And I will provide for them renowned plantations so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the reproach of the nations.
Ezekiel 34 ends with God's promise to His scattered sheep: something is coming that will end their hunger and their shame for good. The ESV calls that gift "renowned plantations," while older translations read one "plant of renown" — and commentators ask who this plant is and when the promise comes true.
The Plant Is a Person
Commentators do not treat this as a promise about crops. They read the plant as Christ Himself, and they tie it back to Isaiah's picture of a tender plant growing out of dry ground.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThere is no need to speculate on the meaning of "the plant of renown," which will be raised up. He is none other than the One whom Isaiah describes, in His humiliation, as "a tender plant" and "as a root out of a dry ground" (Isa. 53:2). But now He appears in all His glory, and becomes the plant of renown.
(The ESV of Isaiah 53:2 reads "like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground.")
A Plant for a Name
The word translated "renown" is literally "a name." One writer reads the promise as pointing to the Name in which God reveals Himself.
Numerical Bible Notes"A plant for a name" is the literal rendering. It reminds us at once of the Name that holds all of God's revelation to man, the Name in His thought from the beginning. Here revelation comes to its completion, and everything takes shape according to it. For this Immanuel (Jehovah, revealed in Christ) is among them. The bond of His humanity will never break. Those blessed arms hold Israel as His people, and one day they will be seen around the whole creation of God, linking it forever with God.
Not Any Ruler Israel Has Already Had
William Kelly rules out every ruler Israel has already had. Zerubbabel and Nehemiah led Israel after the exile; the Asmonaean family and the Herods ruled later.
William KellyThis does not mean Zerubbabel or Nehemiah, nor the Asmonaean house, and still less the Herods. It means the King, Messiah-Jehovah, as we know from elsewhere. Here, though, He stands distinct from the Jehovah who speaks and will do it. Any other reading leaves you hinting, or thinking, that the word of prophecy is the wildest exaggeration. Read it of the Lord reigning over Israel, gathered back in divine mercy and power, and then you feel that the words cannot rise above the reality.
A Promise for the Earth
The verses around this one promise changed animals and a fruitful land. That detail decides how to read the whole passage.
William KellyIt is absurd, from every point of view, to apply these prophecies to the church or to the gospel. Then the wild animals will have their nature changed, and the earth will yield its harvest. It will be the day creation is waiting for. Creation still groans and suffers pain, but then God will set it free from its slavery to decay, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
The End of Hunger and Reproach
The verse ends two miseries at once: hunger at home and the contempt of the nations. Kelly links both to the day God raises Messiah up.
William KellyIt is the day when God raises up Messiah for them, no longer rejected and despised as He once was, a plant of renown. Israel will never again waste away with hunger in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. Jehovah will be with them, their God, and they His people. Has He spoken, and will He not make it all good? Is anything too hard, or too good, for the Lord?
The Shepherd Who Is Also the Food
One writer sets this promise beside the Good Shepherd who feeds His sheep. The Shepherd and the pasture turn out to be the same Person.
The Bible TreasuryJehovah's special charge against the men who once claimed to be shepherds of Israel was that they fed themselves and not the flock. Not so the Good Shepherd. Now that He had come, His sheep would lack nothing... According to Ezekiel's prophecy He was Himself that "Plant of Renown." God had promised to raise Him up for His sheep, so that they might never again be consumed with hunger in the land (Ezek. 34:29). So the Lord Jesus is Shepherd and Door and Pasture and All.
The Same Plant Growing in a Life Today
Another writer applies the plant to a single life: Saul, who became the apostle Paul. Christ did not make the old Saul better; He grew in him as something new.
W. T. TurpinSaul was not simply improved. A new plant, a Plant of Renown, was now in him, and he keeps this One, and no other, before his eyes... It is impossible to receive Christ and still go on in the world. When you receive Him, everything changes — there is a new plant, a new Person in you. Christ is formed in you. It may be small at first. The largest oak was once very small.
Summary
- Person, not produce. The plant of renown is Christ Himself, once the tender plant of Isaiah 53, then appearing in glory.
- A name. Literally "a plant for a name" — God's full revelation of Himself to man, come to completion in Immanuel.
- Not a past ruler. Not Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, or the Herods. No ruler Israel has had matches these words — only Messiah reigning.
- Not the church. Changed animals and a fruitful earth mark this as the day creation still groans for.
- Fed and unashamed. Hunger and the nations' contempt both end, because the Shepherd given to them is Himself their pasture.