Logos Bible Study

Ezekiel 31:3–9

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31:3Consider Assyria,2 a cedar in Lebanon,3

with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade,

and extremely tall;

its top reached into the clouds.

31:4The water made it grow;

underground springs made it grow tall.

Rivers flowed all around the place it was planted,

while smaller channels watered all the trees of the field.4

31:5Therefore it grew taller than all the trees of the field;

its boughs grew large and its branches grew long,

because of the plentiful water in its shoots.5

31:6All the birds of the sky nested in its boughs;

under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth,

in its shade all the great6 nations lived.

31:7It was beautiful in its loftiness, in the length of its branches;

for its roots went down deep to plentiful waters.

31:8The cedars in the garden of God could not eclipse it,

nor could the fir trees7 match its boughs;

the plane trees were as nothing compared to its branches;

no tree in the garden of God could rival its beauty.

31:9I made it beautiful with its many branches;

all the trees of Eden, in the garden of God, envied it.

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Either Egypt, or the Lord compares Egypt to Assyria, which is described in vv. 3–17 through the metaphor of a majestic tree. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (), 2:. Like Egypt, Assyria had been a great world power, but in time God brought the Assyrians down. Egypt should learn from history the lesson that no nation, no matter how powerful, can withstand the judgment of God. Rather than following the text here, some prefer to emend the proper name Assyria to a similar sounding common noun meaning “boxwood” (see Ezek 27:6), which would make a fitting parallel to “cedar of Lebanon” in the following line. In this case vv. 3–18 in their entirety refer to Egypt, not Assyria. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (), 2:.
  2. 3 Lebanon was know for its cedar trees (Judg 9:15; 1 Kgs 4:33; 5:6; 2 Kgs 14:9; Ezra 3:7; Pss 29:5; 92:12; 104:16).
  3. 4 Heb “Waters made it grow; the deep made it grow tall. It (the deep) was flowing with its rivers around the place it (the tree) was planted, it (the deep) sent out its channels to all the trees of the field.”
  4. 5 Heb “when it sends forth.” Repointing the consonants of the Masoretic text would render the proposed reading “shoots” (cf. ).
  5. 6 Or “many.”
  6. 7 Or “cypress trees” (cf. , ); “pine trees.”

The NET Bible First Edition, Copyright 1996-2005 by Biblical Studies Press