Isaiah 37:36

37:36 The Lord’s messenger ¹  went out and killed 185,000 troops ²  in the Assyrian camp. When they ³  got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses! ⁴ 

Ezekiel 31:3-13

31:3 Consider Assyria, ⁵  a cedar in Lebanon, ⁶ 

with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade,

and extremely tall;

its top reached into the clouds.

31:4 The water made it grow;

underground springs made it grow tall.

Rivers flowed all around the place it was planted,

while smaller channels watered all the trees of the field. ⁷ 

31:5 Therefore it grew taller than all the trees of the field;

its boughs grew large and its branches grew long,

because of the plentiful water in its shoots. ⁸ 

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 ⁹  nations lived.

31:7 It was beautiful in its loftiness, in the length of its branches;

for its roots went down deep to plentiful waters.

31:8 The cedars in the garden of God could not eclipse it,

nor could the fir trees ¹⁰  match its boughs;

the plane trees were as nothing compared to its branches;

no tree in the garden of God could rival its beauty.

31:9 I made it beautiful with its many branches;

all the trees of Eden, in the garden of God, envied it.

31:10 “‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because it was tall in stature, and its top reached into the clouds, and it was proud of its height, 31:11 I gave it over to the leader of the nations. He has judged it thoroughly, ¹¹  as its sinfulness deserves. I have thrown it out. 31:12 Foreigners from the most terrifying nations have cut it down and left it to lie there on the mountains. In all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs lie broken in the ravines of the land. All the peoples of the land ¹²  have departed ¹³  from its shade and left it. 31:13 On its ruins all the birds of the sky will live, and all the wild animals ¹⁴  will walk ¹⁵  on its branches.

Ezekiel 39:4

39:4 You will fall dead on the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the people who are with you. I give you as food to every kind of bird and every wild beast.

[37:36]  ¹ tn Traditionally, “the angel of the Lord” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[37:36]  ² tn The word “troops” is supplied in the translation for smoothness and clarity.

[37:36]  ³ tn This refers to the Israelites and/or the rest of the Assyrian army.

[37:36]  ⁴ tn Heb “look, all of them were dead bodies”; NLT “they found corpses everywhere.”

[31:3]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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).

[31:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “Waters made it grow; the deep made it grow tall. It (the deep) was flowing with its rivers around the place it (the tree) was planted, it (the deep) sent out its channels to all the trees of the field.”

[31:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “when it sends forth.” Repointing the consonants of the Masoretic text would render the proposed reading “shoots” (cf. NRSV).

[31:6]  ⁹ tn Or “many.”

[31:8]  ¹⁰ tn Or “cypress trees” (cf. NASB, NLT); NIV “pine trees.”

[31:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “acting he has acted with regard to it.” The infinitive absolute precedes the main verb to emphasize the certainty and decisiveness of the action depicted.

[31:12]  ¹² tn Or “earth” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[31:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “gone down.”

[31:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the beasts of the field,” referring to wild as opposed to domesticated animals.

[31:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “be.”