and beginning with the exile of Jehoiachin the destruction of the Judean kingdom; the charred middle – Jerusalem on the eve of siege.

Ezekiel 15:5. And when the whole tree was sound, it was useful for no work. How much less when fire has consumed it, and it is charred, can it ever be used for anything? Even in general, Israel was never able to become a kingdom like other great monarchies (in different spirit Ezek 19:2 and following; 10 and following); but now it would be double madness to hope for its future, when a large part is destroyed.

Ezekiel 15:6. Therefore thus says the Lord God: As the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest I have given to fire for fuel, so I will give the inhabitants of Jerusalem to fire. God as Creator designated vine wood for nothing but burning (cf. Ezek 47:11); so also Israel!

Ezekiel 15:7. And I will set My face against them; though they escape from the fire, the fire shall yet consume them; and you will know that I am the Lord, when I set My face against them. Ezekiel 15:8. And I will make the land desolate, because they have acted faithlessly, says the Lord God. “From the fire they will come out...” Under the first fiery judgment may be understood either the aggregate of all former disasters by which God wished to instruct Israel (the Hebrew kingdom was more than once on the brink of destruction) or more directly the exile of Jehoiachin and the aristocracy; under the second fire – the final destruction of the kingdom by Nebuchadnezzar, which was indeed accompanied by the transformation of the country into a desert without hope and in the future of its former might. – “They have acted faithlessly.” This means the general violation of the covenant with God on the part of the whole people, to the description of which the prophet moves in the following chapter, and not the faithlessness of Zedekiah (Ezek 17:20), in which the former concretely expressed itself.