And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month, in the
first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me,
saying, Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his
multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness? Behold, the Assyrian
was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing
shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick
boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with
her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little
rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was
exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were
multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of
waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their
nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of
the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all
great nations. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of
his branches: for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the
garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his
boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any
tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty. I have
made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the
trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him (verses
1-9).
The Lord commands the prophet to ask a question of Pharaoh and his
multitude: "Whom art thou like in thy greatness?" Then the divine
questioner answers and reveals the greatness and glory of Pharaoh. He
uses the Assyrian in his past greatness to describe Pharaoh's greatness
and glory. Some have applied the prophecy entirely to the Assyrian, as
if Ezekiel spoke concerning this northern power altogether. But this is
incorrect, for the Assyrian power was then no longer in existence, and
the last verse of this chapter shows that Pharaoh is meant. "This
Pharaoh and his multitude, saith the Lord God" (verse 18). The
description of the Assyrian is given to show that Pharaoh, King of
Egypt, is in greatness like the Assyrian who had been dealt with in
judgment by Jehovah. The Assyrian, once so powerful and proud, is used
as a solemn warning, that the King of Egypt would not be spared, but
suffer the same fate. The Cedar in Lebanon is a picture of the greatness
of the Assyrian and Pharaoh; its height and wide-spreading branches; its
superior place among all the trees are used to symbolize both of them.
The Cedar is a most majestic tree, often reaching a great height; the
branches are thick and long, spreading out horizontally from the
enormous trunk. The Cedar is also employed as a type of the righteous
and of Israel. "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he
shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon" (Psalm xcii:12). "His branches
shall spread ... and his smell like Lebanon" (Hos. xiv:6). But here the
cedar means human grandeur and national greatness, full of arrogant
pride and therefore doomed to be abased. Isaiah in his sublime prophecy
on the coming day of the Lord uses thus the cedars of Lebanon: "For the
day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and
lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought
low. And upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and
upon all the oaks of Bashan" (Isa. ii:12-13).
Of interest are the words in the sixth verse: "All the fowls of heaven
made their nests in his boughs." The same statement is made in the dream
of Nebuchadnezzar, in which the King of Babylon had seen a great tree,
"and the fowls of heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof" (Dan. iv:12). And
our Lord spoke a parable of the mustard seed which became a tree "so
that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof"
(Matt. xiii:32). The fowls mean peoples who associated with Assyria,
Egypt and the King of Babylon, while these powers became proud and
lifted up. The mustard tree in the parable of our Lord represents the
development of Gentile-Christendom as an earthly institution and
organization, lifted up like a big tree, and the birds which find
shelter there are the symbols of the unclean, the unsaved masses,
nominally professing Christians. And God who dealt with the Assyrians,
with the King of Egypt, God, who humbled Nebuchadnezzar, will yet deal
in His coming great judgments with the Gentile nations of today for
their pride and wickedness, as well as with Christendom.