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A Cedar in Lebanon

31 In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month,[a] the Lord’s message came to me: “Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and his hordes:

“‘Who are you like in your greatness?
Consider Assyria,[b] a cedar in Lebanon,[c]
with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade,
and extremely tall;
its top reached into the clouds.
The 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.[d]
Therefore 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.[e]
All 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 great[f] nations lived.
It was beautiful in its loftiness, in the length of its branches;
for its roots went down deep to plentiful waters.
The cedars in the garden of God could not eclipse it,
nor could the fir trees[g] match its boughs;
the plane trees were as nothing compared to its branches;
no tree in the garden of God could rival its beauty.
I 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. Ezekiel 31:1 sn June 21, 587 b.c.
  2. Ezekiel 31:3 sn 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 (NICOT), 2:185. 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 (WBC), 2:121-27.
  3. Ezekiel 31:3 sn Lebanon was known 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).
  4. Ezekiel 31:4 tn 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.”
  5. Ezekiel 31:5 tn Heb “when it sends forth.” Repointing the consonants of the Masoretic text would render the proposed reading of “shoots” (cf. NRSV).
  6. Ezekiel 31:6 tn Or “many.”
  7. Ezekiel 31:8 tn Or “cypress trees” (cf. NASB, NLT); NIV “pine trees.”

The Lofty Cedar

31 In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his hordes:

Whom are you like in your greatness?(A)
    Consider Assyria, a cedar of Lebanon,
with fair branches and forest shade,
    and of great height,
    its top among the clouds.(B)
The waters nourished it;
    the deep made it grow tall,
flowing with its rivers
    around the place it was planted,
sending forth its streams
    to all the trees of the field.(C)
So it towered high
    above all the trees of the field;
its boughs grew large
    and its branches long,
    from abundant water in its shoots.(D)
All the birds of the air
    made their nests in its boughs;
under its branches all the animals of the field
    gave birth to their young,
and in its shade
    all great nations lived.(E)
It was beautiful in its greatness,
    in the length of its branches,
for its roots went down
    to abundant water.
The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it
    nor the fir trees equal its boughs;
the plane trees were as nothing
    compared with its branches;
no tree in the garden of God
    was like it in beauty.(F)
I made it beautiful
    with its mass of branches,
the envy of all the trees of Eden
    that were in the garden of God.

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