19
Dirge for the Princes of Israel
1 “As for you, take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) for the princes of Israel
2 and say,
‘What was your mother [Jerusalem and Judah]?
A lioness among lions!
She lay down among young lions,
She reared her cubs.
3 ‘When she [the royal mother-city] brought up [Jehoahaz] one of her cubs,
He became a [young] lion,
And he learned to catch and tear the prey;
He devoured men. [2 Kin 23:30, 32]
4 ‘The nations heard about him;
He was captured in their pit,
And they brought him with hooks
To the land of Egypt. [2 Chr 36:1, 4]
5 ‘When she saw, as she waited,
That her hope was lost,
She took another of her cubs
And made him a young lion. [2 Kin 23:34; 24:1, 6]
6 ‘And he moved among the lions;
He became a young lion,
He learned to tear the prey;
He devoured men.
7 ‘He destroyed their palaces
And he flattened their cities;
And the land and all who were in it were appalled
By the sound of his roaring.
8 ‘Then the nations set against him (the king)
On every side from the provinces,
And they spread their net over him;
He was captured in their pit. [2 Kin 24:8-15]
9 ‘They put him in a cage with hooks and chains
And brought him to the king of Babylon;
They brought him in hunting nets
So that his voice would be heard no more
On the mountains of Israel.
10 ‘Your mother [Jerusalem] was like a vine in your vineyard,
Planted by the waters;
It was fruitful and full of branches
Because of abundant water. [2 Kin 24:17; Ezek 17:7]
11 ‘And it had strong branches for the scepters of rulers,
And its height was raised above the thick branches and into the clouds
So that it was seen [easily] in its height with the mass of its branches.
12 ‘But the vine was uprooted in [godly] wrath [by His representative]
And it was thrown down to the ground;
The east wind dried up its fruit.
Its strong branch was broken off
So that it withered;
The fire [of God’s judgment] consumed it.
13 ‘And now it is transplanted in the wilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land [of Babylon].
14 ‘And the fire [of Zedekiah’s rebellion] has gone out from its branch;
It has consumed the vine’s shoots and fruit,
So that it has in it no [longer a] strong branch
As a scepter to rule.’ ”
This is a dirge (funeral poem to be sung), and has become a dirge.