“I Will Raise Up One Shepherd”

Pure Worship of Jehovah—Restored At Last!

1-3. Why is Ezekiel’s heart heavy, and what is he now inspired to record?

Well Ezequiel has good reasons to be sad he is still very far from his land, he also thinks about those who are ruling and it turns out that all those Kings were bad even though when he was born who ruled was a good king like Josías and he had learned about the good proceed from this king but he sees that now all the kings were evil they were idolaters, so that makes him feel very sad, however Jehovah now inspires him to write a prophecy nothing more and nothing less than about the Messiah the future king and shepherd he’s going to get the full restoration done, so that sure cheered him up a lot.

Because this prophecy was about the Messiah the future king and shepherd who will achieve the permanent restoration of pure worship and as it also says in the paragraph he will tenderly care for Jehovah’s sheep. 

And also on a personal level it has to do with our hope of living forever on earth turned into a paradise. 

“A Tender Shoot” Becomes “a Majestic Cedar”

He announced a prophecy that had two aspects, one showing the magnitude of the messiah’s rule and second, the need to trust that king.

and how did Jehovah introduce that prophecy?

If an enigma or a riddle that his objective was to make that rest of Jews who were in Babylon will reflect on the infidelity of the rulers of Juda.

5. What is the gist of the riddle?

If there are two large Eagles, the first one takes the highest shoot of a cedar, it plants it in a merchant city of course it comes out seed takes a seed the plant now near rushing waters but then it becomes an overflowing vine but then this vine spreads eagerly its roots towards the second eagle and it is what Jehovah condemns.

6. Explain the meaning of the riddle.

Verse 11 gives the explanation, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, the king of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar represented that first great eagle when he captured the king of Jerusalem and his princes Joaquin is what represents the highest sprout and the city of merchants The one the enigma was talking about was the city of Babylon.

After that first eagle that was Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, comes the second eagle which is the pharaoh the king of Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar had planted Zedekiah, Zedekiah swears loyalty he does not fulfill his oath so he extends his branches towards the other eagle what He is the pharaoh of Egypt for military support but he does not fulfill his oath, so Jehovah tells him that he is disloyal and for breaking his oath he condemns him and that is when they later remove his throne as a consequence of breaking his oath and he was imprisoned in Babylon until his death.

And if we see the image in paragraph 6 it is interesting because that tree that is there is a cedar and measures approximately 40 m and we see that that tree is small in front of that eagle, then we can see the magnitude of the eagle and it represented Babylon and that that tree will represent the rulership of David it shows how determined Jehovah was to disappear that descendant or lineage that unfortunately became corrupted, so that has a lesson for us today we can see strong human dominations that seem very stable but for Jehovah they are simple twigs that can be ripped off at any time.

We are already seeing how this enigma is fulfilling the purpose for which Jehovah asked Ezekiel to say it because, as we learned in paragraph number 4, what was wanted was to highlight the infidelity of these rulers and the need for the Messiah to come. 

ILLUSTRATION

There we see the first great eagle, that eagle represents Nebuchadnezzar and what he carries on his legs represents the highest shoot in this case Joaquin as king of Judah. 

7. What lessons can we learn from the prophetic riddle?

One of them has to do with what is recorded in Matthew chapter 5 verse 37 where Jesus tells us that our yes is yes and our no is no, which then implies that whenever we take an oath we must fulfill it, for example if we have to testify in a court and we swear before God that we are going to tell the truth because we must be willing to comply with what we have sworn.

And the second is that we have to pay attention to who we put our trust in, Psalm 146: 3 encourages us not to put our trust in princes or in any man because they cannot bring salvation and we see the result that this had for Zedekiah when he put his trust in these princes in this case in the pharaoh of Egypt. 

And also taking into account what Jesus also said about our yes, it is important that when we are going to give it to think well about what we are going to commit to, think about it well since when we give our own if we must fulfill it even if it is not advantageous for us.