Ezekiel 31:13

Eze 31:13 Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches:

Ver. 13. Upon his ruin shall all the fowls.] His dead body shall want decent burial, as afterward did great Alexander’s, great Pompey’s, our William the Conqueror’s, Richard III’s, &c.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Birds and beasts shall insult over his fallen trunk.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 13. Upon his ruin shall all the fowls] The fall of Egypt is likened to the fall of a great tree; and as the fowls and beasts sheltered under its branches before, Eze 31:6, so they now feed upon its ruins.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(13) Upon his ruin shall all the fowls.—There is no inconsistency between this and the previous verse. At the fall all nations and people rush away, to avoid becoming involved in the catastrophe; but as soon as the giant cedar is prostrate, they gather upon its trunk and branches to fatten upon its ruin.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. his ruin] i.e. his fallen trunk and branches, ch. Eze_32:4, Eze_39:17; Isa_18:6.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain,.... Or, "on his fall" (s); the fall of this tree: and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches as when a tree is cut down, and its lopped off branches and boughs lie here and there, either the birds and beasts that before dwelt in it or under it, though for a while frightened away, return unto it; or others come: the birds come and sit upon the boughs, and pick up what they can find on them; and the beasts browse upon the branches: this may signify that even those people who before put themselves under the protection of this monarch, or sought alliance with him, now preyed upon his dominions; or the Medes and Babylonians, the conquerors, seized on the provinces of the empire, and plundered them of their riches, The Targum understands it literally of the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, feeding upon the carcasses of the slain; which is no bad sense of the passage; thus,

"upon the fall of his slain all the fowls of heaven have dwelt, and upon the carcasses of his army all the beasts of the field have rested.''

(s) "super prolapse ejus", Cocceius; "super cadivum truncum ejus", Junius & Tremellius.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Branches. The nations continued, but submitted to another master.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

His ruin; his broken state.

All the fowls, which built and breed there, shall now despise the tree, and triumph over it.

All the beasts; the same in another emblem, as Eze 31:6. Beasts, fowls, people, and nations, that were sheltered under the shadow of this tree, shall all, as is their custom, get from under it, and with the first insult and trample upon the body, boughs, and branches, fowls get on it, and both pick and defile, beasts rustle through it, and browse on the broken branches.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Upon his ruin. The prophet, as it were, corrects his imagery. The birds and beasts are still there, but instead of dwelling in the boughs, they (vultures and owls, jackals and hyenas) hover and creep as over the carcass of the dead, decaying trunk.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

General Information:

Yahweh's parable about the cedar continues.

All the birds of the sky

"All the birds that fly in the sky"

rested on the trunk of the fallen tree

"rested on the remains of the cedar"

trunk

The trunk is a very thick part of the tree that comes out of the ground and holds up the rest of the tree.

every animal of the field came to its branches

"the wild animals lived in the branches of the cedar"

that no other trees that grow by the waters

"that no other trees that get a lot of water"

will lift up their foliage to the height of the tallest trees

"will grow taller than the branches of other trees." Some Bibles translate this as "will set their tops among the clouds."

that no other trees that grow beside the waters will reach up to that height

"that no other trees that get a lot of water will ever grow that tall again"

All of them have been assigned to death, to the earth below

This can be stated in active form. And the abstract noun "death" can be stated "die." AT: "For I made it so that they all will die and go deep under the ground" (See: Active or Passive and Abstract Nouns)

among the children of humanity, with those that go down to the pit

"to be with those people who have died and gone down to the grave"

the pit

This refers to the grave; because the grave was thought to be the entrance to the world of the dead, the pit also represents that world. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 26:20. (See: Metonymy)

translationWords

heaven

die

pit

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Upon its carcass...rested as the Targum paraphrases: Upon the carcass of his slain.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.