Ezekiel 17:12

Say now to the rebellious house ,.... It had been a rebellious house to God, and to his prophets, before; see Ezekiel 2:5 and See Gill on Ezekiel 2:5 ; and now, besides this was rebellious to the king of Babylon, to whom they were in some measure subject, Ezekiel 17:15 ;

know ye not what these things mean ? the riddle and parable concerning the two eagles and the vine; suggesting that they must be very inattentive, and very stupid, if they did not know the meaning of them; for though the things intended were delivered in an enigmatical and parabolical way, yet they were easily to be understood by all that know the affairs of the Jewish nation; being things that were lately transacted there, and were obvious to everyone's view; but if they were so stupid and blockish as not to understand them, the prophet had the following order, to explain them to them:

tell them , behold, the king of Babylon is come to Jerusalem ; so that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is meant by the first "eagle", and the land of Judea, and particularly Jerusalem, by Lebanon, it came unto, Ezekiel 17:3 . The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, read this and the following verses in the future; as if these were things that were yet to come to pass, whereas they are related as things already done; and so the Targum renders all in the past sense, as the history of them requires it should:

and hath taken the king thereof, and the princes thereof, and led them with him to Babylon ; the king of Judea, and the princes of it; Jeconiah and his nobles, who had been carried captive into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar; for Ezekiel was among these captives, Ezekiel 1:2 ; see 2 Kings 24:12 ; so that it appears that by the "twigs" of the cedar the princes of the land are designed; and by the "top" of them King Jeconiah; and by "the land of traffic" the land of Chaldea; and by the "city of merchants" the city of Babylon, Ezekiel 17:4 ; whither they were carried.