Ezekiel 31:13

13 The birds of the sky live on the fallen tree. The wild animals live among the tree's fallen branches.

Ezekiel 31:13 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 31:13

Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain
Or, "on his fall" ^F19; the fall of this tree: and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches as when a tree is cut down, and its lopped off branches and boughs lie here and there, either the birds and beasts that before dwelt in it or under it, though for a while frightened away, return unto it; or others come: the birds come and sit upon the boughs, and pick up what they can find on them; and the beasts browse upon the branches: this may signify that even those people who before put themselves under the protection of this monarch, or sought alliance with him, now preyed upon his dominions; or the Medes and Babylonians, the conquerors, seized on the provinces of the empire, and plundered them of their riches, The Targum understands it literally of the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, feeding upon the carcasses of the slain; which is no bad sense of the passage; thus,

``upon the fall of his slain all the fowls of heaven have dwelt, and upon the carcasses of his army all the beasts of the field have rested.''

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FOOTNOTES:

F19 (wtlpm le) "super prolapse ejus", Cocceius; "super cadivum truncum ejus", Junius & Tremellius.

Ezekiel 31:13 In-Context

11 So I handed it over to a mighty ruler of the nations for him to punish it. Because it was evil, I got rid of it.

12 The cruelest foreign nation cut it down and left it. The tree's branches fell on the mountains and in all the valleys, and its broken limbs were in all the ravines of the land. All the nations of the earth left the shade of that tree.

13 The birds of the sky live on the fallen tree. The wild animals live among the tree's fallen branches.

14 So the trees that grow by the water will not be proud to be tall; they will not put their tops among the clouds. None of the trees that are watered well will grow that tall, because they all are meant to die and go under the ground. They will be with people who have died and have gone down to the place of the dead.

15 "'This is what the Lord God says: On the day when the tree went down to the place of the dead, I made the deep springs cry loudly. I covered them and held back their rivers, and the great waters stopped flowing. I dressed Lebanon in black to show her sadness about the great tree, and all the trees in the countryside were sad about it.