Ezekiel 31:3
The Cedar in Lebanon
God talking to Ezekiel compares nations to His majestic trees:
“Consider Assyria, once a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches overshadowing the forest; it towered on high, its top above the thick foliage.
The waters nourished it, deep springs made it grow tall; their streams flowed all around its base and sent their channels to all the trees of the field”.
The story goes on to v12 where “the most ruthless of foreign nations cut it down and left it. Its boughs fell on the mountains and in all the valleys; its branches lay broken in all the ravines of the land.
Ezekiel can be said to be one of the first environmentalists who are horrified by the demise of majestic trees, recognizing the ecology of the birds that nest and the animals that rest in their shade. We, who are troubled when we see the desecration of trees, have ancestors who felt likewise. If Ezekiel can call them “the most ruthless of men”, then that makes me realize my response is quite natural.
Ranan Christian Pilgrimages Blog 