IN this chapter, history is stated. The great eagle of verse 3 was Nebuchadnezzar, head of the Babylonian empire. The description given carries with it the thought of great power and glory (great wings, long wings or pinions, rich in many colors). (See Isaiah 13:1919And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. (Isaiah 13:19)), He came to Lebanon and took the highest branch of the cedar.
Lebanon’s cedars express, in Scripture, the loftiness of man, and here the house of David, the royal line of Judah, is meant, subjected however (because of their departure from God) to the Gentile power. By the “highest branch” is meant Jehoiachin (2 Kings 21:8-168Neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them. 9But they hearkened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel. 10And the Lord spake by his servants the prophets, saying, 11Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols: 12Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. 13And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. 14And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies; 15Because they have done that which was evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day. 16Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. (2 Kings 21:8‑16)), the young man who succeeded to the throne of Judah on the death of his father Jehoiakim, but was quickly carried away to Babylon.
Verses 5 and 6 refer to Nebuchadnezzar’s making Zedekiah (Jehoiakim’s brother, and uncle of Jehoiachin) king of Judah, giving him rule at Jerusalem over what remained of the people. At that time, or earlier still, when Jehoiakim became king (Jeremiah 27:1-151In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah came this word unto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2Thus saith the Lord to me; Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck, 3And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah; 4And command them to say unto their masters, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say unto your masters; 5I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. 6And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. 7And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. 8And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. 9Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon: 10For they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish. 11But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the Lord; and they shall till it, and dwell therein. 12I spake also to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. 13Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? 14Therefore hearken not unto the words of the prophets that speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you. 15For I have not sent them, saith the Lord, yet they prophesy a lie in my name; that I might drive you out, and that ye might perish, ye, and the prophets that prophesy unto you. (Jeremiah 27:1‑15)) God sent word through Jeremiah to the kings of Judah and the neighboring countries that they should acknowledge Nebuchadnezzar’s overlordship. For some years Zedekiah yielded tribute to the ruler of Babylon, but afterward he rebelled (2 Chronicles 36:1313And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel. (2 Chronicles 36:13)), to his own utter undoing.
There was another great eagle with great wings it was Egypt — and the vine of verse 6 (Zedekiah) bent her roots toward him, shot forth her branches tard him. Zedekiah was courting the favor of the Egyptians, in order that he might break the yoke of Babylon, to whose king he had sworn to be faithful, by an oath in the name of Jehovah. Neither his oath nor the word of God to him, directing him to be subject to Nebuchadnezzar, weighed very much in Zedekiah’s mind. God, however, is not mocked, and Zedekiah, in a few years reaped as he had sown. Verses 9 and 10 foretell the end of his kingdom, which might have cautioned and been blessed, had he feared God and kept covenant with Nebuchadnezzar (verse 8).
In verse 12, for “is come”, read “came.” Verses 13 to 15 add to what is told elsewhere concerning the cause of Nebuchadnezzar’s warring against Jerusalem (Jeremiah 21, 32, 34, and 39). It was the breaking of a promise, sworn to in the name of Jehovah the God of Israel, that so angered the king of Babylon that he determined to put an end to Jerusalem, destroying the city, and that he put out the eyes of his unfaithful servant Zedekiah after slaughtering his sons.
It was the judgment of God, through Nebuchadnezzar as its instrument, which fell upon this son of David (verses 16-21). Pharaoh might sally forth with a mighty army (verse 17, and Jeremiah 37:55Then Pharaoh's army was come forth out of Egypt: and when the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they departed from Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 37:5)) to help Zedekiah, but a mightier Power than Pharaoh’s or Babylon’s had decreed the outcome of this war. God’s oath he had despised; God’s covenant he had broken; for the king of Judah had promised the idolater of Babylon in the name of his God, and Nebuchadnezzar naturally put confidence in such a promise. Judgment must therefore begin at the house of God, for He will be sanctified in all that come nigh Him.
Verses 22 to 24 again bring forward the bright, the blessed prospect that will yet be Israel’s. The “highest branch of the high cedar” is none other than the Messiah Himself, rightfully ruling over a clean-hearted, renewed Israel, The high tree of man’s sinful pride will have been brought down, and the humble will be exalted; the “green tree” under which the power of Satan had flourished will be gone, and the “dry tree”, the desolate, will flourish in that day.
“I Jehovah have spoken and will do it” (N.T.) fitly closes the promiseful last verses of the chapter.
ML-09/29/1935