Ezekiel 17:22-23

Ezekiel 17:22-23. I will also take, &c.— I will also take of a branch of the high cedar, and I will give out from the top of his young suckers a tender twig: I will crop it off, and will plant it, &c. Ezekiel 17:23. In the mountain, &c. And it shall send forth shoots, and give blossoms, and grow up to a good cedar, Houbigant. We have here a striking promise of the restoration and establishment of the kingdom of Judah. The terms in which the prophesy is conceived, agree only with the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. In vain do the Jews pretend to explain them of Zerubbabel, or of the Maccabees: the state of the Jews, under both one and the other, was by no means proportioned to the expressions which we read here. Who ever saw in their person, a cedar planted upon a high mountain, which became fruitful, and shot forth its branches on all sides, stretching itself out in such a manner that the birds came and reposed under its shadow? Nothing of all this corresponds properly to any but Jesus Christ, who collected together in his church, and under his empire, all the birds of heaven; that is to say, all those who through grace arose above earthly things, and attached themselves to God alone by the profession and possession of Christianity. And why may not this prophesy have a reference to the increase of this church and empire to the end of time? See Calmet.