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10 “‘Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard,[a] planted by water.

It was fruitful and full of branches because it was well-watered.
11 Its boughs were strong, fit[b] for rulers’ scepters; it reached up into the clouds.
It stood out because of its height and its many branches.[c]
12 But it was plucked up in anger; it was thrown down to the ground.
The east wind[d] dried up its fruit;
its strong branches broke off and withered—
a fire consumed them.
13 Now it is planted in the wilderness,
in a dry and thirsty land.[e]
14 A fire has gone out from its branch; it has consumed its shoot and its fruit.[f]
No strong branch was left in it, nor a scepter to rule.’

“This is a lament song, and has become a lament song.”

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Footnotes

  1. Ezekiel 19:10 tc The Hebrew text reads “in your blood,” but most emend to “in your vineyard,” assuming a ב/כ (beth/kaph) confusion. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:284. Another attractive emendation assumes a faulty word division and yields the reading “like a vine full of tendrils, which/because…”; see D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:607, n. 68.
  2. Ezekiel 19:11 tn The word “fit” does not occur in the Hebrew text.
  3. Ezekiel 19:11 tn Heb “and it was seen by its height and by the abundance of its branches.”
  4. Ezekiel 19:12 sn The east wind symbolizes the Babylonians.
  5. Ezekiel 19:13 sn This metaphor depicts the Babylonian exile of the Davidic dynasty.
  6. Ezekiel 19:14 tn The verse uses language similar to that in Judg 9:20.