Ezekiel 31:1-18
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,
2 Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
3 Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.
4 The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field.
5 Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth.
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.
7 Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters.
8 The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chesnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.
9 I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.
10 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height;
11 I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness.
12 And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.
13 Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches:
14 To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their treesa stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.
15 Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mournb for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.
16 I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.
17 They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.
18 To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 31:1. In the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day, about a month before Jerusalem was taken by storm.
Ezekiel 31:3 ; Ezekiel 31:8. The Assyrian was a (tall) cedar. The Vulgate reads, none of the cedars in the paradise of God were taller or fairer than he. A fine figure of the Babylonian empire.
As the heights of Lebanon are the soil congenial to the cedar, this text favours the ancient opinion, that paradise was seated on a mountain, which would be the earliest land fit for habitation; and not cold, because the highest mountain had at that time only a small elevation above the seas. This idea relieves geology of the darkness which involves the formation of secondary rocks. They succeed the primitive rocks, which are massive; whereas the secondary are tabular, and often mixed with organic remains; and particularly so in the superior formations. The retirement of the waters from the continuous elevation of the mountains by subterranean crystalization, would give time for the secondary rocks to form in all their genera, species, families, and varieties. In the district from Bristol rocks to Chippenham hills, after a residence of seven years on the ground, I perceive the following order of the larger strata.
(1) The granite at the mouth of the Avon.
(2) The mountain limestone.
(3) The puddingstone.
(4) The oldest red sandstone, and the whiter sandstone.
(5) The oldest marine coal in the deep pits of Clandown.
(6) The recent marine coal of Kingswood to the vicinity of Bath.
(7) The shelly or brown limestone, full of organic remains.
(8) The oolite, or fine stone for masonry, lying in couches, and always approached with rubble.
(9) The chalk.
(10) The red ground with quartzose rocks, and timber coal, and organic remains floated from the torrid zones, as in Dudley, with veins of recent sandstone superposed.
All these formations were effectuated by the Noachial deluge, and subsequent inundations. Of the gradual retirement of the ocean, the whole face of nature is replete with proof. What need then of myriads of ages before the birth of man?
Ezekiel 31:6. The fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs. The nations which formed alliances with Babylon are his branches, the long arms of his power.
Ezekiel 31:12. Strangers, the Medes, have cut him off. The allegory of the fall of Babylon is continued, by the lopping off the branches, and the final fall of this vast cedar.
Ezekiel 31:14 ; Ezekiel 31:18. Thou shalt be brought down to the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised. The prophet returns here from the cedar of Babylon to the king of Egypt, who shall fall with his armies before the Chaldeans; yea, their souls, it would seem, should go to the shades beneath; for when the scriptures speak of the death of a good man, they say that he was gathered to his people. Virgil, in like manner, Æneid 6., represents the wicked who fall in war, as going to Tartarus, the kingdom of Pluto. This idea of the final justice of God operates in deterring men from crimes, and demonstrates the righteousness of the supreme Being. Yet it does not exclude any one from the grace of true repentance.
REFLECTIONS.
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 sunk 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 labours of their hands.
Lay not up then, oh 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.