Bible Strands
Ezekiel 31:12
Foreigners, the most ruthless of the nations, cut it down and left it. Its branches have fallen on the mountains and in every valley; its boughs lay broken in all the earth’s ravines. And all the peoples of the earth left its shade and abandoned it.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord speaks through the prophet Ezekiel to pronounce judgment on a fallen empire, using the imagery of a cut-down tree to describe its sudden collapse.
The words — The Hebrew phrase וַ/יִּכְרְתֻ֧/הוּ (va/i.yikh.re.Tu./hu) translates literally as "and they cut it down," while זָרִ֛ים (za.Rim) means "strangers." These terms identify the foreign agents who execute the tree's destruction and abandon it.
The thread — This imagery of ruthless foreign nations executing judgment echoes Ezekiel 28:7, where strangers draw swords against pride, and Ezekiel 30:11, where the most ruthless of nations destroy the land. The motif of scattered branches falling into valleys and mountains also parallels the judgment described in Ezekiel 35:8.
Why it lands — The passage states that foreign forces cut down the tree and that all peoples abandoned its shade. It requires readers to accept that political collapse and loss of influence follow divine sentencing and inherent wickedness.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 28:7 behold, I will bring foreigners against you, the most ruthless of nations. They will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and will defile your splendor.
- Ezekiel 35:8 I will fill its mountains with the slain; those killed by the sword will fall on your hills, in your valleys, and in all your ravines.
- Ezekiel 30:11 He and his people with him, the most ruthless of the nations, will be brought in to destroy the land. They will draw their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the slain.
- Nahum 3:17 Your guards are like the swarming locust, and your scribes like clouds of locusts that settle on the walls on a cold day. When the sun rises, they fly away, and no one knows where.
- Habakkuk 1:6 For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans—that ruthless and impetuous nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.
- Isaiah 34:5 When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, then it will come down upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.
- Ezekiel 32:4 I will abandon you on the land and hurl you into the open field. I will cause all the birds of the air to settle upon you, and all the beasts of the earth to eat their fill of you.
- Ezekiel 32:12 I will make your hordes fall by the swords of the mighty, the most ruthless of all nations. They will ravage the pride of Egypt and all her multitudes will be destroyed.
- Ezekiel 35:5 Because you harbored an ancient hatred and delivered the Israelites over to the sword in the time of their disaster at the final stage of their punishment,
- Ezekiel 39:4 On the mountains of Israel you will fall—you and all your troops and the nations with you. I will give you as food to every kind of ravenous bird and wild beast.