Ezekiel 31:10-18: a reflection

10“Therefore thus said the Lord GOD: ‘Because he is exalted in stature, and he has set his top among the thick branches, and his heart is lifted up in his height, 11I will deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations. He will surely deal with him. I have driven him out for his wickedness. 12Foreigners, the tyrants of the nations, have cut him off and have left him. His branches have fallen on the mountains and in all the valleys, and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land. All the peoples of the earth have gone down from his shadow and have left him. 13All the birds of the sky will dwell on his ruin, and all the animals of the field will be on his branches, 14to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, and don’t set their top among the thick boughs. Their mighty ones don’t stand up on their height, even all who drink water; for they are all delivered to death, to the lower parts of the earth, among the children of men, with those who go down to the pit.’ 15“The Lord GOD says: ‘In the day when he went down to Sheol, I caused a mourning. I covered the deep for him, and I restrained its rivers. The great waters were stopped. I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. 16I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit. All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth. 17They also went down into Sheol with him to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were his arm, who lived under his shadow in the middle of the nations. 18“‘To whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? Yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth. You will lie in the middle of the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword. “‘This is Pharaoh and all his multitude,’ says the Lord GOD.”

Ezekiel compares Egypt and its Pharaoh to a magnificent cedar, taller than all the other trees, its top among the clouds, the birds nesting in its branches and nations living in its shade. It was grand, envied, seemingly untouchable. And then God says why it would be cut down: because it grew proud of its height, because its heart was lifted up in its loftiness. The very grandeur that made it impressive bred the pride that brought it down.

Notice the sequence. It was not the cedar's height itself that doomed it, but what the height did to its heart: it was lifted up, proud, exalted in its own eyes. Greatness has a way of doing that, whispering that you are above others, beyond the reach of the fall that comes to lesser things. And God says he brought it down precisely so that no tree by the waters would exalt itself that way again.

There is a warning here for whatever height we attain, in success, status, ability, reputation. The danger of growing tall is that the heart grows proud with it, lifted up, forgetting its dependence, imagining itself untouchable. The taller you grow, the more carefully you must guard your heart against that lifting-up. Humility is not a denial of real gifts; it is the refusal to let them exalt your heart. Grow, if God grants it, but keep your heart low. The proud cedar falls; the humble tree endures.

Lord, guard my heart against the pride that greatness breeds. Whatever height you allow me, in success or ability or standing, keep my heart from being lifted up and imagining itself untouchable. Let me grow without growing proud, and keep me humble and dependent on you.