had been taken captive while still a youth.
The captives knew what was going on in Jerusalem. When the city was
first taken, at the occasion when Ezekiel was made captive, the
Babylonians were content to carry off ten thousand of the best of the
people, with great treasure. The writer of Kings says that "none
remained, save the poorest of the people of the land." Over this poor
remnant of a wrecked state the Babylonian government set up a king.
For nine years he remained loyal to Babylon. Then, with the foolish
hope that Egypt would help him when war came, he revolted against the
power of Babylon. Soon Babylonian armies appeared before Jerusalem,
and, two years after, the city fell. More captives were deported, the
city was burned, the walls broken down, no king set up, but only a
governor, and the kingdom of Israel, over which only one family had
ruled since the time of David, nearly five hundred years before, was
forever at an end. The fall of Jerusalem was in 586 B. C.

With every device of vision and picture and pleading Ezekiel tried to
keep the captives true to their country and their God. It is good to
know that he succeeded in his attempt. The Jews in Babylonia kept
their faith, and, in later years, it was from them that these
prophetic books went, together with a strong influence for religious
reform, back to Palestine.)

I

A LAMENTATION FOR THE PRINCES OF ISRAEL

Moreover, take thou up a lamentation for the princes
of Israel, and say, "What was thy mother?

"A lioness: she couched among lions, in the midst of the {345} young
lions she nourished her whelps. And she brought up one of her whelps;
he became a young lion: and he learned to catch the prey, he devoured
men. The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit: and
they brought him with hooks unto the land of Egypt. Now when she saw
that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of
her whelps, and made him a young lion. And he went up and down among
the lions, he became a young lion: and he learned to catch the prey,
he devoured men. And he knew their palaces, and laid waste their
cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, because of
the noise of his roaring. Then the nations set against him on every
side from the provinces: and they spread their net over him; he was
taken in their pit. And they put him in a cage with hooks, and brought
him to the king of Babylon; they brought him into strong holds, t