Ezekiel 31:15 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Bible Comments

I covered the deep for him.Ezekiel 31:15-17 describe the effect of Assyria’s fall. Ezekiel 31:15 speaks of the mourning of the nations and of the drying up of the streams, or sources of Assyria’s prosperity. “The deep” is the same as in Ezekiel 31:4, the flood of waters which fertilised the great cedar; this is covered, as in mourning. “Floods” is the same word as “rivers” in Ezekiel 31:4, and “great waters” as “multitude of waters” in Ezekiel 31:5. “To mourn” is, literally, to be black, and the sense is well given in our version, although the original is more appropriate to the figure of Lebanon with its cedars. “The trees of the field” are, of course, the subordinate potentates, who are dismayed, “faint,” at Assyria’s fall. (Comp. Ezekiel 26:15-18.)

Ezekiel 31:15

15 Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mournb for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.