What does Ezechiel Chapter 31 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

A tall watered cedar shelters nations. Pride and future delivery precede downfall. Descent imagery is applied to Pharao.

Chapter breakdown

Ezechiel 31 dates a word to year eleven, month three, day one, asking Pharao and his people who resembles him in greatness. Assyria is a high Libanus cedar with leaves and a top among thick boughs. Waters and the deep nourish roots and streams reach other trees. Height and branches grow; birds nest, beasts bear young and many nations shelter. Its root near great waters and beauty exceed paradise's cedars, firs and plane trees, whose envy follows the Lord's making it beautiful. A top piercing clouds and private forgetfulness of bestowed gifts are not the stated wording.

Its heart rises with height, and the Lord delivers it to the mighty one of nations and casts it out for wickedness. The edition separately explains past tense as future and identifies Nabuchodonosor, said there to conquer Assyria and Egypt. Cruel strangers cut it down, casting boughs on mountains and valleys and breaking branches on rocks; people leave its shade and birds and beasts occupy ruins. Trees by waters must not exalt themselves, for they are delivered to death and the pit. This is not all a reported completed historical felling.

Descent to hell brings mourning, deep covering, restrained rivers, grieving Libanus and trembling trees. Nations shake and choice watered trees are comforted in earth's lowest parts. Others descend among the sword-slain and the arm of each sits beneath its shadow. The final question applies the descent and uncircumcised sleep directly to Pharao and his multitude. The text does not identify every tree as a specific prior dynasty or establish a detailed universal afterlife scheme.

The story inside

Opening: A tall watered cedar shelters nations. Development: Pride and future delivery precede downfall. Conclusion: Descent imagery is applied to Pharao.

Lessons worth keeping

1
A tall watered cedar shelters nations.
2
Pride and future delivery precede downfall.
3
Descent imagery is applied to Pharao.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 94635–94645
31:3. Behold, the Assyrian like a cedar in Libanus, with fair branches, and full of leaves, of a high stature, and his top was elevated among the thick boughs. 31:4. The waters nourished him, the deep set him up on high, the streams thereof ran round about his roots, and it sent, forth its rivulets to all the trees of the country. 31:5. Therefore was his height exalted above all the trees of the country and his branches were multiplied, and his boughs were elevated
Lines 94666–94675
height, and shot up his top green and thick, and his heart was lifted up in his height: 31:11. I have delivered him into the hands of the mighty one of the nations, he shall deal with him: I have cast him out according to his wickedness. I have delivered.... Here the time past is put for the future, i. e., I shall deliver.—Ibid. The mighty one, etc.... Viz., Nabuchodonosor, who conquered both the Assyrians and Egyptians.
Lines 94707–94711
31:18. To whom art thou like, O thou that art famous and lofty among the trees of pleasure? Behold, thou art brought down with the trees of pleasure to the lowest parts of the earth: thou shalt sleep in the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that are slain by the sword: this is Pharao, and all his multitude, saith the Lord God.