Egypt’s Fall

Foreign Nations Judged (Ezekiel 25-32)

Egypt Compared to a Former Cedar (1-9)  

The fifth word came to Ezekiel two months after his last word or fifth prophecy in June of 586 or 587 B.C. (1)

Ezekiel was to speak to and even question Pharaoh and the army together. 

He begins with a mocking style question, “Whom are you like in your greatness?” 

Ezekiel continues by comparing Egypt to the Assyrians and their false sense of pride and security (2).

Assyria was like a cedar in Lebanon, a tree with great foliage, able to shade other nations. The height of Assyrian wealth and strength gave them god-like status in their own minds (3).

In their day, no other tree-nation compared to Assyria. It was nourished as in a garden by a river, a nourishment that was carried to every one of Assyria’s allies (4).

Assyria prospered above all other nations because of its significant and providential water supply (5). Birds and beasts found peace and prosperity in the shade of this tree, and great nations rested with a sense of safety as allies, due to the largeness of the tree nation (6).

Again and again, Ezekiel describes the tree as beautiful, having a great width of influence, and standing higher than any other tree-nation—all of this due to the water source at its roots (7).

The tree was the envy of the earth; it thrived in a veritable paradise. It was the most beautiful and magnificent tree in the garden of God's nations and the envy of all nations (8-9).

The Example of the Cedar (10-13) 

Nevertheless, the Assyrian king and nation had a weakness: their sense of self-significance and their sense of self-effort in making themselves great. Their hearts filled with pride over their great stature in the world due to what they had made of themselves (10).

Because Assyria became proud, they also became wicked, and God was going to deal with them according to their wickedness. They were to be cast out as a ruling force on the earth. Assyria would be given into the power of another nation (11).

Assyria was cut down by the most ruthless of foreign nations, Babylon. The entire tree fell; it lost its breath of influence, its branches being broken off. The shadow of the tree disappeared; all had abandoned her except the birds, who occasionally landed on her trunk, and beasts, who were found rummaging around her old wreckage of a tree (12).

All of that happened to Assyria so every other tree-nation would know if they were planted by water and grew and were blessed. If in their blessings they allowed their pride to grow and ascend to the height of Heaven and allowed their prosperity and power to make them proud, thinking they had become great with no or little help from God, then they, like every other nation, were served notice. Even Egypt—they were doomed, doomed to go down and be buried in the earth just like every other corpse (13).

The Demise of the Cedar (14-17) 

Ezekiel then warns Egypt of Yahweh’s final word.

When Assyria went to the grave, even the springs mourned, rivers dried, and other trees were clothed in mourning. Here, Ezekiel is speaking of other nations and the sources of their prosperity. No nation, no city, no family is without a river metaphorically given by God from where the power for prosperity originates.  

None, no other allied nation, could grow and tower tall, for part of their supply was the nation which fell, along with the allies of Assyria who formed part of the river nourishing the nation. All of this language describes the economic depression that comes to the world when an economic and military power falls. Other nations dry up and depress with their falling (14).

Yahweh buried Assyria. He dried up the river feeding it and clothed all the garden—all of Lebanon and all the world—in mourning. The tree-nations in league with Assyria dried up and fainted with the fall of Assyria (15).

Oddly, when the nations shook and Assyria fell along with its allies when it was cast to the pit with all the other great trees of the world, then those nations who had previously been taken down and judged were comforted. The best who had been taken down before Assyria were waiting in judgment to be comforted by Egypt’s fall. The great nations who fell previously found justice when other wicked world powers failed (16-17).

Egypt, the Cedar (18)  

Ezekiel then makes an application to Egypt. He returns to asking questions as he did at the beginning. “Do you, Egypt, assume you will be treated no different from Assyria? Do you, Egypt, assume yourselves less proud, less arrogant? Do you, Egypt, assume your greatness to be due to yourself and not due to the river supplied by Yahweh?”

Ezekiel makes it clear that Pharaoh and his army would go down, just like Assyria (18). The message of Ezekiel is straightforward: no matter how great a tree Egypt assumes they are, they will be brought low, for in their wicked thoughts they assumed their special form of government, their special sense of human entrepreneurship, had made them great. 

Assyria and the city of Nineveh fell to Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar’s father, around 612 B.C. The rest of the Assyrian army was crushed by Nebuchadnezzar in 609 B.C. The same army that had dealt a death blow to the stately nation of Assyria was preparing to face down on Egypt. Ezekiel warns the nation that their pride is about to be judged.