Discovery BoxEzekiel 15:2 
Context15:2 “Son of man, of all the woody branches among the trees of the forest, what happens to the wood of the vine? 1
Ezekiel 19:10-11
Context19:10 “‘Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard, 2 planted by water.
It was fruitful and full of branches because it was well-watered.
19:11 Its boughs were strong, fit 3 for rulers’ scepters; it reached up into the clouds.
It stood out because of its height and its many branches. 4
Ezekiel 31:3
Context31:3 Consider Assyria, 5 a cedar in Lebanon, 6
with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade,
and extremely tall;
its top reached into the clouds.
Ezekiel 31:5
Context31:5 Therefore it grew taller than all the trees of the field;
its boughs grew large and its branches grew long,
because of the plentiful water in its shoots. 7
Ezekiel 31:7
Context31:7 It was beautiful in its loftiness, in the length of its branches;
for its roots went down deep to plentiful waters.
Ezekiel 31:13
Context31:13 On its ruins all the birds of the sky will live, and all the wild animals 8 will walk 9 on its branches.
Ezekiel 36:8
Context36:8 “‘But you, mountains of Israel, will grow your branches, and bear your fruit for my people Israel; for they will arrive soon. 10
1 tn Most modern translations take the statement as a comparison (“how is vine wood better than any forest wood?”) based on the preposition מִן (min). But a comparison should have a word as an adjective or stative verb designating a quality, i.e., a word for “good/better” is lacking. The preposition is translated above in its partitive sense.
sn Comparing Israel to the wood of the vine may focus on Israel’s inferiority to the other nations. For the vine imagery in relation to Israel and the people of God, see Ps 80:8-13; John 15:1-7; Rom 11:17-22.
2 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.
3 tn The word “fit” does not occur in the Hebrew text.
4 tn Heb “and it was seen by its height and by the abundance of its branches.”
5 sn Either Egypt, or the Lord compares Egypt to Assyria, which is described in vv. 3-17 through the metaphor of a majestic tree. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:185. Like Egypt, Assyria had been a great world power, but in time God brought the Assyrians down. Egypt should learn from history the lesson that no nation, no matter how powerful, can withstand the judgment of God. Rather than following the text here, some prefer to emend the proper name Assyria to a similar sounding common noun meaning “boxwood” (see Ezek 27:6), which would make a fitting parallel to “cedar of Lebanon” in the following line. In this case vv. 3-18 in their entirety refer to Egypt, not Assyria. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:121-27.
6 sn Lebanon was know for its cedar trees (Judg 9:15; 1 Kgs 4:33; 5:6; 2 Kgs 14:9; Ezra 3:7; Pss 29:5; 92:12; 104:16).
7 tn Heb “when it sends forth.” Repointing the consonants of the Masoretic text would render the proposed reading “shoots” (cf. NRSV).
8 tn Heb “the beasts of the field,” referring to wild as opposed to domesticated animals.
9 tn Heb “be.”
10 tn Heb “they draw near to arrive.”
