Ezekiel 31 - Introduction

XXXI.

This chapter consists of a single prophecy, uttered a little less than two months after the previous one, and a little less than two months before the destruction of the Temple. It is a further prophecy against Egypt, but so couched in the form of a parable that it all relates to Assyria, except the opening (Ezekiel 31:1) and close (Ezekiel 31:18), which bring it to bear upon Egypt. The effectiveness of this comparison with Assyria becomes plain when it is remembered that she had conquered and held Egypt in vassalage, and had then herself been conquered and annihilated only thirty-seven years before the date of this prophecy, and that by the same Chaldæan power now foretold as about to execute judgment upon Egypt. Egypt could not hope to resist the conqueror of her conqueror. There is this great difference between the fate of the two empires: Assyria was to be utterly supplanted by Babylonia, and its nationality blotted out, but Egypt, as the prophet had already foretold (Ezekiel 29:14), should continue, though as “a base kingdom,” stripped of its supremacy.

The form of parable whereby a kingdom is represented as a tree has already appeared in Ezekiel 17, and is also used in Daniel 4. It seems to be a Chaldæan mode of representation. As is the custom with Ezekiel, he occasionally interrupts the parable by literal utterances, as in Ezekiel 31:11, and partially in Ezekiel 31:14.