Ezekiel 15

Ezekiel 15
THE short 15th chapter treats Israel under the well-known figure of the vine—God’s vine, responsible to bring forth fruit. (Psalm 80:8-11: Jeremiah 2:2121Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? (Jeremiah 2:21); Hosea 10:1,1Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images. (Hosea 10:1) and many other passages refer to Israel as the vine, or the vineyard, which God had planted and cared for). The vine had failed to yield fruit to God, its husbandman, and now His word to Ezekiel is, “What is the vine (or, the wood of the vine) more than any wood, the vine branch which is among the trees of the forest? Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work?”
It is not useful as the wood of other trees, and even as fuel its value is low. Israel had already experienced the fire of God’s indignation in the captivity of both “ends” of the nation—the ten tribes and the two, and only the small part was left in possession of the land; these were more wicked than their fellows who had gone into captivity.
God was therefore about to give to the fire the inhabitants of Jerusalem who are viewed as representative of the people left in the land of their forefathers. He would set His face against them, and when they would seek to escape front one fire, another would devour them. This, we may gather, referred to the effort to escape from the besieged city, which ended in the capture of those who fled. (Jeremiah 39:4-94And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the plain. 5But the Chaldeans' army pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him. 6Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. 7Moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon. 8And the Chaldeans burned the king's house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem. 9Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to him, with the rest of the people that remained. (Jeremiah 39:4‑9)).