Ezekiel 31:8
The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it; the cypresses could not compare with its branches, nor the plane trees match its boughs. No tree in the garden of God could compare with its beauty.
Sermons
The Greatness of AssyriaJ.R. Thomson Ezekiel 31:1-9
A Terrible PerditionJ.D. Davies Ezekiel 31:1-18
The Cedar in LebanonA London MinisterEzekiel 31:1-18
The Garden of GodW. Clarkson Ezekiel 31:8, 9














The garden of God, standing, as it does, for the ideal region in which man in his perfection was placed when God was" well pleased with "him, may be taken as a picture of human society itself as it once was for however brief a period, and as it shall be again when the purposes of the Redeemer are fulfilled.

I. A REGION ABOUNDING IN FRUITFULNESS. In the first garden of God there grew every tree that was "good for food." The ideal state of human society is one in which all conceivable fruitfulness will be found; there will be ready for the hand of the Husbandman the fruits of faith, of devotion, of love, of sacred joy, of helpfulness, of calm contentment, of happy and unquestioning obedience. From all hearts and lives these fair fruits will spring.

II. A SCENE OF EXQUISITE BEAUTY. "The garden of God" must be, quite independently of all reference to Eden, a place of perfect beauty. Its trees and shrubs, its herbs and flowers, its lawns and paths must together present the appearance of perfect pleasantness to the eye. Such should, such (one day) shall our human societies, our communities, and our Churches be; they will be scenes where there is every form of human loveliness. There must be no unnatural monotony. As in our gardens we like to have vegetation of every possible variety of size and shape and hue, so in "the garden of God" shall there be every manifestation of moral worth, of spiritual beauty. One will not say to another, "There is no need of your particular excellence;" but each will rejoice in the manifold graces which are to be seen on every hand.

III. THE SPHERE OF HAPPY CULTURE. Our first parents were placed in Eden "to dress it and to keep it." Even "the garden of God" requires attention, planting, culture. So, certainly, does the most refined and Christianized human society. There may be much knowledge and there may be excellent habits within it, but it will always need careful and diligent culture - much seed-sowing; some weeding; some pruning and occasional transplanting. We may learn:

1. That it is better to be the humblest herb in the garden of God than the stateliest cedar outside it; better be utterly obscure in the right place than very prominent in the wrong one.

2. That each particular flower in the garden of God lends its own fragrance to the air; the garden would not be complete without it.

3. That not only does it behoove us to be as a flower in the garden of God, but it also befits us to be as a gardener extending the grounds, or planting or tending within its bounds. - C.

They...that dwelt under His shadow in the midst of the heathen.
Whatever may be the primary meaning of these words, they have a very blessed application to those who have gone forth from so many Christian families into heathen lands. For no choice of their own, and simply in obedience to their King's command, hundreds of our sons and daughters have gone forth to dwell in the midst of the heathen. They have taken up their home amid conditions which they would not have chosen had it not been for the constraining love of Christ, and the imperative need of dying men; and as fond relatives and friends regard their lot from a distance, they are often filled with anxious forebodings. May they not be involved in some sudden riot, and sacrificed to a frenzy of hate? May not the sanitary conditions and methods of life be seriously detrimental to their health or morals? "Oh, if only I could be there," you sigh. Hush! Christ is there; as near them as He is to you, casting over them the shadow of His presence, beckoning them to His secret place. He is the shadow of a great Rock in a weary land; or like the canopy of cloud that hovered over the camp of Israel by day, screening it from the torrid glare. Do not fear to trust your loved ones to the immortal Lover, who fainteth not, neither is weary. The hand that would harm is arrested and paralysed when it attempts to penetrate that safe enclosure.

(F. B. Meyer, B. A.).

People
Ezekiel, Pharaoh
Places
Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Lebanon, Tigris-Euphrates Region
Topics
Arms, Beautiful, Beauty, Boughs, Branches, Cedars, Chesnut-trees, Chestnut, Compare, Compared, Comparison, Cypresses, Cypress-trees, Equal, Fir, Firs, Fir-trees, Garden, God's, Hid, Hide, Match, Nothing, Pine, Plane, Plane-trees, Rival, Tree, Trees
Outline
1. A relation unto Pharaoh
3. of the glory of Assyria
10. and the fall thereof for pride
18. The like destruction of Egypt

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ezekiel 31:8

     4528   trees

Ezekiel 31:2-9

     4035   abundance

Ezekiel 31:3-9

     4504   roots

Ezekiel 31:3-14

     4416   branch

Ezekiel 31:7-8

     4424   cedar

Ezekiel 31:7-9

     4040   beauty

Library
Ezekiel
To a modern taste, Ezekiel does not appeal anything like so powerfully as Isaiah or Jeremiah. He has neither the majesty of the one nor the tenderness and passion of the other. There is much in him that is fantastic, and much that is ritualistic. His imaginations border sometimes on the grotesque and sometimes on the mechanical. Yet he is a historical figure of the first importance; it was very largely from him that Judaism received the ecclesiastical impulse by which for centuries it was powerfully
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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