“Asshur is there with all her company. Her graves are all around her. All of them slain, fallen by the sword;
Parallel Translations
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“Asshur is there with all her company. Her graves are all around her. All of them slain, fallen by the sword;
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Asshur is there and all her company: his graves are about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword:
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Asshur is there and all her company; their graves are round about them; all of them slain, fallen by the sword;
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to Ezekiel 32:22 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ezekiel 32:26 “There is Meshech, Tubal, and all their multitude. Their graves are around them, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for they caused their terror in the land of the living.
- Ezekiel 32:24 “There is Elam and all her multitude around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who have gone down uncircumcised into the lower parts of the earth, who caused their terror in the land of the living, and have borne their shame with those who go down to the pit.
- Ezekiel 32:29-30 “There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, who in their might are laid with those who are slain by the sword. They will lie with the uncircumcised, and with those who go down to the pit. “There are the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who have gone down with the slain. They are put to shame in the terror which they caused by their might. They lie uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword, and bear their shame with those who go down to the pit.
- Numbers 24:24 But ships shall come from the coast of Kittim. They shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber. He also shall come to destruction.”
- Psalms 83:8-10 Assyria also is joined with them. They have helped the children of Lot. Do to them as you did to Midian, as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon; who perished at Endor, who became as dung for the earth.
- Isaiah 30:33 For his burning place has long been ready. Yes, for the king it is prepared. He has made its pyre deep and large with fire and much wood. Yahweh’s breath, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.
- Isaiah 37:36-38 Then Yahweh’s angel went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, went away, returned to Nineveh, and stayed there. As he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.
- Ezekiel 31:3-18 Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, of high stature; and its top was among the thick boughs. The waters nourished it. The deep made it to grow. Its rivers ran all around its plantation; and it sent out its channels to all the trees of the field. Therefore its stature was exalted above all the trees of the field; and its boughs were multiplied. Its branches became long by reason of many waters, when it spread them out. All the birds of the sky made their nests in its boughs. Under its branches, all the animals of the field gave birth to their young. All great nations lived under its shadow. Thus it was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for its root was by many waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it. The cypress trees were not like its boughs. The pine trees were not as its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its beauty. I made it beautiful by the multitude of its branches, so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it.’ “Therefore thus said the Lord Yahweh: ‘Because you are exalted in stature, and he has set his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; I will even deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations. He will surely deal with him. I have driven him out for his wickedness. Strangers, the tyrants of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him. His branches have fallen on the mountains and in all the valleys and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land. All the peoples of the earth have gone down from his shadow, and have left him. All the birds of the sky will dwell on his ruin, and all the animals of the field will be on his branches; to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, and don’t set their top among the thick boughs. Their mighty ones don’t stand up on their height, even all who drink water; for they are all delivered to death, to the lower parts of the earth, among the children of men, with those who go down to the pit.’ “The Lord Yahweh says: ‘In the day when he went down to Sheol I caused a mourning. I covered the deep for him, and I restrained its rivers. The great waters were stopped. I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit. All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth. They also went down into Sheol with him to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were his arm, who lived under his shadow in the middle of the nations. “ ‘To whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? Yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth. You will lie in the middle of the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword. “ ‘This is Pharaoh and all his multitude,’ says the Lord Yahweh.”
- Nahum 1:7-12 Yahweh is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood, he will make a full end of her place, and will pursue his enemies into darkness. What do you plot against Yahweh? He will make a full end. Affliction won’t rise up the second time. For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble. There is one gone out of you, who devises evil against Yahweh, who counsels wickedness. Yahweh says: “Though they be in full strength, and likewise many, even so they will be cut down, and he shall pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more.
- Nahum 3:1-19 Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. The prey doesn’t depart. The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots, the horseman mounting, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies, because of the multitude of the prostitution of the alluring prostitute, the mistress of witchcraft, who sells nations through her prostitution, and families through her witchcraft. “Behold, I am against you,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame. I will throw abominable filth on you, and make you vile, and will set you a spectacle. It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?” Are you better than No-Amon, who was situated among the rivers, who had the waters around her; whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength. Put and Libya were her helpers. Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains. You also will be drunken. You will be hidden. You also will seek a stronghold because of the enemy. All your fortresses will be like fig trees with the first-ripe figs: if they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater. Behold, your troops among you are women. The gates of your land are set wide open to your enemies. The fire has devoured your bars. Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong. There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Multiply like grasshoppers. Multiply like the locust. You have increased your merchants more than the stars of the skies. The grasshopper strips, and flees away. Your guards are like the locusts, and your officials like the swarms of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day, but when the sun appears, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them. There is no healing your wound, for your injury is fatal. All who hear the report of you clap their hands over you; for who hasn’t felt your endless cruelty?
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (13 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Eze 32:22 Asshur [is] there and all her company:…
Eze 32:22 Asshur [is] there and all her company: his graves [are] about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword:
Ver. 22. Ashur is there.] To wit, in the belly of hell, among the uncircumcised, as Lazarus and other saints are in the bosom of Abraham, the place of bliss. Slain they were with the sword; but that was but a beginning of their sorrows, a trap door to eternal torment. Virgil, by a like figure, brings in Aeneas going down to hell, and there seeing Agamemnon, Dido, the Titans, Cyclopes, and other tyrants.
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 Asshur, the famous, warlike, victorious kings of Assyria, is…
Asshur, the famous, warlike, victorious kings of Assyria, is there; in the state of the dead, in the land of darkness and oblivion;
and all her company; princes, captains, soldiers, subjects, and confederates.
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His graves are about him; perhaps his the greater, yet a grave, and they about him who were slain with him.
All of them slain; some in wars, whilst the kingdom began, grew, and flourished; others, when the kingdom was destroyed; these fell by the sword. Awhile their sword was longest; at last a longer sword, that of Arbaces the Mede, with his accomplices, wounds Asshur to the heart, and he is brought to the grave.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Ashur is there, and all her company,.... In the…
Ashur is there, and all her company,.... In the state of the dead, or in a most desolate and ruinous condition; the great Assyrian monarchy, the kings of it, the princes, nobles, generals, soldiers, and the vast number of subjects in all the dominions of it; all his army, as the Targum; this, with what follows, shows who the mighty are, that should meet and address the king of Egypt at his funeral:
his graves are about him; either the graves of Pharaoh and his multitude are round about the graves of the Assyrian monarch and his subjects, as Kimchi; or rather the graves of his subjects and soldiers are round about him: it seems to represent the king of Assyria as having a more stately monument, and the graves of his people as lesser ones round about him, but all in the same condition:
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all of them slain, fallen by the sword of their enemies, the Medes and the Babylonians, by whom the Assyrian monarchy was destroyed.
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 Ashur - The famous, warlike, king of Assyria. Is…
Ashur - The famous, warlike, king of Assyria. Is there - In the state of the dead, in the land of darkness and oblivion. Her company - Princes, soldiers, subjects, and confederates. Are about him - They are about him, who were slain with him.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 22. Asshur is there] The mightiest conquerors of…
Verse 22. Asshur is there] The mightiest conquerors of the earth have gone down to the grave before thee; there they and their soldiers lie together, all slain by the sword.
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 32:22-23. Asshur is there and all her company…
Eze 32:22-23. Asshur is there and all her company — The Assyrians, both king and people, whose destruction is represented in the foregoing chapter: though famous, warlike, and victorious, that mighty monarch fell. His graves are about him — The graves of his soldiers slain in the war. This expression, and that in the next verse, her company is round about her grave, seem to signify no more than a universal destruction of high and low, and that death had made them all equal. The masculine and feminine genders are promiscuously used in the following verses. The masculine referring to the prince, whose subjects the deceased were; the feminine to the nation or country to which they belonged. Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit — Here is supposed a spacious vault, in the midst whereof the king of Asshur lies, and round the vault, in receptacles hewn about its sides, his famous captains and commanders. And her company is round about her grave — Like lesser graves placed round the monument of some person of great quality. All of them slain, which caused terror, &c. —
Who were a terror while they were alive to their neighbours.
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 Jer. 25 there is an enumeration of nations…
In Jer. 25 there is an enumeration of nations destined to be subject to the fury of the Chaldaeans. Here we find those of them who had already fallen not named by Jeremiah. Asshur is the king of Assyria, representing as usual the whole nation. The king is surrounded by the graves of his people.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain her . . . his--The abrupt change of gender…
her . . . his--The abrupt change of gender is, because Ezekiel has in view at one time the kingdom (feminine), at another the monarch. "Asshur," or Assyria, is placed first in punishment, as being first in guilt.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 22-31. The prophet, in a style which Dante has…
22-31. The prophet, in a style which Dante has imitated, now catalogues the nations whom he sees in the underworld. This has well been called “one of the most weird passages in literature.” He sees Assyria, whose graveyards Nebuchadnezzar had filled with dead. Once these strong warriors had “caused terrors,” but now they lie with their allies “in the uttermost parts of the pit” (Eze_32:23). He sees Elam also, the nation which bordered on Assyria, Media, and Persia, the long-time enemy of Babylon (Isa_21:2; Isa_22:6; Jer_25:25; Jer_49:34; Jer_49:39), who in the most ancient texts is called the “hostile Elamite,” “the evil one,” now fallen by the stroke of Nebuchadnezzar and occupying a place of shame with the “uncircumcised” in some base part of Sheol (Eze_32:24-25). He sees Meshech and Tubal (see notes Eze_27:13) with all their multitudes who fell upon the field of battle, but with their bones unburied and dishonored — their heads not lying upon their swords as the “mighty ones” loved to lie (compare Eze_32:21; Vergil, AEneid, 6:233; Herodotus, 1:62, and other references in the Pulpit Commentary) — now gone down into hell (literally, Sheol), “because they caused terror” while in the land of the living (Eze_32:26-27). So also shall Pharaoh fall and lie dishonored with the half-civilized hordes of Meshech and Tubal, whom he despises (Eze_32:28). There are the princes of Edom also (notes Eze_25:12) who “for all their might” now lie helpless (Eze_32:29); and also the underchiefs of the north (Damascus, Hamath, etc.), with the Sidonians, ashamed “for all the terror which they caused by their might” (R.V., margin, Eze_32:30). The only comfort that can come to Pharaoh as he drops with all his army into the comfortless abode is the fact that his predecessors and rivals suffer a like calamity (Eze_32:31; compare Eze_31:16). Again it is emphasized that it was because “he put his terror in the land of the living [Eze_32:32, LXX.] that Pharaoh is now dishonored in the land of the dead.” Such is the general meaning of this passage, the text of which is in considerable disorder, as may be seen by comparing the usual reading of Eze_32:27 with that of the Polychrome text, “And they lie not down with the fallen warriors of old who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, with their swords under their heads, and their shields on their bones because the terror of their might was in the land of the living.” As the Expositor’s Bible justly says, it should not be overlooked that the picture is in the highest degree poetical, and cannot be taken as an exact statement of what the Hebrews believed about the state after death.
APPENDIX ON THE BABYLONIAN AND HEBREW UNDERWORLD.
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The underworld of the Babylonians was pictured as a cold, dark, cheerless place — “the land whence none return, a land of corruption, a city of darkness and dust, a house of chaos, the hostile land.” The cemeteries and the underworld were very closely connected in ancient imagery and thought. There was indeed — at least some Assyriologists think so — one spot in the future world, “a field of the blessed,” where there was water and health-giving food and cure for disease, whose inhabitants were “bright as the heavens,” holding communion with the gods; but only great heroes or special divine favorites could ever hope to enter. Mankind in general must sink down into a shadowy, ghostlike, feeble existence, where “their nourishment is dust and their food clay.” For yet others, whose bodies had been mutilated or for whom the funeral rites had been omitted, there was prepared a yet deeper depth of horror and torture by the lord of the underworld, who is called “the Destroyer” (compare Rev_9:11), “the Devourer,” “the Terrifier,” “the Pitiless One.” One inscription reads: —
He who was killed in battle,
Thou seest it, I have seen it,
His father and his mother hold his head,
His wife stands at his side —
Whose corpse, however, lies upon the field,
Thou seest it, I have seen it —
Whoso does not rest in the earth
His soul has no one to care for it.
* * * * * * * * *
What is thrown upon the streets he eats.
This explains the terrible threat of Ezekiel, that these Babylonians should die without being paid funeral honors. The heaviest curse upon an enemy that the cuneiform inscriptions reveal is this: —
That his body may be cast aside,
No grave be his lot.
(See notes Eze_27:29-36.) This also explains why the Assyrian and Babylonian kings mutilated the bodies and scattered the pieces “like thorns and thistles,” beyond all hope of future recovery. So Assurbanipal, when the king of Lydia broke his oath, cried out, “May his corpse be thrown before his enemies; may he have no burial;” and Sennacherib dug up the bones of the ancestors of one of his most hated enemies and scattered them far and wide. But even if one escaped this future torture, the world of the dead was a hopeless, comfortless abode of gloom, full of monsters and presided over by cruel lion-headed deities.
The day is but a sigh, a stream of tears the night,
Crying fills the months, and bitter woe the year.
A very pathetic appeal found in one of these cuneiform funeral texts shows the anxiety of a deceased sister to be remembered by her brother in annual gifts and songs: —
My only brother, let me not perish.
On the day of Tammuz, play for me on the flute of lapis lazuli;
Together with the lyre of pearl, play for me.
Together let the professional dirge singers, male and female, play for me,
That the dead may arise and inhale the incense of offerings.
The Old Testament writers also conceive of Sheol, the subterranean world of the dead, as a place of silence, dust, and darkness. The very word Sheol (Su-alu) means “hollow,” and zalmat, the Assyrian word for darkness, is exactly reproduced in the Hebrew zalmoth. (Compare Psa_49:19; Job_3:5; Job_12:22; Job_16:16; Job_24:17; Job_33:18.) The Hebrews do not picture the future world as full of dangers, as do all other ancient nations, but nevertheless it is heavy with chill and painful negations. As Dr. Salmond has so well shown, the only important difference between the Hebrews’ thought of the future and the thought of other nations is found in their conception of the potentialities of God. The future world might be full of gloom and unknown foes, but God was there, still merciful and gracious, as truly Lord of Sheol as of earth. He was omnipotent, and his wings could shelter and his arm could as easily protect there as here. It was the Hebrew’s belief in a living omnipotent God that made him take it for granted that he would live on in the future and live on under the same divine protection which never failed him here. For this reason he cared nothing for charms and amulets or magical words to guard him from the perils of the long hard journey beyond the grave. For this reason he could confidentially write as the epitaph of his departed friend this hopeful word — so full of prophecy concerning his eternal well-being — “God took him” (Gen_5:24 ). Jeremias, Die Babylonish-Assyrischen Vorstellung, vom Leben nach dem Tode, Leipzig, 1887; W. St. Chad. Boscawen, Sheol and other Essays; Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 1895; Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Jastrow, 1898.
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 22, 23. Asshur.
22, 23. Asshur.
her company] In ref. to the other peoples “multitude” is used. The term “company” may be used of the many nationalities in the Assyrian empire, cf. Eze_23:24.
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his graves … him] The gender varies as the country (fem.) or king, as representative of the people, is thought of. The ref. here is to the king. LXX. uses the mas. pron. throughout. The text here is shorter in LXX., but no difference of sense arises.
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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (22) Asshur is there.—In the previous verses we have…
(22) Asshur is there.—In the previous verses we have had a general picture of the fallen nations awaiting to receive Egypt as their companion; in Eze_32:22-30 there follows an enumeration of the most prominent of them, with a few words about each. Some of them were not yet fallen; but in this prophetic view it is their ultimate condition which rises to the prophet’s mind. All worldly power that opposes itself to God must go down and share the judgment soon to fall on Egypt.
His graves are about him.—The graves of the people are about those of their monarch. All are fallen together into one common ruin.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 22, 23Asshur is there. The verses that follow…
Vers. 22, 23Asshur is there. The verses that follow contain, as it were, the prophet"s retrospect of the history of the past, as far as he had knowledge of it. Foremost in those is Assyria, which the prophet had already chosen (Eze_31:3) as the pattern instance of a fallen greatness. There in the sides of the pit (i.e. in its remotest and deepest regions) lie the graves of the rulers surrounded by those of their subjects. They had caused terror, the prophet adds, with a keen irony, in the land of the living. They can cause no terror now.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues speaking to Ezekiel about nations in Sheol. Because what God is showing Ezekiel may be for future time, either the present tense or the future tense is suitable for these verses and the following verses.
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Assyria is there with all her assembly
The land of Assyria is represented as a woman. AT: "The people of Assyria and all its army are there in Sheol" (See: Metaphor)
her assembly
"all her people together"
all of them were killed by the sword
The word "sword" is a metonym for soldiers who use swords to kill people. This can be put in active form. AT: "Soldiers used swords to kill them all" (See: Metonymy and Active or Passive)
are set in the recesses of the pit
"The pit" refers to the grave; because the grave was thought to be the entrance to the world of the dead, the pit also represents that world. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 32:18. (See: Metonymy)
all of those who were killed, who fell by the sword
This can be put in active form. AT: "all those whom enemies killed in battle" (See: Active or Passive and Metonymy)
fell by the sword
The word "fell" here is a euphemism for "died." (See: Euphemism)
those who brought terror on the land of the living
The abstract noun "terror" can be stated as "afraid." AT: "those who, when they were still alive, caused people to be extremely afraid" (See: Abstract Nouns)
the land of the living
This represents the people who were alive. (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Assyria
assembly
grave
sword
pit
terror
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.