In the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
Parallel Translations
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In the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
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And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
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And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying:
Cross-references (3)
Passages linked to Ezekiel 31:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ezekiel 30:20 In the eleventh year, in the first month, in the seventh day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
- Jeremiah 52:5-6 So the city was besieged to the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.
- Ezekiel 1:2 In the fifth of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (22 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Of Zedekiah’s reign, or of Jeconiah’s captivity.
Of Zedekiah’s reign, or of Jeconiah’s captivity.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Eze 31:1 And it came to pass in the…
Eze 31:1 And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third [month], in the first [day] of the month, [that] the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. In the third month.] Two months after the former prophecy, and a month before the city was taken.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain In the eleventh year; as Eze 30:20.
In the eleventh year; as Eze 30:20.
in the third month; our June 26th old style, the 16th new style; just one month and eight days before the taking of the city on the 27th of July old style, but 17th of July new style. The first day of the month Tamuz.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain This prophecy bears date the month before Jerusalem was…
This prophecy bears date the month before Jerusalem was taken, as that in the close of the foregoing chapter about four months before. When God's people were in the depth of their distress, it would be some comfort to them, as it would serve likewise for a check to the pride and malice of their neighbours, that insulted over them, to be told from heaven that the cup was going round, even the cup of trembling, that it would shortly be taken out of the hands of God's people and put into the hands of those that hated them, Isa 51:22, Isa 51:23. In this prophecy,
I. The prophet is directed to put Pharaoh upon searching the records for a case parallel to his own (Eze 31:2): Speak to Pharaoh and to his multitude, to the multitude of his attendants, that contributed so much to his magnificence, and the multitude of his armies, that contributed so much to his strength. These he was proud of, these he put a confidence in; and they were as proud of him and trusted as much in him. Now ask him, Whom art thou like in thy greatness? We are apt to judge of ourselves by comparison. Those that think highly of themselves fancy themselves as great and as good as such and such, that have been mightily celebrated. The flatterers of princes tell them whom they equal in pomp and grandeur. "Well," says God, "let him pitch upon the most famous potentate that ever was, and it shall be allowed that he is like him in greatness and no way inferior to him; but, let him pitch upon whom he will, he will find that his day came to fall; he will see there was an end of all his perfection, and must therefore expect the end of his own in like manner." Note, The falls of others, both into sin and ruin, are intended as admonitions to us not to be secure or high-minded, nor to think we stand out of danger.
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II. He is directed to show him an instance of one whom he resembles in greatness, and that was the Assyrian (Eze 31:3), whose monarchy had continued from Nimrod. Sennacherib was one of the mighty princes of that monarchy; but it sunk down soon after him, and the monarchy of Nebuchadnezzar was built upon its ruins, or rather grafted upon its stock. Let us now see what a flourishing prince the king of Assyria was. He is here compared to a stately cedar, Eze 31:3. The glory of the house of David is illustrated by the same similitude, Eze 17:3. The olive-tree, the fig-tree, and the vine, which were all fruit-trees, had refused to be promoted over the trees because they would not leave their fruitfulness (Jdg 9:8, etc.), and therefore the choice falls upon the cedar, that is stately and strong, and casts a great shadow, but bears no fruit. 1. The Assyrian monarch was a tall cedar, such as the cedars in Lebanon generally were, of a high stature, and his top among the thick boughs; he was attended by other princes that were tributaries to him, and was surrounded by a life-guard of brave men. He surpassed all the princes in his neighbourhood; they were all shrubs to him (Eze 31:5): His height was exalted above all the trees of the field; they were many of them very high, but he overtopped them all, Eze 31:8. The cedars, even those in the garden of Eden, which we may suppose were the best of the kind, would not hide him, but his top branches outshot theirs. 2. He was a spreading cedar; his branches did not only run up in height, but run out in breadth, denoting that this mighty prince was not only exalted to great dignity and honour, and had a name above the names of the great men of the earth, but that he obtained great dominion and power; his territories were large, and he extended his conquests far and his influences much further. This cedar, like a vine, sent forth his branches to the sea, to the river, Psa 80:11. His boughs were multiplied; his branches became long (Eze 31:5); so that he had a shadowing shroud, Eze 31:3. This contributed very much to his beauty, that he grew proportionably large as well as high. He was fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches (Eze 31:7), very comely as well as very stately, fair by the multitude of his branches, Eze 31:9. His large dominions were well managed, like a spreading tree that is kept in shape and good order by the skill of the gardener, so as to be very beautiful to the eye. His government was as amiable in the eyes of wise men as it was admirable in the eyes of all men. The fir-trees were not like his boughs, so straight, so green, so regular; nor were the branches of the chestnut-trees like his branches, so thick, so spreading. In short, no tree in the garden of God, in Eden, in Babylon (for that stood where paradise was planted), where there was every tree that was pleasant to the sight (Gen 2:9), was like to this cedar in beauty; that is, in all the surrounding nations there was no prince so much admired, so much courted, and whom every body was so much in love with, as the king of Assyria. Many of them did virtuously, but he excelled them all, outshone them all. All the trees of Eden envied him, Eze 31:9. When they found they could not compare with him they were angry and grieved that he so far outdid them, and secretly grudged him the praise due to him. Note, It is the unhappiness of those who in any thing excel others that thereby they make themselves the objects of envy; and who can stand before envy? 3. He was serviceable, as far as a standing growing cedar could be, and that was only by his shadow (Eze 31:6): All the fowls of heaven, some of all sorts, made their nests in his boughs, where they were sheltered from the injuries of the weather. The beasts of the field put themselves under the protection of his branches. There they were levant - rising up, and couchant - lying down; there they brought forth their young; for they had there a natural covert from the heat and from the storm. The meaning of all is, Under his shadow dwelt all great nations; they all fled to him for safety, and were willing to swear allegiance to him if he would undertake to protect them, as travellers in a shower come under thick trees for shelter. Note, Those who have power ought to use it for the protection and comfort of those whom they have power over; for to that end they are entrusted with power. Even the bramble, if he be anointed king, invites the trees to come and trust in his shadow, Jdg 9:15. But the utmost security that any creature, even the king of Assyria himself, can give, is but like the shadow of a tree, which is but a scanty and slender protection, and leaves a man many ways exposed. Let us therefore flee to God for protection, and he will take us under the shadow of his wings, where we shall be warmer and safer than under the shadow of the strongest and stateliest cedar, Psa 17:8; Psa 91:4. 4. He seemed to be settled and established in his greatness and power. For, (1.) It was God that made him fair, Eze 31:9. For by him kings reign. He was comely with the comeliness that God put upon him. Note, God's hand must be eyed and owned in the advancement of the great men of the earth, and therefore we must not envy them; yet that will not secure the continuance of their prosperity, for he that gave them their beauty, if they be deprived of it, knows how to turn it into deformity. (2.) He seemed to have a good bottom. This cedar was not like the heath in the desert, made to inhabit the parched places (Jer 17:6); it was not a root in a dry ground, Isa 53:2. No; he had abundance of wealth to support his power and grandeur (Eze 31:4): The waters made him great; he had vast treasures, large stores and magazines, which were as the deep that set him up on high, constant revenues coming in by taxes, customs, and crown-rents, which were as rivers running round about his plants; these enabled him to strengthen and secure his interests every where, for he sent out his little rivers, or conduits, to all the trees of the field, to water them; and when they had maintenance from the king's palace (Ezr 4:14), and their country was nourished by the king's country (Act 12:20), they would be serviceable and faithful to him. Those that have wealth flowing upon them in great rivers find themselves obliged to send it out again in little rivers; for, as goods are increased, those are increased that eat them, and the more men have the more occasion they have for it; yea, and still the more they have occasion for. The branches of this cedar became long, because of the multitude of waters which fed them (Eze 31:5 and Eze 31:7); his root was by great waters, which seemed to secure it that its leaf should never wither (Psa 1:3), that it should not see when heat came, Jer 17:8. Note, Worldly people may seem to have an established prosperity, yet it only seems so, Job 5:3; Psa 37:35.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And it came to pass in the eleventh year,....…
And it came to pass in the eleventh year,.... Of Zedekiah's reign, and Jeconiah's captivity:
in the third month, in the first day of the month: the month Sivan, which began on the twentieth of our May, and answers to part of May, and part of June; this was about seven weeks after the former prophecy, and about five weeks before the destruction of Jerusalem; according to Bishop Usher (n), this was on the nineteenth of June, on the first day of the week, in 3416 A.M. or before Christ 588:
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that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows:
(n) Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3416.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The greatness and power of the king of Assyria,…
The greatness and power of the king of Assyria, ver. 1-9. His security and destruction, ver. 10-17. This applied to Pharaoh, ver. 18.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain This very beautiful chapter relates also to Egypt. The…
CHAPTER XXXI
This very beautiful chapter relates also to Egypt. The prophet
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describes to Pharaoh the fall of the king of Nineveh, (see the
books of Nahum, Jonah, and Zephaniah,) under the image of a
fair cedar of Lebanon, once exceedingly tall, flourishing, and
majestic, but now cut down and withered, with its broken
branches strewed around, 1-17.
He then concludes with bringing the matter home to the king of
Egypt, by telling him that this was a picture of his
approaching fate, 18.
The beautiful cedar of Lebanon, remarkable for its loftiness,
and in the most flourishing condition, but afterwards cut down
and deserted, gives a very lately painting of the great glory
and dreadful catastrophe of both the Assyrian and Egyptian
monarchies. The manner in which the prophet has embellished his
subject is deeply interesting; the colouring is of that kind
which the mind will always contemplate with pleasure.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXI
Verse 1. In the eleventh year] On Sunday, June 19, A.M. 3416, according to Abp. Usher; a month before Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldeans.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Eze 31:1-2. In the eleventh year, in the third…
Eze 31:1-2. In the eleventh year, in the third month, &c. — This was another revelation upon the subject of the destruction of Egypt, imparted two months after that which is mentioned in the conclusion of the foregoing chapter. Whom art thou like in thy greatness? — Thou pridest thyself, as if there never was any prince or king that could compare with thee. The prophet here asks a question, not to receive an answer from Pharaoh, but to answer it himself, as he does in the next and following verses, wherein he acquaints the king of Egypt that the king of Assyria was equally as powerful as he, and yet came to a miserable end; from whence he might learn, that he had no security for the continuance of his grandeur, but might be soon cast down as the king of Assyria had been.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain In the third month - More than a month…
In the third month - More than a month before Jerusalem was taken (compare Jer 39:2).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Year, about a month before the fall of Jerusalem.
Year, about a month before the fall of Jerusalem.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 1And it came to pass in the eleventh year,…
CHAPTER 31
1And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third [month], on the first of the month, that the word of Jehovah came to me, saying: 2Son of man, say to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to his tumult, To whom art thou like in thy 3greatness? Behold, Asshur [was] a cedar tree upon Lebanon, beautiful of foliage, and a shadowing thicket, and high of stature, and between the clouds was his 4top. Waters made him become great, the flood made him high, with its streams it went round about its planting, and it sent forth its canals to all the trees of 5the field. Therefore his stature became higher than all the trees of the field, and his branches became many [great], and his foliage-branches [boughs] became long, from many waters in his spreading himself forth. In his branches nested 6all the fowls of heaven, and under his boughs every living thing of the field 7brought forth, and in his shadow dwelt all the many nations. And he became beautiful in his greatness, in the length of his twigs [shoots], for his root was on 8many waters. Cedars darkened him not in the garden of God; cypresses were not like his branches, and plane trees were not like his foliage-branches [boughs]; 9all wood in the garden of God was not like him in his beauty. Beautiful had I made him in the multitude of his shoots; and all the trees of Eden, which were 10in the garden of God, envied him.—Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thou becamest high in stature, and he gave his top even to between the 11clouds, and his heart raised itself in his height; Therefore will I give him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he will do, do to him: in [on account of] 12his wickedness I drove him out. And strangers hewed him down, the violent ones of the heathen, and left him upon the mountains; and in all the valleys his shoots fell, and his foliage-branches [boughs] were broken in all hollows of the earth; and all the nations of the earth went down out of his shadow and left 13him. On his ruins all the fowls of heaven alight, and on his boughs is every living creature of the field. 14To the end that none of the trees of the waters become lofty in their stature, nor give their top up between the clouds, and that no drinkers of water should remain standing by themselves in their height; for they are all given to death, to the underground, among the children of men, to those who go down to the grave. 15Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, In the day of his going down to hell [sheol] I caused to mourn [I made a mourning]; I veiled on account of him the flood, and stayed its streams, and there were many waters held back; and I made Lebanon dark over him, and all the trees of the field sank in weakness over him. At the sound of his fall 16I made the heathen quake, in that I made him go down to hell with those that go down to the grave; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and good of Lebanon, all drinkers of water, comforted themselves in the underground. 17They also went down with him to hell, to be pierced through with the sword, namely, those who, his arm, dwelt in his shadow among the heathen 18nations. To whom, then, art thou like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? And thou art cast down with the trees of Eden to the underground; in the midst of the uncircumcised shalt thou lie with those pierced through by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his tumult. Sentence of the Lord Jehovah.
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Eze_31:1. Sept.: μικ του μηνος—
Eze_31:2. … ὡμοιωσας σεαυτον … ὑψει σου; Vulg. … similis factùs es—
Eze_31:3. ... κυπαρισσος … ἑγενετο ἡ ἀρχη αὐτου Vulg. … et inter condensas frondes—
Eze_31:4. ... κυκλω̣ των φυτων αὐτου—flumina ejus manabant in circuitu radicum ejus … ligna regionis.
Eze_31:5. Other readings גבה ,גבהה.
Eze_31:6. Vulg.: Cumque extendisset umbram suam, in … (Anoth. read.: יָשְׁבוּ)
Eze_31:7. Sept.; ... ἐν τ.ὑψει αὑτου δια το πλ θος—
Eze_31:8. Κυπαρισσοι τοιαυται οὐκ ἐγενηθησαν ἐν τ. παραδεισω τ.Φεου κ. πιτυες—Vulg.: Cedrinon … altiores … abietes non adæquaverunt summitatem ejus—(Another read.: כפארתיו or with ב.)
Eze_31:9. Sept.: δια τ.πληθος τ.κλαδων αὐτου.Κ. ἐζηλωσαν … της τρυφης τ. Θεου. Vulg.: quoniam speciosum feci … et multis condensisque frondibus … omnia ligna voluptatis—
Eze_31:10. ... ἐδωκκς τ.ἀρχην σου … κ.εἰδον ἐν τω̣ ὑψωθηναι αὐτον Vulg.: … sublimatus est … summitatem suam virentem atque condensam.
Eze_31:11. κ. παρεδωκα αὐτον … ἀρχοντος ἐθνων, κ.ἐποιησεν τ.ἀπωλειαν αὐτου. (Other read: כרשעו איל.)
Eze_31:14. Vulg.: Quam ob rem non elevabuntur … inter nemorosa atque frondosa. (Other read.: אֵליהם fortes eorum: sibi, super se, עליהם. For אל יורדי, there is a reading את י׳.)
Eze_31:15. Sept.: ... ἁδου,ἐπεστησα ἐπʼ αὐτον τ.ἀβυσσν—induxi luctum, operui eum abysso—(Anoth. read.: וכל חית.)
Eze_31:16. εἰς λακκον Κ.παρεχαλουν αὐτον … τ.ξυλα της τρυφης κ.τ.ἐκλεκτα—qui descendebant in locum. Et consolata sunt … ligna voluptatis egregia et prælara—
Eze_31:17. … ἐν τραυματιαις μαχαιρας, κ.το σπερμα αὐτου παντες οἱ … ἐν μεσω τ. ζωης αὐτων ἀπωλοντο. Nam et … descendent … et brachium uniuscvjusque sedebit sub—(Another read.: יֵשבו ,יֵרדו.)
Eze_31:18. ὡμοιωθης; Καταβηθι κ.καταβιβασθητι … ξυλων της τρυφης … κ παν τ. πληφος της ἰσχυος αὐτου—Cui assimilatus es, O inclyte atque sublimis inter ligna voluptatis? Ecce … cum lignis voluptatis—
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
Egypt (Pharaoh) and Assyria.
The whole chapter is taken up with this prophetical allegory, which the indication of time in Eze_31:1 places not quite two months later than Eze_30:20 sq. (Schmieder: therefore one month and eight days before the conquest of Jerusalem). In accordance with the antithesis there, a highly poetical parallel now follows, which might work in a more powerful manner upon hearers and readers, as it was taken from the still fresh experience of his contemporaries; for in 606 Nineveh had been laid prostrate by the combined attack of the Babylonians and Medes, and the kingdom which had domineered in Asia above five centuries had reached its end. The year after that was the year of the battle at Carchemish; and thus had the fate of Assyria become palpable shortly before the calamity which was threatening Egypt. Comp. besides the juxtaposition of Assyria and Egypt elsewhere, Isa_7:18; Isa_27:13; Jer_2:36; Hos_12:2 [1]; Zec_10:10.
Eze_31:2. The commencement is made properly by the question which is addressed to Pharaoh and his tumult (הָמוֹן, see at Eze_30:10; Eze_29:19), in the answer to which the prophet sets forth a prognostication for himself and his people. Hengst.: “The matter has respect not to an opinion, but to a real resemblance.” Hitzig limits the reference to the “official Egypt,” being that “which made tumultuous noise in the land, which had something to say and to order; the governing classes and ranks (Isa_3:2-3), in contrast to the quiet people in the land (Psa_35:20), who keep silence and obey.” According to Schmieder, the question calls for the answer: No one! “Thou art incomparable, alone of thy kind. This was also the feeling of Pharaoh Hophra. But Ezekiel,” etc.—נּוֹדֶל (along with כבוד in Eze_31:18), not = “strength,” but also not precisely: fancied greatness huge self-elation (Raschi), as at Isa_10:12 of Assyria, for Egypt’s very ancient culture already gave him still a real precedence, and in other respects also placed him before Assyria.
Eze_31:3-9. Assyria’s Glory
Eze_31:3. Behold, a call to attention, introducing the answer which the divine word has to give. Hengst.: “the future in a historical dress, as at Ezekiel 19 the history of Jehoahaz and Jehoiachim.”—אַשּׁוּר (comp. Eze_27:6) is taken by Ewald for a definite kind of cedar, the highest of its kind; against which compare the convincing proof of Hitzig. Häv. also justly remarks against the construction of the word, as an adjective, that the most distinguished characteristic for a cedar tree is the accompanying designation: upon Lebanon; comp. besides, Eze_17:3. It is a common image for people of great might, princes. The Sept. renders אֶרֶז by κυπαρισσος.—Because חֹרֶשׁ, “thickness,” may signify a forest, Hengst. translates here (taking מצל as partic. Hiphil from צלל), “shading the forest” or wood. The representation is carried out farther עָנָף, as well as by between the clouds, etc.; also by קוֹמָה (from קום, “stature”) גְבַהּ.—Upon עַבֹתִים, see at Eze_19:11; on צַמֶּרֶת, comp. Eze_17:3.
Eze_31:4. Explanation of such growth.—What is said of the waters, that they made him become great, fits too well to the image of the cedar for one to be able to get something still better by a reference to the description of paradise (as Häv.), or by bringing into account the situation of Nineveh, which was important for the history of Assyria, with the Tigris on the west, the Zabatos (Lykos) on the south, with its neighbouring stream Bumodus on the east, and the brook Khosr on the north.—Still more, the flood (not the rain: comp. Isa_44:14) contributed to the prosperity. The designation, therefore, previously, of the Lebanon was epitheton ornans. תְּהוֹם is the water-treasure in the depths pouring itself forth in springs, etc. Hitzig: image of the multitude of men flowing together into Assyria, on the basis of which the political power rose. More correctly Hengst.: “the water and the flood denote what the world calls good fortune, the divine blessing.”—אֶת־, either: with, or taken accusatively: what concerns.—Hence תהום is here kept feminine; the streams are those of the flood, and the masculine הֹלְךְ, which is likewise to be referred to the flood, is justified after this manner, that תהום can also be used as a masculine; and the masculine in the present case, as Hengst. remarks, is the more suitable, being preceded by מים.—The planting (Eze_17:7) can scarcely be referred, with Hengst., through the fem. מטעָהּ, to Assyria as a tree; but is conceived of with reference to the flood, whether it might be because this had a share in the prosperity spoken of, or, which the סביבת הלך recommends, because it streams around this cedar-planting, the place on which it grows. The תְּעָלוֹת, first coming into consideration in the second line, are to be understood of the overflowings of the water-fulness that rises up (עלה), just as the all trees of the field are distinguished from the cedar tree described; and this, in Eze_31:5, is raised into prominence over against them. Hengst. takes the subjects to be designated by the expression; Hitzig applies it to other lands and princes. Of the inhabitants of Egypt we are as little to think as, with Rosenmüller, of the Nile.
Eze_31:5. עַל־כֵּן, from his overflow of water his greater height than all the trees finds its explanation, Eze_19:11 (גבהא, Aram, for גבהה)—(סרעפה, Aram. for סעפה, with ר inserted).—פְארֹתָיו, under which must here especially be understood the fruit-bearing ones, Eze_17:6.—בְּשַׁלְּחוֹ, Hengst.: “because in his time of shooting he had many waters.” [Häv.: “at his sending forth, namely, the twigs on all sides.” Tautology. Vulg. connects it with Eze_31:6.]
Eze_31:6. Eze_17:23. The closing words give the signification of the figure (Dan_4:9). “Bird” and “living thing,” in contrast to domestic creatures, the Assyrians themselves. The imperfect יֵשׁבוּ expresses, in contradistinction to the preceding perfects, the incomplete, the continuous, the progressive. [Ewald: “sat gladly all the many,” etc.]—כל־גויס רבים, Bunsen: all great peoples (?); Keil: all sorts of great nations; Rosenm.: the entirety of many peoples.
Eze_31:7. ב, through, on account of.—Eze_17:6.
Eze_31:8 carries still higher the pre-eminent glory brought prominently out in Eze_31:5, through the diversified comparison and the designation “in the garden of God,” on which comp. Eze_28:12. That לֹא־עְַמָמֻחוּ (to “darken” = excel) separates this nearer designation from ארזים, is very impressive (Häv.): even such as were found in paradise. Hitzig: “in an eminent sense, planted by God, Gen_2:9; Num_24:6.” What still has not been expressed is more distinctly indicated in Eze_31:9, that what God had done to Assyria even transcended the trees of paradise, therefore the eminent divine planting was even more marked in the case of Assyria. The paradise-creation was, after all, only nature, symbolizing grace, consequently might be the similitude for a state-creation, without, however, being like the latter, as little as also the most glorious trees themselves. Every tree, namely in this, in a natural respect, so that the tree of life and the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2.), as being of a spiritual nature, are exempted, and the simply parabolical allusion to Eden and to the garden of paradise is clear. [Hengst. makes the totality of the great men of the earth as stately trees in the garden of God as a counterpart of paradise, since all human greatness has its origin in God. Klief. (Raschi) regards the garden of God directly as “the world-planting,” since all peoples and kingdoms of the world have been planted as trees by God. Grot.: in Babylonia, where formerly paradise stood. Osiander: no king of the people of God was like him!]—[“This parabolical representation, as formerly in the case of Tyre, Ezekiel 28 combines the historical with the figurative. While the cedar that represents the king of Babylon is called a cedar of Lebanon, it is presently transferred in the prophet’s imagination to the land of primeval beauty and perfection, the Eden in which was the garden that God had planted. There this cedar is described as growing and flourishing, till it overtopped in magnificence and beauty all the trees around it. … But it was only that it might afford another specimen of that instability and transitoriness which belong to all on earth, when the good bestowed by Heaven is abused to purposes of selfishness, and the creature begins to thrust himself into the place of his Creator.”—P. F.]
Eze_31:9. This “beauty” is here explained as having been made by God, as a historical creation act (עשיתיו), and expresses, while at the same time bringing the similitude to a close, the impression which the striking elevation of the Assyrian grandeur was fitted to produce.—That the trees of Eden, as in the larger sense they are called (in respect to local position), should be designated as those which belonged to the garden of God, distinguishes them still more; it is an ascension. Kliefoth takes “trees of Eden” freely, as equivalent to “trees of beauty,” lovely trees. That more is meant by the expression, while still paradise is thought of merely in the way of similitude, appears from Eze_31:16.
Eze_31:10-14. The Judgment executed on Assyria.
Eze_31:10. This verse transfers us into the midst of the things already in fact brought to pass. We might render כה אמר: thus said to him, etc.—לכן: He who made the Assyrian so beautiful, even He, announced to him the overthrow that should take place, because of what he made out of himself.—The whole passage expresses the cause of the judgment of Jehovah upon Assyria, namely, that with such a glory from God (Eze_31:5; Eze_31:3) the position of the heart was not in correspondence; there was not humility in all the greatness, but high-mindedness on account of it. The commencing address, Thou, in the life-like character of the representation, becomes changed into a declaration respecting him—and he.—וְרָם׳, Deu_8:14. Only in conformity with the gift, not in accordance with the grace. Comp. Eze_31:14.
Eze_31:11. Here the sentence of judgment, as just going to be pronounced for the first time, is, by the use of the imperfect, placed more distinctly before us. Hengst: “which was the more suitable, as the like in Egypt was shortly to be repeated.”—אֵל נּוֹיִם is Nebuchadnezzar, “the mighty” (אוּל), not God. [Hitzig: אַיִל, ram, for prince, champion, under which Cyaxares is to be thought of.]—What he will do to him discovers itself in what follows; it will be nothing but doing; for Asshur it remained merely to suffer.—גֵּרַשְׁתִּיהוּ Piel, with reference to his paradisiacal glory (Gen_3:24). The perfect agrees with the quieter mode of speech.
Eze_31:12. As what was said last has taken place, there is now by means of the historical tenses a narration; consequently the execution of the pronounced judgment carried out. (Others make it future, with application now to Egypt, now to Assyria.)—Eze_30:12; Eze_30:11.—נָטַשׁ is: “to let go,” therefore either: to let him lie (Hengst.), or: to push away, to throw down (Eze_29:5). Throwing down is already indicated in the hewing, and is expressed through the “falling;” and on the other hand, “the leaving” is again resumed at the close, while it is extended to “all peoples.” The “mountains” prepare for the “valleys,” and the “falling,” the “being broken” in all hollows (Eze_6:3). Still, in its overthrow, the greatness as well as lofty elevation of this cedar tree is vividly displayed.—וַיֵרְדוּ abides closely by the image, according to Eze_31:6, partly of birds which had nested in its branches, partly also of beasts which had brought forth under its boughs, which, according to Eze_31:12, had its place on the mountains, so that in both respects the “going down out of his shadow” is clear, and there is no need, with Hitzig, to read וַיִּדְּדוּ, from נדד, to fly, for which עַמִּים would otherwise present no obstacle; but here, as at Eze_31:6, the reality at the close breaks through the figure.
Eze_31:13. If מִקּוֹל מַפַּלְתּוֹ in Eze_31:16 refers to עַל־מַפַּלְתּוֹ here (Eze_26:15; Eze_26:18; Eze_27:27), there is no necessity, with Raschi, Kimchi, and later expositors, to think of the substitution of the image of a corpse (carcase, Jdg_14:8), and of eagles, ravens, and other beasts of prey which rend and gnaw the members of Assyria, signified by his boughs (Hitzig); but מַפֶּלֶת, from נפל, is with Gesen. simply: the fallen or hewed-down stem, which is, as it were, a living ruin (Hengst.).—יִשְׁכְּנוּ, otherwise than at Eze_17:23, as is shown also by the immediately following and on his boughs is; since those who had nested and brought forth there (Eze_31:6) now betook themselves away from him, taking, perhaps, whatever they could of his fruit, reaping the greatest possible advantage from the mighty catastrophe.
Eze_31:14, by way of conclusion, expresses the divine intention, the practical aim, the moral, and that with respect to Egypt. To the end that (since Eze_31:12-13 may be regarded as parenthetical expansions) can be connected with Eze_31:11.—עֲצֵי־מַיִם signifies primarily: those standing on the waters, what afterwards is more nearly indicated by שֹׁתֵי מַיִם (שתה, just as Sanscr. “padapa,” designating the tree as drinking with its foot, through its root): those which attain to height and glory from the position granted to them by God—of which description was Egypt, from its relation to the Nile (Ezekiel 29). Hengst.: “the great of the earth, to whom God gives joyful prosperity.”—Comp. on Eze_31:10. As there: “and his heart raised itself,” etc., so it is said here: וְלֹא־יַעֲמְדוּ אֵלֵיהֶם, therefore to be understood of self-assumption, as in Sept. אֵליהם instead of אֲליהים is no hindrance; as is also Keil’s ultimate conclusion, since אֵלֵינוּ is common, and אֵלֵימוֹ poetic, Psa_2:5.—[Other expositions: “and their strong ones do not continue in their high-mindedness all water-drinkers”; or, “and their oaks (terebinths, Isa_61:3) do not stand there (remain standing) in their elevation, all,” etc. Rosenmüller: “and stand not to them, that is, allied to them in their height, where they had grown so high, all, namely, the other water-drinkers, that is, powerful and rich princes.” Klief.: “and that henceforth among all their strong trees that drink water no one may remain in his height.” Ewald: “and no water-drinkers assail (! !) their gods in their pride” (!), which he afterwards more particularly explains: So that trees, beings who might raise themselves ever so high, are still always dependent on their nourishment, and cannot live of themselves in a spirit of contempt toward their Creator, nor, again, arrogantly war with their superior (their Creators, gods), since they still are all destined to go down as common men to the lower world.] Comp. Eze_26:20. They could give themselves nothing, since they themselves were given away, as such were already appointed; therefore also could not remain standing where they were standing, and assumed the airs of continuing to stand, but must go down to the lower world, therefore be brought low, be humiliated, though not before humble, come to stand on a footing with the children of men. The expression: among the children of men, is to be regarded as parallel with: given to death; and: to those who go down to the grave, with: to the underground. Those that go down, men continually dying, even the highest; or, “those that have gone down,” as Ewald: those sunk into the grave.
Eze_31:15-18. The Impression and Close.
As at Eze_26:15 sq. Eze_31:15. (רֶדֶת, inf. constr. of יִרד) The connection is made with what immediately precedes, so that the reference is not (as Hitzig) to Eze_31:13. Upon שְׁאֹל, see Doct. Reflect.—The “mourning” is immediately defined more nearly without כִּסֵּתִי being asyndetically joined to it, as Häv., Ewald, Hengst.: “to cover with mourning,” “to veil in mourning,” “I made it veil itself for mourning.” The mourning which Jehovah effects through His judgment upon Assyria touches primarily the flood, in thorough accord with Eze_31:4, as that which in the first line contributed to the cedar its increase. Therefore עָלָיו, “on his account.” That the flood was covered upon him, as the Syriac, Arab., and Vulg., is at least not indicated in what precedes (Eze_31:12). Comp. on the contrary, Eze_26:19. We must (it was thought) suppose a historical reference, since the siege of Nineveh was protracted to two years, while in the spring of the third year, in consequence of a sudden swell in the Tigris, raised by excessive falls of rain, the mighty flood in one night tore down the wall next the stream, and so laid open a wide breach to the enemy (Duncker, 1. p. 806; Nah_1:8; Nah_2:7 [6]). However, in this passage the discourse is not properly of the overthrow of Assyria in process of accomplishment,
Eze_31:15 giving no representation of the judgment itself, as Häv. maintains,—but of the impression of the same as one already accomplished; and כסה as “to veil” is, even without שַׂק, perfectly intelligible, but how it is meant in respect to the flood is made sufficiently plain by the וָאֶמְנַע׳ (not future). Hitzig: “In mourning, people commonly draw themselves in and hold back, the loose garment is changed into the narrow שק; and so the flood also withdraws its waters into itself, which it had hitherto joyfully poured forth and spread abroad”—which Hitzig applies to the influx of people come to a standstill. Theodoret: to the refusal of tribute. Comp. on the figure, Eze_31:4. מַיִס רַבִּים points back to Eze_31:5-7.—The mourning produced by Jehovah next affects Lebanon (comp. Eze_31:3), therefore the height as well as the depth. אַקְדִר עָלָיו, parallel with כסתי עליו, Hiphil from: to be “dark,” “black,” therefore: to darken, as much as: to make sad, to cause to mourn. Lebanon is otherwise the white mountain. [According to Hitzig, the other princes must be indicated by this; according to Hengst., the kingdoms of the heathen.]—The trees of the field (Eze_31:4) are the third party whom the mourning affects, which is therefore also represented as far and near, עָלָף, in Pual, “to be covered;” transferred to the consciousness: to become powerless. עֻלְפֶּה has been explained as a verbal from Pual with derivative ֶ—ה, “languishing,” or instead of עֻלְּפָה, fem. of the preterite Pual, since from the connection a perfect seems to be required (Ewald), the plural construed with the feminine singular.—Keil, as Umbreit, makes all nature (?) be painfully moved by Assyria’s fall, whereas the impression of this fall is merely kept in the figurative style of Eze_31:3-4.
Eze_31:16. Eze_26:15. Since that is the same expression (מפלתו) as in Eze_31:13, and in Eze_31:15 his going down was spoken of, so we are carried back to Eze_31:12. The “going down of the peoples out of his shadow” in that passage is explained; at the same time, however, the וִדְתּוֹ of Eze_31:15 is comprised in the בְּהוֹרִדִו, and referred to the Sheol.—Now, according as וַיִנָּחְמוּ is translated “comforted themselves,” as reflexive of Piel, since here still another feeling than in Eze_31:15 may be expressed, or the Niphal “and they sighed” is what is to be understood (Ewald, Hengst.), we have either a distinction between the lower world and the trembling people of the upper world, or the two are parallel the one to the other. For the first interpretation speaks the comparison of Isaiah 14. Hitzig understands by the trees of Eden princes carried down with Assyria; in particular the Assyrian war-princes, who feel themselves comforted because the much more powerful one for whose cause they have fallen, their murderer, shares their fate; while Hengst. more correctly understands by them the former great ones of the earth, those who resembled the trees of paradise in glory. As paradise was itself a thing of the past, those who were likened to the trees of its region were contemplated as now existing in the realms of the dead. The allegorical character of the expression is proved by the exegesis: the choice and good. Besides, comp. at Eze_31:14.
Eze_31:17. They also are not those last named in Eze_31:16, but the parties presently going to be described more closely—already, indeed, indicated in Eze_31:16 as those with whom Jehovah made Assyria go down to hell (את, not אל, as in Eze_31:14). “And his arm” defines more exactly the “they also” as the subject of “the going down,”—his help, his assistant, the vassals, subject-kings, commanders, and such like, to whom the words: who dwelt in his shadow among the heathen, very well suit, and not less that they are associated with those pierced through with the sword. Assyria was not only a political, but also a military power among the nations. [If הֵם must apply to “all the trees of Eden” in Eze_31:16, so must “with him” be made equal to “not less than he,” just as Hengst., looking away from simultaneousness, views them as already in Sheol when Assyria arrives there. Therefore: they also, like him, went down before, etc. Ewald reads with the Sept.: זַרְעוֹ, “and his seed” (!).]
>Eze_31:18. This verse gives the conclusion, pointing back to Eze_31:2; it makes the application to Pharaoh, who is the party addressed.—כָּכָה, Hitzig: “in such a fashion, in circumstances of such a kind,” when this cedar after such a manner went down. The reference among the trees belongs to the to whom—Comp. at Eze_28:10. From this passage, also, there appears to emerge the opposite of what is commonly found in it, viz. that the Egyptians appear as uncircumcised with our prophet. According to Herodotus, the practice of circumcision was actually of Egyptian origin. Origen confines it to the priesthood among the Egyptians. The kings certainly were not uncircumcised; so the vis of our passage shines clearly out: This is Pharaoh, sq. Hitzig: so shall it happen to Pharaoh. הוא is the predicate.
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. Although the prophecy in Ezekiel 29 is of a general character, yet by the reference to Nebuchadnezzar, and especially from Eze_29:17 onwards, it gets a more specific character. We have therefore to hold by a fulfilment through the Chaldeans, and, indeed, in connection with what is said respecting Tyre. Apart from the circumstance that we have here to do with a prophet of God, we could not judge otherwise simply on this account, that a little reflection upon the inevitable disgrace of such a self-deception as would have been the case in respect to Tyre must alone have kept Ezekiel—instead of merely suppressing the prophecy in question while the book was still in his own hand—from wishing now to compensate for the mistake by awakening like inconsiderate and rash expectations concerning Nebuchadnezzar in regard to Egypt. For one to whom the prophet is nothing but a writer must still at least credit him with this much of worldly prudence in respect to his literary honour. And if Ezekiel must needs prophesy ex eventu (as Hitzig, for example, conceives), then prophecies like those contained in Ezekiel 26 and some following ones are purely unthinkable, so far as they remained unfulfilled; since it cannot but be supposed, that when our prophet closed his book, matters must have stood before him widely different from what they are presented in his prophecy. The “dogmatic criticism,” however, cannot once admit now that a prophecy has been fulfilled,—a limitation of the standpoint which is not improved by the circumstance that the truth of the divine word (2Pe_1:21) is made dependent on the statements or the silence of profane writers, and even of such as have given notoriously imperfect reports. The false prophet, he whose word did not come to pass, has by God’s word (Deu_18:22) been as clearly as possible excluded from the canon.
2. The reward for work, which, as Hitzig rightly enough says, had still to be given to Nebuchadnezzar, raises no question as to the conquest and, as could not fail to happen after a thirteen years’ siege, the destruction of Tyre. If the booty might have been thought of for the army, for Nebuchadnezzar it is necessary to think of Egypt. The song of triumph demanded by Hitzig for the fulfilment of the prophecy against Tyre is the double lamentation which we find in Ezekiel 27, 28. Every one has his peculiar manner. But as regards the so-called “historical witnesses,” who should speak the decisive word on the fulfilment or non-fulfilment particularly of the prophecy of Ezekiel in respect to Egypt, they are “the Greek historians, at the head of whom stands Herodotus, and they know absolutely nothing of a Chaldean invasion of Egypt—nay, their narration is opposed to anything of the kind” (Hitzig). This is imposing; let us reflect, however, that Herodotus had also learned nothing from his Egyptian informants of the defeat at Carchemish. We need only mention farther, that this Greek historian himself reproaches the priests of Egypt, and precisely in regard to this particular time, with embellishing the history of their country. Now, according to Herodotus, Pharaoh Hophra—in consequence of the defeat which his army sustained from the Cyrenians, against whom it was to have rendered help to the Libyans, and of the revolt which in consequence thereof, and of the foreign mercenary troops retained in Egypt, broke forth on the part of the Egyptian warrior-class against Amasis, who, instead of bringing back the rebels to obedience, suffered himself to be proclaimed king by them—lost freedom and his throne, and by the infuriated people was even murdered. Tholuck, who, “if the cattle with the ark of the Lord should once turn aside, would not obstinately drive forward,” remarks that as a witness Herodotus alone comes into consideration; before whom, however, the testimony of Ezekiel, himself a contemporary of the events, has no need to be abashed. “If Herodotus readily received intelligence of the prosperous battle fought by Necho at Megiddo, but none respecting the much more important defeat sustained by him on the Euphrates from the Chaldeans, should it be thought strange if the priests observed silence also regarding the irruption of the Chaldeans into their own land? yea, if the miserable end which Hophra suffered through the foreign conqueror should have been rather represented by them as the deed of his own people?” (So also Rawlinson’s Herod. B. ii. appen. c. 8.) With a fair appreciation of the historical representation of Herodotus, the cause there assigned, especially the revolution among the warrior-class of Egypt, might suffice for the overthrow of Hophra. Yet the hatred of the Egyptian people, not only expressed in Herodotus, but confirmed by monumental evidence (Rossellini points in this connection to a by-name of Hophra on the monuments: “Remesto”)—such a hatred as is described in Herodotus toward Hophra (ii. 161–169), manifested in respect to a native ruler, is scarcely to be explained from what is stated, if it did not come into some sort of connection with a Chaldean invasion of Egypt, whereby the haughtiness of Hophra might well appear all the more hateful to the Egyptian people, as the misery of the land and the inhabitants, occasioned by him, stood in sharpest contrast to the previous prosperity and splendour. The grudge of the Egyptian warrior-class against the foreign mercenaries could not be of such moment as some have supposed, since even Amasis, who thereafter held possession of the throne till his death (forty-four years), and was succeeded in it by his son, took lonians for his bodyguard, and generally granted to the Greeks still greater favour and privileges than his predecessor. Besides, as generally held, there is also the outline of the prophecy against Egypt in Ezekiel 29, which exhibits a distinction between Eze_29:6 sq. and Eze_29:4 sq.—in the one, the sword constitutes the figure (Eze_29:8); in the other, overthrow with reference to the wilderness. Especially if Hitzig’s interpretation of “the fish” (Eze_29:4) as denoting Pharaoh’s men of war is accepted, and under “the wilderness” there is couched an allusion to Libya, what is said in Eze_29:4 sq. might be explained by the narration which is reproduced by Herodotus, and Eze_29:6 sq. would, with the sword of Nebuchadnezzar, be such a supplementing as the conquest of Tyre to the siege of that city, also given elsewhere. Out of the miserable condition in which Hophra perished, Amasis would then have raised Egypt. Anyhow, as Tholuck brings out, the death of Hophra falls exactly into the time in which the occupation of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar must have occurred; and thus the position of matters approaches to that which is wont to be extracted from Josephus in confirmation of our prophecy—contr. Ap. i. 19. It is there stated that Berosus reports of the Babylonian (Nebuchadnezzar) that he “conquered Egypt, Syria, Phœnicia,” etc. Again, in Ezekiel 20, he states that Megasthenes placed Nebuchadnezzar above Hercules, since he had subjected to himself a great part of Libya and Iberia (comp. Antiq. x. 11. 1, and Strabo xv. 1. 6; see also Häv. Comm. p. 435, against Hitzig’s remarks). In the 10th book of the Antiq. Eze_9:7, Josephus expresses himself to this effect, that “in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the twenty-third of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, he made an expedition against Cœlesyria; and when he had got possession of it, he made war against the Ammonites and Moabites; and when he had brought these nations into subjection, he fell upon Egypt in order to overthrow it, and did indeed slay the king who then reigned, but set up another; after which he took those Jews that were there captive, and brought them to Babylon,” etc. The ten years’ time, which Hitzig doubts as the period of the earlier warlike expeditions, is maintained by Tholuck. The fifth year after the taking of Jerusalem would be 581; the thirteen years’ siege of Tyre would fall into the period 586–572 or 573. For the different actions which were in part parallel as to time, we have only to suppose various divisions of the army employed, so that the whole might of Nebuchadnezzar did not at the same time lie before Tyre. The forty years of the Egyptian oppression, Tholuck, like Niebuhr, extends over the entire space that lies between the disaster at Carchemish and the overthrow of Hophra (thirty-six years), “during which Egypt, through the continued and in great part unfortunate warlike enterprises of Hophra, must have been much depopulated and extremely weakened, till at length the inroad of the Chaldeans consummated the oppression.” Tholuck thinks that, “as the prophets in the beginning of the fulfilment comprehended the future (Jer_13:18; Eze_30:24), in the last and completed fulfilment they also comprehended the earlier incomplete ones.” The symbolical explanation of the forty years is not thereby denied (see the exposition). The worth of the statements of Josephus may be questioned, as is done by Hitzig; but for the relation of profane history to our prophecy, it suffices that Hophra miserably perished (Eze_29:4 sq.; Jer_44:30 sq.), and that Egypt again revived, as took place under Amasis, although as a kingdom it was fit to be compared neither with its ancient glory nor with other great monarchies (Eze_29:13 sq.). As regards the resuscitation of Egypt, Duncker mentions that, according to a return of the priests, it then reckoned 20,000 country towns and cities (Herzog’s Realencyc. 1 p. 150), though it was “the last period of Egypt’s glory;” and Lepsius says of the same, that Egypt succumbed to the first pressure of the Persian power, and remained from 525 to 504 a Persian province; that afterwards it became again for a short time independent, until in 340 it was reconquered by the Persians, and in 332 fell under Alexander the Great, etc.
3. Upon the importance of Egypt for the revenge of Nebuchadnezzar, see the exposition of Eze_29:18. Also generally for the Chaldean policy the transition to Egypt is rendered plain to us from Eze_29:17 sq. (Häv.: “if Nebuchadnezzar would make the possession of Phœnicia once for all sure, Egypt must be completely broken.”) Of the importance of Egypt by itself, its characteristic importance, some notice has already been taken, toward the close of the introductory remarks to Ezekiel 25; as also of the distinction, indicated with correct feeling by Keil, between Egypt and the other nations mentioned by Ezekiel. But what Egypt signifies in its connection here, this must be discerned from its relation to Israel. It is quite true that the charge laid against Ammon, Moab, etc., also against Tyre, for spiteful joy, hostility, envy toward Israel, is not mentioned in respect to Pharaoh and Egypt. It may be said that Egypt’s guilt in regard to Israel was that rather of a false, treacherous friendship. If, on the other hand, the excess of proud self-sufficiency must be regarded as the characteristic of Egypt, the same sort of self-elation meets us in the king of Tyre (Ezekiel 28); and in this respect Tyre formed a fitting transition-point to Egypt. The distinction between Tyre and Egypt might perhaps be found in this, that while in particular the kingdom of Tyre had had its time of sacred splendour and past greatness, as we have seen, in its former connection with the kingdom of David, Egypt on its part acquired importance on account of the sojournings of the pilgrim-fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and still more on account of the formation of their descendants into a people. Above all, the idea of redemption was associated with the land of Egypt. Here, therefore, the inverse relation holds good: Tyre has gone with Israel to school; Israel, on the other hand, was at school in Egypt, as was evidenced in manifold agreements and contrasts exhibited in their peculiarity as a people, without our needing on that account to ride off on the Spencerian principle [namely, of a servile borrowing from the institutions of Egypt]. More than from anything else, may be understood from Israel’s reminiscences as a people, and the impress of Egyptian style and manner even upon their sacred things, their abiding sympathetic turning back toward Egypt. That Israel could not let Egypt go out of sight had its root in human nature; we must learn even from the children of this world (Luk_2:6). But it had also its dangerous side. It was Israel’s worldliness, relapse, since Israel had been delivered by Jehovah from this world, and Jehovah had through Moses threatened them in connection with Egypt with the greatest evils (Deu_28:68). We have tribulation in the world, and we may have fear before the world; such fear, however, may be salutary in its operation. But dangerous is the stay that is sought in Egypt, trust and confidence therein. In this respect Egypt is designated a remembrancer of iniquity (Eze_29:16), since for Israel it had, and not as of yesterday, but from of old (comp. also Eze_16:26; Eze_23:8; Eze_23:19), the fatal significance of a pride which resists Jehovah and leads away from Him, of a consciousness of worldly power, which amid the characteristic Pharaonic arrogance expressed itself just as distinctly (Eze_29:3; Eze_29:9) as in Exo_5:2, and had this the more seductively, as a self-conscious abiding worldly power is in fact fitted to impose on people. Friendship with Egypt is the most contemptuous relation in which Israel can be thought of, on account of the indifference which it necessarily implied on the part of the Israelitish people not only in regard to their former house of bondage, but also to the mighty deliverance obtained from it, and generally in what concerned their relation to Jehovah, on whom, as their own and their fathers’ God, they had been thrown from their state of childhood. To make account of this specific historical position in respect to each other, according to which the growth, bloom, and decay of Israel were closely interwoven with Egypt, the prophecy of Ezekiel “dwells at greater length on Egypt than on the other nations” (Häv.). Still more, however, it serves to explain the representation of the judgment upon Egypt as strikingly parallel with that on Israel, and to the last carried out (comp. Eze_29:5; Eze_29:9 sq., 12, 13, etc.). Not less remarkable, because singular, is the prospect and declaration in regard to the resuscitation of Egypt, and of it alone, which have been introduced into the prediction of our prophet; by this also is Egypt quite expressly kept parallel with Israel. The reminiscence which brings up Egypt so distinctly is not simply that of the house of bondage, or of iniquity, but it is Joseph’s post of honour, and the corn granaries of Jacob, together with his family. Comp. also Deu_23:7.
4. The interpretation of Neteler strikes out what is certainly a quite different path, strikingly reminding one of Cocceius, only with a specially Catholic tendency. According to him, the prophecies against the foreign nations constitute four groups, each of which contains four pieces: the first, Ezekiel 25; the second, the overthrow of the Canaanitish culture - development, standing in contrast to the higher calling of Jerusalem, and reaching its culmination in Tyre. The prophecy against Sidon he severs from Tyre, in the interest of this fourfold division; it belongs to the Egyptian group, inasmuch as “Sidon’s bloom falls into the time in which Egypt was the bearer of the Hamitic power and culture,” and “the Sidonian development was a shoot of the Hamitic-Egyptian.” The promises for Israel in this third section (Eze_28:20 to Eze_30:19) must stand parallel with those of the same kind in the first group, wherein punishment is threatened to the four nations with reference to Israel; as the first group, “through Ezekiel 21 (Ammon), is placed in connection with the first destruction of Jerusalem,” so “the third stands, through the opening of the mouth which occurs in it, in closer relation to the symbol of the second destruction of Jerusalem.” The four last prophecies against Egypt are “mere symbols,” according to Neteler. As Ammon “drove the surviving remnant, after the destruction of Jerusalem, out of Judea,” so had “Moab decoyed Israel into gross idolatry before their entrance into Canaan;” and so, in the prophecies against Ammon and Moab, the beginning and end of Israel in regard to Canaan are connected together. The punishment of Edom and the Philistines must point to the “re-establishment of the house of David.” In regard to Tyre Neteler expresses himself thus: “The command given to Israel to root out the Canaanites, but by them neglected to their destruction, God will execute on Tyre through Nebuchadnezzar;” and this command must stand in a noteworthy relation to the historical development of the last period of 800 years before Christ, in which “those to the west (Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans) brought a real advance, while those to the east (the Hamitic kingdoms of Ethiopia and Egypt, the Semitic kingdoms of Assyria and Chaldea, the Japhetic Medians and Persians) repeat the development of the two earlier periods in smaller measure, yet as if thereby the problem of the western circle should be solved.” He says: “If Israel, through the extirpation of the Canaanites, according to Num_36:6-9 (!), had entered into the place of the Phœnicians, it would have formed the first member in the development of this period, and would have shown the right path to the Greek culture which came forth in the second third of it.” To retrieve as much as possible that which was neglected (! ?), “Nebuchadnezzar must subject the Hamitic Tyre, even to the pillars of Hercules, and unite the eastern circle to the monstrous Chaldean kingdom, so that the externally insignificant Israel might be set in the centre of this gigantic Semitic power, which extended its sway even over the Turanian tribes in the high north.” This contrast between the Semitic and Hamitic races (already occurring in the prophecy of Noah) must be of great importance for the understanding of the symbolical representation of Ezekiel in the prophecies relating to Tyre and Egypt. Upon the third group which Neteler distributes, and which reaches to Eze_30:19, we learn that, first of all, in the prophecy against Sidon, “the second possession of the land is associated with the first, as in Ezekiel 20 the first deliverance from Egypt is made parallel with a deliverance in a higher sense.” “As Israel did not fully carry out the extirpation of the Canaanites, whose place, according to Num_33:54, it was their part to occupy, these were turned for them into thorns and briers. With the second possession, on the other hand, the servitude of Canaan, which was announced even by Noah, was after a sort realized, since the Canaanitish history becomes extinct. The second piece in this section, namely Eze_29:1-16, connects the end of the first Israelitish sojourn in Canaan, brought about by Egypt’s iniquity, with the end of Egypt; and the humiliation of Egypt is such an elevation of Israel, that Christianity will not be under temptation to lean upon a decaying heathenism.” The forty years occurring at Eze_29:11 sq. must not be distinguished from the forty years of Judah, for which the prophet had to lie forty days upon his right side; that is, as Neteler remarks on Ezekiel 4, “a symbolical designation of the time, reaching from the destruction of the temple to the return from exile, derived from the sojourn in Kadesh.” “The two first pieces, Eze_28:20 to Eze_29:16, set forth the world-historical ideas, which were to be realized by the introduction of Christianity, but give, as to the way and manner in which the realization should be prepared for, begun, and carried forward, no information—this being first introduced by the prophet in the third piece (Eze_29:17-21). The might of Shem, through which God conquered Canaan in the world’s history, must also carry forward the work in regard to Egypt. In the interest of Israel, whose service to God stands in contrast to Canaanitish industry, God will turn the Semitic world-power against Egypt, by which Israel was compelled to do Canaanitish work, and establish for them, on account of their labour in respect to Canaan, claims for compensation, which God would render valid because of the bondage laid by Egypt on the Israelites. The booty which God took from Egypt after the conflict, on occasion of the first deliverance, was only a type of a later plundering, which in a preparatory manner was begun by Nebuchadnezzar, and after the second deliverance from Egypt, that is, after the redemption achieved by the sufferings of the Servant of God was realized, when all power in heaven and on earth was committed to the episcopate of the Church (!!). The consequence of this victory over Egypt (Eze_30:1-19) is given in the form of a judgment upon Egypt, in which is delineated its desolation and the annihilation of its idols and yokes; but the sons also of the covenant - land are smitten by the judgment, which points to a fall that should take place among them.” The continuation of this Catholic-theological-historical explanation and interpretation of Ezekiel will be given in No. 9.
5. Cocceius remarks on Eze_29:21 : “Evil Merodach gave Jehoiachin freedom, and the first place of honour among the kings. Farther, Daniel was great in the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar, and under the Persian dominion. Cyrus was called by God to give command to lead the people back, that they might rebuild the temple. Still higher grew the horn of Israel when they became free, and their priests assumed the diadem, as a sign of the freedom of the people, and the Israelites had become greater than their fathers, as announced in Deu_30:5. But most especially was it so, when out of David’s house the horn grew, which set the people free from all slavery, which subdued their enemies, and rendered the Gentiles subject to Israel, Psa_132:13-18.”
6. The day of Jehovah, Kliefoth remarks, “is not judgment in one point of time and destruction over the whole heathen world;” and then he continues: “The day of Jehovah is a period of indefinite duration, in the course of which God will punish with judgment and destruction all heathen nations in succession, just as they have shown their hostility to the people of God, and He sees that their time has come. From this point of view, also, is the announcement always to be understood, that this day of Jehovah is at hand. The day continues so long, that it lasts till, in the final judgment, the whole world, in so far as hostile to God, shall be destroyed; but it constantly begins anew, when any particular people, on account of their malevolence manifested to the people of God, falls under the righteous doom of perdition. Hence the day of Jehovah upon the heathen nations has, in the several prophecies, a different terminus a quo, according as they refer to this or that kind of relations.” Only it must not be overlooked, that in Eze_30:1 sq. not indeed Egypt alone is contemplated, but Egypt in its connection with heathen nations; and yet, that it is not the day of judgment upon all anti-theocratic powers that is to be understood, as already Hävernick makes the prophet see this general idea obtaining realization; but as the time of Jerusalem was come, the time when judgment had begun at the house of God, so the time must now be near when this judgment of God shall go forth upon the heathen. Hengstenberg finds here the fundamental passage for Luk_21:24, and points to the overthrow of the Roman Empire,—the “mountain” which was to be cast into the sea after the fig-tree of the Jewish people was withered (Matthew 21.), the “mulberry-tree” which was to be plucked up and removed into the sea (Luk_2:7.).
7. As in the kingdom of Tyre, Ezekiel 28, allusion was made to a time of sacredness upon the holy mount of God, so there was also found there, by way of similitude, a bringing to remembrance of Eden, and especially of the garden of God. This retrospect of paradise furnishes the beau-ideal, the standard for the Old Testament world generally; hence with Assyria, and in connection therewith in reference to Egypt, which had not the same historical position as Tyre, it appropriately comes back again in Ezekiel 31. As in the New Testament all is measured with heaven, so in the Old Testament what is or was glorious upon earth is made to hold of Eden and paradise.
8. On the derivation of the word “Sheol” there confessedly prevails a great diversity of opinion. For the biblical idea, especially the signification of the word in the Old Testament, this only is to be learned from this matter of etymological controversy, that as well the derivation from שָׁעַל, to be hollow (therefore for שְׁעֹל), since it points to “hollowing,” and in so far to the grave, as the derivation which Hupfeld adopts from: “to sink down,” and: “to go apart from one another,” therefore: sinking down, depth, abyss, and: cleft, hollow, empty space—since the burying and the being in the sepulchre can be thereby expressed—both alike avail for the affirmation, that Sheol and the grave more or less run together. The derivation, on the other hand, from שָׁאַל to demand, expresses as to Sheol only what constitutes generally the power and manner of death to demand for itself with insatiable desire all living beings (comp. Isa_5:14; Hab_2:5; Pro_27:20; Pro_30:16). As to form an infinitive verbal substantive, the use of the word belongs predominantly to the poetic language of the Old Testament, whence also is to be explained the circumstance that it never stands with the article. Sheol appears as the aggregate of all graves. Who could venture to deny this aspect of the matter, at least for the 31st and 32d chapters of Ezekiel? It is the universal grave, which calls down to itself all earthly life, how high soever it may have reached, however magnificent it may have been, however valiantly it may have fought. But much, also, as Sheol and the grave (בור) sometimes appear to approach (comp. also Isa_14:11; Isa_14:15), to cover one another, it must still not be overlooked that the grave, more exactly considered, is only the entrance into Sheol (Psa_16:10), which certainly, as it is commonly represented, keeps the hue of the grave, in generals as well as in particulars (ירכתי בור, Eze_32:23); it is the carrying over of the grave to the future state (while the grave as such is still always something here). It is quite reconcilable with this representation when Sheol is conceived of as a locality, and indeed as a deep abyss, just as the standing form of speech: “to go down,” “to be thrown down,” is thence explained as equivalent to being consigned to the dead. The occasional poetic delineation of this future must only not be formally dogmatized into an actual under-world with gates, rivers, etc. (Job_38:17; Psa_18:5 sq.) The going down of the company of Korah (Num_16:30) is often what is floating before the writer’s mind; and not so much the locality of Palestine, which was rich in grottoes and caverns, or the darkness of the Hebrew family tomb-vaults, the stillness of the Egyptian catacomb-world. The interior and inmost part of the earth (Eze_26:20; Eze_32:18), however, is not the earth’s inner region as such, but שְׁאוֹל תַּכְתִיָּה is the Sheol “beneath” (the underground, Eze_31:14); that is, partly the contrast to heaven as the region of the divine life, partly the distinction from the surface turned toward heaven, the face of the earth. Out of that contrast, in which, however, the earth also and its life have their place, and still more in accordance with this distinction from the earthly life, must Sheol and what is connected therewith be understood. The death to which one is surrendered (Eze_31:14) is not simply a going down, not annihilation, but as punishment for sin, the necessary consequence of the negation of God. Considered as a state, it is the contrast in respect to God, as curse, as judgment upon the sinner; hence the contrast in respect to life as divine, as salvation and blessedness, even to eternal perdition; and so Sheol posits a concrete, individual prolongation of life: the dead are represented in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 31.) as living on individually and in space. Passages such as Psa_104:29; Psa_146:4, and others, certainly have respect to the earthly life in the body, with its purposes and undertakings, doing and thinking, knowledge and wisdom together, Ecc_9:10 (so our Lord Himself in Joh_9:4 makes account of it for His diligence in working while in the flesh). As life on earth in a mortal body is for all men a troublesome, poor, and sorrowful thing, so certainly the advancing decay of the powers of life, with the dissolution of the union between soul and body, necessarily becomes quiescence, impotence, and withdrawal of their life-energy in regard to the appointed sphere of action. But passages like Job_26:5 sq., Eze_38:17, Pro_15:11, Psa_139:8, testify to the presence of the living God, through whom the subsisting and passing away of all beings is conditioned, as is said also in the אֲבַדּוֹן made parallel with Sheol (comp. Mar_12:27; Luk_20:38). The contrast, therefore, to the heavenly upper world as the proper region of the divine life is not that of not-being and being; and just as little is the continued existence in Sheol an unconscious shade-existence, at least not according to Ezekiel’s representation: the heroes in Sheol speak and know themselves as such over against others, feel, etc. As the designation of shades (דפאים) for the dead in the Old Testament times cannot be proved, so the appearance, for example, of Samuel (1 Samuel 28.), so entirely accordant with the spirit and address of Samuel as he actually lived, is not at all brought forward as an exception, somewhat after the manner of the Theban seer Tiresias (Odyss. x. 492 sq.). In the Old Testament, also, we read nothing of an instinctive repetition and continuation of the past life connected with the possession of blood. The representation of Sheol, into which there has often been greatly too much imported of heathen elements, is in no respect the localizing of the image, which, as Meier says, “remains like a blanched, bloodless, shadowy form, in the spirit of the living, of their dead and buried fellow-men.” Life in Sheol cannot, indeed, run counter to the conditions that prevail in respect to human life. Man is soul, but he has spirit, which for him constitutes the power wherein the life of the individual consists; while the soul is plainly the seat of that, as the body is its organ. If the life connected with the body appears as life in the flesh, when separated therefrom it will become an existence of the spirit, and departed men will necessarily have to be thought of as spirits, and can only in so far be termed “souls” as a retrospective sense of the earlier corporeal life has place. On this side the description of Sheol is certainly, and especially as contradistinguished from the earthly upperground life, kept in due regard to the state of things existing there. With the going down into the grave, the bright joyful sunlight vanishes for men; hence Sheol is the land of darkness and of the shadow of death (Job_10:21). While the world of light is an organized one, the midnight region of Sheol appears as a confused intermingling of substances, chaotic (Job_10:22). Busy life, so repeatedly designated “tumult” in this chapter of Ezekiel, becomes motionless in the grave; so in Psa_115:17 the dead go down to silence, to stillness (comp. Psa_104:17; Psa_31:18). The expression, however, of “land of forgetfulness,” Psa_88:12, must not be overstretched, though the reference is to be held fast in which it is said that, as God has given the earth to the children of men (Psa_115:16), so the manifestation of His wonder-working power and righteousness is promised to them on the earth while they are in the flesh. Not in the heathen materialistic sense, but Christologically, however still on the temporal side, the thought as to its form was presented in the Old Covenant. And thence are such passages as Psa_6:5; Psa_30:10 [Psa_30:9], Psa_88:10-11, Psa_115:17, Isa_38:18, to be understood. The dead, accordingly, are done (Psa_88:5); their state, Sheol, is without a history (on the other hand, comp. 1Co_15:19). But to complete our knowledge of the Old Testament Sheol, the ethical side is not to be overlooked, that is, the idea of recompense comes therein likewise into consideration (comp. Eze_32:23 sq.). The godly are there gathered to their fathers (Gen_25:8; Gen_35:29, etc.). It is a mode of representation which incidentally receives a very touching illustration in Luk_16:22 for the poor, who has no brother in the world, who is an abject, forlorn, when he is said to be received into Abraham’s bosom. The righteous snatched away enters into peace, and rests therein upon the foundation of the grave (Isa_57:1). How far with the soul, when unclothed of the body, there takes place “an ineffectual tormenting effort to consolidate itself corporeally” (Beck)—the spirit, however, being incapable of being contemplated apart from the soul, which conditions its individuality, therefore also not to be thought of “as sunk after death into the corruption of the flesh”—may be left undecided. It is enough that the rich man found himself “in torment.” With justice, however, Lange presses the thought that for the wicked Sheol is still not hell.
9. Neteler (comp. 4) maintains concerning Eze_30:21 to Eze_32:32, that is, the fourth of the groups set off by him, that “through four symbols the overthrow of a power standing in antagonism to the Church is exhibited,” and that what is said is to be taken “eschatologically in a wider sense.” Egypt is considered by him as “a symbol of the power of Magog,” and under the Chaldeans is found “a combination of Romans and Germans.” And here Neteler’s book dwells on the “Russian Panslavism.” The two last symbols must be fulfilled in the overthrow of Magog “only provisionally,” so that “their complete fulfilment belongs to a still later future.”
HOMILETIC HINTS
On Ch. 29
Eze_29:1-5. The close is made with Egypt, as Egypt was the beginning in respect to Israel.—“Egypt is with Ezekiel the oldest country of his people’s disgrace” (Umer.).—How clear is what God causes to be said to us! The address is plainly written, and can occasion no doubt to whom the word is directed; and not less clearly does it shine forth whose subscription stands under it, and who, therefore, will look after the punctual execution of the things spoken. It will not proceed according to man’s sayings and opinions, but as God the Lord has said.—The prophetic word so much the surer as the fulfilment of it now lies completely before us.—What still survives of the Pharaohs lies in the midst of the wilderness; they are ruins to which the sand has still refused burial!—“Where can a mortal say: This is mine, or: This remains to me? But prosperity, where it is not understood as God’s blessing, makes people stupidly proud. See there, too, the blessing of tribulations, which demonstrate before our eyes, that nothing is our right, and nothing our abiding property” (Stck.).—Those who do not seek after the things which are above regard the Nile, which flows on the earth, with precisely such eyes.—“But that there is also a spiritual Egypt may be seen from Rev_11:8, and that is a people, kingdom, and dominion which holds in fetters the people of God and makes them slaves. Now, as under the great dragon in the sea Antichrist also comes to be considered, together with his scales and members that stick to him, and are in a manner innumerable, so shall this power also after the prince of Tyre receive his doom, with all his adherents, who by overbearing conscience have done so much wrong to the faithful. Then also will appear the vain help which the house of Israel has sometimes assumed as belonging to the reed of the fleshly arm” (B. B.).—“Satan says to Jesus: All this will I give thee, all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, though still there was not an atom thereof in reality his” (Luther).—“Oh how vain is man in prosperity!” (St.)
Eze_29:4-5. Higher still than the highest is the Most High. He who comes from heaven is higher than all.—“It is bad when only amid loss people come wisely to learn that they had all of God, of which they were so proud and boasted themselves” (Stck.).—Pharaoh in the wilderness, and Jesus in the wilderness.—They who set themselves up above others may readily observe that they are thrown off and away before they are themselves aware of it!—The judgment of Jehovah upon the Pharaohs!—Jehovah at the Pyramids, a very different object from Napoleon before them.—The overthrow in the wilderness an image of a desolate ruin.
Eze_29:6-7. God punishes not those only who rely upon flesh, but those also who are flesh and yet wish others to find comfort in them.—No knowledge of God and no knowledge of self—this is what gives false self-confidence, and false confidence in man.—The love of God in discovering the false and rotten props.—“A reed is everything that is in this world, as man’s favour, temporal prosperity, beauty, yea, the corporeal life itself; from without it appears like a staff, and as if many were walking with it, but within it is hollow and brittle” (Stck.).—But for none is such a reed more suspicious than for the people to whom God has pledged Himself, and therewith all His wisdom and His omnipotence.—It is certainly the same with the deceit and show of one’s own righteousness, good purposes, and pious works. One cannot keep hand and shoulder far enough from these.—How many a one has such like splinters in his conscience!—The false reed-splinters in our bones, which make our going so feeble and our holding so insecure.—“The soldiers give to Christ a reed in mockery, Matthew , 27.” (Luther).
Eze_29:8-16. The judgment of God by the sword in its significance for enemy and friend, warrior and conqueror, land and people.—Desolation is always a mark of punishment. First men become waste, then their place is laid waste.—Where the people become waste as regards God, there God causes the land to be waste of its people.—Whosoever will have it that he has made himself to be what he says that he is, with him God must make an end, so that he may learn what he himself is, and how still God can do all.—The mine and thine, as the grand controversy which moves the world’s history.—So the sin of the people is their ruin; but though ancient history is full of examples, those who now live are not disposed to profit by them.—“Should one not be ashamed of such a speech, since it must so soon be changed into a past—it has been mine; and this often with much sorrow?” (B. B.)—The description of the earth is also a description of divine justice.—By means of fragments and arrow-heads in the yellow sands of the desert, and obelisks which still point heavenwards, people now read the names of men, of kings, and such like; but the feci of God is likewise to be read there.—The divine seasons of respite.—The years of humiliating in their significance for Egypt and for us all as punishments and deliverance from high-mindedness.—To stand low is to stand more secure than to go beyond bound and limit.—“All changes in the world have their bearing ultimately on the Church” (St. ).—God knows how to withdraw from the eyes of His own what dazzled their eyes and held them captive.—“Such is the aim of all the judgments that are inflicted, to withdraw the body of the faithful from confidence in what is human, and to supplant it by a firm trust in God” (B. B.).
Eze_29:17-21. Warrior service hard service. He who serves God does not serve without pay.—The recompense of our works is never made on the ground of merit, but is always of grace.—“The downfall of the world is the deliverance of the chosen” (H. H.). Therefore lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh (Luk_21:28).—When the world becomes poor, then the bones of the righteous flourish.—The new life out of ruins.—Upon silence to speak is better than to be silent upon speech.—It is God who must open the mouth for us, and He also can do it.—Immortality in the world and the eternal life in the sanctuary, Psa_23:6.
On Ch. 30
Eze_30:1-9. “The judgments of God pass from His own people to other peoples; hence the day of the heathen could not be far off” (Cocc.).—Despair howls, hope waits.—A day in clouds is also the day of death; the earth is shrouded from the eye, and especially when first the heaven has been covered to the spirit. Darkness then reigns below and above. How dark, then, is the grave!—Bad times are met by watchfulness; howling merely goes before them as the loud blast before the outburst of the thunderstorm.
Eze_30:4-5. Many others are carried along with the fall of one. In every judgment that takes place in the world, behold a type and prelude of the judgment which is to be executed on the world.—If not with the sinner immediately, yet on the sinner, and therefore through the sinner his companions shall be punished.—Where God strikes the blow, there not only is the stir which a people makes, and with which it makes such a noise, its work and gain brought down, but also law and order and that whereon all rests are overthrown.
Eze_30:6-7. How helpless with all his appliances may one that was helpful to us prove in a night! May God be our help, who has made heaven and earth.
Eze_30:9. Everything does service as a messenger for God; in particular His word, which hence cannot be bound, but accomplishes that whereto it is sent.—God’s seat of judgment stands always among mankind, and the world’s history is God’s judgment.—The terrors in the history of the world.—As there is a false security in individual men, so is there also a bad security with whole peoples.—The national security a national loss.
Eze_30:10-19. When men do not sanctify God on holidays, God makes their bustling activity to keep holiday.—When God wills, a man’s name can cause terror to the world. But only One Name is given under heaven to men wherein we can happily exult before all terrors.—Upon deeds of violence come still more violent ones, and tyrants are precipitated through tyrants.—“Whosoever sells himself to sin has already in doing so sold himself to his enemy” (Stck.).—God’s blessing fills, His curse impoverishes a land.
Eze_30:13. The hand of God alights some time upon all idols.—From the overthrow of heathenism is seen the vanity of idols.—“Where are the famous cities of the olden times? Why do they lie buried in disorderly stone-heaps? Sinner, behold what sin may effect” (St.),—how it may build very high indeed, yet not for continuance, and still more may destroy.—Gods and princes combined the common delusion of idolatry, at first in splendour, so afterwards in ruin!—Terror is the opposite of courage, but not the fear of the Lord.—Where God kindles a fire, it is always for judgment; the old is consumed therein, but a new springs forth out of the ruins.—Without casting down, no progress in the life of humanity.
Eze_30:16. Must not man always be engaged in conflict?
Eze_30:17. With its youth the human future of a people goes down. Even the youth should be “the chosen” of God; instead of this, Satan at no period has so much of his nature in men as in the season of youth.
Eze_30:18-19. Walk in the light while ye still have the light,—we, that is, who have the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.—The judgment of God may, through the dogmas of men and a false philosophy, veil to us also the sun of truth, and wrap in darkness to men’s view heaven and eternity.—When at length, with the authority of God, the authority also of the law over men gives way, then, where superstition gives place to unbelief, there falls upon them yoke for yoke, one in the room of another; there is only an exchange of tyrants.—How much old and high renown have the gravediggers of the world’s history already buried under the sod among other sweepings! What is gloria mundi?—a transit.—The new plagues of Egypt.—The spirit of Pharaoh continued to be the spirit of the Pharaohs.—Self heights are no heights—none, at least, that stand in the judgment of God, and remain above though all else should go down and disappear; but a height in the true sense is that simply whereof it is said, As high as heaven is above the earth, Psa_103:11. This ought to be recognised, and that not merely at the last, amid howlings and gnashings of teeth, but betimes, when it may still serve for peace, with the calm open eye.—“The most wretched of all thoughts is that of having no part in God. How many an evil-doer has readily presented his head to the sword, in the conviction that through the punishment he should become a partaker of God!” (H.)
Eze_30:20-26. How many the things are that men prize as an “arm,” and how easily these arms are broken!—The arm of the Lord (Isaiah 53.), and the arm of man, and the armies of princes.—“More easily is an arm broken than healed; but now first of all the conscience, how Gainfully does it sting, and how long is it in healing!” (Stck.)—What God has broken, God only can heal.
Eze_30:22. But man never has enough by a fracture; so long as he can still move and stir otherwise, he must show himself. Therefore shall there come to be a destruction without mercy, if we will not submit to God on the footing of grace.—“Sickness breaks one arm, death both arms” (Stck.).—Every breakage which we must suffer is a call to repentance.
Eze_30:23. “He who will not fear God in his fatherland has no injustice done him, if in a foreign land he is made to experience all sorts of misfortune” (St.).
Eze_30:24-26. “Strength and weakness come both from God” (W.).—“Upon whose side Jehovah stands, that man prevails in the conflict; to him there is prosperity in life; he enjoys a blessing with his work. But this favour has the Lord promised to the righteous. Without God all ends unfortunately, mournfully, and in perdition” (Stck.).—What serves God, that serves also the kingdom and the power of the Spirit; just as at the last, all the kingdoms of this world shall become God’s and His Christ’s.
On Ch. 31
Eze_31:1-2. “The greatness of Egypt was the presumption against the warnings of the prophet. But greatness is no security against destruction; no greatness upon earth can withstand the strokes of God” (H.).—“With justice are kingdoms compared in Scripture to trees, as well on account of their form, the protection and shadow they afford to men and beasts, as also on account of their fruits; and still farther in this respect, that kingdoms, like trees, flourish and again cease to exist, torn up by the wind, or cut down by the hatchet of man” (L.).—It is very well for people to compare themselves with others, though not for the purpose of thinking better of themselves than others, as the Pharisee in the temple over against the publican, or in order to envy others; but humbly to learn that we are a part of mankind, and that what is human may befall us, and shall at last take place without exception. Also to make each one more contented with his lot, a comparison with others is, as a rule, fitted to be serviceable.—“Both the one and the other inference is right: As God has elevated that humble one, so can He, in His own time, elevate me; as God has abased that proud one, so may it also be done with me” (Stck.).
Eze_31:3-9. “The histories of the world might teach great lords much, that they should not rely upon their own powers” (Lg.).—Rulers and princes should be shady trees to the righteous.—“God has done good also to the heathen, that they might seek Him, if haply they might find Him, Act_17:26-27” (Stck.).—“Oh, what streams of grace flow upon the unthankful, if they would only perceive them! The waters are indeed not of one sort—one portion swims in pure felicity, another in tribulation and adversity; but the aim is uniform, and the divine loving-kindnesses which are concealed under the latter are certainly greater than the former, in the eyes of those who know to estimate things aright” (B. B.).—But their favourable condition and the friendliness of God only serve with many to puff them up, and render them proud and arrogant,—an end for which certainly all this was not given.—He with whom it overflows should make it trickle over upon others.
Eze_31:7. To be radical in the proper sense is a good thing, namely, that one should know that his root is in God.—“The true comeliness of a prince stands in comely virtues, which adorn every man, especially a prince,—clemency and justice above all; to afford protection and solace to the persecuted; to spread forth as it were his branches to the miserable; to have about him servants resplendent with his own virtues, so that, as in every branch the nature of the tree, so in every servant the character of the prince, may appear reflected. He and they must not be terrible to the good, nor oppressive to his subjects. The love of the people is a good root for a race of princes” (Cocc.).
Eze_31:8. Better to be envied than commiserated. God makes man beautiful, as He alone also makes him good; the latter is the divine nature, the former the divine form, of a man.
Eze_31:10-13. I have given thee into the hand of such and such an one—this explains much darkness.—The haughty spirit going before, the key to the fall afterwards.—“Now, however, we are all in Adam inclined to pride of soul; and the perishing things of this world, riches, honour, splendour, beauty, knowledge, etc., nourish our natural inclination, being all things which we overestimate. However, even a plain smockfrock often covers a repulsive arrogance. But kings are through their flatterers nourished in this vice, which is the root of all others” (L.).—One must grow in order to be able to lift the top so high; this is not so quickly reached;—on the other hand, to arrive at the lowest depth there needs only one overthrow, which may take place in a single moment.—One falls more quickly down a stair than one mounts up again.—God cannot suffer pride; I am meek and lowly in heart, it was said by Him who was God manifest in the flesh, Mat_11:29.—Out of the heart of man proceed also all high things that are offensive to God, which need not always wear a crown, but may have merely a pen behind the ear, or a pair of spectacles on the nose.
Eze_31:12-13. From the foreign land comes much suffering—first foreign sins, then punishment through foreigners.—A shameful fall into sin, and a frightful fall into misfortune—both invite to study.—There must also fall into the valleys branches that have been broken off, that poor people may not think the great ones of the earth are freed from death and judgment.—When the punishments of God break forth, then such as can flee gladly make off, while they were not to be enticed out of the shadow of sin, in which they delighted themselves.—God shakes the luxurious tree from top to bottom, and then all that stuck to its branches fall off; and so they are struck off, since they did not allow themselves to be warned off.—“How does the shadow of the rich vanish with the sun of prosperity, and with the shadow depart also the flatterers and panegyrists ! ” (Stck.)—He who chooses to be forsaken must become poor.—Fate can keep up the interest, but a rich man who has become poor is a woe-begone phenomenon for the world.—“How often do the goods of a rich man become scattered over the world after his death!” (Stck.)—Discern false friends in adversity!—To cut, and peck, and aid in plundering the very person in whose prosperity men formerly basked, and whom they hardly knew how to laud highly enough!—“So deeply is the friendship of the world rooted, and its caresses. So long as all goes well, friends and worshippers are readily found. But when that changes, all goes otherwise”(B. B.).
Ver.14. Precautions must be taken that the trees do not grow into the heavens.—All are born naked—no one comes in purple into the world; but that is far from working so powerfully as the thought that the king must die as the beggar.—Death the moral of the human fable.—“A mighty lesson for our time” (Richt.).—Somewhat for People who would see clearly upon the death of Napoleon.—That there is to be a general judgment after this life is evident alone from death, which strikes all, even great men.—“The consideration of the inevitable exit of all who live should beget moderation in pretensions. We take nothing with us of that which so many desire with such eagerness” (L.).
Eze_31:15-18. Great fates cast forth also great shadows.—If our terrors did but lead us to the knowledge of our misery, as well as of the glory of God!—The grave unites all at the last.—“The glory of the earth must become dust and ashes,” etc.—But who believes our report may be said also here: he who exalts himself shall be abased, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.—“Thus God throws the loftinesses of men into one heap ” (B. B.).—“And so circumcision makes a distinction in death—not, of course, that which is done in the flesh, but the circumcised heart; so that a circumcised person may have his place also among the uncircumcised, as, on the other side, uncircumcised persons, who are not so in heart, may be counted as circumcised. At the close, however, the prophet writes the name ‘Pharaoh’ on the lid of the coffin” (Cocc.).
On Ch. 32
Eze_32:1-2. How far otherwise have the court-poets ever and anon elegized !—The comparison with lions and dragons withdraws much that is human in respect to Pharaoh.—“This robberfish (?) and dragon, which with his feet troubles the streams, is like the beast that should ascend out of the sea (Revelation 13.). Pharaoh is hence the enemy of the chosen, a roaring lion, which troubles the waters of heavenly wisdom with the slime of human additions, so that they provide no proper drink for those who thirst for salvation” (H. H.).—“Should Christian kings be like lions and dragons? They ought to be the fathers of their country, caring day and night for the welfare of their subjects” (St.).—“Tyrants and the covetous are insatiable, and cannot be at rest” (Stck.).—“Ah! how much misfortune can be brought about by a restless ruler! Therefore pray for a peaceful government of the kingdom” (St.).
Eze_32:3-10. “The godless hasten to meet their destruction, without being afraid of it, but often secretly driven thereto by God ” (H. H.).—“God is the supreme hunter and fisher; He can throw upon the lions His toils, and upon the whales His net, to catch and destroy them” (W.).—“God knows how to tame the untamed, to humble the proud, and to curb the fierce; who can resist His power?” (Stck.)—To be rejected, if not thrown entirely away, is the end of the mighty after the flesh.—Corruption the last strophe also in heroic poetry.—“How mournful is it to be cast away by God!” (Stck.)—Even the ass will plant his footstep on the wounded dying lion.—What the rich boast themselves so much of is but a carcase, which those who live after them will divide among themselves.—“After death, shame and reproach overtake the wicked and shameless” (H. H.).
Eze_32:5-6. Overflowing for overflowing; for the waters of Egypt, now the blood of the hosts of Pharaoh.—“They who formerly swam in pleasures, shall by and by swim in their own blood” (Stck.).
Eze_32:7. “The greatness of the calamity is described by the prophet from the sense of those whom the tribulation affects, to whom it seems as if the whole world were enveloped in darkness” (H. H.).—“The lights of heaven truly shine only for the happy; the sun exists not but for the sunlit eye” (H.).—“The godly sustain themselves in such circumstances by the thought that the Lord is their light, and therefore will not suffer the light of their heart to go out” (L.).—“But he who despises the light of grace, for him the light of glory also shall not shine” (Stck.).—It is also dark, and the stars even fall from the heaven, when great, noble, important, eminent men, heroes, sages, lawgivers, governors, teachers, are carried off by death—or worse, when they fall away into superstition or unbelief, ungodliness, injustice, and violence.
Eze_32:9. “Many a fall leads to the elevation of others” (St.).—To be frightened is still not to be awakened, and awakening without enlightenment is spiritual tumult without spiritual life.—The grave, too, is an unknown land, and thither we are all journeying. Yet for faith there is a sun which rises upon it, that never goes down.—“So the Lord loves to inspire terror, that He may break fleshly confidence” (H. H.).—Happy for him whom a sincere conversion has made secure against the terrors which seize upon the whole earth!—He who still has to fear for his soul, let him consider that the whole world can profit him nothing!—Every moment are we in danger of death, and consequently in sight of eternity.
Eze_32:11-16. If no other cure proves effectual, then God betakes Himself to the sword.—The method of salvation through blood and iron; but what is the state of society presupposed in connection with it!—The guillotine and the sword both do their work quickly, and bring what is before as it were under them.
Eze_32:13. “It touches a miserly man much more nearly if his beast dies, than if his children are taken from him by death” (St.).—A stock of cattle a state of peace.
Eze_32:14-15. The stillness of the desert is indeed stillness, but it is not peace, any more than to flow “like” oil is the soft nature of the spirit.—There is rest in the grave, but much unrest thereafter, yea, more unrest, and of a worse kind than existed before.—“There go the waters softly, as in mourning” (Umbr.).—But God knows how to set at rest a land and its creatures which have been plagued and misused by men. Where have the oppressors gone? They also lie still.—Lamentation does not take away the pain, but in the lamentation it lives on.
Eze_32:17-32. Whoever would gain a thorough insight into the dominions and powers of the earth, he must look down into hell.—The instructive glance into hell.—The song of hell.—La divina comœdia of Ezekiel.—The doctrine of Sheol as the doctrine of the state after death.—What does the Sheol of the Old Testament signify? (1) According to its name, the demand of death on all persons and things, therefore the power of death over every individual person and thing; therefore that death is the wages of sin, the judgment of God’s wrath which takes effect on the flesh. (2) As to the thing, it is the state after death as existence in a spacious grave; that is, notwithstanding the dissolution of the body and the separation of soul and body, a continuous life of the spirit, and that with consciousness and recollection—hence, according to the character of this, in peace or disquiet.—Woe to him whom the doom of death precipitates into condemnation in death!—One can strike up no song to the living more unacceptable, yet at the same time none more profitable, than one about dying; should any one refuse to accompany it, it will still be sung upon him.—He to whom the earth was all, when he sinks into the grave, all sinks with him. It is thus easily comprehensible how death stretches into the future, even into the grave, and how all appears as grave and graves.—People and princes, Sheol demands both.—“Only to the pious is the tomb a chamber where they softly sleep, a resting-place without pain and commotion, a mother’s bosom (as we are from the earth), a place of repose to lie down in” (Stck.).
Eze_32:19. It will be so much the worse if one has been nothing but fleshly, for death seizes in a rough and frightful manner.
Eze_32:20. The sword cuts into the life, severs from life, sadly if also from God. For to die is what still goes on, to corrupt also; but to become lost for ever, that is the death without end, to die for evermore.
Eze_32:21. The salutation of the dead toward the living when they die.
Eze_32:22 sq. “What is received into the human heart, finds its grave also there; so round about the prince of death are his grave-places, wherein after a spiritual manner he is buried” (Gregory).—The grave for the unconverted, the condemned, the perspective of the future world.—“The grave is very deep, even though in a material point of view it may be but a few feet down: it is deep enough to shroud all glory” (H.).—“Powerfully seizes the mind and humbles the pride the ever-recurring There, when the subject of discourse has respect to a fallen king and his hosts. … We look upon a limitless field of graves, and it is remarkable and peculiar to our prophet, that he transfers the graves also to the lower world” (Umbr. ).—“As the elect come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God, so the cast off find their way to the uncircumcised, to the pierced by the sword, in the depths below” (H. H)—Here many graves, in the house of the Father many mansions.—The counterpart of the fellowship of believers upon earth, of the elect in heaven.—The lowest Sheol and the heavenly Jerusalem.—The earth is everywhere indeed the Lord’s, but not all the dead die in the Lord.
Eze_32:27. Men take with them into the state of the dead their knowledge, and along therewith the judicial sentence due to their manner of life.—Nothing is forgotten before God which is not forgiven.—The wrath of God remains on them, it is said in John.
Eze_32:31. “It is a wretched consolation which is derived from the circumstance that people see in others the same torments which themselves experience. And yet misguided mortals do really comfort themselves with it. It is a common necessity, they say; others have experienced the same, and are experiencing it daily,” etc. (H. H.)—The word of God, however, brings home to every man at last the application: this is such and such an one; as we find written on the tombstones: Here lies N. N.—“The Pharaohs prepare to swallow up without mercy: Jacob’s Shepherd laughs at them,” etc. (Hiller.)
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. Eleventh year, in the third month — According…
1. Eleventh year, in the third month — According to our reckoning this would be June, 586; about two months before the fall of Jerusalem.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. The date is about two months before Jerusalem…
1. The date is about two months before Jerusalem fell.
Ch. 31 Pharaoh under the figure of a great cedar cut down and flung upon the ground
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The passage has three parts:
(1) Eze_31:1-9. Pharaoh, the impersonation of the spirit and might of Egypt, was a lofty cedar, with spreading branches, and its top in the clouds. All the fowls lodged in the branches, and all the beasts brought forth their young under it. Its waters nourished it and made it great. The trees in the garden of God did not equal it; all the trees of Eden envied it.
(2) Eze_31:10-14. The great tree shall be cut down by the mighty one of the nations, and thrown upon the ground. Its bulk shall fill the mountains and valleys of the land. All the nations shall depart from under the shadow of it; and the fowls and beasts of the field shall feed on it. Its heart was lifted up because of its great height, therefore it shall be cut down, that none of the trees lift themselves up and put their head among the clouds.
(3) Eze_31:5-18. Nature shall shudder and put on blackness over the fall of Pharaoh. And the great trees of the garden of God that are gone down to the pit shall be comforted when Pharaoh and his auxiliaries descend among them.
The allegory is easily read. The mighty cedar, burying its head in the clouds, is the proud king and his powerful state, aspiring to a greatness that belongs to heaven. The fowls and beasts lodging under the shadow of the tree are the nations of the earth seeking his protection and subject to him (Dan_4:12). The trees in the garden of God are other mighty states impersonated in their rulers. The universal meaning which was given to the judgment on Egypt by representing it as the day of the Lord in ch. 30 is suggested here in other ways, by the imposing height of the cedar, unapproachable by other trees in the garden of God; by the fowls and beasts of the field lodging in the tree—all nations seeking the protection of the Pharaoh; and by the shock which all nature receives when the great tree is cut down and flung upon the ground; and finally by the commotion occasioned in Sheòl when Pharaoh descends among the dead (ch. 32 Isaiah 14). In some points the allegory has incongruities, as was natural. Pharaoh is a great cedar, but it is his waters—the Nile—that nourish him, and give him an altitude to which the trees of Eden cannot aspire. The cedar is in Lebanon, the home of cedars, but also by the great deep, and probably too in Eden (Eze_31:11). The trees, once in Eden, descend into Sheòl with those that are gone down to the pit.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain In the eleventh year, etc. June, B.C. 586. Two…
In the eleventh year, etc. June, B.C. 586. Two months all but six days had passed since the utterance of Eze_30:20-26, when Ezekiel was moved to expand his prediction of the downfall of Egypt into a parable which is partly a replica of these in Eze 17; 19:1-14, and which also finds a parallel in Dan_4:10-14.
Vers. 1-9. The great cedar.
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Assyria is compared to a cedar of Lebanon, which is an emblem of earthly magnificence.
I THE CEDAR IS MAGNIFICENT. It is the favorite tree in biblical imagery to express splendor. In this respect it could be taken as a symbol of a great triumphant empire such as that of Assyria. Thus it is plainly declared that there is a splendor of this world. We are not to be surprised when we see the wicked flourishing like a green bay tree. (Psa_37:35) He may even attain to the proportions of the cedar of Lebanon. Note some of the characteristics of this magnificence.
1. Size. This is what first strikes one in viewing the cedar. Assyria was a big empire. Worldly success may be large.
2. Altitude. The cedar is not only broad-spreading. It towers high. There is an unchecked pride in worldly success.
3. Persistency. The cedar is green in winter. By clever devices unscrupulous people may escape many of the troubles of the true servants of God.
4. Fragrance. It cannot be denied that there is a certain fascination in worldly splendor.
II THE CEDAR OF LEBANON EXCELS ALL THE TREES OF EDEN. There are points in which worldly magnificence surpasses the visible excellence of spiritual goodness. "Igor any tree in the garden of the Lord was like unto him in his beauty." The reasons for this should be considered, lest we be disappointed and confounded.
1. The impressiveness of the external. The cedar bulks largely before the eye of an observer, while the vine seems to creep feebly among the rocks or round its much-needed support. Yet it is the vine that fields refreshing fruit. There is a striking aspect in worldly success. Spiritual achievements do not arrest attention in the same way, because they are spiritual. Yet God looks not to worldly greatness, but to spiritual success.
2. Unscrupulousness. Men who trample on conscience take short cuts to success. It is not surprising that they outbid the conscientious in the market of the world"s wares.
3. Want of restraint. The cedar is unpruned. It grows in wild, rank luxuriance on the unfrequented slopes of Lebanon. But the trees in the garden of the Lord are carefully pruned, Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth". (Heb_12:6)
III THE CEDAR IS NOT INDEPENDENT OF SUPPLIES OUTSIDE ITSELF. "The waters made him great," If the waters were dried up, the proud tree would droop and die. Proud men glory in their own resources. But no one can be strong and continue in vigor without receiving supplies from without. The mind must be fed with fresh knowledge, as the body with fresh food. Moreover, the success that a man seems to create for himself is largely due to favorable circumstances. If the water did not run by the root of the tree, the tree would not flourish in its magnificent state. Therefore the pride of self-sufficiency is founded on an error; and he who ignores his dependence on help from without will one day find that that help is cut off and he left to wither in despair. Men who will not acknowledge God are yet daily recipients of his bounty. While they lift their heads in worldly self-satisfaction, he is still mercifully watering their roots and giving the good things on which they build their pride.
1. This fact should teach humility.
2. It should excite gratitude.
3. It should cause fear in negligent self-sufficiency.
4. It should lead to trust in God rather than in superficial worldly advantages.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Vers. 1-9. The greatness of Assyria.
The Prophet Ezekiel, in witnessing against Pharaoh and Egypt, inculcated the lesson with all the more emphasis by the help of a historic parallel. He has to remind Egypt that, great as is her power, there have been powers as great as she that have been brought low. The consequences of national pride and self-confidence, the downfall and destruction of the mighty, may be learnt by considering the history and the fate of Assyria. References to the kingdom of which Nineveh was the magnificent capital are all the more interesting and intelligible to us because of the explorations which in our own time have brought to light so many monuments of Assyrian greatness, and so many illustrations of the social, religious, and military habits of the population of that long-vanished empire. The figure under which Ezekiel sets forth the grandeur and the fall of Assyria is one beautiful in itself, and peculiarly impressive to his own mind and to those who, like him, were acquainted with the scenery of Syria. Under the similitude of a lofty and spreading cedar of Lebanon, the prophet exhibits the dignity, the strength, the vastness and beauty of the kingdom which nevertheless perished, as the monarch of the forest is felled, cast to the earth, and delivered to destruction. The figure brings before us
I THE MAGNITUDE OF THE ASSYRIAN KINGDOM. The noble cedar of lofty stature and spreading boughs is a striking figure of the great world-empire of which colossal vastness is considered the most characteristic feature.
II ITS PROSPERITY. The vigor and vitality of the proud cedar of Lebanon are artistically set forth by the poet-prophet. "The waters nourished him, the deep made him to grow; her rivers ran round about her plantation," etc. So the great state throve, all circumstances concurring to enhance its prosperity, all allies and tributaries furnishing material for its growth.
III ITS STRENGTH. The exalted stature, the multiplied boughs, the long branches, are signs of the cedar"s strength; the storms may beat upon its head, but it withstands the fiercest blast, and endures whilst generation after generation admire its grandeur, and come and go. The Assyrian empire seemed of unassailable power; the sovereigns arrogated to, themselves, an unquestionable authority; men thought of Nineveh great city as of a city which could never be moved.
IV ITS BEAUTY. Fair was the cedar in his greatness, in the length of his branches, nor was any tree in the garden of God like unto him in his beauty. Evidently to the mind of the prophet there was beauty in Assyria such as no choice similitude could exaggerate. This may not be so obvious to us as the assertion of Assyria"s strength; but so it seemed to the mind of the world of old.
V ITS INFLUENCE. This seems to be the idea conveyed by the sixth verse: "All the fowls of the heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations." A power so commanding, a position so authoritative, secured the homage of lesser states, which looked up to Nineveh for protection, and were ever ready, by flattery or by service, to minister to her greatness.
VI ITS PRE-EMINENCE. The stature of the cedar of Lebanon was exalted above all the trees of the field. Even so, during its palmy days, Nineveh was the leader, the chief of the nations. It was long before that supremacy was questioned and disputed. Yet the day came, and Assyria fell.
APPLICATION.
(1) A great nation enjoying prosperity and wielding influence is especially bound to remember whence its power is derived; and
(2) to cultivate the conviction and sense of responsibility for the use made of gifts and influence entrusted to it. From God all comes, and to God the account must be rendered. T.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-18. A terrible perdition.
Precious lemons can be learnt from God"s treatment of others. As in others" conduct we may find a mirror of our own, so in others" chastisement we may find a reflected image of our own deserts. The principles on which God acts are these of eternal immutability. Therefore we may learn with certainty what will sooner or later happen. On the part of God, it is an act of genuine kindness that he holds up the perdition of one to deter others from sin. Thus he would turn the curse into a blessing retribution into a Gospel.
I WE HAVE HERE GREAT PRIVILEGE. The Assyrian monarch is compared to a "cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches, with shadowing foliage, and of high stature.
1. He enjoyed a position of superior elevation. What a cedar of Lebanon was, compared to other trees, the Assyrian king was in respect to other men. He possessed superior qualities. Possibly he had larger capacity of mind, and had larger opportunities of furnishing it. Certainly he had external advantages such as no others enjoyed. He enjoyed an eminence above other men, yea more, above other kings.
2. He received generous treatment from God. "The waters made him great." An unfailing stream from the heavenly fount irrigated his roots. Divested of poetical form, it means that God sustained body and soul by hourly supplies of good, though his hand was unseen. If his bodily strength did not languish, it was owing to a constant stream of vitality from God. If the capacity of his mind was maintained, it was due to the Divine succor. Substantial blessing, through invisible channels, was incessantly flowing into his roots. He was entirely dependent on the kindness of another.
3. He had a prosperous growth. As the result of so much blessing, he grew and prospered. In himself, in his kingdom, in his reputation, he flourished. His people were loyal; his army was valiant; his empire grew. Over every province, over every department of his government, the sunshine of Heaven rested. All that a king"s heart could desire he had. He was the envied among contemporary kings: "the cynosure of neighboring eyes.
4. Large influence was within his reach. "All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs. Under his shadow dwelt all great nations." Such a tree was not simply an image of beauty, the delight of the human eye; it was useful to various forms of life. It was a source of blessing. So with the King of Assyria. His strong government was a protection to all classes of the people. It was a bulwark against invasion. It was a shield for industry, investigation, and commerce. The rich and the poor could dwell securely. All grades of his subjects could pursue their occupations without fear of molestation. Greater influence still he might have exerted. He could have fostered learning, encouraged many arts, established peace among surrounding nations, diffused joy in a myriad homes, lifted up the nation to a higher life. Such varied usefulness is a fountain of bliss.
II GREAT FOLLY. "His heart is lifted up in his height.
1. Self-adulation. To admire one"s self so as to forget our Divine Benefactor is both foolishness and sin. This is to cheat God of his due. If robbery is criminal anywhere, it is specially criminal when directed against God. To interpose ourselves between God and his proper worship is grievous sin.
2. False ground for admiration. To find satisfaction in external rank or elevation is a sore mistake. Neither wealth, nor station, nor anything outside ourselves is a proper ground for solid satisfaction. We should find our chief delight in real excellence in likeness to God. Else we divert our minds from substantial good, and are taken up with gaud and tinsel.
3. Self-trust. Pride arrogates to itself qualities and possessions which do not belong to it. It is a condition of mind we may call "self-inflation." Self-trust is ruinous, because it is reliance upon a broken reed. Human strength, apart from God, is sheer frailty. No figure can exaggerate its feebleness. It is a vapor, a shadow, a mere cobweb. Man is strong only when affiliated to God. Therefore self-trust is self-deception, is suicide.
III A GREAT DOWNFALL. Carrying out the harmony of the figure, there is:
1. Mutilation. "His boughs are broken." So pitiful is God, that he does not at once destroy. He visits with partial chastisement, in the hope that repentance and amendment may be the result. If he can spare from destruction, he will. This mutilation of his beauty was a lesson he ought to have taken to heart. If a higher being than he could, against his will, despoil him of some of his members, could he not despoil him of all? A wise man would have halted, reflected, turned over a new leaf. This mutilation represents dismemberment, loss of territory. This outward mutilation indicates diminution of vitality: "Grey hairs were here and there upon him, though he knew it not.
2. Scattering. "Upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen." Memorials of this ruined cedar were distributed far and wide. Every stream bore them on. Every storm of wind scattered them. So in the time of a nation"s misfortune, fair-weather allies easily desert. As prosperity brings many superficial friends, so adversity scatters them. At such a time a hundred foes will start out of ambush to annoy, if they cannot injure. When God becomes our foe, our resources speedily waste like snow at midday.
3. Degradation. "Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches!" In other words, he shall be treated with contempt. Those before whom he has paraded his superiority shall, in turn, triumph over him. This conduct is to many a sweet revenge. It gives to them a conviction that they too have some hidden merit which now shall come to light. This degradation in the scale of being, in the scale of society, is a bitter element in God"s penalty. "He that exalteth himself shall be abased." The pendulum that has swung too, far in one direction will presently swing to the other extreme.
4. Commiseration. I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him." The fall of a flourishing king naturally causes consternation and concern in every palace. The self-security of others is rudely shaken. Every throne on earth seems to totter with the great vibration. Then, in noble minds, the sense of brotherhood appears. A tender tie, though often unseen, runs through the human race. The fall of one is a lesser fall to all. We all have a common interest in the fortune and destiny of humanity.
5. Diabolic triumph. "All the trees of Eden... shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth." This sense of exultation over the fall of another whether it be latent or expressed is base and devilish. Hence we learnthat the feelings of men, in the state of Hades, is not improved by suffering: the exact reverse. Intelligent natures degenerate in hell. "Evil men wax worse and worse." Some, too, to whom the king, in prosperity, rendered signal service, will be disposed to taunt him in the day of his fall. An ingrate becomes the blackest of demons.
IV A GREAT LESSON. "To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height." The terrible fall of the Assyrian king is used as a lesson and a warning to Pharaoh. God"s judgments are stepping-stones to mercy. Over the most lurid cloud he flings the rainbow of his kindness. The darkest events may become to us fountains of blessing, if we are willing to gain the good. Thus God exhibits the strength and fullness of his love. If by any method, by any example, he can win us back from evil courses, he will. Marvelous is the obduracy of the human heart that will not yield to the charms of infinite love! The death of one may become life to many. God"s aims are magnificent and far-reaching. By-and-by, he shall have the praise which is his rightful due. If with such displays of Divine kindness men are not ashamed of their sin, they must become more hardened and more depraved than ever. "My soul, come not thou into their secret! D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon.
Eze_31:1-18
The Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon.
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The cedar in Lebanon
I. The soul that will not grow down must be cut down. Trees that are to stand the storm must send their roots deep into the earth. A man that is to face successfully the storms of life must have a downward growth of humility and faith. He that humbleth himself shall be exalted."
II. The true teacher of man is greater than a monarch whose position only gives him power. Pharaoh must go to school to Ezekiel. A man is more than a king. (A London Minister.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain THE DESTRUCTION OF ASSYRIA A TYPE OF THE DESTRUCTION…
THE DESTRUCTION OF ASSYRIA A TYPE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF EGYPT. (Chap. 31)
(Eze_31:1-18.)
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EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_31:1. “In the eleventh year, in the third month.” Two months later than the prophecy delivered in chap. Eze_30:20.
Eze_31:2. “Whom art thou like in thy greatness?” The already accomplished fall of Assyria is held before the eyes of the king of Egypt as a mirror of his future. Twenty-four years before the delivery of this prophecy the Assyrian Empire was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, who twenty years later was to conquer Egypt. The practical purpose is the same as in previous prophecies, to quench any lingering hope in Judah of help from doomed Egypt.
Eze_31:3. “Behold the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon.” Ewald translates the word Asshur as meaning the highest cedar; but Hitzig shows that this is a mistake, and that the prophet speaks of Assyria. Smend and M‘Farlan apply the passage to Egypt, but without sufficient grounds. The total destruction of Assyria depicted in this chapter was not true with regard to Egypt. The phrase is an answer to the question in Eze_31:2, “Whom art thou like in thy greatness?” Thou art like the haughty king of Assyria. The cedar in Lebanon was often eighty feet high, and the diameter of the space covered by its boughs still greater, the symmetry perfect (cf. the similar image, chap. Eze_17:3; Dan_4:20-22). “His top was among the thick boughs”—“among the clouds” (Hengstenberg). “The top, or topmost shoot, represents the king; the thick boughs the large resources of the empire.”—Fausset.
Eze_31:4.“The waters made him great”—the deep sent out her little rivers. “The Tigris, with its branches and rivulets, or conduits for irrigation, was the source of Assyria’s fertility. The deep is the overflowing water, never dry. Metaphorically, for Assyria’s resources, as the conduits are her colonies.”—Fausset.
Eze_31:8. “The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him”—could not out-top him. “No other king eclipsed him. The total of the great men of the earth Ezekiel denotes as the garden of God, in which he regards them as the counterpart of the garden which God once planted in Eden—of Paradise with its glorious trees. The comparison is the more suitable because, as Paradise was planted by God, so all human greatness has its origin from God.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_31:10. “Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height.” The greatness bestowed by God, being abused, is the cause of his fall.
Eze_31:11. “He shall surely deal with him”—according to his own pleasure and according to the Assyrian’s desert. “The last Assyrian king has been ascertained by the inscriptions to have been Asshur-ebid-ilut, the second in succession from Sennacherib’s son Esar-haddon, who planted the settlement in Samaria from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim (2Ki_17:24). The final destruction of Nineveh was by the Medo-BabyIonian army under Cyaxeres and Nabopolassar. To either of these the expression ‘the mighty one of the heathen’ refers. The destroyer of Nineveh is called ‘the mighty one’ (El, a name of God), because he was God’s representative and instrument of judgment.”—Fausset. “For his wickedness”—the pride and the conduct flowing from it. “Where pride has first occupied the heart, there all divine and human rights are trampled under foot.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_31:12. “All the people are gone down under his shadow.” They had formerly, like birds, perched upon the branches of the tree in its shade (Eze_31:5).
Eze_31:13. “Upon his ruin.” “The ruin stands for the fallen tree, as if it were a living ruin. The fowls of heaven and the beasts of the field, the wild beasts that formerly sought protection under this tree, assemble now for another object—to peck and gnaw and take what they please of its fruits.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_31:14. “That none of the trees exalt themselves”—that the nations should not proudly be elated because of their greatness and abundant resources. “Neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water”—“that no drinkers of water may stand upon their own greatness” (Fairbairn). “For they are all delivered unto death”—“those proud trees, the grandees of the earth, who were tempted to haughtiness by their greatness, go down into the kingdom of the dead, where they are nothing else than ordinary sons of men (cf. Job_3:9).”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_31:15. “I caused a mourning.” The deep was darkened, the babble of the streams was hushed, Lebanon was saddened, and the trees of the field were faintness itself. In the fall of Assyria the former grandees of the earth once more went through the sorrow of their own fall.
Eze_31:16. “I cast him down to hell”—Sheol, or Hades, the unseen world. I cast him into oblivion (cf. Isa_14:9-11). “All the trees of Eden shall be comforted”—because so great a king as the Assyrian is brought down to a level with them. “It is a kind of consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery.”—Fausset.
Eze_31:17. “They that were his arm”—his auxiliaries, the helpers or tools of his tyranny.
Eze_31:18. “Thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised.” “As circumcision was an object of mocking to thee, thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, slain by their sword.”—Grotius. “This is Pharaoh.” “Pharaoh’s end shall be the same humiliating one as I have depicted the Assyrian’s to have been. This is demonstrative, as if he were pointing with the finger to Pharaoh lying prostrate, a spectacle to all.”—Fausset. “And all his multitude.” His tumult—the noisy murmur of multitudinous life is for ever stilled.
HOMILETICS
NATIONAL GREATNESS NO GUARANTEE OF PERMANENCE
(Eze_31:1-18.)
In this chapter we have an example of the dramatic genius of Ezekiel, the Æschylus of the Hebrews, and of the luxuriousness of his poetic fancy. Seizing upon the similitude of the cedar, in its stately magnificence, its many resources, its pre-eminence in stature and beauty over all other trees, and the calamity occasioned by its fall, the prophet describes the overshadowing greatness and ignominious downfall of Assyria, and with one vivid master-stroke applies the whole to the fate of Egypt. From the whole prophecy we learn—
I. The prominent features of national greatness (Eze_31:1-9.)
1. Preeminence over all other nations. “Of an high stature—exalted above all the trees of the field” (Eze_31:3; Eze_31:5.) Assyria, though more recent in civilisation and more rapid in its growth, yet outstripped Egypt in extent of dominion and brilliance of career. Ninas, its most illustrious monarch, subdued Media, Babylonia, and several other kingdoms, and united them under one sceptre. Nineveh, its capital, built on the banks of the Tigris, was one of the most celebrated cities of antiquity. In the height of its prosperity Assyria overshadowed in greatness and power every other contemporary nation, as the cedar overtopped every other tree of the forest.
2. Enormous resources. “The waters made him great—his root was by great waters” (Eze_31:4-5; Eze_31:7). Its argosies and war-boats crowded the Tigris and Euphrates, wealth flowed into its coffers in a perpetual stream, trade and commerce assumed gigantic proportions, its mineral and agricultural products were illimitable, its public works were on a scale of unsurpassed grandeur, its arms were everywhere triumphant.
3. The strength and protection of other nations. “His top was among the thick boughs—all the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs—under his shadow dwelt all great nations” (Eze_31:3-6.) The nations conquered by Assyria dreaded while they hated its power, and neighbouring kingdoms were proud to be its allies. They felt secure under the guardianship of its shield, and shone in the reflected splendour of its greatness and prestige.
4. The envy of less favoured nations. “The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him—all the trees envied him” (Eze_31:8-9.) For warlike courage and prowess, for majesty of bearing, for vigour of government, for symmetry and beauty of national unity, for opulence and display, Assyria was the admiration and envy of all nationalities. It outdistanced all competitors; it stood alone in the shining brilliance of its own star-like splendour.
II. The unmistakable symptoms of national decay (Eze_31:10-17).
1. Vaunting pride. “Because thou hast lifted up thyself” (Eze_31:10). It is difficult to be at once great and humble, and yet greatness is stable only as it rests on a firm foundation of humility. “The greatest man,” says Seneca, “is he who chooses right with the most invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menaces and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God is most unfaltering.” Prosperity breeds self-confidence, self-confidence pride, pride recklessness, and recklessness ruin. The greatest peril to the individual or the nation is found at the highest point in the delirium of success. When pride overleaps sound judgment just government receives its death-blow, decay sets in, and the end is not far off.
2. Prevailing vice. “I have driven him out for his wickedness” (Eze_31:11). The ancient monarchies—Sodom, the Hittites, Canaanites, Amalekites, &c.—were ruined by their iniquities. So was it with Assyria. Amid the glitter of a refined civilisation we detect the dark destructive elements of immorality and vice. “Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people” (Pro_14:34). “The seeds of our own punishment,” says Hesiod, “are sown at the same time we commit sin.”
3. Loss of allegiance and territory. “Strangers have cut him off—upon the mountains and in the valleys his branches are fallen—the people have left him” (Eze_31:12-13; Eze_31:17). The break-up of a great empire may be gradual, but it is not less evident and certain. Distant dependencies are quick to discover the weakening of the power that so long overawed them, and eagerly watch for the opportunity to fling off their allegiance. The rebellion of one province is the signal for a general revolt, and the mighty empire that has filled so large a space in the history of the world crumbles into ruins.
4. Sorrow and consternation. “In the day he went down I caused a mourning—the nations shake at the sound of his fall” (Eze_31:15-16). The struggle for freedom of revolted states and the desperate efforts of the ruling power to retain the broken remnants of authority is the occasion of wide suffering and misery. The fall of a throne that seemed impregnable fills neighbouring nations with grief and alarm. If the mighty Assyria is overthrown, what throne can be secure? The foundations of national life are upheaved, and the confidence of the most astute rulers is shaken.
III. That national greatness is no guarantee of permanence (Eze_31:2; Eze_31:14; Eze_31:18). This was the solemn and emphatic lesson the prophet sought to enforce. If Assyria, the magnificent, was destroyed, there was no hope that Egypt would escape a similar fate. After having ruled for more than 600 years, with great tyranny and violence, from the Caucasus and the Caspian to the Persian Gulf, and from beyond the Tigris to Asia Minor and Egypt, the Assyrian Empire vanished like a dream, and the very site of its vast capital was a doubtful question for twenty-four centuries. There have been greater nations than Assyria, but their greatness did not save them from extinction. They have been overbalanced and crushed by the weight of their own immensity. Centuries slowly crept along, and it seemed as if they would endure for ever; but the catastrophe came, and filled the world with horrified wonder. The mightiest and proudest nation has no room to boast. The loftier its eminence the more ignominious its fall. The true greatness of a nation consists not in material prosperity, but in the virtue and uprightness of its people. Genuine religion alone can give permanence to a throne, and only so long as its genuineness is maintained.
LESSONS.—
1. The rise and fall of nations a suggestive study.
2. Moral greatness not always commensurate with material prosperity.
3. Kingly authority may be abused to a nation’s ruin.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_31:2. “Whom art thou like in thy greatness?” The Perils of Greatness.
1. Apt to breed a proud, self-sufficiency.
2. May use power tyrannically.
3. Under-estimates the significance of events which threaten to undermine the foundation on which it rests.
4. May grow beyond the control of the most successful.
Eze_31:3; Eze_31:6. “His top was among the thick boughs—the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs—under his shadow dwelt all great nations.” The Inter-dependence of Nations.
1. A great nation protects the lesser, and they in turn strengthen and increase their protector.
2. A strong nation is an amalgam of many nationalities.
3. Nations help each other, not by jealousies and strife, but by commerce and friendly intercourse.
4. No nation can long remain independent that does not cultivate the patriotic spirit.
Eze_31:6. “How different the security afforded by the Gospel-tree! The Gospel-kingdom gathers all under its saving covert for their present and eternal good, and for the glory of God, and not for self-aggrandisement and to the hurt of men, as is the way of the kingdoms of this world. Therefore it shall never fall, nor shall those who trust in its shadow (chap. Eze_17:23; Mat_13:32) ever be confounded, for it is a kingdom that is established on the everlasting principles of the Divine truth, righteousness, and love.”—Fausset.
Eze_31:4; Eze_31:7. “The waters made him great—his root was by great waters.” The River the natural source of Empire.
1. Affording a bulwark of protection.
2. A necessary element of sustenance.
3. An important highway of commerce.
4. Giving fertility to the soil.
5. Favourable for the massing together of great populations.
Eze_31:4. “Little rivers.” “Beneficence, justice, protection, encouragements that subjects need and good princes disperse among them. So the deep filled this king, and he sent out his streams to all his subjects in his kingdom.”—Pool.
Eze_31:9. “Envy has an aspect in which it may be regarded as a good for him whom it affects. Let us only reflect on the proverb, ‘Better envied than pitied.’ ”—Hengstenberg.
—“The tallest trees are weakest in the tops, and envy always aimeth at the highest.”—Trapp.
Eze_31:10-15. Fallen Greatness.
1. Occasioned by the indulgence of an arrogant spirit. “Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height” (Eze_31:10).
2. The inevitable result of a life of iniquity. “I have driven him out for his wickedness” (Eze_31:11).
3. The victim of forces whose growing power was unnoticed or despised. “I have delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen—strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off” (Eze_31:11-12).
4. Abandoned alike by allies and dependents. “All the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him” (Eze_31:12).
5. An object of insulting ridicule by those who had been benefited in better days. “Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches” (Eze_31:13, compared with Eze_31:6; Eze_31:18).
6. A suggestive warning to the proud of all nations. “To the end that none of all the trees exalt themselves for their height” (Eze_31:14, comp. Eze_31:16).
7. A subject for profound and widespread grief. “I caused a mourning—covered the deep—all the trees fainted for him” (Eze_31:15.)
Eze_31:11. “He shall surely deal with him.” “Heb., ‘In doing he shall do for him—he shall do what he list with him,’ as Tamerlane since did with Bajazet, whom he carried about in an iron cage, using him on festival days for a footstool, and feeding him like a dog with crumbs fallen from his table. All which Tamerlane did, not so much for hatred to the man, says the historian, as to manifest the just judgment of God against the arrogant folly of the proud.”—Trapp.
Eze_31:14. “To the end that none of all the trees.” “This is the use men should make of God’s heavy judgments upon others. This man’s forefather, Sennacherib, had a statue set up in Egypt, says Herodotus, with this in-inscription, ‘Let him that looketh upon my misery learn to be modest and to fear God.’ ”—Trapp.
—“Genuine humility brings to elevation its only corrective. It fixes the eye on the lowliness which in all human greatness is present with the greatness.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_31:18. “Thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised.” Death—
1. Reduces all ranks to the same level.
2. Is indifferent to the contempt of fancied superiority.
3. Reveals the artificiality of social distinctions.
4. Its uncertainty should lead to a moral preparedness.
“Transferred to the king of Assyria, whom the cedar represented, this parabolical history tells us in the first instance of his unparalleled greatness. He was the head and centre of a vast monarchy which was fed by the tributary streams of surrounding nations, and gathered within its ample bosom the resources of the civilised world. But its peerless grandeur proved the occasion of its overthrow, for it only served to nurse into fatal maturity that pride which goeth before a fall. How thoroughly the loftiness of spirit in the head of that monarchy kept pace with the growth and magnitude of his dominion may be seen from the Heaven-daring language of Sennacherib to Hezekiah, when, before the gates of Jerusalem, his servants openly blasphemed and defied the God of Israel. Most truly was his heart lifted up in his greatness, and the hand of a righteous God must cast him down. In an amazingly brief period the mighty fabric of Assyrian glory fell, an irrevocable ruin. It was a lesson, on a gigantic scale, to the world that then was, how God in His providence abases the proud and scatters the mighty from their seats; how all power and glory that is of the world is destined to vanish away as a dream of the night. And connected as it here is with the guilt and the doom of Pharaoh, it was to him, and to those who knew the will of God concerning him, an instructive warning and example of that which certainly awaited him!”—Fairbairn.
“How dreadfully do the wicked scourge one another! Israel must be the first to fall; then Egypt, her ally; then Babylon, then Persia, then Greece, and lastly the iron power of Rome. These empires sank in succession, like the mighty swells of the ocean, and but faintly left their traces behind. They fell by the overflowing scourge which came suddenly upon them and involved the rich and the poor in one common ruin. But the poor who may survive have some resources in the labour of their hands. Lay not up, then, O my soul, thy treasures in earthly banks; build not thy mansion on the sand. Blessed is the man who has the Lord for his rock and trusts alone in His salvation.”—Sutcliffe.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain The Fall of the Great Cedar
The Fall of the Great Cedar
Egypt was a stately cedar, thick, lofty, and spreading; sheltering all the fowls and beasts (the nations) in its branches and under its shadow (Eze_31:1-6). It was the envy of all the trees (other great empires) in Eden, the garden of God (Eze_31:7-9). But because of its pride it is given into the hands of a mighty one (Nebuchadrezzar), who will cut it down. Those whom it sheltered will be scattered or will trample on it when it has fallen (Eze_31:10-13). This will be a warning to all trees (empires) against pride (Eze_31:14). Egypt will go down to the nether world, and all the great nations already there will be comforted when it arrives.
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1. The eleventh year.. the third month] May-June, 586 b.c., about two months before the fall of Jerusalem.
3. The Assyrian] has evidently no connexion with the subject of the prophecy, which is Egypt. It has been supposed that the chapter describes the downfall of Assyria, as a type of that of Egypt, but it is much more probable that instead of 'the Assyrian' we should read 'a teasshur' or box-tree, as in Eze_27:6. 'Behold a box-tree, a cedar,' etc.
4. Waters.. rivers] the waters of the Nile. The allegory is not strictly consistent as to locality. The cedar is in Lebanon and also apparently in Eden.
11. I have therefore delivered] RV 'I will even deliver.'
14. All that drink water] all trees: so in v.
16. Delivered unto death] another instance of Ezekiel's conception of the nations as personified and surviving in the under-world: see Isa_14:9-20.
15. The deep.. the floods (RV 'rivers') .. the waters] those referred to in Isa_14:4. Ezekiel poetically says that the rivers of Egypt would cease to flow, in token of mourning for the nation's fall.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain third month
third month
i.e. June.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain Eze 31:1-18. Pharaoh’s greatness is described in the first…
Eze 31:1-18. Pharaoh’s greatness is described in the first part of the chapter (Eze 31:1-9). He is compared to the Assyrian, once so powerful and proud. The fall and desolation of the proud monarch under the picture of a tree follows in Eze 31:10-14. The overthrow of Egypt and the resulting consternation among the nations is predicted in the last section of this chapter (Eze 31:15-18).
Eze 32:1-32. The lamentation over Pharaoh is contained in Eze 32:1-10, followed by the final announcement of the sword of the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, in Eze 32:11-16. The most interesting part in this last chapter of these great predictions of national judgments is the funeral dirge and the unveiling of the unseen world (Eze 32:17-32).
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Comparison Between Pharaoh’s Power and that of Assyria
Comparison Between Pharaoh’s Power and that of Assyria
v. 1. And it came to pass in the eleventh year, after the captivity of Jehoiachin, in the third month, in the first day of the month, just two months later than the prophecy delivered in chapter 30, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
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v. 2. Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, by sending him the message here transmitted to time Lord’s prophet, and to his multitude, the people of Egypt with all their wealth, for the country was then teeming with prosperity, Whom art thou like in thy greatness? The Lord intentionally prepares to make a full and detailed comparison, in order to bring out the lesson which lie wished to convey.
v. 3. Behold, the Assyrian, emperor and people, the entire nation, was a cedar in Lebanon, distinguished for beauty and excellence, with fair branches, that is, beautiful and thick of foliage, and with a shadowing shroud, with a thicket of branches which cast a solid shadow, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs, it reached lip into the very clouds of the sky.
v. 4. The waters, the fact that he grew in a well-watered spot, made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, literally, "concerning the streams of the flood, she was going round about her planting," that is, about the place where the cedar was situated, and sent out her little rivers, the smaller irrigation streams, unto all the trees of the field. The Assyrian cedar thus received the first and full benefit of the stream’s fertilizing strength, other trees being obliged to he satisfied with smaller canals. Assyria was blessed far above all nations in material prosperity of every kind.
v. 5. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, he excelled in luxuriousness of growth, and his boughs were multiplied, so that sturdy branches were sent out in all directions, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters when he shot forth, on account of the abundant moisture which enabled him to send forth new branches in every direction. Assyria, enjoying an almost incomparable prosperity, was able to found colonies as well as to bring smaller kingdoms into subjection, and all these tributary states contributed to the empire’s further greatness.
v. 6. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations, that is, all the people of the nation and all the dependent states enjoyed a wonderful prosperity during the era of Assyria’s greatness.
v. 7. Thus was he fair in his greatness, on count of the greatness which had been given him, in the length of his branches, because the tributary states contributed so much to his stature and strength; for his root was by great waters.
v. 8. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him, could not out-top him, that is, all other nations and states of the world were outranked by Assyria in greatness and glory; the fir-trees, or cypresses, were not like his boughs, and the chestnut-trees, the plane-trees, noted for the thickness of their foliage, were not like his branches, nor any tree in the garden of God, in this case all the wide world, was like unto him in his beauty.
v. 9. I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches, as described in detail above, so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied him, he was an object of envy throughout the world. Although the description is confined to Assyria, the object of the message directed to Pharaoh of Egypt is apparent at once, namely, to serve as a warning from the Lord, the Giver of all earthly prosperity, who is able both to grant and to withhold what men prize most highly on earth.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 it came about
it came about
This phrase is used here to mark the beginning of a new part of the story. If your language has a way for doing this, you could consider using it here.
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in the eleventh year
"in year 11." This means the eleventh year after King Jehoiachin was taken into exile in Babylon. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 26:1. AT: "in the eleventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin" (See: Ordinal Numbers and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
in the third month, on the first day of the month
"on the first day of the third month." This is the third month of the Hebrew calendar. This first day is near the beginning of June on Western calendars. (See: Hebrew Months and Ordinal Numbers)
the word of Yahweh came
This is an idiom that is used to introduce something that God told his prophets or his people. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 3:16. AT: "Yahweh spoke this message" or "Yahweh spoke these words" (See: Idiom)
Son of man
"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity." God calls Ezekiel this to emphasize that Ezekiel is only a human being. God is eternal and powerful, but humans are not. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 2:1. AT: "Mortal person" or "Human"
In your greatness, who are you like?
"Who is as great as you are?" Yahweh uses this question to introduce a new topic. Pharaoh thought that his nation was the greatest, but God is about to talk about another great nation. AT: "You think that there is no country whose power is as great as the power of your country." (See: Rhetorical Question)
translationWords
year
day
word of God
Son of Man
Pharaoh
king
Egypt
like
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 31:1-18 Ezekiel called on the Egyptians to compare themselves…
31:1-18 Ezekiel called on the Egyptians to compare themselves to Assyria, which was like a great tree in Eden (31:9). If that tree was felled and sent down to the underworld, how did Egypt, whose glory could never compare to Assyria’s, think it could stand?
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.