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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 31:1 - 31:1
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The might of Pharaoh resembles the greatness and glory of Asshur. - Eze 31:1. In the eleventh year, in the third (month), on the first of the month, the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 31:2. Son of man, say to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and to his tumult, Whom art thou like in thy greatness? Eze 31:3. Behold, Asshur was a cedar-tree upon Lebanon, beautiful in branches, a shadowing thicket, and its top was high in growth, and among the clouds. Eze 31:4. Water brought him up, the flood made him high, its streams went round about its plantation, and it sent its channels to all the trees of the field. Eze 31:5. Therefore its growth became higher than all the trees of the field, and its branches became great, and its boughs long from many waters in its shooting out. Eze 31:6. In its branches all the birds of the heaven made their nests, and under its boughs all the beasts of the field brought forth, and in its shadow sat great nations of all kinds. Eze 31:7. And he was beautiful in his greatness, in the length of his shoots; for his root was by many waters. Eze 31:8. Cedars did not obscure him in the garden of God, cypresses did not resemble his branches, and plane-trees were not like his boughs; no tree in the garden of God resembled him in his beauty. Eze 31:9. I had made him beautiful in the multitude of his shoots, and all the trees of Eden which were in the garden of God envied him. - The word of God is addressed to King Pharaoh and to הֲמֹונֹו, his tumult, i.e., whoever and whatever occasions noise and tumult in the land. We must not interpret this, however, as Hitzig has done, as signifying the ruling classes and estates in contrast with the quiet in the land, for no such use of הָמֹון is anywhere to be found. Nor must we regard the word as applying to the multitude of people only, but to the people with their possessions, their riches, which gave rise to luxury and tumult, as in Eze 30:10. The inquiry, whom does Pharaoh with his tumult resemble in his greatness, is followed in the place of a reply by a description of Asshur as a glorious cedar (Eze 31:3-9). It is true that Ewald has followed the example of Meibom (vanarum in Cod. Hebr. interprett. spec. III p. 70) and J. D. Michaelis, and endeavours to set aside the allusion to Asshur, by taking the word אַשּׁוּר in an appellative sense, and understanding אַשּׁוּר אֶרֶז as signifying a particular kind of cedar, namely, the tallest species of all. But apart altogether from there being no foundation whatever for such an explanation in the usage of the language, there is nothing in the fact to justify it. For it is not anywhere affirmed that Pharaoh resembled this cedar; on the contrary, the question, whom does he resemble? is asked again in Eze 31:18 (Hitzig). Moreover, Michaelis is wrong in the supposition that “from Eze 31:10 onwards it becomes perfectly obvious that it is not Assyria but Egypt itself which is meant by the cedar-tree previously described.” Under the figure of the felling of a cedar there is depicted the overthrow of a king or monarchy, which has already taken place. Compare Eze 31:12 and Eze 31:16, where the past is indicated quite as certainly as the future in Eze 31:18. And as Eze 31:18 plainly designates the overthrow of Pharaoh and his power as still in the future, the cedar, whose destruction is not only threatened in Eze 31:10-17, but declared to have already taken place, can only be Asshur, and not Egypt at all.
The picture of the glory of this cedar recalls in several respects the similar figurative description in Ezekiel 17. Asshur is called a cedar upon Lebanon, because it was there that the most stately cedars grew. חֹרֶשׁ מֵצַל, a shade-giving thicket (מֵצַל is a Hiphil participle of צָלַל), belongs to יְפֵה עָנָף as a further expansion of עָנָף, corresponding to the further expansion of גְּבַהּ קֹמָה by “its top was among the clouds.” If we bear this in mind, the reasons assigned by Hitzig for altering חֹרֶשׁ into an adjective הֲרֹשׁ, and taking מֵצַל as a substantive formation after the analogy of מֵסַב, lose all their force. Analogy would only require an adjective in the construct state in the event of the three statements 'יְפֵה ע, 'הֹרֶשׁ מ, and 'גְּבַהּ גְּבַהּ ק being co-ordinate with one another. But what is decisive against the proposed conjecture is the fact that neither the noun מֵצַל nor the adjective הֲרֹשׁ is ever met with, and that, in any case, מֵצַל cannot signify foliage. The rendering of the Vulgate, “frondibus nemorosus,” is merely guessed at, whilst the Seventy have omitted the word as unintelligible to them. For עֲבֹתִים, thicket of clouds, see the comm. on Eze 19:11; and for צַמֶּרֶת, that on Eze 17:3. The cedar grew to so large a size because it was richly watered (Eze 31:4). A flood poured its streams round about the place where the cedar was planted, and sent out brooks to all the trees of the field. The difficult words אֶת־נַהֲרֹתֶיהָ וגו' are to be taken literally thus: as for its (the flood's) streams, it (the flood) was going round about its plantation, i.e., round about the plantation belonging to the flood or the place situated near it, where the cedar was planted. אֵת is not to be taken as a preposition, but as a sign of the accusative, and אֶתֶ־נַהֲרֹתֶיהָ dna , as an accusative used for the more precise definition of the manner in which the flood surrounded the plantation. It is true that there still remains something striking in the masculine הֹלֵךְ, since תְּהֹום, although of common gender, is construed throughout as a feminine, even in this very verse. But the difficulty remains even if we follow Ewald, and take הֹלֵךְ to be a defectively written or irregular form of the Hiphil הֹולִיךְ; a conjecture which is precluded by the use of הֹולִיךְ, to cause to run = to cause to flow away, in Eze 32:14. מַטָּעָהּ, its (the flood's) plantation, i.e., the plantation for which the flood existed. תְּהֹום is used here to signify the source of starting-point of a flood, as in Deu 8:7, where תְּהֹמֹות are co-ordinate with עֲיָנֹות. - While the place where the cedar was planted was surrounded by the streams of the flood, only the brooks and channels of this flood reached to the trees of the field. The cedar therefore surpassed all the trees of the field in height and luxuriance of growth (Eze 31:5). fגּבְהָאheb>, an Aramean mode of spelling for גָּבְהָה heb>; and asרְעַפֹּתheb>, ἁπ. λεγ.., an Aramean formation with ר inserted, for סְעָפֹת, branches. For פֹּארֹת, see the comm. on Eze 17:6. בְּשַׁלְּחֹו cannot mean “since it (the stream) sent out the water” (Ewald); for although תְּהֹום in Eze 31:4 is also construed as a masculine, the suffix cannot be taken as referring to תְּהֹום, for this is much too far off. And the explanation proposed by Rosenmüller, Hävernick, Kliefoth, and others, “as it (the tree) sent them (the branches) out,” is open to this objection, that בְּשַׁלְּחֹו would then contain a spiritless tautology; since the stretching out of the branches is already contained in the fact of their becoming numerous and long. the tautology has no existence if the object is left indefinite, “in its spreading out,” i.e., the spreading not only of the branches, but also of the roots, to which שִׁלֵּחַ is sometimes applied (cf. Jer 17:8). By the many waters which made the cedar great, we must not understand, either solely or especially, the numerous peoples which rendered Assyria great and mighty, as the Chaldee and many of the older commentators have done. It must rather be taken as embracing everything which contributed to the growth and greatness of Assyria. It is questionable whether the prophet, when describing the flood which watered the cedar plantation, had the description of the rivers of Paradise in Gen 2:10. floating before his mind. Ewald and Hävernick think that he had; but Hitzig and Kliefoth take a decidedly opposite view. There is certainly no distinct indication of any such allusion. We meet with this for the first time from Eze 31:8 onwards.
In Eze 31:6-9 the greatness and glory of Asshur are still further depicted. Upon and under the branches of the stately tree, all creatures, birds, beasts, and men, found shelter and protection for life and increase (Eze 31:6; cf. Eze 17:23 and Dan 4:9). In כָֹּּל־גֹּויִם רַבִּים, all kinds of great nations, the fact glimmers through the figure. The tree was so beautiful (וַיִּיף from יָפָה) in its greatness, that of all the trees in the garden of God not one was to be compared with it, and all envied it on that account; that is to say, all the other nations and kingdoms in God's creation were far inferior to Asshur in greatness and glory. גַּן אֱלֹהִים is the garden of Paradise; and consequently עֵדֶן in Eze 31:9, Eze 31:16, and Eze 31:18 is also Paradise, as in Eze 28:13. There is no ground for Kliefoth's objection, that if עֵדֶן be taken in this sense, the words “which are in the garden of God” will contain a superfluous pleonasm, a mere tautology. In Gen 2:8 a distinction is also made between עֵדֶן and the garden in Eden. It was not all Eden, but the garden planted by Jehovah in Eden, which formed the real paradisaical creation; so that the words “which are in the garden of God” give intensity to the idea of the “trees of Eden.” Moreover, as Hävernick has correctly pointed out, there is a peculiar emphasis in the separation of בְּגַן אֱלֹהִים from אֲרָזִים in Eze 31:8 : “cedars...even such as were found in the garden of God.” Not one even of the other and most glorious trees, viz., cypresses and planes, resembled the cedar Asshur, planted by God by many waters, in its boughs and branches. It is not stated in so many words in Eze 31:8 and Eze 31:9 that the cedar Asshur stood in the garden of God; but it by no means follows from this, that by the garden of God we are to understand simply the world and the earth as the creation of God, as Kliefoth imagines, and in support of which he argues that “as all the nations and kingdoms of the world are regarded as trees planted by God, the world itself is quite consistently called a garden or plantation of God.” The very fact that a distinction is made between trees of the field (Eze 31:4 and Eze 31:5) and trees of Eden in the garden of God (Eze 31:8 and Eze 31:9), shows that the trees are not all regarded here as being in the same sense planted by God. If the garden of God stood for the world, where should we then have to look for the field (הַשָּׂדֶה)? The thought of Eze 31:8 and Eze 31:9 is not that “not a single tree in all God's broad earth was to be compared to the cedar Asshur,” but that even of the trees of Paradise, the garden in Eden, there was not one so beautiful and glorious as the cedar Asshur, planted by God by many waters.