The strong among the mighty. Those already in Sheol watch the new arrival, and make their scornful comments (comp. Isaiah 14:9, Isaiah 14:18), at once classing them with the uncircumcised. Had they heard, we ask, of the downfall of Egypt?
Asshur is there. The verses that follow contain, as it were, the prophet's retrospect of the history of the past, as far as he had knowledge of it. Foremost in those is Assyria, which the prophet had already chosen (Ezekiel 31:3) as the pattern instance of a fallen greatness. There in the sides of the pit (i.e. in its remotest and deepest regions) lie the graves of the rulers surrounded by those of their subjects. They had caused terror, the prophet adds, with a keen irony, in the land of the living. They can cause no terror now.