What Does Ezekiel 31:2 Mean in the King James?
Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Greatness is not self-defining; the verse asks what a towering life resembles.
THE MEANING
That question meets you wherever your own stature feels decisive: what does it resemble? Greatness is real, but it remains something measured against a wider life, not a standard that defines itself. The cedar image that follows gives the scale a shape: towering, nourished, and still within a larger order.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being great makes you incomparable or self-defining.
THE ROOT
בְּגָדְלֶךָ
begadlekha
GROWS FROM
גדל
grow, become great
The root keeps greatness tied to growth: scale is something that has risen, not an essence that makes its bearer ultimate. The cedar image that follows makes that height visible, and therefore comparable.
ALSO GROWS
gadal: grow, become great
גָּדַל
It shows greatness as something that develops and rises, rather than a status beyond measure.
gadol: great, large
גָּדוֹל
This adjective shares the root and names the scale the question puts under comparison.
דָּמִיתָ
damita
GROWS FROM
דמה
be like, resemble, compare
“like” in this verse is damita. The Hebrew verb makes the question about resemblance, not just magnitude: what does this greatness resemble? Its wording makes greatness relational, with its character visible through what it mirrors.
ALSO GROWS
damah: be like, resemble
דָּמָה
This verb form shares the root and makes explicit the comparison carried by the question.
lehidamot: resemble, become like
לְהִדָּמוֹת
This form keeps resemblance active: likeness describes a relation, not merely a label.
THE PATTERN
Greatness that takes its own height as final remains subject to being brought low.
For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.THE THREAD
Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.Ezekiel’s “greatness” (בְּגָדְלֶךָ, begadlekha) and the psalm’s “greatness” (גְּדֻלָּתוֹ, gedullato) belong to the same גדל root family. The shared word opens the question beyond Pharaoh’s scale toward a greatness no comparison can exhaust.
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