Ezekiel 17:11-12

Ezekiel was now to tell his rebellious hearers what this story represented. This interpretation is a typical example of a prophetic judgment speech to an individual, many of which appear in the prophetical books of the Old Testament. It contains a summons to listen (Ezekiel 17:11-12 a), charges (Ezekiel 17:12-18), and assurance of judgment (Ezekiel 17:19-21). [Note: See Claus Westermann, Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech, pp. 169-94.]

The first eagle stood for the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Jeremiah 48:40; Jeremiah 49:22; Daniel 7:4). His invasion of Jerusalem (the specific identity of the Lebanon in the riddle, Ezekiel 17:3) devastated the land like a hot east wind (Ezekiel 17:10).

In Scripture the eagle is often a figure used to describe God as a powerful being that comes swiftly to judge, as an eagle swoops down quickly to snatch in flight an unsuspecting mouse or fish (cf. Deuteronomy 28:49; Isaiah 46:11; Jeremiah 48:40; Jeremiah 49:22). In this case the eagle represented God’s instrument of judgment, Nebuchadnezzar, who had invaded Jerusalem, cropped off the Judean king, Jehoiachin (the top of the cedar tree, Ezekiel 17:3), and his advisers (the topmost of its young twigs, Ezekiel 17:4) and carried them off to Babylon in 597 B.C. (cf. Daniel 7:4). Babylon was a city of traders in a land of merchants (Ezekiel 17:4; cf. Ezekiel 16:29; 1 Kings 10:27; 2 Kings 24:10-12; Jeremiah 22:15; Jeremiah 22:23). Elsewhere in Scripture the cedar tree (Ezekiel 17:3) is a figure used to describe the Davidic line of kings culminating in Messiah (Isaiah 10:33 to Isaiah 11:1). Cedar trees were beautiful and very hardy, an appropriate figure of the Davidic dynasty.