Study

The Lofty Cedar

31

In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the L ord came to me: ²Mortal, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his hordes:

Whom are you like in your greatness?

3

Consider Assyria, a cedar of Lebanon,

with fair branches and forest shade,

and of great height,

its top among the clouds.

4

The waters nourished it,

the deep made it grow tall,

making its rivers flow

around the place it was planted,

sending forth its streams

to all the trees of the field.

5

So it towered high

above all the trees of the field;

its boughs grew large

and its branches long,

from abundant water in its shoots.

6

All the birds of the air

made their nests in its boughs;

under its branches all the animals of the field

gave birth to their young;

and in its shade

all great nations lived.

7

It was beautiful in its greatness,

in the length of its branches;

for its roots went down

to abundant water.

8

The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it,

nor the fir trees equal its boughs;

the plane trees were as nothing

compared with its branches;

no tree in the garden of God

was like it in beauty.

9

I made it beautiful

with its mass of branches,

the envy of all the trees of Eden

that were in the garden of God.

¹⁰ Therefore thus says the Lord G od: Because it towered high and set its top among the clouds, and its heart was proud of its height, ¹¹I gave it into the hand of the prince of the nations; he has dealt with it as its wickedness deserves. I have cast it out. ¹²Foreigners from the most terrible of the nations have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs lie broken in all the watercourses of the land; and all the peoples of the earth went away from its shade and left it.

13

On its fallen trunk settle

all the birds of the air,

and among its boughs lodge

all the wild animals.

¹⁴ All this is in order that no trees by the waters may grow to lofty height or set their tops among the clouds, and that no trees that drink water may reach up to them in height.

For all of them are handed over to death,

to the world below;

along with all mortals,

with those who go down to the Pit.

¹⁵ Thus says the Lord G od: On the day it went down to Sheol I closed the deep over it and covered it; I restrained its rivers, and its mighty waters were checked. I clothed Lebanon in gloom for it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it. ¹⁶I made the nations quake at the sound of its fall, when I cast it down to Sheol with those who go down to the Pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that were well watered, were consoled in the world below. ¹⁷They also went down to Sheol with it, to those killed by the sword, along with its allies, those who lived in its shade among the nations.

¹⁸ Which among the trees of Eden was like you in glory and in greatness? Now you shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below; you shall lie among the uncircumcised, with those who are killed by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his horde, says the Lord G od.