The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 154

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-9.-Tiie greatness of .As.,yria. The Prophet Ezekiel, in witnessing agains\ Pharaoh and Egypt, inculcated the lesson with all the more emphasis by the help of an historic parallel. He has to reinind Egypt that, great as is her power, there have been powers as great as she that have been brought low. The consequences of national pride and self-confidence, the downfall and destruction of the mighty, may be learnt by considering the history and the fate of Assyria. References to the kingdom of which Nineveh was the magnificent capital are all the more interesting and intelligible to us because of the explorations which in our own time have brought to light so many monuments of Assyrian greatness, and so many illustrations of the socio.I, religious, and military habits of the population of that long-vanished empire. The figure under which Ezekiel sets forth the grandeur and the fall of Assyria is one beautiful in itself, o.nd peculiarly impressive to his own mind and to those who, like him, were acq uaintcd with the scenery of Syria. Under the siinilitude of a lofty and spreading cedar of Lebanon, the prophet exhibits the dignity, the strength, the vastness and beo.uty of the kingdom which nevertheless perished, as the monarch of the forest is felled, co.st to the earth, and delivered to destruction. The figure brings before us- I. THE MAGNITUDE OF THE AssYBIAN KINGDOM, The noble cedar of lofty stature and spreading boughs is a striking figure of the great worlu-empire of which colossal vastness is considered the most characteristic feature. IL 1TB PROSPERITY. The vigour and vitality of the proud cedar of Lebanon 11r11 artistically set forth by the poet-prophet, "The waters nourished him, the deep miide him to grow; her rivers ran round about her plantation," etc. So the great state throve, all circumstances concurring to enhance its prosperity, all allies and tributaries furnishing material for it3 growth. IIL !Te BTBENGTH. The exalted stature, the multiplied boughs, the long branohea, are signs of the cedlll"s strength; the storms may beat upon its head, but it withstands the fiercest blast, and endures whilst generation after geoeration admire its grandeur, and come and go. The Assyrian empire seemed of unassailable power; the sovereigns arroaated. to themselves an unquestionable authority; men thought of Nineveh-" that great city "-as of a city which could never be moved. IV. 1TB BEAUTY. Fair was the cedar in his greatness, in the length of his branches, nor was any tree in the garden of God like unto him in his beauty. Evidently to the mind of the prophet there was beauty in Assyria. such as no choice sirnilitudo could  THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL, [oH, xxn. 1-18.