Ezekiel 31:3

31:3 Consider Assyria, ¹  a cedar in Lebanon, ² 

with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade,

and extremely tall;

its top reached into the clouds.

Ezekiel 31:6

31:6 All the birds of the sky nested in its boughs;

under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth,

in its shade all the great ³  nations lived.

Ezekiel 32:31

32:31 “Pharaoh will see them and be consoled over all his hordes who were killed by the sword, Pharaoh and all his army, declares the sovereign Lord.

Lamentations 4:20

ר (Resh)

4:20 Our very life breath – the Lord’s anointed king ⁴  –

was caught in their traps, ⁵ 

of whom we thought, ⁶ 

“Under his protection ⁷  we will survive among the nations.”

Daniel 4:11-12

4:11 The tree grew large and strong.

Its top reached far into the sky;

it could be seen ⁸  from the borders of all the land. ⁹ 

4:12 Its foliage was attractive and its fruit plentiful;

on it there was food enough for all.

Under it the wild animals ¹⁰  used to seek shade,

and in its branches the birds of the sky used to nest.

All creatures ¹¹  used to feed themselves from it.

Mark 4:32

4:32 when it is sown, it grows up, ¹²  becomes the greatest of all garden plants, and grows large branches so that the wild birds ¹³  can nest in its shade.” ¹⁴ 

[31:3]  ¹ sn Either Egypt, or the Lord compares Egypt to Assyria, which is described in vv. 3-17 through the metaphor of a majestic tree. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:185. Like Egypt, Assyria had been a great world power, but in time God brought the Assyrians down. Egypt should learn from history the lesson that no nation, no matter how powerful, can withstand the judgment of God. Rather than following the text here, some prefer to emend the proper name Assyria to a similar sounding common noun meaning “boxwood” (see Ezek 27:6), which would make a fitting parallel to “cedar of Lebanon” in the following line. In this case vv. 3-18 in their entirety refer to Egypt, not Assyria. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:121-27.

[31:3]  ² sn Lebanon was know for its cedar trees (Judg 9:15; 1 Kgs 4:33; 5:6; 2 Kgs 14:9; Ezra 3:7; Pss 29:5; 92:12; 104:16).

[31:6]  ³ tn Or “many.”

[4:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “the anointed one of the Lord.” The term “king” is added in the translation to clarify the referent of the phrase “the Lord’s anointed.”

[4:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “was captured in their pits.”

[4:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “of whom we had said.”

[4:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “under his shadow.” The term צֵל (tsel, “shadow”) is used figuratively here to refer the source of protection from military enemies. In the same way that the shade of a tree gives physical relief and protection from the heat of the sun (e.g., Judg 9:15; Job 40:22; Ps 80:11; Song 2:3; Ezek 17:23; 31:6, 12, 17; Hos 4:13; 14:8; Jon 4:5, 6), a faithful and powerful king can provide “shade” (= protection) from enemies and military attack (Num 14:19; Ps 91:1; Isa 30:2, 3; 49:2; 51:16; Jer 48:45; Lam 4:20).

[4:11]  ⁸ tn Aram “its sight.” So also v. 17.

[4:11]  ⁹ tn Or “to the end of all the earth” (so KJV, ASV); NCV, CEV “from anywhere on earth.”

[4:12]  ¹⁰ tn Aram “the beasts of the field.”

[4:12]  ¹¹ tn Aram “all flesh.”

[4:32]  ¹² tn Mark 4:31-32 is fairly awkward in Greek. Literally the sentence reads as follows: “As a mustard seed, which when sown in the earth, being the smallest of all the seeds in the earth, and when it is sown, it grows up…” The structure has been rendered in more idiomatic English, although some of the awkward structure has been retained for rhetorical effect.

[4:32]  ¹³ tn Grk “the birds of the sky” or “the birds of the heaven”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated either “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context. The idiomatic expression “birds of the sky” refers to wild birds as opposed to domesticated fowl (cf. BDAG 809 s.v. πετεινόν).

[4:32]  ¹⁴ sn The point of the parable seems to be that while the kingdom of God may appear to have insignificant and unnoticeable beginnings (i.e., in the ministry of Jesus), it will someday (i.e., at the second advent) be great and quite expansive. The kingdom, however, is not to be equated with the church, but rather the church is an expression of the kingdom. Also, there is important OT background in the image of the mustard seed that grew and became a tree: Ezek 17:22-24 pictures the reemergence of the Davidic house where people can find calm and shelter. Like the mustard seed, it would start out small but grow to significant size.