Ezekiel 15, Good Only for Burning

If you explore vine wood online your first hits are going to be about Harry Potter, and particularly, Hermione’s vine wood wand. Vine is supposed to have special qualities. Of course, in the real world, vine wood is not particularly useful except as art because it isn’t very durable and is certainly gnarly. That is why it serves as a metaphor for Israel.

1 The word of Yahweh came to me: 2 “Son of man, how is the wood of a vine different from that of a branch from any of the trees in the forest? 3 Is wood ever taken from it to make anything useful? Do they make pegs from it to hang things on? 4 And after it is thrown on the fire as fuel and the fire burns both ends and chars the middle, is it then useful for anything? 5 If it was not useful for anything when it was whole, how much less can it be made into something useful when the fire has burned it and it is charred?

As the Expositor’s commentary notes:

This parable implies that the exiles had asked about God’s consistency. They understood that they were his chosen people, his choice vine, and did not believe that God’s judgments would destroy Judah as Ezekiel had proclaimed. The parable shows the worthlessness of a vine except for bearing fruit. Its wood was too soft, weak, and crooked for building. It was not even fit for making a peg to hang some utensil or clothing on. If a vine was naturally of so little value, it certainly could not be expected to be useful when charred by fire.

Israel had been likened to a fruitful vine that once produced fruit, but now, because of her idolatry and disobedience, was fruitless and dried up, useful only as fuel, and once burned, totally useless.

6 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Yahweh says: As I have given the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest as fuel for the fire, so will I treat the people living in Jerusalem. 7 I will set my face against them. Although they have come out of the fire, the fire will yet consume them. And when I set my face against them, you will know that I am Yahweh. 8 I will make the land desolate because they have been unfaithful, declares the Sovereign Yahweh.” (Ezekiel 15)

Jesus tells his disciples:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. (John 15:1,2)

This is what Yahweh is doing with Israel. The whole goal of the judgment is so that Israel will know that He is Yahweh, that He is the only true God. Then they will become, once again, a fruitful vine.