Introduction This chapter contains two beautiful examples of the parabolic kind of writing; the one lamenting the sad catastrophe of Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, Eze 19:1-9, and the other describing the desolation and captivity of the whole people, Eze 19:10-14. In the first parable, the lioness is Jerusalem. The first of the young lions is Jehoahaz, deposed by the king of Egypt; and the second lion is Jehoiakim, whose rebellion drew on himself the vengeance of the king of Babylon. In the second parable the vine is the Jewish nation, which long prospered, its land being fertile, its princes powerful, and its people flourishing; but the judgments of God, in consequence of their guilt, had now destroyed a great part of the people, and doomed the rest to captivity. Verse 1 Moreover take thou up a lamentation - Declare what is the great subject of sorrow in Israel. Compose a funeral dirge. Show Be melancholy fate of the kings who proceeded from Josiah. The prophet deplores the misfortune of Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, under the figure of two lion whelps, which were taken by hunters, and confined in cages. Next he shows the desolation of Jerusalem under Zedekiah, which he compares to a beautiful vine pulled up by the roots, withered, and at last burned. Calmet justly observes, that the style of this song is beautiful, and the allegory well supported throughout.

The morning - The fatal morning, the day of destruction. Sounding - Not a mere echo, not a fancy, but a real thing.

Eze 19:1

The two sections of this chapter—Eze 19:1-9, Eze 19:10-14 -are respectively two parables of the same type as that of Eze 2:10. The former telling nearly the same story under a different imagery, the latter a reproduction of the same imagery, with a slightly different application. Lamentation. The same word as that used in Eze 2:10. The whole chapter finds a parallel in Jeremiah’s review of Josiah’s successors (Jer 22:10-30). It is noticeable that the princes are described as being of Israel. The LXX. gives the singular, "the prince," and Hitzig and Ewald adopt this reading, applying it to Zedekiah.