Ezekiel 31:3

3 Look! Assyria was a Big Tree, huge as a Lebanon cedar, beautiful limbs offering cool shade, Skyscraper high, piercing the clouds.

Ezekiel 31:3 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 31:3

Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon
Here grew the tallest, most stately, broad and flourishing ones. This sense is, that he was as one of them; comparable to one, for his exaltation and dignity; for the largeness of his dominion, the flourishing circumstances of it, and its long duration; that empire having lasted from the times of Nimrod unto a few years of the present time; for this is to be understood, either of the monarchy itself, or of Esarhaddon; or rather of Chynilidanus, or Saracus, the last king of it. The Septuagint, and Arabic versions render it the "cypariss" in Lebanon; but not that, but the cedar, grew there, and which best suits the comparison: with fair branches;
meaning not children, nor nobles, nor subjects; but provinces, many and large, which were subject to this monarch: and with a shadowing shroud;
power, dominion, authority, a mighty army sufficient to protect all that were under his government, and subject to it: and of an high stature:
exalted above all the kings and kingdoms of the earth: and his top was among the thick boughs;
his kingly power, headship, and dominion, was over a multitude of petty princes and states, comparable to the thick boughs and branches of a tree: or, "among the clouds"; as the Septuagint and Arabic versions render it; above the heights of which the Assyrian monarch attempted to ascend, ( Isaiah 14:14 ) ( Daniel 4:10-12 ) .

Ezekiel 31:3 In-Context

1 In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, God's Message came to me:

2 "Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, that pompous old goat: "'Who do you, astride the world, think you really are?

3 Look! Assyria was a Big Tree, huge as a Lebanon cedar, beautiful limbs offering cool shade, Skyscraper high, piercing the clouds.

4 The waters gave it drink, the primordial deep lifted it high, Gushing out rivers around the place where it was planted, And then branching out in streams to all the trees in the forest.

5 It was immense, dwarfing all the trees in the forest - Thick boughs, long limbs, roots delving deep into earth's waters.