Ezekiel 31:15

15 “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When Assyria went down to the grave, I made the deep springs mourn. I stopped its rivers and dried up its abundant water. I clothed Lebanon in black and caused the trees of the field to wilt.

Ezekiel 31:15 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 31:15

Thus saith the Lord God, in the day when he went down to the
grave
The Assyrian monarch; when his monarchy was destroyed, and he ceased to be king, and was stripped of all his majesty, power, and authority, and was as one dead, and laid in the grave, and buried: I caused a mourning:
that is, for him, in the waters, and among the trees, among the people and the kings of the earth, as follows: I covered the deep for him;
with mourning, with thick darkness, which set him up on high ( Ezekiel 31:4 ) : and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed;
which made him great, ( Ezekiel 31:4 ) , signifying by all this that the kingdoms of the world, comparable to the sea, of which his monarchy consisted, and all the inhabitants and people of them, comparable to floods and great waters, were affected with the fall of this great monarch, and thrown into consternation by it; not knowing what the event of things would be, stood still, and knew not what course to take; all business was stopped, especially all traffic by sea, and all trade and commerce every where; a stagnation of everything for a while: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him;
where he was a cedar, ( Ezekiel 31:3 ) , this may respect the whole empire he was head of, particularly the kingdom of Syria, on the borders of which Lebanon was; and was a part of the Assyrian empire, which must mourn and be concerned at the fall of it: and all the trees of the field fainted for him:
all the kings of the earth that were in alliance with him, or subject to him, trembled for fear that their destruction would be next; or as doubtful and concerned what would be their condition, under the yoke of another. The Targum is,

``tribulation covered the world, and the provinces were forsaken, and many people trembled, and all the kings of the people smote the shoulder because of him.''

Ezekiel 31:15 In-Context

13 “The birds roost on its fallen trunk, and the wild animals lie among its branches.

14 Let the tree of no other nation proudly exult in its own prosperity, though it be higher than the clouds and it be watered from the depths. For all are doomed to die, to go down to the depths of the earth. They will land in the pit along with everyone else on earth.

15 “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When Assyria went down to the grave, I made the deep springs mourn. I stopped its rivers and dried up its abundant water. I clothed Lebanon in black and caused the trees of the field to wilt.

16 I made the nations shake with fear at the sound of its fall, for I sent it down to the grave with all the others who descend to the pit. And all the other proud trees of Eden, the most beautiful and the best of Lebanon, the ones whose roots went deep into the water, took comfort to find it there with them in the depths of the earth.

17 Its allies, too, were all destroyed and had passed away. They had gone down to the grave—all those nations that had lived in its shade.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew to Sheol; also in 31:16, 17 .