XXXI The greatness and power of the king of Assyria, ver. 1-9. His security and destruction, ver. 10-17. This applied to Pharaoh, ver. 18.

Verse 2. His multitude - His numerous subjects.

Verse 3. A cedar - Like the most goodly cedar for strength and beauty.

Verse 4. The waters - Cedars grow great by the water-courses. The deep - The sea sent out her waters, which gave being to the rivers, that watered him. His plants - The provinces of this mighty kingdom, that were like plants about a great tree. All the trees - To all his subjects.

Verse 5. All the fowls - All kind of men, nobles, merchants, husbandmen. Made their nests - Settled their habitations. In his boughs - In his kingdom, in the cities and towns of it. All great nations - No nation that was great at that time, but, sought the friendship of this kingdom.

Verse 8. The cedars - The greatest kings. Garden of God - In the most fruitful gardens. Hide - Could not ever top, and shade him. The fir-trees - Lesser kings, and kingdoms, were not equal to his boughs. Nor any tree - All summed up, none like him in all the kingdoms of the world.

Verse 11. Him - The proud king of Assyria, Sardanapalus. The mighty one - Arbaces, who first struck at the root of this Cedar, might well be styled the mighty one of the heathen, since he could bring together four hundred thousand of Medes, Persians, Babylonians, and Arabians.

Verse 12. Strangers - Foreigners.

Verse 14. To the end - All this is designed to be a warning to mortals. All the trees - The emperors, kings, or flourishing states. By the waters - Planted most commodiously, and furnished most abundantly with power and wealth. The children of men - As common men, of no quality or distinction.

Verse 15. He - The king of Assyria. A mourning - There was much lamentation. Fainted - Probably there were portentous signs in the sea, and great waters, and the rivers, and among the trees.

Verse 16. Shake - All that heard the noise of his fall, trembled at it. Cast him down - Brought the king and kingdom, as a dead man to the grave among them, that before were dead and buried. All the trees - All kings, and particularly the greatest. All that drink water - Enjoyed great power, riches, and glory. Comforted - He speaks to the dead with allusion to the manner of the living, who rejoice to see the proud brought low.

Verse 17. They also - His neighbouring kings. Hell - Perished with him, and went to those whom God had slain for their pride and wickedness. They that were his arm - His loyal and faithful subjects and friends, on whom he relied, and by whom he acted.