Ezekiel 17 Devotional

A Tender Sprig Planted High

“Then all the trees of the field will know that I am the LORD. I bring the tall tree down and make the low tree tall. I dry up the green tree and make the withered tree flourish. I, the LORD, have spoken, and I have done it.’””Ezekiel 17:24 (BSB)

Ezekiel tells a riddle about two great eagles, a cedar stripped of its top, and a low vine that bends its roots toward the second eagle (17:3-8). God explains it. The king of Babylon carried off Jerusalem's king and made a covenant with a man from the royal line, who then broke his oath and turned to Egypt for help (17:12-15). God calls that broken oath his own oath and his own covenant (17:19). Promises made in his name matter to him, even to a foreign king.

Then the riddle turns to hope. God will take a tender shoot from the top of the cedar and plant it on a high mountain of Israel, where it will grow into a majestic cedar that shelters birds of every kind (17:22-23). Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a tiny seed that grows into a tree where birds nest (Matthew 13:31-32). God brings down the tall and raises the low (17:24), so what is small and weak in his hands still has a future.

To think about: What small or fragile beginning in your life or church do you need to entrust to the God who makes low trees grow tall?