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BOOK 26 OF 66 · MAJOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Ezekiel 31

Ezekiel book home•Chapter 31 of 48•18 verses
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Ezekiel 31 Overview

Ezekiel compares Assyria to a magnificent cedar in Lebanon, towering over other trees because abundant waters nourished it. Its beauty and height led to pride, so God handed it over to a mighty nation and brought it down. Pharaoh is warned that Egypt will descend likewise to the grave.

EzekielBook
31Chapter
18Verses
Major ProphetsDivision

Before you read Ezekiel 31

Coming from

A lament announces the day of the LORD against Egypt and her allies. Egypt’s military strength, wealth, cities, idols, and princes will fall through Babylon, while the LORD breaks Pharaoh’s arms and strengthens the arm of Babylon’s king so the nations will know who rules history.

In this chapter

Ezekiel compares Assyria to a magnificent cedar in Lebanon, towering over other trees because abundant waters nourished it. Its beauty and height led to pride, so God handed it over to a mighty nation and brought it down. Pharaoh is warned that Egypt will descend likewise to the grave.

Leads into

Ezekiel laments Pharaoh as a lion and sea monster whose violent thrashing has troubled nations. The LORD will spread a net over him, darken the heavens in lament language, and bring Egypt down by Babylon’s sword. A second lament pictures Pharaoh joining other defeated nations in the pit.

Key understandingExplore deeper

Assyria had been the dominant empire before Babylon and had already fallen dramatically. Ezekiel uses its former greatness as a historical object lesson for Egypt: superior size, reach, and splendor do not exempt an empire from judgment.

Eden and tree imagery magnify imperial grandeur poetically. The point is comparative: if Assyria, pictured as unsurpassed among trees, was cut down for pride, Egypt has no reason to presume it will escape.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Past superpowers become warnings to present superpowers

Assyria’s fall demonstrates that imperial dominance is temporary.

Pride turns gifts into grounds for judgment

Height and beauty become occasions of self-exaltation rather than gratitude.

Death levels distinctions that seemed enormous in life

The great cedar joins other fallen powers in the depths despite former magnificence.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Isaiah 10:5-19

Isaiah portrays Assyria as God’s instrument that itself becomes proud and is judged.

Daniel 4

Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a great tree cut down also uses arboreal imagery to expose imperial pride.

Luke 14:11

Jesus states the broader moral principle that self-exaltation leads to abasement and humility to exaltation.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not read the Eden trees as literal rival empires physically located in Eden.

The chapter uses poetic comparison to magnify Assyria’s former beauty and stature.

Do not assume national greatness itself is condemned.

The decisive problem is pride—the heart being lifted up because of height and power.

Read Ezekiel 31 watching for…

Assyria as the towering cedar

the waters that nourish its growth

comparison with Eden’s trees

pride because of height

the cedar cut down as a warning to Pharaoh

TWBC REVIEW STANDARD

Plain language. Scripture first. Fact distinguished from inference. No filler. No fake certainty. Designed to help you read the Bible itself.

Chapter outline2 sections
1-9Assyria is compared to a towering cedar whose greatness surpassed the trees around it10-18Because of pride the great tree is cut down and brought to the pit, warning Pharaoh and his multitude
1

And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

2

Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?

3

Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.

4

The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field.

5

Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth.

6

All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.

7

Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters.

8

The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chesnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.

9

I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.

10

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height;

11

I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness.

12

And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.

13

Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches:

14

To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.

15

Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.

16

I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.

17

They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.

18

To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

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Ezekiel 31:9

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