NOTES for Eze 17:1-24
Today’s reading presents Ezekiel’s parable, whose meaning concerns the difficult relationship that was developing between Judah, then a vassal of Babylonia, and Egypt (vv. 11–15). By the time the sermon recorded here was delivered, the prophet was already living in Babylon, although Jerusalem had not yet been destroyed, as it would be later.
Ezekiel came to Babylon with the first group of deportees from Jerusalem in 589 BC. At that time the Babylonians captured the city but did not completely destroy it; a Babylonian garrison and a local administration loyal to the new authorities were left there. Two years later, however, in 587 BC, a revolt broke out in the city, organized with the support of Egypt, which was then at war with Babylonia. Yet, as Ezekiel had warned (v. 17), Egypt was unable to give the rebels substantial assistance. The revolt was suppressed, and the city and the Temple were razed to the ground, as was customary in those days when dealing with rebellious cities.
Like the other prophet Jeremiah, who was a direct witness and involuntary participant in these events (Jer. 52), Ezekiel repeatedly warned that the rebels’ plans were not destined to succeed and that the uprising would end in defeat and great bloodshed (vv. 18–21). Such a position must probably have seemed collaborationist and unworthy of a patriot to many people.
Ezekiel understood what many others, including the leaders of the anti-Babylonian revolt, did not. He understood that history could not be turned back. The success of the revolt could have meant only one thing: a return to the past, to the very condition of the people and the country that had led to catastrophe. But God did not need a restoration; He did not want His people to return to the past. He needed to lead them forward, through repentance and conversion to spiritual renewal, without which a return to the land of their fathers and the rebuilding of the city and the Temple would have had no spiritual meaning. This was not easy to understand, because the mass religious consciousness of the pre-exilic period was inclined neither to repentance nor to reflection in general. On the contrary, shortly before the city was captured by the Babylonians in 589 BC, complacency and self-satisfaction prevailed there, heavily mixed with a peculiar religiously coloured nationalism that many mistook for Yahwism. God, of course, could not allow His people to return to such a condition. He intended to lead them forward towards spiritual renewal, even against the wishes of those who wanted to turn back.