The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

V. Ezekiel’s Parabolic Dirge Over Pharaoh of Egypt

The third plank in this wobbly platform of indirect evidence in behalf of Immortal-Soulism is this: In Ezekiel 31 and 32 a parabolic dirge of similar strain over Egypt proclaims the doom pronounced on Israel’s foes—Egypt, Babylon, Assur, Elam, and Edom. The same figure of personification is employed in describing the overthrow of Pharaoh the oppressor. Here Pharaoh and his hosts, slain in battle against the king of Babylon, are portrayed in similar fashion. The “strong among the mighty” are represented as speaking from their graves in the midst of “hell” (she’ol), or gravedom, as he enters that dark domain to await his fate. CFF1 172.5

1. “SHE’OL,” CONTRASTED WITH STATE OF LIVING

Thus she’ol—“the nether parts of the earth” (Ezekiel 32:18, 24), full of graves, and so the land and state of the dead—is contrasted with the land and state of the living. The victims of slaughter had “gone down” to she’ol with their “weapons of war,” and with their swords laid “under their heads” (Ezekiel 32:27). And when Pharaoh, figuratively portrayed as lying among them, saw the “multitude” of his enemies that also were slain, he was “comforted” by the sight (Ezekiel 32:31, 32). It is all highly figurative and impressive, and not at all literal. But prediction of bitter overthrow is spoken of the conqueror of Israel. Here is the dirge: CFF1 173.1

“Thus saith the Lord God; In the day when he went down to the grave [she’ol] I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell [she’ol] ¹² with them that descend into the pit [she’ol]: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether Parts of the earth. They also went down into hell [she’ol] with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen” (Ezekiel 31:15-17). CFF1 173.2

2. PARABOLIC SCOURGE NOT CONSTRUED LITERALLY

The portrayal was wholly parabolic, like Jotham’s famous parable to Abimelech, making the trees elect a king over them, choosing a bramble, et cetera, in Judges 9:8-15. Then the imagery of the parable is openly applied: “This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God” (Ezekiel 31:18). Then there follows, in Ezekiel 32, an enumeration of the various forces of the slain that in life had caused such terror, but are now in she’ol (gravedom), “whose graves are set in the sides of the pit [she’ol]” (Ezekiel 32:23)—their “princes” and mighty warriors “slain by the sword” (Ezekiel 32:29), which have “gone down to hell [she’ol, the grave] with their weapons of war” (Ezekiel 32:27). CFF1 173.3

They are there simply personified as speaking “out of the midst of hell [she’ol]” (Ezekiel 32:21). But the parabolic dirge is not to be construed literally. She’ol is the place of the silence of death. But the parable had nothing to do with the intermediate state. The lesson was that, having raised up a heathen nation to chasten His own people because of their moral departures, when that instrument has executed His will, God will not allow it to go beyond His purpose, but will send retribution upon it for its own sins and cruelties. CFF1 174.1

Such literary devices are samples of testimony sometimes unworthily brought forward to bolster the theory of consciousness in death, and of the persistence of disembodied souls or spirits in the nether world. But these have no actual bearing on the question. CFF1 174.2