The Pulpit Commentary - Ezekiel 15:3
Shall wood be taken thereof, etc.? As a timber tree, then, the vine was confessedly valueless. No carpenter would use it, even for the peg upon which men hang their cups, and which had become, as in Isaiah 22:23 , the symbol of political stability (comp. also Zechariah 10:4 ). For the unfruitful vine branch these remained the doom of being cast into the fire ( John 15:6 ). What was its worth when it was half burned at either end and in the middle? What would Israel be fit for when it... read more
The Pulpit Commentary - Ezekiel 15:2
What is the vine tree, etc.? The prophet's mind had apparently been dwelling, after the close of his previous utterance, on the imagery of earlier writers, in which Israel had appeared as the vine of Jehovah ( Genesis 49:22 ; Psalms 80:9 ; Hosea 10:1 ; Isaiah 5:1-30 .; Deuteronomy 32:32 ; Jeremiah 2:21 ), and to which he himself refers again in Ezekiel 19:10 . He saw how men might pervert that image to their own destruction. And he expands the parable, as our Lord does in ... read more