John Calvin on Ezekiel 17:2

But I come to the words Son of man, set forth in enigma: the noun and the verb mutually answer to each other, hence any one may if he please render the Prophet’s words, by saying enigmatize an enigma: for the Prophet here speaks of allegorical language, חידה, chideh, signifies the same as “allegory,” where the words are different from the sense, that is, where the sense is wrapped up in obscure involutions: but we know that God sometimes spoke enigmatically when unwilling to be understood by the impious and disbelieving. But here the obscurity of the sentence has another meaning, namely, that the Jews should be waked up, and this prophecy should penetrate their minds: we know their extreme hardness, and hence if the Prophet had spoken simply and in his accustomed language, they had not been so attentive. This therefore is the reason why, God orders him to speak enigmatically. He now adds, משל ומשל, vemeshel meshel. We know that meshel is a remarkable sentence, and is the word used by Solomon as the title of his proverbs: משל, meshel, then, means the same as apothegm: but it is sometimes taken for likeness: and in this place God so denounces destruction upon the Israelites in an allegory, as to illustrate his language by a comparison, since otherwise it would have been obscure. Be this as it may, God so prefaced his address, that the Jews might acknowledge the message to be no common one, but that it ought to affect them seriously. The usual reason for speaking enigmatically does not hold good here, namely, that the Jews were unworthy of the doctrine of salvation, since the Prophet will very shortly explain what he had hitherto uttered in figure and allegory. It is indeed true, that Christ spoke in parables to the people, because the disciples alone were capable of familiar and pure teaching. Of unbelievers, also, Isaiah says, Prophecy shall be to you a sealed book. Hence I will speak with this people in a strange and barbarous tongue, and they shall not proceed beyond the rudiments. (Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 8; Isaiah 29:11, 12.) But, as I have said, the obscurity of this teaching was only a preparation, that the people should strictly attend to the subject here set before them.

Ezekiel 17:3-4

3. And say, Thus says the Lord GOD; A great eagle with great wings, longwinged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar:

3. Et dic, Sit dicit Dominator Iehovah, aquila magna, magna alis, longa penna Or, “wings” — there is a change of number. — Calvin. plena Or, “thick with,” “plentiful in.” — Calvin. plumis quae illis variae The number, though singular, is taken for plural, that is, “of divers colors.” — Calvin. erant venit ad montem Libanum, et accepit summitatem cedri.

4. He cropped off the top of his young twigs, and carried it into a land of traffick; he set it in a city of merchants.

4. Caput Or, “the top.” — Calvin. surculorum ejus avellit, et transtulit in terram mercatoris, The word כנען, cengnen, (or, chnaan,) is not a proper name, but is taken appellatively. — Calvin. in urbe mercatorum posuit eam. Or, “that top.” — Calvin.