Assyria is there with her whole army; she is surrounded by the graves of all her slain, all who have fallen by the sword. – Ezekiel 32:22

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 28, 2017): Ezekiel 32

“The sun never sets on the British Empire.” Originally the phrase was applied to the Spanish Empire, but eventually, it was usurped by the British Empire. At its height, the British Empire encompassed almost 25% of the land mass on the planet. And its height was not that long ago, not quite 100 years in the past. Some have tried to apply the adage to the United States, but it probably applies to the British the best. Even today, with Canada bordering one side of the Pacific Ocean and Australia on the other, and the United Kingdom on the Eastern Atlantic somewhere in between Canada and Australia, the sun is always shining on the empire.

I have never seen the fall of an empire. A least, not one that died with a crash. There was the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc of nations that existed thirty years ago. The Empire died, but not really. Any observer of modern politics and the furor currently happening in the United States understands the significant influence that Russia still holds over the world. The Soviet Union is gone, and some of the Eastern Bloc countries have moved to a more Western way of thinking and have wandered outside of Russian influence, but the Empire is still there.

The British Empire has shrunk and may shrink some more following the death of Queen Elizabeth, but it has not crashed. The United States might be an empire, they are currently the most powerful nation on the planet, but even she is not an empire that matches the glory of the empires of the past. Historically, empires have arisen, and then almost become too great to contain, and then crashed. Currently, they seem to die more with a whimper than crash. They fade away as another power grows. Currently, it is China and India that appear to be on the rise. Maybe they will make up the next great Empire of the Earth.

In Ezekiel’s lifetime, the Assyrian Empire crashed. In 626 B.C.E. the fall began. A little more than a decade later, Nineveh had fallen along with all of the large cities of the Assyrians, and it might have been more appropriate to speak of the Assyrian Resistance rather than the Assyrian Empire. And after another decade had passed, no one spoke of the Assyrians as a power.

Ezekiel, maybe twenty years after the end of the Empire speaks of the graves of the soldiers who used to be among the most feared fighters in the known world. The prophet made the Assyrian’s into a cautionary tale told to Empires who thought that their hold on power would last forever. No empire on earth is permanent. Ezekiel understood the truth that they had missed; at some point, all empires come to an end.     

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 33

Personal Note: Happy Birthday to my Wife, Nelda.