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Context No. 383 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 31:1-9: in context

1In the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, the LORD’s word came to me, saying, 2“Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt and his multitude: ‘Whom are you like in your greatness? 3Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, of high stature; and its top was among the thick boughs. 4The waters nourished it. The deep made it to grow. Its rivers ran all around its plantation. It sent out its channels to all the trees of the field. 5Therefore its stature was exalted above all the trees of the field; and its boughs were multiplied. Its branches became long by reason of many waters, when it spread them out. 6All the birds of the sky made their nests in its boughs. Under its branches, all the animals of the field gave birth to their young. All great nations lived under its shadow. 7Thus it was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for its root was by many waters. 8The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it. The cypress trees were not like its branches. The pine trees were not like its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its beauty. 9I made it beautiful by the multitude of its branches, so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it.’

This is an oracle aimed at Pharaoh of Egypt, and God makes his point by describing another great power that had come before, Assyria, under the image of a magnificent cedar. The description in these verses is lavish. The cedar towered above all the other trees, its branches long and beautiful, its top among the clouds. Birds of every kind nested in its boughs, animals sheltered under it, and whole nations lived in its shade. It was so splendid, God says, that all the trees of Eden, the very garden of God, envied it. This is greatness at its most impressive, the kind everyone admires and wishes they had.

But read closely and notice what the passage keeps returning to as the source of all that glory: water. The waters nourished it, God says, the deep made it grow, rivers ran all around where it was planted, its roots reached down to abundant water. Every bit of its towering height and beauty rested on a supply feeding it underground, a supply the tree did not create and did not control. Strip away the hidden water and the whole splendid thing would wither. And God adds a line the proud tree would rather forget: I made it beautiful. The greatness was real, and it was entirely derived, dependent on a source outside itself that God had provided. The rest of the chapter goes on to tell how the tree grew proud of its own height and was brought down, but the setup is already the warning.

That is worth turning on myself. Whatever flourishing I have, the kind others might even envy, rests on waters I neither created nor control, my health, my circumstances, the people who support me, the gifts I was given, the provision of God underneath it all. Have I come to admire my own height and forgotten the hidden water that feeds it, forgetting that God made it beautiful, and could let the supply run dry?

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