Ezekiel 31:15 - Exposition

I covered the deep for him . The face of the whole world of nature is painted by the prophet as sharing in the awe and terror of that tremendous fail Lebanon was made to mourn (literally, to be black ) , the waters failed in their channels, the trees (all that drink water) shuddered. They formed part, as it were, of the pageantry of woe at the funeral of the fallen kingdom. It is as if the prophet felt, in all its intensity, what we have learnt to call the sympathy of nature with the sorrows of humanity. It would, perhaps, be over-literal to press details; but the picture, in one of its features at least, suggests a failure of the inundation of the Nile, like that indicated in Ezekiel 30:12 .