All this is in order that no trees by the waters may grow to towering height or set their tops among the clouds, and that no trees that drink water may reach up to them in height. For they are all given over to death, to the world below, among the children of man, with those who go down to the pit.
Ezekiel 31 holds a fallen empire up in front of a proud one. God asks Pharaoh who he thinks he resembles, then points to Assyria — the cedar that once towered over every other tree. Verse 14 gives the reason for the felling: no well-watered tree should ever grow that tall again, because they all end in the same place.
A dead empire shown to a living one
God points Egypt to a power once greater than itself, now gone.
William KellyThe prophet next gives us, in striking pictures, the ruin of Egypt. He applies to Pharaoh's kingdom the terrible warning of the Assyrian's downfall, the greatest of earth's monarchs in that day. It shows the principle Scripture uses so often with people: the Lord brings down the proud as He lifts up the lowly.
Every reader would rather believe the rule has one exception, and that he is it:
F. W. GrantHow gladly we would make ourselves the one exception, so that what applies to others should not apply to us!
The height was a gift
The verse speaks of trees "by the waters" and trees "that drink water." Their size came from a supply they did not make. Assyria's greatness came the same way:
William KellyGod controls and governs, not only in what belongs to Him but in the affairs of man. The cedar of Lebanon stood out among the trees for height, size, spread of shade and beauty. The Assyrian stood out in the same way among the nations. God withheld nothing that could adorn or enlarge Nineveh, or the people whose capital it was. He even gave it huge, far-reaching power and influence over the countries around it, so that all envied it.
God's gifts are not safe in human hands:
F. W. GrantBut God's fostering care had made him great, and he only repeated the old story. For what gift of God is there that man will not abuse?
What brought the cedar down
The charge is not that the tree was tall. It is that the tree took the credit and wanted more.
William KellyBut the Assyrian coveted for himself the glory of a king of kings. This lifting up of his heart in his height brought his doom upon him.
Judgment preached to everyone still standing
The felling was not a private judgment. It was public teaching, aimed at every other tree in the forest.
J. N. DarbyIn the destruction of the Assyrian, God had shown that He would not allow a nation to exalt itself in this way. The self-will of man in Pharaoh did not alter His judgment.
This was not a one-off. It is a standing rule of how God runs the world:
F. W. GrantThis was no unexplainable disaster. It was a warning that the sure government of God preaches everywhere against pride. Were they not all following the same road? That could only press Sheol's claim on them — the claim of the unseen world, which gathers men in from every side. For the wheel surely turns, as Ezekiel has assured us over and over again. The one who is lifted up is exalted only for a moment. Then he must come down to the lower parts of the earth.
Death, the great leveller — and what lies past it
The verse ends by putting emperors "among the children of man," in the pit. Death erases the difference the tall tree spent its life building. But God does not stop at levelling.
F. W. GrantThen He brings low the lofty and saves the humble. Death is the means by which God levels all the pride of man. Yet out of death itself He raises those who have accepted its sentence in a practical way. So we have the principle of resurrection. In it the power of God acts beyond the sentence — confirming the sentence, and yet showing His grace. And this is the way He has shown that grace in Christ, and shown it also to a people joined to Him in grace.
The tall tree elsewhere in Scripture
The same picture turns up elsewhere in the Bible. Each time it is a warning, not a compliment — and the warning reaches into Christian history too.
Ernst-August BremickerOther examples in the Bible confirm that a tree which becomes great is something negative. Daniel 4 pictures Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty king of Babylon, as a tree, but in a negative way. Ezekiel 31 is another example: it compares Assyria to a great tree. A mighty tree stands for great authority and political power. That power is easy to misuse, as the history of the Christian profession sadly shows.
Summary
- Gift — The cedar's height came from waters it did not make. God gave Assyria all that could enlarge it.
- Grab — The fall came when Assyria's heart rose with its height and coveted the glory of a king of kings.
- Ground — What goes up must come down. Whoever rises high is exalted for a moment, then goes to the lower parts of the earth.
- Gospel to the forest — God felled the cedar to preach against pride, so no other tree would try the same climb.
- Grace beyond — Death levels all human pride. But God raises out of death those who accept its sentence, and He has shown that grace in Christ.