Ezekiel 31:1-18--Pharaoh to Be Slain

Ezekiel 31
English Standard Version

Pharaoh to Be Slain
31 In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude:

“Whom are you like in your greatness?
3     Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon,
with beautiful branches and forest shade,
    and of towering height,
    its top among the clouds.
4 The waters nourished it;
    the deep made it grow tall,
making its rivers flow
    around the place of its planting,
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 heavens
    made their nests in its boughs;
under its branches all the beasts of the field
    gave birth to their young,
and under its shadow
    lived all great nations.
7 It was beautiful in its greatness,
    in the length of its branches;
for its roots went down
    to abundant waters.
8 The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it,
    nor the fir trees equal its boughs;
neither were the plane trees
    like its branches;
no tree in the garden of God
    was its equal in beauty.
9 I made it beautiful
    in the mass of its branches,
and all the trees of Eden envied it,
    that were in the garden of God.

10 “Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because it towered high and set its top among the clouds, and its heart was proud of its height, 11 I will give it into the hand of a mighty one of the nations. He shall surely deal with it as its wickedness deserves. I have cast it out. 12 Foreigners, the most ruthless of nations, have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs have been broken in all the ravines of the land, and all the peoples of the earth have gone away from its shadow and left it. 13 On its fallen trunk dwell all the birds of the heavens, and on its branches are all the beasts of the field. 14 All this is in order that no trees by the waters may grow to towering height or set their tops among the clouds, and that no trees that drink water may reach up to them in height. For they are all given over to death, to the world below, among the children of man, with those who go down to the pit.

15 “Thus says the Lord GOD: On the day the cedar went down to Sheol I caused mourning; I closed the deep over it, and restrained its rivers, and many waters were stopped. I clothed Lebanon in gloom for it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it. 16 I 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 drink water, were comforted in the world below. 17 They also went down to Sheol with it, to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were its arm, who lived under its shadow among the nations.

18 “Whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? You shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below. You shall lie among the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword.

“This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, declares the Lord GOD.”

---

I said last time that the prophecy was unclear to that point as to the fate of the Pharaoh of Egypt, but that all changes in today's passage.  The LORD tells Ezekiel the fate of the Pharaoh--he will die!  The passage opens with the LORD speaking poetry to describe how great and beautiful and strong He had made the Pharaoh of Egypt (and by extension, the kingdom of Egypt).  In a sense, he is being compared to how beautiful Lucifer was before the fall, but, like Lucifer, the heart of the Pharaoh is prideful and conceited and bent towards all kinds of evil.  He is like his father the devil who had a perfect place made for him that would give glory to God, but he sought glory for himself and to be like god--even to be worshiped as a god.  In so doing, he engaged in a contest that he could not win, and he was about to pay for it with his life.

The LORD is going to give Pharaoh and his nation and people into the hands of the king of Babylon.  Pharaoh will have to deal with another king who was as prideful, arrogant, and strong as himself, and he will lose.  It will be like when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden and forced to wander .  The rest of the world would be their place of exile, but it would never feel like home to them.  The once strong, towering, beautiful tree that was Pharaoh and his kingdom of Egypt is dying, broken and a it's fallen branches have become boroughs for the unclean animals that hide and live in darkness.  Pharaoh made the same mistake in his heart as the people of Babel who imagined they would become so great and powerful that they could build a tower to heaven and perhaps they could take God's throne away from him.   If they could only make it to heaven, they would be in charge of heaven and earth.  The LORD promises to cut down and destroy every "tree" that tries to grow tall enough to reach the heavens because of a proud and arrogant heart.  People can never make it to heaven by their own works, the creature can never usurp the throne from the Creator, and God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  There is only one Way to heaven, and His name is Jesus--the only name under heaven by which men must be saved.  Any opposing message that says that we can be good enough or strong enough on our own is opposed to the gospel and leads to many being deceived and going to the place of destruction prepared for the devil and his angels.

That being said, it does not please the LORD to have to kill any man that is separated from Him to make that separation permanent.  It was necessary for the good of everyone else, but the LORD still desired that Pharaoh and the Egyptians would repent (just like He longed for Israel to repent).  However, He knew they would not repent.  Seeing this mighty king and his mighty kingdom fall would terrify the Gentile nations and would make them start to fear the LORD.  Perhaps some of them would quickly turn to the LORD for salvation before their destruction, or perhaps they would further harden their hearts and make their destruction more secure, but no one can say that the LORD did not warn them.  The text says many kings and other kingdoms should have learned the lesson, but instead tried to comfort themselves with the pleasures of this world and imagined that destruction would never come upon them.  They were wrong, and their end would be the same as Pharaoh, king of Egypt.  They would be slain by the sword and their kingdoms would be utterly destroyed.  What happened to Egypt was just a foreshadowing of what the LORD was going to do among all the nations.

The Pharaoh imagined himself too great to face the king of end described here, but it is exactly because he thought that way about himself that he would be so humiliated in his death.  He would be slain by the sword and his body would be left among the common, uncircumcised people who died alongside him.  He would receive no honors in death, no state funeral, and his body would not be embalmed and placed in a pyramid or other tomb with his wealth and food and other treasures that the Egyptians believed they would take with them into the afterlife.  No, he would die and go to Sheol (the Old Testament word for The Grave which is another name for what we call "hell"--the holding place of the wicked for their final day of judgment.  Their punishment begins here, but will end one day by them being cast into the Lake of Fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels).