Charles Ellicott Commentary Ezekiel 17:22

"Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will also take of the lofty top of the cedar, and will set it; I will crop off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and I will plant it upon a high and lofty mountain:" — Ezekiel 17:22 (ASV)

I will also take. —In what has passed, all has been done according to God’s will, yet through human instrumentality: Israel has been punished, Jehoiachin has been, and Zedekiah is about to be, carried into captivity, as God designed; yet Nebuchadnezzar has done it all for his own purposes. Now God Himself directly interposes, and takes a scion of the same “high cedar,” the royal house of David. In accordance with the allegory, this can only be a symbolic figure, and from the description that follows, this person can only be the Messiah. So it has been understood by nearly all interpreters, Jewish and Christian.

A tender one. —This epithet is used of the Messiah in reference to the lowliness of His immediate human origin and condition . David applies the same expression to himself (2 Samuel 3:39), and to Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:5; 1 Chronicles 29:1), in reference to their want of strength for the work required of them as the heads of Israel. This figure of the Messiah as a scion of the royal tree of David, though naturally growing out of the allegory here, had been used by the prophets long before, as in Isaiah 11:1, and the name “the Branch” had almost become a distinctive title for Him (Isaiah 4:2; Jeremiah 23:5, and others).