Ezekiel 15: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD gives Ezekiel a short picture built on one question: what good is the wood of a grapevine? It cannot be made into anything useful, not even a peg to hang a pot on, and once it has been burned it is worth even less. God says he will hand over the people of Jerusalem the way that wood is handed over to the fire, set his face against them, and leave the land empty, because they have been unfaithful.

Claim by Claim

1. 15:1
   • The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
   • The word of the LORD came saying something.
2. 15:2
   • God addresses the prophet as son of man.
   • God asks what the wood of the vine is more than any other tree.
   • God asks what the vine branch is compared to a branch among the trees of the forest.
   • The vine branch in question is one that has been among the trees of the forest.
3. 15:3
   • God asks whether wood is taken from the vine to make anything useful.
   • God asks whether men take a peg from the vine to hang any vessel on it.
4. 15:4
   • The vine wood is given to the fire for fuel.
   • The fire devours both ends of the vine wood.
   • The middle of the vine wood is charred.
   • God asks whether the vine wood is fit for any work.
5. 15:5
   • When the vine wood was whole, it could not be made into anything useful.
   • How much less can it be made useful after the fire has devoured it and it is charred.
6. 15:6
   • The Lord GOD speaks the following.
   • The wood of the vine is among the trees of the forest.
   • God has given the vine wood to the fire for fuel.
   • God will give the inhabitants of Jerusalem over in the same way.
7. 15:7
   • God will set his face against the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
   • They have come out from the fire.
   • Fire will devour them.
   • They will know that he is the LORD.
   • They will know this when God sets his face against them.
8. 15:8
   • God will make the land desolate.
   • The reason is that they have committed a trespass.
   • The Lord GOD declares this.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

15:1

"The word of the LORD came to me" is a set formula that opens a prophetic message, marking what follows as something Ezekiel received rather than composed. LORD printed in capitals stands for the personal name of God in Hebrew, four consonants usually written YHWH, which readers of the Hebrew text did not pronounce aloud.

15:2

"Son of man" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning simply "human being" or "mortal." It is how God addresses Ezekiel throughout the book, over ninety times. The grapevine was a stock image for Israel in Hebrew poetry and prophecy, so the comparison would have been recognized at once. The point turns on carpentry: vine wood is soft, thin and crooked, valued only for its fruit, and useless as timber.

15:3

A "peg" here is a wooden pin driven into a wall, the ordinary household fitting from which pots, tools and utensils were hung in a house with little furniture. The test is deliberately modest, vine wood is not even strong or straight enough for that.

15:4

"Is it meet" means "is it fit" or "is it suitable." "Meet" in this sense has dropped out of modern English except in fossils like "it is meet and right." Vine prunings were in fact burned; they were the standard cheap fuel, gathered up after the vines were cut back each year.

15:6

"Lord GOD" renders two Hebrew words together, a title meaning "master" followed by the personal name of God. The King James Version signals the difference by printing the second word in capitals; it does not mean two different beings.

15:7

"Set my face against" is an idiom for turning deliberate hostile attention on someone, the opposite of the blessing in which God's face shines on a person. It implies a fixed decision, not a passing mood. The fire imagery points to the burning of a captured city; the picture is of people who survive one destruction only to be caught in the next. Ezekiel was writing among Judeans already deported to Babylon, before Jerusalem's final fall in 586 BC.

15:8

"Committed a trespass" translates a specific Hebrew word, ma'al, which is stronger than ordinary wrongdoing. It means treachery by someone who was trusted: a wife breaking her marriage vows, or a person stealing what had been dedicated to God. It names a broken relationship, not just a broken rule.