Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 29:1
In the tenth year, in the tenth [month], in the twelfth [day] of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
1 7. Pharaoh under the allegory of the crocodile, and the population as fishes. Jehovah draws him out of the waters with his hook and flings him on the land.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The tenth year – Jerusalem had been besieged, but not taken. Jeremiah delivered his prophecy against Egypt, about the time when the approach of Pharaoh Hophras army caused the Chaldaeans for the time to raise the siege Jer 37:5. This was the solitary instance of Egypt meddling with the affairs of Palestine or Syria after the battle of Carchemish (compare 2Ki 24:7); it met with speedy punishment.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
CHAPTER XXIX
This and the three following chapters foretell the conquest of
Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, which he accomplished in the
twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin’s captivity. The same event
is foretold by Jeremiah, Jer 46:13, c.
The prophecy opens with God’s charging the king of Egypt
(Pharaoh-hophra) with the same extravagant pride and profanity
which were in the preceding chapter laid to the charge of the
prince of Tyre. He appears, like him, to have affected Divine
honours and boasted so much of the strength of his kingdom,
that, as an ancient historian (Herodotus) tells us, he
impiously declared that God himself could not dispossess him.
Wherefore the prophet, with great majesty, addresses him under
the image of one of those crocodiles or monsters which
inhabited that river, of whose riches and revenue he vaunted;
and assures him that, with as much ease as a fisherman drags
the fish he has hooked, God would drag him and his people into
captivity, and that their carcasses should fall a prey to the
beasts of the field and to the fowls of heaven, 1-7.
The figure is then dropped; and God is introduced denouncing,
in plain terns, the most awful judgments against him and his
nation, and declaring that the Egyptians should be subjected to
the Babylonians till the fall of the Chaldean empire, 8-12.
The prophet then foretells that Egypt, which was about to be
devastated by the Babylonians, and many of the people carried
into captivity, should again become a kingdom; but that it
should never regain its ancient political importance; for, in
the lapse of time, it should be even the BASEST of the
kingdoms, a circumstance in the prophecy most literally
fulfilled, especially under the Christian dispensation, in its
government by the Mameluke slaves, 13-16.
The prophecy, beginning at the seventeenth verse, is connected
with the foregoing, as it relates to the same subject, though
delivered about seventeen years later. Nebuchadnezzar and his
army, after the long siege of Tyre, which made every head bald
by constantly wearing their helmets, and wore the skin of off
every shoulder by carrying burdens to raise the fortifications,
were disappointed of the spoil which they expected, by the
retiring of the inhabitants to Carthage. God, therefore,
promises him Egypt for his reward, 17-20.
The chapter concludes with a prediction of the return of the
Jews from the Babylonish captivity, 21.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIX
Verse 1. In the tenth year] Of Zedekiah; and tenth of the captivity of Jeconiah.
The tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month] Answering to Monday, the first of February, A.M. 3415.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The tenth year of Jeconiahs captivity. The tenth month, which answers to part of our December and part of January.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month,…. In the tenth year Jeconiah’s captivity, and Zedekiah’s reign. The Septuagint version has it, the twelfth year; and the Arabic version, the twelfth month; and the Septuagint version again, the first day of the month; and the Vulgate Latin, the eleventh day of it. This month was the month Tebet, and answers to part of December, and part of January. This prophecy was delivered before that concerning Tyre, though placed after it, because fulfilled after it, which gave Nebuchadnezzar Egypt as a reward for besieging and taking Tyre:
the word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Judgment upon Pharaoh and His People and Land
Because Pharaoh looks upon himself as the creator of his kingdom and of his might, he is to be destroyed with his men of war ( Eze 29:2-5). In order that Israel may no longer put its trust in the fragile power of Egypt, the sword shall cut off from Egypt both man and beast, the land shall be turned into a barren wilderness, and the people shall be scattered over the lands ( Eze 29:5-12). But after the expiration of the time appointed for its punishment, both people and land shall be restored, though only to remain an insignificant kingdom (Eze 29:13-16). – According to Eze 29:1, this prophecy belongs to the tenth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin; and as we may see by comparing it with the other oracles against Egypt of which the dates are given, it was the first word of God uttered by Ezekiel concerning this imperial kingdom. The contents also harmonize with this, inasmuch as the threat which it contains merely announces in general terms the overthrow of the might of Egypt and its king, without naming the instrument employed to execute the judgment, and at the same time the future condition of Egypt is also disclosed.
Eze 29:1-12 Destruction of the might of Pharaoh, and devastation of Egypt
Eze 29:1. In the tenth year, in the tenth (month), on the twelfth of the month, the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 29:2. Son of man, direct thy face against Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Eze 29:3. Speak and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will deal with thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, thou great dragon which lieth in its rivers, which saith, “Mine is the river, and I have made it for myself.” Eze 29:4. I will put a ring into thy jaws, and cause the fishes of thy rivers to hang upon thy scales, and draw thee out of thy rivers, and all the fishes of thy rivers which hang upon thy scales; Eze 29:5. And will cast thee into the desert, thee and all the fishes of thy rivers; upon the surface of the field wilt thou fall, thou wilt not be lifted up nor gathered together; I give thee for food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the heaven. Eze 29:6. And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall learn that I am Jehovah. Because it is a reed-staff to the house of Israel, – Eze 29:7. When they grasp thee by thy branches, thou crackest and tearest open all their shoulder; and when they lean upon thee, thou breakest and causest all their loins to shake, – Eze 29:8. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I bring upon thee the sword, and will cut off from thee man and beast; Eze 29:9. And the land of Egypt will become a waste and desolation, and they shall learn that I am Jehovah. Because he saith: “The river is mine, and I have made it,” Eze 29:10. Therefore, behold, I will deal with thee and thy rivers, and will make the land of Egypt into barren waste desolations from Migdol to Syene, even to the border of Cush. Eze 29:11. The foot of man will not pass through it, and the foot of beast will not pass through it, and it will not be inhabited for forty years. Eze 29:12. I make the land of Egypt a waste in the midst of devastated lands, and its cities shall be waste among desolate cities forty years; and I scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them in the lands. – The date given, viz., “in the tenth year,” is defended even by Hitzig as more correct than the reading of the lxx, ; and he supposes the Alexandrian reading to have originated in the fact that the last date mentioned in Eze 26:1 had already brought down the account to the eleventh year. – Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, against whom the threat is first directed, is called “the great dragon” in Eze 29:3. (here and Eze 32:2) is equivalent to , literally, the lengthened animal, the snake; here, the water-snake, the crocodile, the standing symbol of Egypt in the prophets (cf. Isa 51:9; Isa 27:1; Psa 74:13), which is here transferred to Pharaoh, as the ruler of Egypt and representative of its power. By we are to understand the arms and canals of the Nile (vid., Isa 7:18). The predicate, “lying in the midst of his rivers,” points at once to the proud security in his own power to which Pharaoh gave himself up. As the crocodile lies quietly in the waters of the Nile, as though he were lord of the river; so did Pharaoh regard himself as the omnipotent lord of Egypt. His words affirm this: “the river is mine, I have made it for myself.” The suffix attached to stands in the place of , as Eze 29:9, where the suffix is wanting, clearly shows. There is an incorrectness in this use of the suffix, which evidently passed into the language of literature from the popular phraseology (cf. Ewald, 315 b). The rendering of the Vulgate, ego feci memetipsum , is false. is the expression used by him as a king who regards the land and its rivers as his own property; in connection with which we must bear in mind that Egypt is indebted to the Nile not only for its greatness, but for its actual existence. In this respect Pharaoh says emphatically , it is mine, it belongs to me, because he regards himself as the creator. The words, “I have made it for myself,” simply explain the reason for the expression , and affirm more than “I have put myself in possession of this through my own power, or have acquired its blessings for myself” (Hvernick); or, “I have put it into its present condition by constructing canals, dams, sluices, and buildings by the river-side” (Hitzig). Pharaoh calls himself the creator of the Nile, because he regards himself as the creator of the greatness of Egypt. This pride, in which he forgets God and attributes divine power to himself, is the cause of his sin, for which he will be overthrown by God. God will draw the crocodile Pharaoh out of his Nile with hooks, and cast him upon the dry land, where he and the fishes that have been drawn out along with him upon his scales will not be gathered up, but devoured by the wild beasts and birds of prey. The figure is derived from the manner in which even in ancient times the crocodile was caught with large hooks of a peculiar construction (compare Herod. ii. 70, and the testimonies of travellers in Oedmann’s Vermischten Sammlungen, III pp. 6ff., and Jomard in the Dscription de l’Egypte, I p. 27). The form with a double Yod is a copyist’s error, probably occasioned by the double Yod occurring after in , which follows. A dual form for is unsuitable, and is not used anywhere else even by Ezekiel (cf. Eze 19:4, Eze 19:9, and more especially Eze 38:4).
The fishes which hang upon the scales of the monster, and are drawn along with it out of the Nile, are the inhabitants of Egypt, for the Nile represents the land. The casting of the beast into the wilderness, where it putrefies and is devoured by the beasts and birds of prey, must not be interpreted in the insipid manner proposed by Hitzig, namely, that Pharaoh would advance with his army into the desert of Arabia and be defeated there. The wilderness is the dry and barren land, in which animals that inhabit the water must perish; and the thought is simply that the monster will be cast upon the desert land, where it will finally become the food of the beasts of prey.
In Eze 29:6 the construction is a subject of dispute, inasmuch as many of the commentators follow the Hebrew division of the verse, taking the second hemistich ‘ as dependent upon the first half of the verse, for which it assigns the reason, and then interpreting Eze 29:7 as a further development of Eze 29:6, and commencing a new period with Eze 29:8 (Hitzig, Kliefoth, and others). But it is decidedly wrong to connect together the two halves of the sixth verse, if only for the simple reason that the formula , which occurs so frequently elsewhere in Ezekiel, invariably closes a train of thought, and is never followed by the addition of a further reason. Moreover, a sentence commencing with is just as invariably followed by an apodosis introduced by , of which we have an example just below in Eze 29:9 and Eze 29:10. For both these reasons it is absolutely necessary that we should regard ‘ as the beginning of a protasis, the apodosis to which commences with in Eze 29:8. The correctness of this construction is established beyond all doubt by the fact that from Eze 29:6 onwards it is no longer Pharaoh who is spoken of, as in Eze 29:3-5, but Egypt; so that introduces a new train of thought. But Eze 29:7 is clearly shown, both by the contents and the form, to be an explanatory intermediate clause inserted as a parenthesis. And inasmuch as the protasis is removed in consequence to some distance from its apodosis, Ezekiel has introduced the formula “thus saith the Lord Jehovah” at the commencement of the apodosis, for the purpose of giving additional emphasis to the announcement of the punishment. Eze 29:7 cannot in any case be regarded as the protasis, the apodosis to which commences with the in Eze 29:8, and Hvernick maintains. The suffix attached to , to which Hitzig takes exception, because he has misunderstood the construction, and which he would conjecture away, refers to as a land or kingdom. Because the kingdom of Egypt was a reed-staff to the house of Israel (a figure drawn from the physical character of the banks of the Nile, with its thick growth of tall, thick rushes, and recalling to mind Isa 36:6), the Lord would bring the sword upon it and cut off from it both man and beast. But before this apodosis the figure of the reed-staff is more clearly defined: “when they (the Israelites) take thee by thy branches, thou breakest,” etc. This explanation is not to be taken as referring to any particular facts either of the past or future, but indicates the deceptive nature of Egypt as the standing characteristic of that kingdom. At the same time, to give greater vivacity to the description, the words concerning Egypt are changed into a direct address to the Egyptians, i.e., not to Pharaoh, but to the Egyptian people regarded as a single individual. The expression causes some difficulty, since the ordinary meaning of (hand) is apparently unsuitable, inasmuch as the verb , from , to break or crack (not to break in pieces, i.e., to break quite through), clearly shows that the figure if the reed is still continued. The Keri is a bad emendation, based upon the rendering “to grasp with the hand,” which is grammatically inadmissible. with does not mean to grasp with something, but to seize upon something, to take hold of a person (Isa 3:6; Deu 9:17), so that can only be an explanatory apposition to . The meaning grip, or grasp of the hand, is also unsuitable and cannot be sustained, as the plural alone is used in this sense in Son 5:5. The only meaning appropriate to the figure is that of branches, which is sustained, so far as the language is concerned, by the use of the plural for palm-branches in Lev 23:40, and of the singular for the collection of branches in Job 15:32, and Isa 9:13; Isa 19:15; and this is apparently in perfect harmony with natural facts, since the tall reed of the Nile, more especially the papyrus, is furnished with hollow, sword-shaped leaves at the lower part of the talk. When it cracks, the reed-staff pierces the shoulder of the man who has grasped it, and tears it; and if a man lean upon it, it breaks in pieces and causes all the loins to tremble. cannot mean to cause to stand, or to set upright, still less render stiff and rigid. The latter meaning cannot be established from the usage of the language, and would be unsuitable here. For if a stick on which a man leans should break and penetrate his loins, it would inflict such injury upon them as to cause him to fall, and not to remain stiff and rigid. cannot have any other meaning than that of , to cause to tremble or relax, as in Psa 69:24, to shake the firmness of the loins, so that the power to stand is impaired.
In the apodosis the thought of the land gives place to that of the people; hence the use of the feminine suffixes and in the place of the masculine suffixes and in Eze 29:7. Man and beast shall be cut off, and the land made into a desert waste by the sword, i.e., by war. This is carried out still further in Eze 29:9-12; and once again in the protasis 9 b (cf. Eze 29:3) the inordinate pride of the king is placed in the foreground as the reason for the devastation of his land and kingdom. The Lord will make of Egypt the most desolate wilderness. is intensified into a superlative by the double genitive , desolation of the wilderness. Throughout its whole extent from Migdol, i.e., Magdolo, according to the Itiner. Anton. p. 171 (ed. Wessel), twelve Roman miles from Pelusium; in the Coptic Meshtol, Egyptian Maktr (Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr. I pp. 261f.), the most northerly place in Egypt. , to Syene (for the construction see Eze 30:6 and Eze 21:3), , Sun in the inscriptions, according to Brugsch ( Geogr. Inschr. I. p. 155), probably the profane designation of the place (Coptic Souan ), the most southerly border town of Egypt in the direction of Cush, i.e., Ethiopia, on the eastern bank of the Nile, some ruins of which are still to be seen in the modern Assvan ( Assuan, Arab. aswa=n), which is situated to the north-east of them (vid., Brugsch, Reiseber. aus. Aegypten, p. 247, and Leyrer in Herzog’s Encyclopaedia). The additional clause, “and to the border of Cush,” does not give a fresh terminal point, still further advanced, but simply defines with still greater clearness the boundary toward the south, viz., to Syene, where Egypt terminates and Ethiopia beings. In Eze 29:11 the desolation is more fully depicted. , it will not dwell, poetical for “be inhabited,” as in Joel 4 (3):20, Isa 13:20, etc. This devastation shall last for forty years, and so long shall the people of Egypt be scattered among the nations. But after the expiration of that time they shall be gathered together again (Eze 29:13). The number forty is neither a round number (Hitzig) nor a very long time (Ewald), but is a symbolical term denoting a period appointed by God for punishment and penitence (see the comm. on Eze 4:6), which is not to be understood in a chronological sense, or capable of being calculated.
Eze 29:13-16 Restoration of Egypt
Eze 29:13. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians out of the nations, whither they were scattered. Eze 29:14. And I will turn the captivity of Egypt, and will bring them back into the land of Pathros, into the land of their origin, and they shall be a lowly kingdom there. Eze 29:15. Lowlier than the kingdoms shall it be, and exalt itself no more over the nations; and I will make them small, so that they shall rule no more over the nations. Eze 29:16. And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing iniquity to remembrance when they incline towards it; and they shall learn that I am the Lord Jehovah. – The turning of the period of Egypt’s punishment is connected by , which refers to the time indicated, viz., “forty years.” For forty years shall Egypt be utterly laid waste; for after the expiration of that period the Lord will gather the Egyptians again from their dispersion among the nations, turn their captivity, i.e., put an end to their suffering (see the comm. on Eze 16:53), and lead them back into the land of their birth, i.e., of their origin (for , see Eze 16:3), namely, to Pathros. , the Egyptian Petores ( , lxx Jer 44:1), or south land, i.e., Upper Egypt, the Thebais of the Greeks and Romans. The designation of Upper Egypt as the mother country of the Egyptians, or the land of their nativity, is confirmed not only by the accounts given by Herodotus (ii. 4 and 15) and Diodorus Sic. (i. 50), but also by the Egyptian mythology, according to which the first king who reigned after the gods, viz., Menes or Mena, sprang from the city of Thinis ( Thynis), Egypt. Tenj, in the neighbourhood of Abydos in Upper Egypt, and founded the city of Memphis in Lower Egypt, which became so celebrated in later times (vid., Brugsch, Histoire d’Egypte, I p. 16). But Egypt shall not attain to its former power any more. It will be and continue a lowly kingdom, that it may not again become a ground of confidence to Israel, a power upon which Israel can rely, so as to fall into guilt and punishment. The subject to is Egypt as a nation, notwithstanding the fact that it has previously been construed in the feminine as a land or kingdom, and in the Egyptians are spoken of in the plural number. For it is out of the question to take as the subject to in the sense of “no more shall one who calls guilt to remembrance inspire the house of Israel with confidence,” as Kliefoth proposes, not only because of the arrangement of the words, but because the more precise definition of as ‘ clearly shows that Egypt is the subject of the sentence; whereas, in order to connect this definition in any way, Kliefoth is compelled to resort to the interpolation of the words, “which it committed.” is in apposition to ; making Egypt the ground of confidence, brings into remembrance before God the guilt of Israel, which consists in the fact that the Israelites turn to the Egyptians and seek salvation from them, so that He is obliged to punish them (vid., Eze 21:28-29). – The truth of the prediction in Eze 29:13-16 has been confirmed by history, inasmuch as Egypt never recovered its former power after the Chaldean period. – Moreover, if we compare the Messianic promise for Egypt in Isa 19:18-25 with the prediction in Eze 29:13-15, we are struck at once with the peculiarity of Ezekiel, already referred to in the introductory remarks on Ezekiel 25-32, namely, that he leaves entirely out of sight the Messianic future of the heathen nations.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Pride of Pharaoh; The Ruin of Pharaoh. | B. C. 589. |
1 In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt: 3 Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. 4 But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. 5 And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven. 6 And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. 7 When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.
Here is, I. The date of this prophecy against Egypt. It was in the tenth year of the captivity, and yet it is placed after the prophecy against Tyre, which was delivered in the eleventh year, because, in the accomplishment of the prophecies, the destruction of Tyre happened before the destruction of Egypt, and Nebuchadnezzar’s gaining Egypt was the reward of his service against Tyre; and therefore the prophecy against Tyre is put first, that we may the better observe that. But particular notice must be taken of this, that the first prophecy against Egypt was just at the time when the king of Egypt was coming to relieve Jerusalem and raise the siege (Jer. xxxvii. 5), but did not answer the expectations of the Jews from them. Note, It is good to foresee the failing of all our creature-confidences, then when we are most in temptation to depend upon them, that we may cease from man.
II. The scope of this prophecy. It is directed against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and against all Egypt, v. 2. The prophecy against Tyre began with the people, and then proceeded against the prince. But this begins with the prince, because it began to have its accomplishment in the insurrections and rebellions of the people against the prince, not long after this.
III. The prophecy itself. Pharaoh Hophrah (for so was the reigning Pharaoh surnamed) is here represented by a great dragon, or crocodile, that lies in the midst of his rivers, as Leviathan in the waters, to play therein, v. 3. Nilus, the river of Egypt, was famed for crocodiles. And what is the king of Egypt, in God’s account, but a great dragon, venomous and mischievous? Therefore says God, I am against thee. I am above thee; so it may be read. How high soever the princes and potentates of the earth are, there is a higher than they (Eccl. v. 8), a God above them, that can control them, and, if they be tyrannical and oppressive, a God against them, that will be free to reckon with them. Observe here,
1. The pride and security of Pharaoh. He lies in the midst of his rivers, rolls himself with a great deal of satisfaction in his wealth and pleasures; and he says, My river is my own. He boasts that he is an absolute prince (his subjects are his vassals; Joseph bought them long ago, Gen. xlvii. 23),– that he is a sole prince, and has neither partner in the government nor competitor for it,–that he is out of debt (what he has is his own, and none of his neighbours have any demands upon him),–that he is independent, neither tributary nor accountable to any. Note, Worldly carnal minds please themselves with, and pride themselves in, their property, forgetting that whatever we have we have only the use of it, the property is in God. We ourselves are not our own, but his. Our tongues are not our own, Ps. xii. 4. Our river is not our own, for its springs are in God. The most potent prince cannot call what he has his own, for, though it be so against all the world, it is not so against God. But Pharaoh’s reason for his pretensions is yet more absurd: My river is my own, for I have made it for myself. Here he usurps two of the divine prerogatives, to be the author and the end of his own being and felicity. He only that is the great Creator can say of this world, and of every thing in it, I have made it for myself. He calls his river his own because he looks not unto the Maker thereof, nor has respect unto him that fashioned it long ago, Isa. xxii. 11. What we have we have received from God and must use for God, so that we cannot say, We made it, much less, We made it for ourselves; and why then do we boast? Note, Self is the great idol that all the world worships, in contempt of God and his sovereignty.
2. The course God will take with this proud man, to humble him. He is a great dragon in the waters, and God will accordingly deal with him, Eze 29:4; Eze 29:5. (1.) He will draw him out of his rivers, for he has a hook and a cord for this leviathan, with which he can manage him, though none on earth can (Job xli. 1): “I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, will cast thee out of thy palace, out of thy kingdom, out of all those things in which thou takest such a complacency and placest such a confidence.” Herodotus related of this Pharaoh, who was now king of Egypt, that he had reigned in great prosperity for twenty-five years, and was so elevated with his successes that he said that God himself would not cast him out of his kingdom; but he shall soon be convinced of his mistake, and what he depended on shall be no defence. God can force men out of that in which they are most secure and easy. (2.) All his fish shall be drawn out with him, his servants, his soldiers, and all that had a dependence on him, as he thought, but really such as he had dependence upon. These shall stick to his scales, adhere to their king, resolving to live and die with him. But, (3.) The king and his army, the dragon and all the fish that stick to his scales, shall perish together, as fish cast upon dry ground, and shall be meat to the beasts and fowls, v. 5. Now this is supposed to have had its accomplishment soon after, when this Pharaoh, in defence of Aricius king of Libya, who had been expelled his kingdom by the Cyrenians, levied a great army, and went out against the Cyrenians, to re-establish his friend, but was defeated in battle, and all his forces were put to flight, which gave such disgust to his kingdom that they rose in rebellion against him. Thus was he left thrown into the wilderness, he and all the fish of the river with him. Thus issue men’s pride, and presumption, and carnal security. Thus men justly lose what they might call their own, under God, when they call it their own against him.
3. The ground of the controversy God has with the Egyptians; it is because they have cheated his people. They encouraged them to expect relief and assistance from them when they were in distress, but failed them (Eze 29:6; Eze 29:7): Because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. They pretended to be a staff for them to lean upon, but, when any stress was laid upon them, they were either weak and could not or treacherous and would not do that for them which was expected. They broke under them, to their great disappointment and amazement, so that they rent their shoulder and made all their loins to be at a stand. The king of Egypt, it is probable, had encouraged Zedekiah to break his league with the king of Babylon, with a promise that he would stand by him, which, when he failed to do, to any purpose, it could not but put them into a great consternation. God had told them, long since, that the Egyptians were broken reeds, Isa. xxx. 6, 7. Rabshakeh had told them so, Isa. xxxvi. 6. And now they found it so. It was indeed the folly of Israel to trust them, and they were well enough served when they were deceived in them. God was righteous in suffering them to be so. But that is no excuse at all for the Egyptians’ falsehood and treachery, nor shall it secure them from the judgments of that God who is and will be the avenger of all such wrongs. It is a great sin, and very provoking to God, as well as unjust, ungrateful, and very dishonourable and unkind, to put a cheat upon those that put a confidence in us.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
EZEKIEL – CHAPTER 29
THE COMING FALL OF EGYPT
Verses 1-21:
Verses 1, 2 specify the date the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel to prophesy of coming judgment upon Egypt and Pharaoh her king. The message came to him January 10th, 586 B.C. it was the tenth year of the tenth month of the 12th day of Ezekiel’s captivity in Babylon, seven months before the fall of Jerusalem, Jer 25:19; Jer 44:30; Jer 46:2; Isa 19:1-17; Isa 30:1-32.
Verse 3 directs Ezekiel to speak against Pharaoh (a term used to signify the king or chief ruler of Egypt). He was personified as the “great dragon,” (18 to 20 ft. crocodile) that “lolled” about in the great Nile river, fed by smaller river branches. The king or Pharaoh had called it “his river,” claiming to have made it for himself, Ezekiel was to make it clear to him that God was against him, v. 10; Eze 28:22; Jer 44:30; Eze 32:2; Psa 72:13-14; Isa 27:1; Isa 51:9.
Verse 4 foretells that in judging Pharaoh and Egypt God will put hooks in their jaws, lead them out like a wild beast. He would cause the fish of their rivers, a chief source of their food protein, to be drawn out of the rivers with Pharaoh, the old crocodile. The crocodile monsters were captured by placing a sharp hook through their nose or jaw, Job 41:1-2. As the flowing Nile denoted prosperity in Egypt so the depopulating it, of the crocodile and fish, denotes the fall of the people of Egypt, with their king and kingdom, 2Ki 19:28; Job 41:1-2; Eze 38:4; Isa 37:29; Amo 4:2.
Verse 5 asserts that the Lord purposed to judge Egypt by overthrowing and leaving her desolate in the wilderness and all the fish of her rivers. He would leave her in an open field, scattered, frustrated, not gathered together. She was to be given for meat to the carnivorous beasts of the fields and fowls or vultures of the heavens, as recounted or verified Jer 8:2; Jer 16:4; Jer 25:33. This judgment denotes separation from the prosperity of the Nile river; And death without burial, in the open barren fields, in contrast with expensive mausoleums in which the Egyptians gloried. Each of Pharaoh’s dying subjects is seen as a part of him in judgment, Jer 7:33.
Verse 6 adds that all the surviving inhabitants of Egypt should come to know by this judgment that the Lord was the true God. For they had once been a staff or reed (a strength of support) to the house of Israel; But now they were broken like a reed, 2Ki 18:21; Isa 36:6. When Israel entered treaties with Egypt she found her to be like a broken reed.
Verse 7, 8 disclose that while Egypt had extended a hand of friendship to Israel, she had then treacherously torn her shoulders, or done her bodily harm: and when Israel leaned on Egypt she had broken her spirits and paralyzed her loins. Because of such the Lord announced that He would bring the sword, instrument of destruction, down upon her, to cut off or cut down man and beast, Eze 14:17; Eze 17:15-17; Jer 37:5; Jer 46:13.
Verse 9 restates prophetically that the land of Egypt will become a place of desolation and waste because Pharaoh, in making himself a god, had arrogantly asserted that the river (of Egypt) was his and he had himself made it, arrogating to himself creative powers, v. 3; Pro 16:18; Pro 18:12.
Verse 10 concludes that because of Pharaoh’s sins God was against him and the rivers and land of Egypt and was determined to send desolation upon them, from Migdol tower to Syene, even to the border of Ethiopia, Exo 14:2; Jer 44:1. The territory was from north of the Suez to the remote or extreme southern part of Egypt. None of the land was to escape desolation.
Verse 11 asserts that for a period of forty years no man, not even the foot of beast, would pass through the land, neither would it be inhabited for a forty year period of desolation from the Lord, Jer 43:11-12; Jer 46:19; Eze 32:13. It is noted in history that the interval between Nebuchadnezzar’s overthrow of Egypt and the deliverance by Cyrus was about forty years, 572 B.C. to 532 B.C., Isa 19:2; Isa 19:11. The land was in civil degradation during all this period.
Verses 12 restates that the Lord will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, other countries and cities that Assyria had also conquered, Jer 25:15-19; Jer 27:6; Jer 27:11. The Egyptians too were to be scattered, carried captive like the Israelites, into other countries for a period of forty years. Yet, the Lord pledged that He would regather the Egyptians to their country after forty years from all the places they had been scattered, Jer 46:19; Isa 19:22; Jer 46:26.
Verse 14 further pledges that the Lord will bring again the captivity of Egypt to the land of Pathros, upper Egypt, the land of their nativity, where they should thereafter be a base kingdom, a low-grade nation among the heathen, a vassal or slave-like people, Isa 11:11; Jer 44:1; Jer 44:15; Eze 30:14.
Verse 15 asserts that Egypt should become the basest (lowest), most degraded, of the kingdoms, nor would it ever thereafter exalt itself above the nations. For the Lord declared that He would diminish, weaken, or bring them so low in judgment that they should never rise again to rule over other nations, Eze 17:6; Eze 17:14; Eze 30:13; Zec 10:11; See also Eze 31:2; Eze 32:2; Nah 3:8-10. For the carnally proud and exalted shall be humbled, Luk 18:14; Jas 4:6; Jas 4:10; 1Pe 5:6.
Verse 16 declares that Egypt would no more, after her fall and judgment, be the confident object of trust of the house of Israel. Their judgment and fall would bring to Israel’s remembrance her own vain trust in them, as a weak reed, on whom they wrongfully leaned for help against Assyria; But both Israel and Egypt, the once mighty gentile nation, after their judgment, would come to acknowledge that the Lord was God, Isa 20:5; Isa 30:1-3; Isa 31:1; Isa 36:6; Jer 2:18-19; Jer 2:36; Jer 37:5; Jer 37:7; Eze 17:15; Eze 29:6; See also Isa 64:9; Jer 14:10; Eze 21:23; Hos 8:13; Lam 4:17.
Verse 17 is a transitional testimony of Ezekiel that about B.C. 571, about two years after Ezekiel’s prophecies is here introduced, out of chronological order, apparently in dealing with gentile nations, Isa 45:3; Jer 27:6. It came to him in the twenty seventh year and on the first day of the first month, called Abib or April, Eze 24:1; Eze 26:1; Eze 29:1; Eze 30:20; Eze 40:1.
Verse 18 describes how Nebuchadnezzar laid siege against Tyre for 13 years, 585-572 B.C. The siege was an economic failure. When he had no booty to pay his soldiers he invaded Egypt and took booty for his soldiers. Though the men wore their heads bald, carrying baskets of dirt and stone for the siege-work. When they overcame the city, she had shipped her wealth away, in the 13 years of the siege by sea, Jer 25:9; Jer 27:6; Jer 48:37; Eze 27:31.
Verse 19 discloses that after Nebuchadnezzar-had besieged and conquered Tyre, but found no pay for her soldiers in Tyre, because she had sent her treasures away by ship, by way of the sea, God, whom Nebuchadnezzar had served in judging Tyre, sent him on his way to overrun and judge Egypt where much booty was readily available for pay to his soldiers, Eze 30:10; Eze 30:24-25; Eze 32:11; See also Jer 43:10; Jer 43:13; Eze 30:14.
Verse 20 explains that God had given the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar for the labor he, as a gentile king, had performed in punishing Tyre. The booty of the land of Egypt, by the strength of the Lord, was captured by the Babylonian army, sanctioned as pay for the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar, 2Ki 10:30; Isa 10:6-7; Isa 45:1-3; Jer 25:9.
Verse 21 foretells that on that day, of Egypt’s complete subjection, the Lord would cause Israel to be restored to her land (with a good remnant) and the Lord was to “open your mouth,” that of Ezekiel, to witness in their midst, a matter about which the Bible seems to be silent thereafter; though it is revealed a goodly remnant was restored from Babylon, Psa 9:2; Psa 9:10; Psa 31:17; 1Sa 2:10; See also Eze 3:27; Eze 24:27; Eze 33:22; Amo 3:7-8; Luk 1:6; Luk 21:15. Horn represents or is a symbol of power, as used in the scripture, Jer 48:25. NOTES:
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE FIRST OF FOUR CHAPTERS DIRECTED AGAINST EGYPT (Chap. 29)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.Pharaoh, a monarch with whom the Hebrews were frequently in contact, is represented as vaunting in the security of his position, when the prophet is commissioned to announce the Divine interposition to effect the desolation of his country throughout its whole extent (Eze. 29:1-12). Though after the lapse of forty years the Egyptian people were to be restored to their country, the kingdom was never to emerge from that state of degradation to which it should be reduced (1316). The following verses (1720), distinctly announce the conquest of the country by Nebuchadnezzar; and the chapter concludes with a promise of future prosperity to the Jews (Eze. 29:21).(Henderson).
Eze. 29:3. Pharaoh the great dragon. Pharaoh was a general name of the kings of Egypt down to the time of the Persian conquest. A more appropriate emblem of these kings could not have been selected than that of the Heb. word tanim, by which we are to understand the crocodile, the terrible sea-monster inhabiting the Nile, whose usual size is about eighteen or twenty feet in length, but sometimes from thirty to forty. This animal occurs on Roman coins as emblematical of Egypt. The rivers were the branches into which the Nile was divided, and to which the country was indebted for its fertility.(Henderson.)
Eze. 29:4. I will put hooks in thy jaws. According to Herodotus crocodiles were taken with hooks (Job. 41:1-2). In the Assyrian sculptures prisoners are represented with a hook in the under lip, and a cord from it held by the king. All the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. If the Nile denotes the prosperity of Egypt, the fish are its inhabitants living in prosperity, that feel themselves as fish when they are in the water, but now are placed on the dry ground. They are drawn out with the dragon; the subjects fall with the king, and in consequence of his fall.Hengstenberg.
Eze. 29:5. I will have thee thrown into the wilderness. The wilderness, in contrast with the Nile, denotes the state of weakness without help or means. The contrast is taken from the natural conditions of Egypt, where the waste, awful wilderness borders on the fertile banks of the Nile. The field is the open field, in contrast with the splendid mausoleums in which the Egyptian Pharaohs were buried in the times of their glory. He comes down so low, that he does not even receive an honourable burial. Who would trust in a deliverer, and make him an idol, who cannot provide this for himself, who is destined to feed the ravens, and will very soon be carrion! The king is, so to speak, an ideal person, who comprises in himself a great numerical multiplicity. Thus the statement is appropriate: Thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered. Each of his deceased subjects was, as it were, a part of Pharaoh, as in the retreat from Moscow Napoleon was seen in every dead Frenchman.(Hengstenberg.)
Eze. 29:6. A staff of reed to the house of Israel. There is an allusion to the reeds on the banks of the Nile, which broke if one attempted to lean upon them. (Isa. 36:6.) Israel had trusted in Egypt, in many alliances, but found to her sorrow that she had leaned upon a broken reed.
Eze. 29:7. At a stand. This describes the contraction of the muscles by the sudden pain. It pierced through their shoulders, and made these, by injuring their muscles, ligaments, and joints, stiff and rigid, so that they could but stand and move no more. So fared it with the kingdom of the ten tribes under Hosea in connection with Egypt, and likewise with the kingdom of Judah under Zedekiah.Lange.
Eze. 29:10. From the tower of Syene. Some translate, From Migdol to Syene. Migdol signifies a fortress, and was the name of a city lying to the north of Suez. Syene was situated in the remote south.
Eze. 29:11. No foot of man neither shall it be inhabited forty years. There would be no settled inhabitants. It this period began the year after the capture of Tyre, B. C. 572, it would end in the fifth year of Cyrus (B. C.532) Jerome remarks, the number forty is one often connected with affliction and judgment. The rains of the Flood in forty days brought destruction on the world. Moses, Elias, and the Saviour fasted forty days. The interval between Egypts overthrow by Nebuchadnezzar, and the deliverance by Cyrus, was about forty years. This prophecy is not to be understood to mean that literally no foot of man nor beast should pass through the land. The meaning rather is, that for forty years the land would be in the wilderness-state of social and political degradation (Isa. 19:2; Isa. 19:11).
Eze. 29:14. Pathros. Upper Egypt, being the oldest part of Egypt, and from whence civilization and the arts had sprung. A base kingdom. It was to remain in a state of vassalage. Amasis made it dependent on Babylon, and under Cambyses it was humbled still more.
Eze. 29:16. Which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance. The offered help of Egypt was a temptation which developed the iniquity of Israel, and made it manifest before the world. Whosoever beguiles into iniquity, brings iniquity to remembrance, or to the knowledge of him to whom the iniquity refers. For existing iniquity cannot remain unmarked or unpunished by the Judge of all the earth.(Hengstenberg.)
Eze. 29:17. In the seven and twentieth year. There is a departure here from strict chronogical order. This is the last of Ezekiels prophecies, and is dated two years later than the vision in Ch. 40. It would thus appear that the prophecies concerning foreign nations are grouped together in order to secure greater unity of subject.
Eze. 29:18. Every head was made bald, and ever shoulder was peeled. With carrying baskets of earth and stones for the siege-works. Yet had he no wages He failed to secure results in proportion to the time and labour which he expended on the siege of Tyre. The Tyrians had carried away the greater part of their treasures in ships, so that little was left for the invader. The siege lasted thirteen years.
Eze. 29:19. It shall be the wages for his army. Jehovah, whose work he had performed, here promises to recompense him with the conquest of Egypt. On breaking up from Tyre he proceeded to that country, which he found so distracted by internal commotions, that he easily devastated and made himself master of the whole laud.(Henderson).
Eze. 29:20. For Me. Nebuchadnezzar was the servant of God, unconsciously carrying out the purposes of the Divine will (Jer. 25:9).
Eze. 29:21. The opening of the mouth in the midst of them. While Egypt was subject to eastern rule, the Jews were to be restored to their own land, and full liberty was to be given to the prophet to exercise his ministry among them. Sacred history is silent relative to the last days of Ezekiel, but there is nothing that militates against the supposition that he returned with his fellow-countrymen from Babylon(Henderson.)
HOMILETICS
(Eze. 29:17-20.)
1. Men in misery keep account exactly of their sufferings. Ezekiel was in captivity, and many other Jews, who diligently heeded how the years passed. In the seven and twentieth year, that was of the captivity. Men are best chronologers in adversity.
2. When God is about to do great things, He usually makes His purpose known unto some of His servants. When He was upon destroying Sodom, He made it known unto Abraham (Gen. 18:17); when about to destroy Elis house, He revealed it to Samuel (1Sa. 3:11-12); the strange things which befel the King of Babylon were revealed to Daniel (Daniel 4); and the Lord showed John things to come (Rev. 1:1). And here He hides not His purpose from Ezekiel. This was so frequent of old, that Amos said, Surely the Lord will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret to His servants the prophets (Amo. 3:7).
3. Heathenish soldiers have hazarded their lives to please their heathenish commanders, and all for a temporal reward. The King of Babylons army served a great service thirteen years together; to lie before a city was hard, their heads were made bald, their shoulders were peeled, they laboured hard, carried heavy burdens, they watched, they suffered heat and cold, and all this for hope of good plunder in Tyre. If heathens would do and endure so much for their commander, who was an idolator, an enemy to God and His people, how much more should Christians do and endure anything for Christ, their King, and heavenly Commander. If He say Go, we should go; if Come, we should come. If He calls us to endure affliction, and suffer hard things, we should not stick at them, no, though it be the jeoparding of our lives, knowing He hath a spiritual and eternal reward for us.
4. Armies may serve long and suffer hard things, and after all be disappointed of their expectations. The King of Babylon and his army had no wages. They expected great matters in Tyrus, which was so rich, and full of all sorts of commodities, but found nothing considerable, nothing answering their expectation, or sufficient to recompense their charge and suffering.
5. Nations, lands, kingdoms, are the Lords, and He disposes of them to whom He pleases. I will give the land of Egypt, et. (Eze. 29:19). He would take it from Pharaoh and give it to another. Neither did the Lord so any wrong unto Pharaoh, because he was tenant at will, and held upon these terms to be king while he carried himself well; but he grew proud, insolent, and like a dragon lay in the midst of his rivers, saying, My river is mine, and I have made it for myself. God therefore took his kingdom from him.
6. God, in His hold and wise providence, makes use of any instruments to do His work. The King of Babylon and his army were working for God. They were His servants, though they knew it not. God can make use of the worst of men as well as of the best. He can promote his interests by an army of heathens, as well as by an army of Christians. It is good, therefore, not to stick upon the instruments which work; but to consider in whose hands they are, and who regulates them.
7. The Lord suffers not any to labour for Him in vain. No even heathens and infidels, He gave the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar and his army, who were the worst of the heathen (Eze. 7:24), because they served and wrought for Him. When the midwives would not destroy the male children of the Jews, but save them alive, because they feared God, He dealt with them and gave them houses (Exo. 1:17-21). Jehu was wicked, yet because he did the work of the Lord in rooting out Ahabs family, in destroying Baal with all his priests and temple, therefore the Lord largely rewarded him (2Ki. 10:30). If heathens shall not labour for God in vain, much less shall Christians, who know how to act from a right principle, in a right manner, and for a right end. If they meet with hardship in His service, He will remember and reward it fully, not with a temporal kingdom, but with an eternal. The Kingdom of Heaven shall be given to them (Luk. 12:32). A cup of cold water, two mites cast into the treasury, a sigh, a tear, laid out for God and His interest shall not be forgotten. He deals bountifully with His servants (Psa. 106:7.(Greenhill.)
(Eze. 29:21).
I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them. Ezekiel had been silent and dumb twice before (Eze. 3:24; Eze. 24:27). And here, God would give Him the opening of the mouth; by which we are to understand.
1. Freedom of speech. Thou speakest things darkly now, with a trembling voice, but when these prophecies are fulfilled, and the horn of the house of Israel begins to bud, then shalt thou have more freedom of speech, and be troubled no more with the false prophets, which sought to disparage thee.
2. Matter of speaking. When Jeconiah, or Jehoiachin, should have his prison garments changed, and be set above other princes, some freedom granted to the Jews; here would be matter for praise and rejoicing.
3. Opportunity for speaking. When an occasion is given unto man to speak, the rabbins call that the opening of the mouth. Thou shalt come openly into the assemblies, having matter, freedom, and opportunity to praise Me. They shall know that I am the Lord. They refers not only to the house of Israel, but to the Babylonians also; when they should see the things prophesied come to pass, then they should acknowledge the Lord. The horn of Israel budded in the midst of the Babylonians, and the prophets mouth was opened in the midst of them. Therefore they should know the Lord as well as the Jews.
(1.) How low, weak, afflicted soever the Church be, God is able to raise it up and to bring it to a flourishing condition. The house of Israel was low, the horn of it weak and hardly visible; yet God caused the horn thereof bud. When we look upon some beasts, they have no horns; but in a short time their heads do bud and bring forth horns, which are their strength; so God in a little time would cause Israel to put forth strength and be once more prosperous.
(2.) However much the Church suffers from the calumny of others, God can raise up efficient advocates from the midst of His own people. Israel shall not be for ever crushed by the heel of the oppressor, or lashed by the tongue of the slanderer. She shall have power to plead her own cause. The sense of former injustice from her enemies and the knowledge that God is helping her will fill her mouth with eloquence. God opens the mouths of His servants that they may comfort His people, give praise to His name, and make Him known to the nations.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Chapter Fourteen
THE ECLIPSE OF EGYPT
29:1-32:32
In the four chapters devoted to Egypt Ezekiel speaks seven words from the Lord. All but one of these words are given specific dating. Why such a large section devoted to this one heathen power? Because the affairs of tiny Judah were so intertwined with that of the superpowers of the sixth century. Egypt had been very much involved in encouraging Judahs final revolt against Babylon. The main point stressed by Ezekiel and the other Hebrew prophets is that the final destiny of Israel was in the hands of God, not the hands of human monarchs. Furthermore, the prophets dared to preach what was in their day a revolutionary doctrine: even the destiny of the superpowers was determined by God and God was Yahweh! Israel might be little; but Israels God was great to the ends of the earth. Israel appeared to be only a pawn in the hands of political strategists; but Israels God was powerful, and in reality those strategists were but pawns in His hand. Thus the oracles against Egypt and others like them were not merely designed to vent the frustrations and hostilities which Israel felt toward her neighbors. These oracles served to underscore vital points of theology the sovereignty, omniscience and omnipotence of Israels God.
In chapters 2932 ninety-seven verses are devoted to the fall of Egypt, more verses than are contained in I Peter, more than II Timothy and more than are in Pauls letter to the Colossians. With the exception of one paragraph these chapters were written during the years 587585 B.C. The chapters follow a similar pattern: a general threat against Pharaoh under some allegorical designation; amplification of the general threat with regard to the instrument of punishment, the destruction of the country and the disposition of its inhabitants; a description of the effect which the fall of Egypt would have on other nations.
I. THE SINS OF EGYPT 29:116
TRANSLATION
(1) In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, (2) Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt; (3) speak and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lies in the midst of his rivers, that has said, the river is mine, and I myself made it. (4) And I will put hooks in your jaws, and make the fish of your rivers to cling to your scales; and I will bring you up from the midst of your rivers, and all the fish of your rivers will cling to your scales. (5) And I will cast you into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers. Upon the face of the open field you will fall; you will not be gathered nor brought together. To the beasts of the land and the fowl of the heavens I have given you for food. (6) And all the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. (7) When anyone takes hold of you with the hand you broke and tore every shoulder;[438] and when they lean upon you, you broke and made all their loins stand up.[439] (8) Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I bring upon you a sword, and I will cut off from you man and beast. (9) And the land of Egypt shall become a desolation and a waste. Then shall they know that I am the LORD: because he has said, The river is mine, and I made it. (10) Therefore, behold I am against you and against your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from Migdol to Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. (11) No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, and it shall not be in habited forty years. (12) And I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of lands that are desolate. And her cities in the midst of cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years; and I will scatter Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them through the lands. (13) For thus says the Lord GOD: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered. (14) And I will turn the fortunes of Egypt, and will cause them to return to the land of Pathros, to the land of their origin; and they shall be there a lowly people. (15) It shall be the lowliest of all kingdoms, and she shall not lift herself up again over the nations; and I will diminish them so that they shall no more rule over the nations. (16) And it shall never again be the confidence of the house of Israel bringing to remembrance iniquity, when they turned after them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
[438] Some manuscripts read hand
[439] NASB, quake; RSV, shake.
COMMENTS
The first word against Egypt is dated, according to the modern calendar, to January 7, 587 B.C. This was almost exactly a year after the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem began (cf. Eze. 24:1), and seven months earlier than the preceding oracle against Tyre (Eze. 29:1). This oracle emphasizes the pride of Egypt, and the desolation which God would bring on her for her arrogance.
Ezekiel was to set his face against Pharaoh[440] in a gesture of defiance (Eze. 29:2), and announce Gods hostility toward him. Pharaoh is called the great dragon that dwells in the midst of the rivers. The reference is to the crocodile, and to the various branches of the Nile river in northern Egypt. The wealth and in fact the very existence of Egypt depended upon the Nile river. Like the prince of Tyre, Pharaoh regarded himself as more than human. He thought of himself as the creator of all the wealth and prosperity of Egypt. This is undoubtedly what he means when Pharaoh declares that he owns the river, and in fact had created it.
[440] The current Pharaoh was Hophra (Jer. 44:30), fourth king of the twenty-sixth dynasty who reigned 589570 B.C
Pharaoh would fall prey to his enemies. Like a crocodile drug from the river by captors, so Pharaoh would be removed from his domain by his enemies. Along with all his people, allies and mercenaries (fish of the river which stick to your scales; Eze. 29:4). There on dry land the wilderness the crocodile and fish joined to it would die. No one would gather up the carcass of the crocodile for burial. The birds and beasts of prey would devour the remains (Eze. 29:5). In this demise of Pharaoh the Egyptians would recognize a divine judgment (Eze. 29:6 a).
Another metaphor for Egypt is introduced in Eze. 29:6. Egypt had proved itself to be a staff of reed[441] to the house of Israel. In Israels moment of need, when Nebuchadnezzar was literally banging on the gates of Jerusalem, Egypt had failed to send effective aid. This is a clear allusion to the half-hearted assistance which Pharaoh Hophra offered in response to King Zedekiahs appeal for help (cf. Jer. 37:7). The Egyptian foray into Palestine brought only a temporary lull in the siege of the city. This most recent example of the unreliability of Egypt had occurred only six to eight months prior to this oracle, in the summer of 588 B.C. Once again Israel had found to be true through bitter experience what the prophets had emphasized in public exhortation. If one tried to make Egypt his crutch, he was destined for a fall. That crutch would break causing those who were dependent upon it to fall and dislocate their shoulder. They would then have to stand erect (make all their loins to stand erect), and carry their own weight (Eze. 29:7).
[441] Just over a century earlier an Assyrian officer gave Egypt a similar description a bruised reed . . which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it (Isa. 36:6).
Because of Egypts arrogance God would bring a sword upon that land, resulting in the destruction of man and beast (Eze. 29:8). The fertile land of Pharaoh would be left desolate and waste. Then what would become of the boast that he had made about owning and making the Nile! The gods of Egypt having been discredited, knowledgeable people would be forced to acknowledge the sovereignty of Yahweh (Eze. 29:9). God was about to assume an active role as the adversary of Egypt. He would lay waste the land from north to south (Migdol[442] to Syene[443]), even as far as the Ethiopian border (Eze. 29:10).
[442] Migdol (Tower) was a frontier fortress at the northeast border of Egypt (cf. Exo. 14:2; Jer. 44:1),
[443] Modern Aswan near the Ethiopian border.
The extreme desolation of Egypt as a result of the invading army is set forth in Eze. 29:11-12. Even animals would desert the land owing to the lack of pasture (Eze. 29:11). In comparison to other countries ravished by war Egypt would stand out as a most unfortunate land (desolate in the midst of countries that are desolate). Egyptian cities would be laid waste, i.e., in a ruinous condition and unpopulated for forty years. During that time the Egyptians would be scattered among the nations (Eze. 29:12).
The reference to the forty years of Egypts desolation has occasioned lengthy discussion among the commentators. No evidence of mass deportation of Egyptians subsequent to the time of Ezekiel has yet come to light. However, it is known that Nebuchadnezzar made at least two invasions into Egypt. The Jewish historian Josephus tells of an invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar five years after the fall of Jerusalem (582 B.C.). In this invasion the king of Egypt was killed. A fragmentary inscription from the archives of Nebuchadnezzar tells of an invasion of Egypt in the thirty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar (i.e., 568 B.C.). It appears that Nebuchadnezzar was aiming to cripple Egypt so as to prevent Pharaoh from ever again meddling in Syria-Palestine. Since it is known that deportations of captive peoples was a standard procedure employed by great empires of that time, one is certainly on safe ground in assuming that it was the Chaldean king who fulfilled the prediction that God would scatter the Egyptians among the nations.
Keil regards the forty years as a symbolic period the period denoted by God for punishment and penitence. However, it is best to regard the forty years as a definite historical epoch. The forty years of Egypts desolation may be said to fall between 568 B.C. when Nebuchadnezzar invaded the land, and 530 B.C. In the latter year the Persians entered the land. It may have been they who initiated the policy of reconstruction in Egypt even as they encouraged reconstruction in Judaea (Eze. 29:13). However, positive evidence is lacking at this point.
God said through Ezekiel that He would turn the captivity of Egypt. After the forty years Egyptians would return into the land of Pathros, the southern part of the land known as Upper Egypt. This was the land of their origin, i.e., the area in which the Egyptian government first rose to prominence. But the restored Egypt would only be a shadow of the glorious kingdom which once graced the banks of the Nile (Eze. 29:14). No more would Egypt be able to dominate other peoples. Egypt would be inferior to all other nations (Eze. 29:15). No more would Egypt allure Israel into disastrous alliances. Israel would not repeat the great mistake of her past which was trusting in Egypt rather than in God, Israel in that future day would know assuredly that Yahweh is God (Eze. 29:16).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(1) In the tenth year, in the tenth month.This was exactly a year and two days after the investment of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (Eze. 24:1-2; 2Ki. 25:1), and about six months before its fall, or seven before its destruction (2Ki. 25:3-8). It must have been, therefore, after the time when the siege was temporarily raised by the approach of the Egyptians under Pharaoh-Hophra (Jer. 37:5; Jer. 37:11), and when Jeremiah prophesied the failure of that attempt (Jer. 37:6-10); and probably was just when the news of that relief reached Chalda, and gave fresh hope to the exiles of the deliverance of Jerusalem.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt.” ’
This prophesy took place in January 587 BC almost a year after the siege of Jerusalem had begun. It was Egypt that had been partly responsible for Zedekiah’s rebellion, contrary to Yahweh’s specific command (e.g. Jeremaih Eze 27:6-11), and who therefore had to bear part responsibility for it.
The Great Crocodile and The Broken Reed.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The First Oracle Against Egypt ( Eze 29:1-16 ).
In this oracle Egypt is likened to a monster crocodile which Yahweh will hunt and dispose of (2-5), because of Pharaoh’s pretensions (Eze 29:3), and then to a staff on which those who lean will falter (6-7). And then He prophesies the future destruction and weakness of Egypt.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Oracles Against Egypt ( Eze 29:1 to Eze 32:32 ).
This section of the book is composed of seven oracles issued against Egypt. The fact that there are seven is probably deliberate in order to emphasise the divine completeness of the condemnation, for throughout the Near East seven was the number of divine perfection.
Egypt was the great power to the south, as Assyria, Babylon and Persia were successively to the north. Except in very weak times, she had always seen the land of Canaan as hers and under her administration, and had only reluctantly ceded ground when forced to do so for a time by those great powers from the north. Her influence had never been good and she was responsible for much of the idolatry in Israel. This was necessarily so because Pharaoh saw himself as the manifestation of the god Horus, becoming the great Osiris on his death. Thus the destruction of Egypt’s power was necessary if ever Israel was to be free.
This denunciation of Egypt is looking at more than the current situation, although having that in mind. For centuries Egypt had dominated Israel. Again and again she had crushed her and exacted tribute. Now she was to receiver retribution.
Furthermore at this time Egypt was seeking to rally the peoples in and around Canaan, encouraging them to rebel against Babylon with promises of aid. But because of her own comparative weakness this could only lead them into deep trouble. She was not strong enough to lean on. So if His people were to know peace Egypt had to be dealt with, and dealt with thoroughly.
From this time on Egypt would never again rise to be the great power that she had been. And Ezekiel reveals this as being due to the activity of Yahweh.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Eze 29:5 And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.
Eze 29:5
1Sa 17:44, “And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Destruction of Pharaoh’s Power and the Subsequent Restoration of Egypt
v. 1. In the tenth year, v. 2. Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, v. 3. Speak and say, v. 4. But I will put hooks in thy jaws, v. 5. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, v. 6. And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord, v. 7. When they took hold of thee by thy hand, v. 8. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, v. 9. And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste, v. 10. Behold, therefore I am against thee and against thy rivers, v. 11. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years, v. 12. And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, v. 13. Yet thus saith the Lord God, At the end of forty years, v. 14. and I will bring again the captivity and will cause them to return land of Pathros, v. 15. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms, v. 16. And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Eze 29:1
In the tenth year, etc. The precision with which the dates of the several portions of the prophecy against Egypt are given, here and in Eze 29:17; Eze 30:20; Eze 31:1; Eze 32:1, Eze 32:7, shows that each was called forth by the political events of the time, and has to be studied in connection with them. It will be well, therefore, to begin with a Brief survey of the relations which existed at this period between Judah, Egypt, and Babylon. After the great defeat of Pharaoh-Necho by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish, on which Jeremiah (46.) dwells fully, he was succeeded in B.C. 594 by his son Psammetik II. the Psammis of Herodotus 2.160, who invaded Ethiopia, and died in B.C. 588, leaving the throne to his son Uah-prahet, the Pharaoh Hophra of Jer 44:30, the Apries of Herod; 2.161. The Greek historian tells us that he attacked Tyre and Zidon, failed in an enterprise against Cyrene, and was deposed by Amasis. Zedekiah and his counselors, following in the steps of Hezekiah (Isa 30:1-33.) and Jehoiakim (Jer 46:1-28.), had courted his alliance against the Chaldeans. As Ezekiel had prophesied (Eze 17:11-18), they found that they were once more leaning on a broken reed. We have now come to B.C. 589, when Jerusalem was actually besieged, but was still dreaming of being relieved by an Egyptian army.
Eze 29:3
The great dragon. The word is cognate with that used in Gen 1:21 for the great “whales,” monsters of the deep. The “dragon,” probably the crocodile of the Nile (compare the description of “leviathan” in Job 41:1-34.) had come to be the received prophetic symbol of Egypt (Psa 74:13; Isa 27:1; Isa 51:9). The rivers are the Nile-branches of the Delta. My river is mine own. The words probably imply that Hophra, like his grandfather Necho, in his plan of a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, had given much time and labor to irrigation works in Lower Egypt. The boast which rose to his lips reminds us of that of Nebuchadnezzar as he looked on Babylon (Dan 4:30). He, like the kings of Tyre and Babylon, was tempted to a self-apotheosis, and thought of himself as the Creator of his own power. The words of Herodotus, in which he says that Apries believed himself so firmly established in his kingdom that there was no god that could cast him out of it, present a suggestive parallel.
Eze 29:4, Eze 29:5
I will put hooks in thy jaws. So Herodotus (2. 70) describes the way in which the Egyptians caught the crocodile by baiting a large hook with swine‘s flesh. Jomard (‘Description de l‘Egypt,‘ 1.27) gives a similar account (comp. also Job 41:1, Job 41:2, though there the capture seems represented as an almost impossible achievement; probably the process had become more familiar since the date of that book). The fish that stick to the scales of the crocodile are, of course, in the interpretation of the parable, either the Egyptian army itself or the nations that had thrown themselves into alliance with Egypt, and the destruction of the two together in the wilderness points to some great overthrow of the Egyptian army and its auxiliaries, probably to that of the expedition against Cyrene (Herod; 2.161) which led to the revolt of Amasis, and which would take the wilderness west of the Nile on its line of march. The beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven (we note the recurrence of the old Homeric phrase, as in ‘Iliad,’ 1.4, 5) should devour the carcasses of the slain, the corpses of the fallen and prostrate nation.
Eze 29:6
A staff of reed unto the house of Israel. Ezekiel reproduces the familiar image of 2Ki 18:21; Isa 36:6. The proverb had not ceased to be true, though the rulers were different. Here, again, the imagery is strictly local. The reeds were as characteristic of the Nile as the crocodiles (Exo 1:3; Job 40:21). The image of the reed is continued in Isa 36:7, and the effect of trusting to its support is described in detail.
Eze 29:8
Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee. The words are probably addressed to the nation personified rather than to the king. The sentence of doom is now pronounced, no longer figuratively. And the special guilt for which it was inflicted, a guilt which the nation shared with its ruler, is emphatically repeated in Eze 29:9.
Eze 29:10
From the tower of Syene, etc. The Authorized Version is misleading, as Syene was itself on the border of Ethiopia. Better, with the Revised Version margin, from Migdol to Syene, even to the border of Ethiopia. The Migdol (equivalent to “tower”) so named is mentioned in the ‘Itinerarium’ of Antoninus, and was about twelve miles from Pelusium, and thus represented the northern extremity of Egypt; as Syene, identified with the modern Assouan, represented the southern, being the last fortified town in Egypt proper. The expedition of Psammis against Ethiopia, as above, had probably given prominence to the latter fortress. So taken, the phrase corresponded to the familiar “from Dan to Beersheba” of Jdg 20:1, etc.
Eze 29:11
Neither shall it be inhabited forty years. It need hardly be said that history reveals no such period of devastation. Nor, indeed, would anything but the most prosaic literalism justify us in looking for it. We are dealing with the language of a poet-prophet, which is naturally that of hyperbole, and so the “forty years” stand, as, perhaps, elsewhere (Jdg 3:11; Jdg 5:31, etc.), for a period of undefined duration, and the picture of a land on which no man or beast sets foot for that of a time of desolation, and consequent cessation of all the customary traffic along the Nile. Such a period, there is reason to believe, did follow on the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar. It is implied in Eze 29:17-21, which carry us to a date seventeen years later than that of the verse with which we are now dealing; and also in Jer 43:10-12. Josephus (‘Contra Apion,’ 1.20) speaks of Nebuchadnezzar as having invaded Libya. The reign of Amasis, which followed on the deposition of Hophra, was one of general prosperity as regards commerce and culture, but Egypt ceased to be one of the great world-powers after the time of Nebuchadnezzar and fell easily into the hands of the Persians under Cambyses. It is noticeable that Ezekiel does not, like Isaiah (Isa 19:18-25), connect the future of Egypt with any Messianic expectations.
Eze 29:12
I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations. As before, records are silent as to any such dispersion. All that we can say is that such a deportation was uniformly the sequel of the conquests of an Oriental king, as in the ease of the captivities of Samaria (2Ki 17:6) and Jerusalem, and of the nations that were settled in Samaria (2Ki 17:6), and of the Persians by Darius; that if we find reason to believe that Egypt was invaded by Nebuchadnezzar after the destruction of Jerusalem, we may assume, with little risk of doubt, that it was followed by what Ezekiel describes.
Eze 29:13
At the end of forty years. The restoration described may probably be connected with the policy of the Persian kings. There may have been a parallel, as regards Egypt, to the return of the Jewish exiles under Cyrus and his successors, though it has not left its mark on history.
Eze 29:14
Into the land of Pathros. (For the land of their habitation, read, with the Revised Version, the land of their birth.) (For Pathres, see Gen 10:13, Gen 10:14; 1Ch 1:12; Isa 11:1; Jer 44:1.) Its position is somewhat doubtful, but the balance of evidence is in favor of placing it in the Thebaid of Upper Egypt, which Herodotus (2. 4, 15) describes as the original seat of the Egyptian monarchy. Its name may be connected with the Pathyrite name in which Thebes was situated (Pliny, ‘Hist. Nat.,’ Eze 5:9). The LXX. gives the form Pathures, and is followed by the Vulgate, with a slight change, Phathures.
Eze 29:15
It shall be the basest of the kingdoms. The words describe vividly the condition of Egypt under the Persian monarchy, after its conquest by Cambyses. With the Ptolemies it rose again to something like eminence, but that, it must be remembered, was an alien dynasty. The nationality of Egypt was suppressed, and Alexandria, practically a Greek city, took the place of Memphis, Sais, and Thebes.
Eze 29:16
It shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel. Throughout the history of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, as in the ease of Hoshea (2Ki 17:4), Hezekiah (Isa 30:2, Isa 30:3; Isa 36:4, Isa 36:6), and Jehoiakim (2Ki 23:35), their temptation had been to place its “confidence” in the “chariots and horses” of Egypt as an ally. That temptation should not recur again. Egypt should not in that way bring the iniquity of Israel to the remembrance of the Judge, acting, as it were, as a Satan, first tempting and then accusing. There should be no more looking after Egypt instead of Jehovah, as their succor and defense.
Eze 29:17
In the seven and twentieth, etc. The section that follows has the interest of being, as far as the dates recorded enable us to determine, the latest of Ezekiel’s prophecies, and brings us to B.C. 572. It was manifestly inserted at a later date, seventeen years after those which precede and follow it, either by the prophet, as he collected and revised his writings, or by some later editor, as a proof that his earlier predictions had already received, or were on the point of receiving, their fulfillment. The fact that the special word of the Lord came on the first day of the year is not without significance. Then, as now, the beginning of a new year was a time for men generally to look before and after, for a prophet to ask himself what new stage in the order of the Divine government the year was likely to produce.
Eze 29:18
Nebuchadnezzar, etc. The words carry us to the close of the thirteen years’ siege of Tyro referred to in the notes on Eze 28:1-26; and enable us to refer the commencement of that siege to the fourteenth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity, circ. B.C. 586, two years after the destruction of Jerusalem. This agrees with the report of the Tyrian Annals given by Josephus (‘Contra Apion,’ Eze 1:21), who gives the names of the kings of Tyro from Ithobal to Hirom, in the fourteenth year of whose reign Cyrus became King of Persia. Josephus, however, gives the seventh, in. stead of the seventeenth, year of Nebuchadnezzar as the date of the beginning of the siege. Here the point dwelt on is not the success of the siege, but its comparative failure. The labors and sufferings of the besiegers had been immense. Jerome (in loc.) states (not, however, giving his authority) that these labors consisted mainly in the attempt to fill up the strait between the island-city and the mainland with masses of stone and rubbish. These were carried on the heads and shoulders of the troops, and the natural result was that the former lost their hair and the latter their skin, and the whole army was in a miserable plight. And after all, the king had no wages for his labors. The city indeed, was taken, but the inhabitants made their escape by sea, with their chief possessions, and the hopes of spoil were disappointed.
Eze 29:19
Behold I give the land of Egypt, etc. For this disappointment, Ezekiel, writing, so to speak, the postscript which he incorporates with his earlier oracles, promises compensation. Egypt, as he had said seventeen years before, should be conquered, and its cities plundered, and so there should be wages enough for the whole thirteen years of fruitless labor in the siege of Tyre. In that labor, the prophet adds (Verse 20), they, though they knew it not, had been working out the will of the Supreme. They also had been servants of Jehovah, as Jeremiah (Jer 25:9) had described Nebuchadnezzar himself.
Eze 29:21
The horn of the house of Israel. The “horn” is, as always (1Sa 2:1; Psa 92:10; Psa 112:9; Psa 132:17), the symbol of power. Jeremiah’s use of it (Lam 2:3) may well have been present to Ezekiel’s thoughts. That horn had been cut off, but it should begin to sprout again, and the prophet himself should resume his work as the teacher of his people, which had apparently been suspended for many years after the closing vision of the restoration of the temple and of Israel. The words justify the conclusion that Ezekiel resumed his labors after B.C. 572. Was he watching the growth of Saiathiel or Zerubbabel?
HOMILETICS
Eze 29:1-6
The doom of Egypt.
I. AN INSPIRED PREACHER PROPHESIES CONCERNING A GREAT FOREIGN NATION. The Hebrew prophet did not confine his attention to the little strip of territory on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, which we call the Holy Land. He was God’s messenger to the world.
1. The heathen are concerned with God‘s messages. God notices them and has intentions concerning them. Therefore:
2. It is the duty of the Church to make God‘s truth known to the heathen. Ezekiel was not a Jonah; he was not called upon to visit the heathen as a prophet of Jehovah. But his written words might be read by some of the more inquiring Egyptians. It is well to take large views of God’s thoughts, our duties, and the world’s needs.
II. GOD CALLS A MIGHTY EMPIRE TO JUDGMENT. Tyro was greater and more famous than the little Ammonite and Moabite countries; but even Type was small compared with Egyptone of the great world-empires.
1. No people can be above the rule of God. The biggest earthly kingdom is beneath the King of kings. Egypt is compared to one of its monster crocodiles (Verse 3). But it is not the less to be called to account by God.
2. No people can be too strong to be overthrown. Even great Egypt is to fall. The strongest have their weak places. Mighty citadels may be shaken by earthquakes. All man’s grandest works and most imposing institutions are frail, and may be broken up by the rod of the Unseen.
III. THE GREATNESS OF ANTIQUITY IS NO SAFEGUARD AGAINST THE DANGERS OF FUTURITY. After China, Egypt seems to be about the most ancient empire in the world. In the region of its influence and among its neighbors Egypt was venerable with age before any of its rivals had made an appearance on the world’s stage. Its known history goes back to four thousand years before Christ. For tens of centuries this hoary old empire of the Pharaohs held on its course amidst the rising and falling of many ambitious but short-lived neighbors. Yet Egypt was not immortal. Dynasty succeeded dynasty, and Egypt long stood the shock of war and change. But at last her hour of reckoning drew near. Then her long past afforded her no shelter. England cannot live in the future on her past history. The Church of the coming age cannot stand strong and safe on no better foundation than the glory of saints and martyrs in earlier ages.
IV. INTELLECT IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A GOOD CONSCIENCE. Egypt was famous for her learning and her science. Long before the Babylonian and Persian astronomical science arose by the Euphrates, there were schools of literature, philosophy, and physical science on the banks of the Nile. It was a help in the training of Israel’s great deliverer that he was educated in the greatest center of light of his age (Act 7:22). Yet the great intelligence of ancient Egypt did not preserve its sons from gross moral corruption, and no worldly wisdom was able to provide against the descending arm of judgment. Culture will not dispense with the need of conscience. University honors are not passports to heaven. Knowledge and thought will not shield the sinful against the wrath of future judgment.
Eze 29:6, Eze 29:7
A staff of reed.
Egypt is here compared to a staff of reed that had been trusted by Israel and had failed her in the hour of need. Earlier than this the Jews were warned not to trust Egypt because the old empire of the Nile had become weak as one of the reeds that grew by her sacred river. The confidence would be fatal, for the staff would break and pierce the hand of one who leaned upon it (Isa 36:6). It was common for the prophets to warn the Jews against the mistake of going down to Egypt for help (Isa 31:1). Now, however, Egypt is blamed for being so false and treacherous an ally as she proved herself in the time of Judah’s need.
I. WEAKNESS IS CULPABLE. Egypt ought not to have been weak as a Nile reed. In her friendship, at all events, she should have shown more stamina. Moral weakness is certainly blameworthy. There is a great mistake in pleading weakness as an excuse for failure of duty. God never calls upon any one to do more than he is able to accomplish. If, therefore, his strength fails, and he cannot perform his task or face his temptations, the blame lies at his own door. We ought to be strong in soul. We have not even the excuse of Egypta heathen nation that knew not the true God. With inexhaustible fountains of spiritual strength within our reach in the gospel of Christ, it is our own fault if we become as worthless reeds when we should be like strong trees of the Lord.
II. FAILING FRIENDSHIP IS OF THE NATURE OF TREACHERY, We can wrong our friend without lifting a finger to hurt him, if we are found wanting in the time of need. Of all places friendship is the last in which weakness should be discovered. A true friend will make it a point of honor to be at his very best to give expected help, ever- though he be weak and suffer defeat in pursuing his own interests. He is a trustworthy friend of Christ who is weak as a reed when called upon to do any service or make any sacrifice for his Master. It is treason to Christ to be found wanting in the day of duty or danger.
III. THERE IS NO PROTECTION IN THE PLEA OF WEAKNESS. Egypt was not saved on account of her weakness. She found no excuse in her inability to help her allies. She ought to have been able to help them. They who refuse to go into the Lord’s battle because they have not moral strength with which to fight the will not therefore be permitted to shelter themselves in peace and quiet. They may escape the wounds of the field, but they will encounter the ills of an attack at home. No soul can be safe in neglecting duty, shunning peril, or fleeing from the place where Christ would have him stand.
IV. WEAKNESS MAY BE CONQUERED. The reed-like character may be made stout as an oak. God can make the feeble strong. “To them that have no might he increaseth strength” (Isa 40:29). Thus St. Paul could say, “When I am weak, then am I strong” (2Co 12:10). Christ will not break the bruised reed; but he will not leave it bowed and useless. He will strengthen it. The secret of this transformation from weakness to strength is faith. They were the heroes of faith who, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, “out of weakness were made strong” (Heb 11:34).
Eze 29:9
The pride of creation.
In the insanity of his pride, Pharaoh is supposed even to claim the mighty Nile, that great work of nature on which the wealth and even the very life of his people depended, as a creation of his own imperial power. Such a foolish boast illustrates in an extreme form the common mistake of claiming to create what has in fact been received as a gift of God.
I. NOTE THE PREVALENCE OF THE PRIDE OF CREATION. This is seen with many kinds of success.
1. National greatness. The proud nation glories in having built up its own greatness. The mighty monarch regards himself as the maker of his empire.
2. Private fortune. One who has risen from the ranks regards himself as a self-made man. His success he attributes to his own ability and energy; and his ability and energy he regards as springing from himself.
3. Skilful inventions. Man does indeed seem to create with his brain. We say that Homer created the ‘Iliad;’ Phidias, the Elgin Marbles; Watt, the steam-engine; Stephenson, the locomotive. The thought that constituted or shaped these great works of genius was bred in the brains of the men who originated them.
4. Personal character. Men commonly regard themselves as the architects of their own characters. If there is growth in wisdom or strength, the strong temptation is to think that this growth is due to their own thought and effort. But
II. CONSIDER THE FOLLY OF THE PRIDE OF CREATION. This pride springs from a delusion. Certainly it did with Pharaoh. He make the Nile! The Nile made him! Egypt was just the child of the Nile. Her wealth depended on the ministry of the mighty river. Floods gathered from melting snows on distant African mountains far beyond the territory or even the knowledge of the Pharaohs, swelled its waters so that they overflowed their banks and spread fertility on the narrow strips of river-side called Egypt. But this is but an evident instance of what is true in less conspicuous ways. All great things, all new things, all things that exist, come from God. They spring from God, and they depend on him.
1. In nature. God is the Creator and Preserver of nature. He not only made the stone that the sculptor chisels; he made the laws of matter and the fundamental principles of art along which the sculptor must work. National greatness largely depends on geographical and other physical conditions of Divine creation.
2. In providence. God is still in the world, ruling it according to his own thought for his own great purposes. He overrules the government of kings. In private life he helps one on to prosperity, and sends another needful adversity through those turns of events, those conjunctions of circumstances, which the wisest cannot foresee and which the ablest cannot modify.
3. In grace. For the higher good of life spiritual attainments are necessary. Without these attainments Fra. Angelico could not have painted his beautiful angels, Milton could not have written his grand epics, Luther could not have wrought his Titanic revolution. God’s inward grace makes souls and characters good and great.
III. AVOID THE SIN OF THE PRIDE OF CREATION. This pride is positively wicked. It robs God of his rightful honor. It is distinctly ungrateful. Indeed, it is atheistic; and practical atheism of this character is far worse morally than the intellectual atheism that denies the being of God as a proposition in academic discussions. Such a sinful pride destroys a man’s sense of dependence, his remembrance of obligations, his consciousness of responsibility, that admission of his own littleness which is necessary for humility as well as that feeling of God’s greatness and goodness which is at the root of religion.
Eze 29:14-16
The meager restoration of Egypt.
I. GOD HAS MERCY ON THE HEATHEN. Egypt is to be conquered by Nebuchadnezzar; but in course of time the Chaldean yoke shall be broken off its neck and Egypt shall be restored to national existence. There is here a promise somewhat similar to that which the prophets repeatedly gave in God’s name to the Jews. Now, this promise is offered to a heathen people. God is not only the Judge of the heathen; he is also their Savior. He does not deal only in one way with any people. He cannot confine his relations with any to one side of his nature. He must be ever himself, his true and whole self. But the judicial, and that only in condemning to punishment, by no means includes the whole nature of God. God is essentially love. Therefore whenever God is dealing with any of his creatures, since he is always true to his nature and approaches them in the totality of his character, he must come in love, though at first this love may be hidden behind the clouds of wrath and judgment. In the gospel God shows his mercy to the heathen. Christ came because of God’s love for the whole world. It is now the desire of Christ that his gospel should be preached to every creature.
II. THERE ARE IRREPARABLE LOSSES WHICH ARE BROUGHT ABOUT BY SIN. The proud pre-eminence of the empire of the Pharaohs was never recovered. The restored Pharaohs were feeble shadows of their awful predecessors. Cambyses the Persian king asked and received the daughter of one of them, not as a wife, but in the lower rank of a concubine. To the present day Egypt has been a weak and dependent nation. Ezekiel predicts that it shall be the “basest of the kingdoms.”
1. The temporal consequences of sin are unavoidable. Repentance does not bring back the spendthrift’s squandered fortune. A shattered constitution cannot be restored to sound health.
2. Without a return to God the worst consequences of sin must continue. There is a striking difference between the predictions of the glorious restoration of Israel and this prophecy of the meager and uninviting restoration of Egypt. The conditions of the two peoples were very different. Israel humbled herself and returned in faith and devotion to God. Egypt remained a heathen nation, and as far as we know underwent no moral reformation. God was still merciful to her, but she could not reap the full blessings of restoration. We must believe that the heathen will be judged according to their light, and certainly not be punished for being heathen when they have no opportunity of knowing the truth. But the fact remains that while they lie sunken in moral corruption they cannot be also enjoying the heavenly blessedness of the pure in heart.
III. IT IS WELL THAT FALSE GROUNDS OF CONFIDENCE SHOULD BE EXPOSED. In the past the Jews continually hankered after the Egyptian alliance. They will do so no longer. “Egypt shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel”
1. When the nature of false hopes is exposed we are driven to the truth for our refuge. No longer going down to Egypt for help, restored Israel will know that God is the Lord, and learn to trust him better. God wins us by disillusioning us.
2. The ruin of false hopes is a perpetual warning. Egypt is not to be swept to permanent destruction like Tyre, on whose rocks the fishermen are to hang their nets. She is to continue in existence, but no longer as a ruling nation. Thus Israel will have the spectacle of her neighbor’s humiliation perpetually bringing her own iniquity to remembrance. Ruins are a melancholy sight; but they are an instructive one. It is well to study the sadder lessens of history.
Eze 29:17-20
Nebuchadnezzar’s wages.
Nebuchadnezzar was used as God’s servant in the work of destroying Tyre. But he got little profit out of that expedition. Therefore he was to receive his wages in the possession of the fertile and wealthy land of Egypt. This curious rendering of history in the light of Hebrew prophecy and poetry is suggestive.
I. THE GREATEST KING IS BUT GOD‘S HIRELING. Nebuchadnezzar is referred to as a common laborer whose wages must be provided for. The pomp and ceremony of royalty are nothing in the sight of Heaven. Religion, like death, is a great leveler.
II. GOD MAKES USE OF SELF–SEEKING MEN. Nebuchadnezzar was called upon to work out Divine decrees. But it was not pretended that he did this of set purpose or with any disinterested motives. His aims and ends were selfish, his views and ideas dark and heathenish. Yet he was a useful instrument of Providence. Thus the greatest selfishness may be converted into a means of doing God’s will.
III. GOD IS A JUST MASTER WHO PAYS GOOD WAGES. NO man shall lose by entering his service. At first there may be no advantage, and the service is found to be disappointing. Tyre does not pay. Then Egypt must be thrown in. The beginning of the service seems to be unprofitable; the end of it will certainly be amply rewarded. The laborer is not paid hour by hour. He must wait for his wages. God’s laborers often seem to be kept long waiting. But they will surely see their payday, and then receive their dues with interest.
IV. HE DEGRADES HIMSELF WHO SERVES FOR NOTHING BETTER THAN WAGES. The servant needs, earns, and has a right to expect and enjoy, his wages. But he has a gross and selfish mind if he has no other interest in his work than the prospect of making a living out of it. Every man’s work should be valued by him on its own account as a contribution to the good of society. Especially is this true of spiritual work. In that there is a prospect of rewards for which even Christ looked forward (Heb 12:2). Therefore it is not wrong to expect rewards; every lawful stimulus that can be had is needed to encourage cur service. But he is no true Christian who only serves his Lord for the sake of what he can get. Nebuchadnezzar the heathen, not Paul the Christian, is his model.
V. THE HIGHEST SERVICE IS DISINTERESTED. Nebuchadnezzar, king as he was, had degraded himself to the level of a common hireling in the sight of Heaven by carrying out his great expeditions in a mean and mercenary spirit. But the lowliest Christians rise to the rank of “kings and priests” (Rev 1:6) when they give the royal service that seeks for no selfishness. This condition does not contradict that previously mentioned, in which a reward is expected. All depends on its quality. It is the working for self-seeking ends that degrades Christian work. Christ’s reward was unselfishto “see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.” The true Christian should learn to say
“And I will ask for no reward,
Except to serve thee still.”
Eze 29:21
The budding horn.
We are not to think of a full-grown horn putting forth buds, like Aaron’s rodin this case a useless monstrosity of growth. The idea is that of a young horn first appearing as in a bud and then growing. A horn is to bud and grow on the house of Israel.
I. THE PROMISE.
1. In the nature of the horn. This signifies three things.
(1) Strength. The horn is a symbol of strength. God promises an end of weakness, a time of power and energy.
(2) Defense. The horn is a weapon, and by means of it its possessor wards off attack. The people of God have been harassed and oppressed. But this time of helplessness is to be succeeded by one of security.
(3) Glory. The horn is an ornament. The stag’s antler is the animal’s pride and beauty. Women wore horns as part of their head-attire. The exalted horn (Psa 112:9) stands for the raising up of honor and dignity.
2. In the growth of the horn. It buds:
(1) With a small beginning. The budding horn is at first only discovered as a slight swelling on the head of the animal from which it grows. The best things begin in a small waythe obscure spring of the great river, the grain of mustard seed, the little child, the Christian experience.
(2) With continuous advance. The horn buds, pushes forward, develops into maturity. The best things are living and growing. They cannot remain in a stationary condition. The type to be followed is not the fossil horn in the museum, but the budding horn on the living head. All things of worth have a future towards which they press onward.
II. THE FULFILMENT.
1. In Israel. A horn budded on the head of the restored Israel. From the doleful captivity by the waters of Babylon the Jews returned to their own land. At first they were but a small and feeble folklike the first appearance of the horn. But the horn was present in the bud. Israel was alive and growing, and she had yet a great destiny before her.
2. In Christ. Christ appeared like a horn growing out of Israel. He came as
(1) the strength,
(2) the defense, and
(3) the glory of Israel.
He was born an infant in a lowly condition. Elsewhere he is compared to a sprout from the stem of Jesse (Isa 11:1). Christ was a Jew, and he grew up quietly in the Jewish nation. His beginning was humble; but his complete life is beyond all description in its greatness and glory. All the hope of the future is with him.
3. In the Church. Christ lives in his people. He is born again in his Church, and he grows again in the growth of this his new, mystical body. Thus on the weary, faded world there is seen to grow a new and surprising life. The Christian Church came in strength and promise as a horn of salvation to the old world. It is still a growing horn. All Christians may enjoy its great advantages, and all men may be Christians. Thus there is for all the threefold promise of the budding hornits strength, its defense, and its glory. No man enjoys these privileges to the full at first. The horn appears as a bud. The Christian life begins in lowly spheres. But it grows like Israel’s horn.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
Eze 29:3
Boastful self-confidence.
The prophet, interdicted from prophesying concerning his own nation, directs his regard to one and another of the neighboring states, with all of which the Jews were in some way connected. With Egypt, Israel had from the earliest period of its history been related and associated. During the epoch of the Captivity, the attention of those Jews who were left in Jerusalem and in Judah was turned towards Egypt, from which source they thought they might obtain assistance against the power of Babylon. The prophets who lived and prophesied about this period had occasion again and again to warn their countrymen against alliance with Egypt, against looking to Egypt for help and deliverance. They regarded Babylon as fulfilling with respect to the Jewish people the decrees of Jehovah himself, and counseled submission and a willingness to learn the Divine lessons of calamity and of exile. It was this just view of the position of their countrymen which led Ezekiel and others to warn the Jews against seeking the aid of Egypt. But the offence of Egypt, on account of which the prophet in the passage denounces the indignation of the Divine Ruler, was the sin of pride and haughty self-confidence.
I. EGYPT‘S GROUNDS FOR SELF–CONFIDENCE. There was very much in the position, the strength, and the history of Egypt which seemed to men to justify the nation’s pride and assumption of superiority.
1. The river Nile is alluded to by Ezekiel in this passagea river in some respects the most marvelous in the world. The mystery of its source, the remarkable rise and fall of the stream, occasioning the extraordinary fertility of the soil, the stately temples and the lordly cities upon its banks, the harbor and port at its entrance into the Mediterranean,all invested the Nile with a peculiar interest. In fact, as has often been said, it is the Nile which made Egypt what it wasthe birthplace of civilization and the granary of nations.
2. Hence the wonderful fruitfulness of the laud, and the wealth of every kind which in its ages of prosperity Egypt enjoyed by reason of its teeming products, by which not only were its own inhabitants supplied, but distant peoples were fed. The territory was narrow, hemmed in by the desert on either side, yet abounding in most of the necessaries and luxuries of life.
3. The antiquity and fame of Egypt were unparalleled. A great nation before the other famous monarchies and empires of the ancient world came into being, a nation renowned wherever civilization existed, Egypt was prone to count herself the mother of nations, and to look upon all others as parvenus. A genealogy lost in remote antiquity not unnaturally inspired much pride and self-confidence, much haughty contempt for those who had their position still to make among the nations.
4. Add to all this the consciousness of great military power. The armies, and especially the cavalry and the war-chariots of Egypt, were such as to render her both formidable as a foe and desirable as an ally. These several circumstances account for the conviction cherished by the Egyptians that they were of all nations the greatest, and the least exposed to calamity and disaster.
II. THE WICKEDNESS OF EGYPT‘S SELF–CONFIDENCE.
1. This appears from the fact that Egypt assumed the prerogative of the Creator himself. “The river is mine!” was the proud boast of Pharaoh, who herein proved himself to have lost sight of the dependence and feebleness which are attributes of humanity. God’s river, given for their use, was by the arrogant Egyptians claimed as their own.
2. Egypt failed to recognize its dependence for material and social advantages upon the superhuman Source and Giver of all good. God was not in all their ways.
3. On the contrary, the people of Egypt took credit to themselves for national greatness and prosperity. It is, indeed, a sin common among the mighty, the wealthy, the flattered; who are too much given to assume first that they deserve credit for the powers of body and of mind with which they are endowed; and then, secondly, that all the results of the exercise of those powers are due to themselves. But nothing is clearer than that our humanity is bound both to gratitude and to humility. The appeal may well be addressed to every individual and to every nation, “Who made thee to differ? What hast thou that thou didst not receive?”
III. THE PUNISHMENT OF EGYPT‘S SELF–CONFIDENCE. Such a temper of mind, such language, and such confidence as the prophet here describes, could not be allowed to pass unchecked, unrebuked. The Egyptians were preparing humiliation for themselves; for if there is one scriptural principle more than another enforced by the lessons of history, it is this: “He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart; he hath put down princes from their thrones.” The facts recorded agree with the predictions of the inspired prophet. Egypt was speedily
(1) subdued by her Babylonian the;
(2) humiliated by defeat; and
(3) enfeebled in her military power, crippled, and rendered impotent.T.
Eze 29:3-5
Mightier than the mighty.
It is ever the vocation of the prophet, and indeed of every religious teacher, to counteract the superficial views and to expose the worldly standards which too often obtain among men. In the time of Ezekiel there were certain States of great wealth, power, and renown, which men were wont to regard with feelings of reverence amounting to superstition. One office which he was called upon to discharge was to shake the confidence of men in the great secular world-powers which seemed capable of enduring for ever, and of defying the assaults of human arms and even the decaying power of time itself. In this passage the prophet concedes the greatness of Egypt, and yet affirms the superiority and supremacy of Jehovah, the God of nations.
I. THE POWER OF A MIGHTY STATE REPRESENTED UNDER AS IMPRESSIVE SIMILITUDE. By the dragon we are to understand the crocodile, the powerful and monstrous creature which haunts the river Nile, and which is the terror of the population. An appropriate emblem of Egypt in its ancient, settled, and formidable strength.
II. THE REPUTATION OF THAT STATE AS INVULNERABLE AND IRRESISTIBLE. As the giant crocodile seems to make the river its own, lording it over all beside, devouring the fish, terrifying the dwellers upon the river’s banks, so Pharaoh King of Egypt, in his haughty self-confidence and defiant fearlessness, regarded himself as the great potentate of the world, secure from all molestation, able to carry out all his schemes of aggrandizement, ready to meet in battle, and certain to overcome, the forces of any nation that might be foolhardy enough to challenge his supremacy. As “the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers,” so the power of Egypt dwelt secure and proud, claiming dominion, and dreading no disturbance from any foreign rival or foe.
III. THE ALMIGHTY GOD CONTROLS AND VANQUISHES THE POWER OF THE MIGHTIEST or NATIONS AND OF KINGS. The language attributed to Jehovah, who is represented as addressing Pharaoh, is very graphic: “I will put hooks in thy jaws and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers.” God uses his own agents, but he always accomplishes his own purposes. He saw the need of humbling Egypt’s pride, and he employed Babylon to do this work. It was done, and done effectively. The arms of Nebuchadnezzar were turned against Egypt, and God gave the land of Egypt to the King of Babylon, as a spoil and prey, and as his hire and wages for the service he had rendered in the siege and destruction of Tyre.
IV. THE MIGHTY OF THIS WORLD, WHEN DEALT WITH BY THE MIGHTIEST, IS LEFT DEFENSELESS, HUMILIATED, AND ASHAMED. The picture here, in the fourth and fifth verses, painted by the prophet, is painful, but it is effective. The mighty, monster of the Nile is dragged by hook and line from the depths of the river it has been wont to call its own, is flung into the wilderness, and is “given for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.” Egypt, and all her dependents who trusted in her and boasted of her patronage, are brought low, their helplessness is made apparent; and those who but lately were an object of envy and of fear are now regarded with pity or with derision.T.
Eze 29:6, Eze 29:7
The staff of reed.
The figure is a very striking and effective one, however it may have been distasteful to the house of Israel, and even more so to the vaunted prowess of Egypt.
I. THE SINFUL AND FOOLISH TRUST OF ISRAEL IN EGYPT. The circumstances in which Judah was placed at the time were such as to make it madness on the part of the remnant at Jerusalem to seek help from Egypt. Not only so; they were strictly forbidden upon Divine authority to act in this manner. In quietness and confidence lay their safety, in returning and rest, as Isaiah most powerfully and urgently represented to the people;not in the horsemen and the chariots of Egypt.
II. THE HELPLESSNESS OF EGYPT AS A FRIEND AND DELIVERER. Why Egypt was at this time so powerless to help those who sought her alliance may not be perfectly clear to us; but the fact is so, and of this the events are sufficient evidence. It was a vain confidence which the Jews placed in the great and ancient world-power on the banks of the Nile. They thought they grasped a staff strong and trustworthy, and they found it “a staff of reed.”
III. THE INJURY INFLICTED UPON ISRAEL BY THE FAILURE OF EGYPT‘S AID. Not only did the helper prove helpless; not only did the staff, when leant upon, bend and break. Those who applied for help received hurt instead of aid; the reed broke and pierced the hand that grasped it and trusted in its support. Jerusalem was all the worse for turning to Egypt for assistance against Babylon, the victorious and, just then, irresistible power.
IV. THE COMMON CONFUSION OF THOSE WHO FOOLISHLY TRUSTED AND OF THOSE WHO PLACED CONFIDENCE IN THEM. Babylon rose; but Egypt and Judah fell. “All their loins shook;” i.e. the consequences of their policy were trouble, fear, and misery to both. Both incurred the hostility of the power which they in vain leagued with each other to resist.
V. THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS LESSON OF THE INCIDENT AND EXPERIENCE HERE DESCRIBED. There is a proneness among all nations to be guided in their alliances, aims, and efforts by considerations of worldly policy and expediency. Too seldom do they ask themselvesWhat is right? What is in accordance with the eternal Reason and Righteousness which rule the world? What, in a word, is the course which God approves and enjoins? The proceedings undertaken at the instigation of worldly expediency, and in violation of Divine law, may meet with apparent and temporary success. But the Lord reigneth; and sooner or later action which he disapproves shall issue in disappointment and disaster.T.
Eze 29:8-12
The humiliation of Egypt’s pride.
It certainly gives a reader a somewhat dark and gloomy view of the state of the world in the time of Ezekiel, to read, as we have to do in his prophecies, one almost uninterrupted series of reproaches and condemnations. The prophet spares no man and no nation; and his writings are a monument to human iniquity, and especially to the faults and errors of the nations that flourished and fell in pre-Christian antiquity. In this passage he foretells the approaching humiliation of Egypt.
I. THE GROUNDS OF THIS HUMILIATION. It is a law of eternal justice that they who exalt themselves shall be made low and brought to the ground. The faults with which Egypt, as a state, are particularly charged are the faults of self-confidence, pride, and boastingsins peculiarly offensive to the Most High, who will be acknowledged as God alone, and who will not give his honor to another.
II. THE POWER AND CAUSE OF THIS HUMILIATION. We are taught by the prophetand the lesson is in harmony with the teaching of Scripture generallyto attribute this to the Eternal King and Judge, who is supreme over all nations. His sway is sometimes questioned and disputed, and is too often forgotten and practically repudiated. But behind and above all human powers there is a Power supreme and universal, not cognizable by sense, but discerned by the reason and the conscience. To this the working of moral law in the affairs of individual men and of nations is to be referred; to leave this out of sight is to leave much that we meet with in history and experience obscure and perplexing.
III. THE INSTRUMENT OF THIS HUMILIATION. The sword that was to cut off man and beast out of the land of Egypt, that was to lay waste and desolate the cities, was the sword of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, himself a heathen, doubtless stained with the errors and crimes of heathenism, yet employed as a suitable agent in the chastisement of many rebellious peoples. It is remarkable that the same power should be employed to chasten Israel, Israel’s allies, and Israel’s foes!
IV. THE CHARACTER OF THIS HUMILIATION. The armies of Egypt were defeated; the land was laid waste; the cities were dismantled; and the Egyptians themselves were scattered and dispersed among the nations. Scarcely an element of disgrace was omitted; the chastisement was complete.
V. THE EXTENT AND DURATION OF THIS HUMILIATION. It was to affect the whole land, from the mouth of the Nile to the southernmost boundary. And it was to last for the space of forty yearsa limit of time which is not, perhaps, to be taken literally, but, as is usual in Hebrew writings, as representing a long period.
VI. THE LESSONS OF THIS HUMILIATION.
1. It was a rebuke to haughty self-confidence.
2. It was a summons to penitence and contrition on account of sin.
3. It was an inducement to submission.
4. It was a clear voice from heaven, calling the nations to put their trust, not in an arm of flesh, but in the living God. “Some put their trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the Name of the Lord, our God”T.
Eze 29:13-16
Light out of darkness,
The case of Egypt was very different from that of Tyre. For inscrutable reasons, Tyre was destined to destruction, and Egypt to recovery and revival. The destruction of one city occupying a rock upon the seashore was the extinction of Tyre. Egypt was a vast territory, peopled by a widespread and prolific race; it might be humiliated, but could not easily be politically annihilated. The fortunes of the land of the Pharaohs were gloomy in the immediate future; but the remoter prospect was not without relief and even brightness.
I. THE PROMISED RECOVERY AND RESTORATION. The prophet was instructed to foretell, first Egypt’s defeat, dispersion, and captivity, and then Egypt’s restoration to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin. We are not told, and we do not know how large was the section of the army or of the inhabitants of the country affected by these predictions. The fact only concerns us, and we recognize that in the midst of judgment the Lord remembered mercy, that banishment was not perpetual, and that the national, life was appointed for revival.
II. THE QUALIFICATION AND TEMPERING OF THE BOON THUS GRACIOUSLY VOUCHSAFED. Lest Egypt should be again puffed up, the prophet was directed to utter an assurance that the nation, though spared utter humiliation and extinction, should nevertheless never resume its former greatness. Two points are expressly mentioned.
1. The restored Egypt should be “a base kingdom.” It should not take the rank among the nations which it had been entitled to hold aforetime. Its power should be crippled, and its splendor should be dimmed.
2. It should no more bear rule over other nations. Such had in former times been subject to its authority, as dependents, subjects, and tributaries. Egypt’s might should no longer avail to reduce surrounding peoples to subjection.
III. THE MORAL AND POLITICAL LESSONS OF THE PROVIDENTIAL ACTION OF GOD TOWARDS EGYPT. These also are very explicitly stated by Ezekiel.
1. Israel should no more look to Egypt for aid, as, in defiance of express warnings from Jehovah, she had been wont to do in times past.
2. Both Israel and Egypt should know that the Lord is God. This was a truth with which Israel was speculatively well acquainted, but which Israel was too ready to forget. Egypt had not enjoyed the same opportunity of learning the wisdom, the authority, the compassion, of Jehovah. Yet lessons may be learnt in adversity which prosperity cannot teach. Egypt was taught by stern discipline; but some impression was doubtless made. It was not for Israel’s sake alone that Egypt’s calamities were permitted; but that the smitten nation might bow beneath the rod, and acknowledge the justice of the King of men.T.
Eze 29:17-20
The King of kings.
By the very remarkable events here foretold, viewed in the light of the very remarkable interpretation which Ezekiel was inspired to add, we are taught some lessons of wider application and deeper interest than those which appear upon the surface of the prophet’s writings.
I. GOD IS OVER ALL.
(1) The hearts of kings,
(2) the power of armies, and
(3) the fortunes of nations, are in his hand.
II. GOD USES ALL.
1. He has and directs his own instruments of work, kings and nations being at his service.
2. He has his own resources from which to provide wages and rewards for those whom he employs as his ministers of righteousness and retribution.
III. GOD IS GLORIFIED IN ALL.
1. In the submission of the rebellious.
2. In the chastisement of the proud.
3. In the recovery of the erring but penitent.T.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES
Eze 29:1-12
The world-power doomed.
The work of the prophet is clear and definite, He does not declare his own speculations, nor the conclusions of his own judgment. He can specify the day and the hour in which God makes known to him his supreme will. Nor is the work so pleasant to the flesh as to induce men to adopt it of their own accord. The true prophet has to set himself against wickedness everywhere, of every sort and kind. He has to forego all human friendships, if he will publish God’s Word.
I. THE WORLDLY KING IS SELF–DEGRADED. He is likened here to a crocodile. This is a fitting emblem for the King of Egypt. As the crocodile flourishes in the rivers of tropical lands, so the prosperity of Egypt depended wholly on the Nile. Without the Nile, Egypt would be a desert. So, instead of rising to the dignity of a true king, a representative of God, he sank into a condition of self-indulgence, i.e. to the level of an animal. To grovel in the mire, to find satisfaction in earthly possessions, to gratify the lower nature,this was the supreme aim of Pharaoh. This is animalism; this is self-degradation.
II. THE WORLDLY KING IS VAINGLORIOUS. “My river is mine own: I have made it for myself.” Self-degradation leads to ignorance, ignorance to pride, pride to empty boastfulness. A man must divest himself of his intelligence and his reason before he can say, “I have made this river for myself.” This is an abuse of intellect, a prostitution of conscience. Not even a crocodile has said this. To depart from God is to wander into darkness, folly, madness. Such a state of mind is practical atheism. It is a direct challenge to God to display his judicial might and to vindicate his rule. Such a vain-glorious temper of mind is profane, insolent, little short of the Satanic mind.
III. THE WORLDLY KING IS A DANGEROUS ALLY. “They have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.” As a man maimed or invalided rests his weight, when walking, upon some mechanical support, and suffers grievous injury if his support breaks, so was it when Israel foolishly leant upon Egypt for support. The prospect of succor was specious and plausible. Egypt promised friendly aid, but when the hour of trial came the support collapsed, and both Israel and Egypt were injured. It is perilous to trust in any godless power. We are often decoyed into a fatal ambush by appearances. Friendship, if not a real advantage, is a bane. It is an injury to us personally, if the one on whom we trusted fails; it is a hundredfold more injurious to an empire. Test your allies before you trust them.
IV. THE WORLDLY KING IS EASILY VULNERABLE. Carnal security is weakness incarnate. It is a rampart of cobwebs. The King of Egypt trusted wholly in his river with its seven branches; yet nothing was easier than for God to dry up the sources of that stream, and leave the crocodile on the dry land, with dead fish sticking to his scales. This is a graphic picture of defeat, a sudden collapse of brag. The river having failed, the prophecy would speedily be verified, “I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.” Achilles was said to have been vulnerable only in the heel, but every world-power is vulnerable in a thousand points. God’s favor is the only known shield that is impregnable.
V. THE DEFEAT OF THE WORLD–POWER WILL BE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF GOD‘S KINGDOM. “All the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord.” This is a difficult lesson for men to learn, and the task is long. Yet God is not impatient. He calmly waits his time. Slowly, yet surely, the foundations of his empire are being laid. The idols of Egypt have been completely overthrown, and gradually God is being acknowledged. “He must reign.” It is a grand necessity.D.
Eze 29:8-16
God’s frown, a chill of death.
Men have very erroneous ideas of God when they think lightly of making him their foe. They have a vague idea that he is as impotent as one of their idols. Did they but know the magnitude of his power, and his complete supremacy over human affairs, they would feel that his frown was blackest death. The fruits of God’s hostility are
I. DISASTROUS WAR. “I will bring a sword upon thee.” It would not be true to say that God takes part in every war. In many cases both combatants are to blame, and God cannot take sides with either. But, in every case in which one of the combatants is impelled to fight for an unrighteous cause, clearly God will aid the other side. Not always then. For although a combatant may have a righteous cause to defend, he may defend it in a vindictive spirit and with unhallowed weapons. It is well to note that God does fight with his trusty servants against evildoers. He does employ the sword of men in his cause; and when he is behind the sword, “it will cut off man and beast.”
II. WIDESPREAD DESOLATION. “The land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste.” Nothing is easier with God than to make waste the land of Egypt. He has but to diminish the water-supply of the Nile, and the territory becomes a desert. To him it must be a grievous pain to make the fair face of nature desolate. He who delights in beauty, and caused the “sons of God to sing for joy” when earth was first robed in leafy vesture, must be pained when the verdure of forests and cornfields is blasted. Yet his desire for human good, and for the development of righteousness in the earth, is stronger far. This gives him a deeper joy; and, in order to promote moral loveliness, it is sometimes worth while to sacrifice the fair face of nature.
III. EQUITABLE REPRISALS. “Because he hath said, The river is mine therefore I am against thy rivers.” This is language which men everywhere can understand. This is argument which leaves deep impression in the human breast. If men despise and treat with contempt God’s messages sent in the form of human speech, God will speak to them in language they will not contemn. The strict equity of God’s dealings has often been written in largest capitals. The prohibited thing has become a scourge. The quails lusted after became disease in the intestines. The Nile, worshipped as a god, was changed into blood. God is never in haste to vindicate his rights, because at any moment he can cast a bombshell of alarm in his enemies’ camp. If men must needs trifle, let them trifle with Satannever with God.
IV. ANOTHER FRUIT OF GOD‘S DISPLEASURE IS TEMPORARY DISPERSION. “I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations I will bring again the captivity of Egypt.” Compulsory banishment is a serious disgrace, a heavy calamity. The poor, no less than the rich, have tender attachment to their homes. The tendrils of strong affection twine round the cottage in which one is born. To be compelled to turn away from the familiar scenesto be compelled by a foreign conqueroris galling to every sentiment, is like a fire in one’s bones. Such enforced separation means loss, hardship, uncertainty, dishonor. Defeat in war is affliction sore enough; banishment is tenfold worse. How insane on the part of men to provoke God into such necessity of chastisement!
V. ANOTHER EFFECT OF GOD‘S ANGER IS, PERPETUAL DEGRADATION. “It shall be the basest of the kingdoms, neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations.” To have a friend who is cultured and refined is to have an elevating power at our side, lifting us up to a better life. God is wise; and to have God as a Friend is to gain wisdom steadily. God is pure; and to have God’s friendship is to become pure also. God is love; and he who is much in God’s society becomes lovely and loving. All good flows from God as its Fount; and to cut off one’s self willfully from that fount is to sink into ignorance and misery. The friends of God must rise; the foes of God must deteriorate. Today this prophecy is signally fulfilled. For centuries past Egypt has been the tool and the slave of other empires. She has been ground to the dust by the oppressor, nor is there at present any prospect that she will rise again. The word of the Lord by Ezekiel, although then improbable, has been performed.D.
Eze 29:17-20
A New Year’s gift to a king.
There is a common proverb, that “he who gives quickly gives double.” But this is not always true. A deferred gift is sometimes the best gift. God may to us seem to forget, but it is only seeming. The memory never fails, nor yet his good will.
I. ROUGH WAR IS SOMETIMES SERVICE DONE FOR GOD. “They wrought for me, saith the Lord God.” Men of delicate sensibility cannot understand how God can allow the rough business of war to serve his cause. Nevertheless, he does. If a warrior-king is actuated by a desire to vindicate righteousness or to redress a wrong, he is fighting in the cause of Jehovah. Probably his motives and ambitions may be of a mixed and conglomerate character. Love of self may be commingled with love of justice; yet so far as a righteous purpose appears, he may expect the benediction of God. If our Lord Jehovah did not bless human endeavor until it was free from every admixture of selfishness, he would never bless at all. Abundant generosity marks all his action. By so doing he encourages youngest efforts in the right direction.
II. IN WAR, GOD IS THE SUPREME ARBITER. Possibly Nebuchadnezzar did not know Jehovahdid not know that he was rendering a service to the God of heaven. This happens sometimes. Isaiah was commissioned by God to say to Cyrus, “I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.” Ignorance, if not preventible, is excusable. Ignorance that is willful is a crime. God does not always take sides in war. Very often both sides are actuated simply by malice or some equally base passion. Temporary success in war cannot, therefore, be accepted as the approval of Jehovah. The devil does, now and again, obtain a transient triumphat least a seeming triumph. But, on the whole, God acts as Arbiter, and often quickly reverses the effect of a visible conquest. In every battle he sees much to condemn, sometimes much to approve.
III. GOD IS THE UNDISPUTED DISPOSER OF EMPIRES. Without question, he gave the empires of Canaan to the seed of Abraham. He gave the territory of North America to the British. He gave Egypt for a time to the kings of Persia. “He setteth up one, and putteth down another.” As he claims supreme control over individual persons, so he does also over empires, large and small. “The earth is the Lord’s.” He alone may rule with a high hand, and give to men no account of his doings.
IV. HIS REWARDS, THOUGH SEEMINGLY DELAYED, ARE TIMELY AND GENEROUS. In this passage God does not stint his praise to Nebuchadnezzar. He generously styles it “a great service.” He has noted carefully all the hard toil which his army endured. Not an item of hardship or fidelity is overlooked. Every tear of the widow, every sorrow of the orphan, was lodged in his memory. To have rewarded the king immediately might have been to do him injury. It might have unduly elated him. It might have fed his pride. It might have fostered an ambition for further conquests. Ambition of this sort is a terrible passion in man, and needs to be held in with a strong curb. But when danger of abusing the reward is past, God will give it, and give it in an ample measure. To possess Egypt was wealth, honor, fame. It was to gain a notable place in the history of the world. Be quite sure that when God rewards a man it will be with generosity more than royalgenerosity not to be measured. Having done good service, we can afford to wait.D.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Eze 29:1-6
Egypt: a guilty vaunt.
Notwithstanding that Judah was now looking to Egypt for deliverance, Ezekiel uttered his strong and unqualified condemnation of that idolatrous power. The Hebrew prophet was always entirely unaffected by considerations of worldly policy. What is here energetically rebuked is the sinful pride of that self-sufficient people. “My river is my own. I have made it for myself,” said the Egyptian “crocodile.” Whether that tone be taken by Pharaoh or by the country over which he ruled, by the minister or the Church, by the individual or the community, anywhere and at any time, it is
I. A PIECE OF FOLLY. In a purely political sense a country does belong to its inhabitants, and they have made it what it is. But in no other sense. That noble river Nile, the strength and the glory of the land, flowed in its channels and enriched the soil, not because Pharaoh or because Egypt had done anything remarkable, but because he who “sendeth forth the springs into the valleys” and “watereth the hills from his chambers” made the streams to run from the mountain-sides and to meet and flow in the great river-bed. Heaven sent the rains and the showers which fed the river which fertilized the laud. And if we will but go back far enough and trace our treasures and our joys to their ultimate source, we shall see and we shall feel the folly of appropriating to ourselves the wealth, the knowledge, the spiritual capacity, the material or moral resources, which proceed from God himself. From him they come and to him they belong. To say, “My river is my own, is to speak with falsehood on our tongue; such language is the utterance of foolish thoughtlessness.
II. As ACT OF SIN. Iris positively wrong; for is it not “robbing God?” When we speak in this strain, because we think and feel in this habit of mind, we assume to ourselves that which we should be freely and continually offering to our Creater. We are denying to him that which is his due. We are showing ourselves to him as the irreverent, ungrateful, undutiful subjects and recipients that we are. Thus that which is foolish and false is also that which is guilty; it is accumulating Divine displeasure. It is taking up a position in which God, just because he loves us and. wishes our true and lasting welfare, is compelled, to say to us, “I am against yea”(Verse 3).
III. THE WAY TO DISILLUSION AND HUMILIATION. For the interpretation or application of the solemn threatenings here pronounced (Verses 4-6), see Exposition. But however we explain the prophet’s words, it is clear that Egypt was awakened from its dream of absolute authorship and ownership, and that it had to stand down from its proud position of protector, and wear, for some time and in some degree, the yoke of subjection. Pride preceded a fall beneath those skies as beneath the heavens everywhere. Everywhere, to the proud country, to the pretentious power in Church or state, to the arrogant individual, there is sure to come the hour when the fond dream of lasting superiority is dispelled, when the pedestal on which it (he) stood is broken, when the homage once rendered it turns to defiance, and. the honor it once enjoyed is lost in shame. How excellent, on the other hand, is that humility which leads ever upwards and ends in immortal glory!C.
Eze 29:16
The confidence which is condemned.
To whatever straits and to whatever desolation Egypt was actually reducedthat is a question to be decided by our principle of interpretation and by our knowledge of historyit is clear that it was to be brought so low that it would be incompetent to play the part of deliverer to Israel or Judah, as it had done before (see Eze 17:15-17). It would never again be “the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing iniquity to remembrance” (Revised Version). For that misplaced hope in Egypt was iniquity in the sight of God (see Isa 30:2, Isa 30:3; Isa 31:1; Isa 36:4, Isa 36:6). It was a sinful failure to trust in its one true Refuge, and it was a blind and sensuous confidence in mere numbers and military prowess. The “iniquity” to which Egypt would never again tempt the people of God, or even bring to their remembrance, was, as we thus see, an unwarrantable and God-forgetting trust. We askWhere do our temptations to this same folly lie, and how are they to be shunned or to be defeated?
I. WHERE OUR TEMPTATIONS LIE. We are continually invited to look for our resources or for our refuge in other beings than in God, in other things than in his Word and in his service.
1. In man; in the human counsel which proves to be short-sighted and shallow folly, and not the profound wisdom which it purported to be (see Jer 17:5).
2. In money; in that which commands many valuable things (Ecc 10:19), but which conspicuously fails in the hour of darkest trouble and deepest need, which cannot enlighten the mind, or cleanse the conscience, or heal the heart, or amend the life: it is ill indeed to “trust in uncertain riches” (1Ti 6:17).
3. In numbers; it is very common delusion that we are right and safe if we have a great majority on our side. But what are all the hosts that man can gather when God is “against” us (Eze 29:3)? How often in human history have great numbers proved to be utterly vain, and to have done nothing but stamp and signalize defeat?
4. In our own intelligence. The proud of heart say within themselves, “We shall discern the danger, we shall distinguish between the faithful and the false, we shall be able to defeat the enemy and to secure ourselves; others may have failed, but our sagacity will suffice.” But they go on their way of false confidence, and they are rudely awakened from their dream (see Pro 3:5; Jer 9:23, Jer 9:24). All these false trusts are temptations to us. For they
(1) lead us away from the one true source of strength and safety; and they
(2) conduct us to defeat and to disaster. The hour comes when we recognize our folly, and see that we must suffer seriously for our fault.
II. How WHEY ARE TO BE MET AND MASTERED.
1. Not by attempting to avoid them altogether. Those who have sought to shun all temptation to seek safety or satisfaction in lower objects by placing themselves wholly out of their range, have found that they have only put themselves within range of other evils, less apparent but more subtle and quite as serious.
2. By a studious and strenuous endeavor to moderate our trust in the human and the material according to its worth. But chiefly:
3. By careful and constant cultivation of our trust in the living God, by seeking his face, by worshipping in his house, by consulting his Word, by daily addressing ourselves to him in the still hour of private, personal communion.C.
Eze 29:21
Speech, silence, and prophecy.
“I will give thee the opening, of the mouth.” We may be led up to the proper subject of the text by reference to
I. THE GIFT OF SPEECH. We wonder how animals succeed in communicating with one another; that they are supplied with some method of making known and passing on is unquestionable. But whatever their means may be, they fall very short of the great gift of speech which it is our priceless advantage to possess. So common and so familiar has it become, that we little heed its value or the goodness of God in bestowing it. But when we dwell in thought upon all the difference it has made to human life, and the extent to which it has enriched us, we may well bless God with fervent feeling that he has given to our race “the opening of the mouth” in speech and in song. How has it multiplied our power to instruct and enlighten, to warn and save, to comfort and to heal, to cheer and to gladden, to pray and to praise and to exhort, to prepare for all the duty and the burden of life, to make ready for the brighter scenes and ampler spheres of immortality! And as this is so,
(1) how carefully should we guard, how earnestly pray, how seriously admonish, against its abuse!
(2) how studious should we be to make the best and wisest use of this inestimable gift of God.
II. THE GRACE OF SILENCE. If there is a great value in “the opening of the mouth,” so also is there much virtue in keeping it closed when “only silence suiteth best.” To spare the stinging but severe retort that rises to the lips; to delay the accusation until more knowledge has been gained; to bear without rebuke the sound that tries our nerves, but is the delight of others; to refuse to pass on the unproved default; to refrain from the commonplaces of comfort in presence of some fresh, acute, overwhelming sorrow; to wait our time and. our turn until others have spoken who should, precede us, or until we have earned the right to speak; to “be dumb, to open not our mouth” under the chastening hand of God, and to retire into the sanctuary of the inner chamber that we may think and understand;this is a true “grace,” which they who seek the best in human character and life will not fail to desire and to pursue.
III. THE PRIVILEGE OF PROPHECY. No nobler order of men ever rose and wrought than the Hebrew prophets. They were “men that spoke for God” as their name indicates they should have been. And they” opened their mouth” fearlessly, faithfully, even heroically. They were to be found in the front when there was unpalatable truth to be spoken, uninviting duty to be done, serious danger to be dared. They did not shrink from speaking the straightforward truth to the people, the army, the sovereign. The Lord “before whom they stood,” and in whose near presence they felt that they were safe, gave them the wisdom to speak and the courage to act. He “gave them the opening of the mouth;” and hence these strong, brave, searching, sometimes scathing, sometimes cheering words, which we still read in our homes and in our sanctuaries, which still help to form our character and to shape our life. Their true successors are found in those Christian ministers, and in those who do not call themselves by that name, who “speak for God,” and who do speak for him because, like their prototypes, they
(1) are enriched by him with knowledge and insightunder-standing of his will and insight into the nature and character of their fellowmen;
(2) are endowed by him with the power of utterancesuch utterance as constrains attention and secures reflection and emotion;
(3) are impressed, if not oppressed, with an inextinguishable impulse to speak what they have learned of God (Jer 20:9; Psa 39:3; Act 4:20; 1Co 9:16).C.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Eze 29:1. In the tenth year, &c. The tenth year is that from the taking of Jerusalem: according to Usher, about the year of the world 3415. The prophesies in this and the three following chapters respect Egypt; though they were not all delivered at the same time. See on chap. Eze 31:3.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
3. Egypt (Ch. 2932)
Eze 29:1. In the tenth year, in the tenth [month], on the twelfth of the month, came the word of Jehovah to me, saying, 2Son of man, Set thy face upon [against] 3Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy upon him, and upon all Egypt! Speak and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I [come] upon thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his streams, who saith, To 4me [belongs] my stream, and I, I have made myself. And I give rings in thy jaws, and hang the fish of thy streams, on thy scales, and draw thee out of the midst of thy streams, and every fish of thy streams [which] hangs on thy scales; 5And I set thee free [drive thee] into the wilderness, thee and every fish of thy streams; upon the plains of the field shalt thou fall, thou shalt not be picked up, and not gathered; to the beast [living creatures] of the earth and to the fowl of the heaven I have given thee for food. 6And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am Jehovah! Because they were a staff of reed to the house of Israel,7When they take hold of thee by thy hand, thou art broken, and splittest to them every shoulder [the whole shoulder]; and when they lean upon thee, thou art shattered, and lamest for them all loins,8Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I bring upon thee a sword, and root out of thee man and beast. 9And the land of Egypt is [shall be] for desolation and a waste, and they know that I am Jehovah! 10Because He said, The stream [belongs] to me, and I, I have made it, Therefore, behold, I am against thee, and against thy streams, and I give the land of Egypt for deserts of waste of desolation, from Migdol to Syene [seveneh], and even to 11the borders of Cush. Foot of man shall not pass through it, and foot of beast 12shall not pass through it, and it shall not be inhabited forty years. And I have given the land of Egypt [for] desolation in the midst of desolate lands, and its cities shall be desolate forty years in the midst of desolate cities, and I disperse 13Egypt among the heathen and scatter them in the lands. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, At the end of forty years will I gather Egypt out of the peoples 14whither they were dispersed: And I turn the misery of Egypt, and bring them back to the land of Pathros, to the land of their birth; and they are there a low 15kingdom. Lower than the kingdoms shall it be, and it shall not lift itself up any more above the heathen; and I diminish them, so that they do not rule among the heathen [have dominion over them]. 16And it shall no more be for confidence to the house of Israel, a remembrancer of iniquity, when they turn after them; and they know that I am the Lord Jehovah. 17And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first [month], on the first of the month, the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 18Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre: every head became bald, and every shoulder peeled; and there was not reward for him and his host out of Tyre for the work, which he has wrought against it [the city]. 19Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I give Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon the land of Egypt, and he takes away its tumult, and plunders its spoil, and seizes its prey; and it is a reward to his host. As his hire for which he has wrought against it [Tyre], 20I have given him the land of Egypt, because they did 21[it] for Mesentence of the Lord Jehovah. In that day will I make a horn to bud forth to the house of Israel, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they know that I am Jehovah.
Eze 29:1. Sept.: … .
Eze 29:2. … .
Eze 29:3. … . .
Eze 29:4. … .
Eze 29:5. .
Eze 29:7. Sept.: … , , . . , . Vulg.: te manu et lacerasti et dissolvisti omnes renes eorum.
Eze 29:10. … . . .. .Vulg.: in solitudines, gladio dissipatam a turre Syenes
Eze 29:12. … . ,
Eze 29:14. Sept.: … , in terra nativitatis su
Eze 29:15. . .
Eze 29:16 … . docentes iniquitatem. ut fugiant et sequantur eos;
Eze 29:17. … . .
Eze 29:19. … .
Eze 29:20. .; 19 exercitui illius (20) et operi quo servivit
Eze 29:21. … .pullulabit cornu.
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
In reference to the anti – Chaldean coalition, Egypt, as the mainstay of the undertaking, justly forms the conclusion of those prophecies toward such as were without. But even apart from this, the significance of Egypt, as well in its antagonistic position to the Chaldean monarchy as in its relation to the people of God, and therewith to the world in general, demanded an adequate treatment at the close.
Eze 29:1-16. Outline of the Prophecy as a whole.
Eze 29:1-2. As to time (b. c. 588?), this first prophecy upon Egypt goes before Ezekiel 26 (two months, eighteen days, Schmieder). That notwithstanding it is placed later, shows the position of Egypt at the close is to be regarded as an intentional one; comp. also Eze 29:18-19. Hengst. remarks: The prophecy, as appears from Eze 24:1, was delivered during the siege of Jerusalem. The occasion is the hope of recovery through Pharaoh. (Schmieder: six months, except three days, before the taking of the city (Jer 39:2), one year and two days after the prophets mouth had been shut for his people.)
Eze 29:2. , elsewhere with ; for example, at Eze 6:2., the title of all the native kings of Egypt down to the Persian times; according to Josephus and the Coptic, as much as king (comp. , prince); Jer 44:30, Hophra. The prophecy, in accordance with its general character, stretches over king and people, or more precisely, the land.
Eze 29:3-6 a. This portion has respect to the king of Egypt., only here, according to Gesen. a mere corruption for ; according to Hengst. intentionally the plur. majestatis from =: since this dragon blows himself up so much, sets himself forth as the ideal of all dragons. What is meant by it is no great sea-fish or great serpent, but what was so distinctive of Egypt, as also suitable for the description in Eze 29:4, the crocodile; Job 40; Job 41:25-26. For a farther symbolical application of the idea, comp. Isaiah 27.; Psa 74:13-14; Revelation 12. (, to stretch, of the long-stretching body; also of the long-protracted sound, the jackal.)The consciousness of power on the part of the Pharaohs, their pride of sway, is visibly expressed by (Eze 19:2), the secure rest, the undisturbed comfortable lair, after the manner of the crocodile, and by the nearer designation: in the midst of his streams. () Gesen.: an Egyptian word, on the Rosetta inscription, jorhere of the (seven) arms of the Nile (Isa 7:18), elsewhere of its canals, when those are called The Nile is the heart of Egypt, on account of which divine honours were of old paid to it, in particular by the kings, with devout regard, as the vivifying father of all that exists (Champollion). As he already says my stream (Eze 28:2), the may not merely import that it belongs to him, is his property, but: it belongs to me of right, or so that it cannot be taken from metherefore lawfully and inalienably. It gives expression to the loud boast on the ground of natural might as from primeval time and for ever; in which lies the heathenish contrast to Jehovah, who alone is unchangeable, eternal, gives and takes according to His will., either (, nom. absol.), that he had made himself, which, apart from the fact that the Egyptians boasted of being the oldest men (Herod. Eze 2:2; Diodor. 1:10, 50; Plato in Tim.), accords well with the Egyptian deification of the kingdom. So upon the monuments the priests ever are represented as kneeling in the dust before the kings. The Pharaohsand this is peculiarly Egyptianwere not merely sprung from the gods, but were themselves gods of the land (Duncker, Hist. of Antiquity, 1:150). Therefore, as the king of Tyre (Eze 28:2) with his gods seat asserts his divinity, so does the king of Egypt with his stream at least his independence of any other origin = what I am, that am I of myself. Or, we may take the suffix as equivalent to , for which, however, Eze 29:9 cannot be adduced, and which cannot be understood with Hv. as meaning: I have secured for myself its blessings, or, as still more strongly put by Hitzig: I have made it for me in a right condition, with its canals, embankments, sluices, etc., as the Dutch also have been named the creators of their land. [Targum Jonathan: meum est regnum, et ego subjugavi illud.] Jerome: He trusts in the peculiar overflowings of the Nile, which belongs to him; the rain of heaven is of no moment for him. Thus also the old expositors of Homer understood the of the Aigyptos, i.e. the Nile, of the annual overflowings (Odys. iv. 477). In its application to Pharaoh Hophra (Apries), the notice of Herodotus is characteristic, that he thought neither the power of men nor of gods could destroy his kingdom (2:100:169).
Eze 29:4. The sin referred to is followed by a corresponding punishment, as the threatening is given forth, that from both king and people the ground of their pride and prosperity should be taken away.The behold I am against thee of Eze 29:3 explicates itself., Qeri , from , ring, such as is put into the nose of beasts, or about the most tender and susceptible parts of the head, for taming them. Hengst.: a double ring, in the Dual, like , so that both halves join together in the mouth (comp. Eze 19:4). Rosenm. understands it of the hooks, by which, according to Herodotus, the crocodiles were taken (Job 41:2).The fish, of the arms of the Nile signify the living and well-conditioned Egyptians in general, who had felt themselves like fish in the water, but were now to be placed upon dry ground. Hitzig: specially Pharaohs men of war; Jonathan: the princes and nobles., Eze 3:26.For , supply .As to what historical signification is to be put upon the image, which is of a quite general kind, no indication whatever is given. But see the Doctrinal Reflections, No. 2.
Eze 29:5. The wilderness forms, as to the sense, the contrast to might and pomp and all sort of abundance; as to the figure, it is a contrast to the Nile, which formed an oasis in the midst of the wilderness, being secured by the heights on the west against the quicksands and storms of the great desert, and separated by the mountains on the east from the rocky cliffs, the desolate plains, and sand downs. The irrigation of the ground in consequence of the abundant waters of the Nile, especially at the season of the yearly overflowing, the cooling of the atmosphere precisely at the time when the heat is greatest, are the more important, since the blue and shining heaven is never troubled by rain-clouds, the heat is strong, and the south-west gales sometimes drive the sand and dust of the Sahara over the Libyan mountains as far as the Nile. (Egypt is a land without rain, without springs, without refreshing winds, without alternating seasons. Instead of these, however, it possesses a fertile stream, which has not its like upon earth. In the far-reaching expanse one sees only the dead wilderness; but on approaching the Nile, all is life and prosperity. The camel of the desert scents the fresh Nile air at the distance of half a days journey. The Arabs call it Bachr, the sea; it is, however, one of the greatest and longest rivers of the earth, to be compared with the Amazon, Mississippi, and Yenisei.Sepp.) Hence, for the very reason that it reckons itself distinguished, as forming a green oasis of luxuriant fertility and coolness in the midst of a boundless waste, Jehovah brings it into that wilderness condition. A deeper parallel, however, also lies in this relegation to the wilderness, in respect to the divine guiding of Israel into the wilderness when Israel came out of Egypt.Upon the face of the field means the same as the wilderness; according to Hengst.: the open field as contrasted with the splendid mausoleums in which the Egyptian Pharaohs were buried in the times of their glory. Not even an honourable burial would be given him (Targum). At all events, in the place where he falls, there he remains lying; and, indeed, what previously were separate from each other, thee and every fish, now come to be united in the representative person of the king. Every one of his deceased subjects was, as it were, a part of Pharaoh, as in the retreat from Moscow Napoleon was seen in every dead Frenchman (Hengst.). They are simply abandoned to the wilderness; hence there is found no gathering up and carrying away (), no bringing together ().Comp. Mat 13:47 sq.
Eze 29:6 a. A knowledge which is the very reverse of what was distinctively Egyptian, according to which the Pharaohs were honoured, on the monuments, as the dispensers of life, the ever-living, and such like. (Comp. the Rosetta inscription.)
Eze 29:6 b12. This section has respect to the land. The words: all the inhabitants of Egypt, mediate the transition from the king to the land.The can scarcely be the reason for the fact of the Egyptians knowing God; but this sentence properly breaks off here, and a new sentence begins, to which Eze 29:8 forms the conclusion; so that Eze 29:7 comes in parenthetically (Kl.).The image of the reed-staff is derived from Isa 36:6, the more suitably as it is there found in the mouth of the Assyrian king, whose heritage passed over to the Chaldeans; and to repeat with the fact the addition of broken, used there by him, was, as a judgment already openly pronounced upon Egypt, so much the more a ground of shame for Israel. What had discovered itself even in the Assyrian time should have needed no fresh proof.
Eze 29:7. It means that a reed-staff is not only no support, but a hurtful support; it carries with it a show and deceit of a dangerous kind. It is not, however, to be forgotten, that there is a characteristic allusion involved in the figure to the prolificness of Egypt in reeds and bulrushes (Isa 19:6).Instead of , the Qeri has , as if the personified Egypt, or this as addressed in its king, could have no hand! In order to hold fast by the image of the reed, which is certainly continued by the (Isa 36:6), Kliefoth translates: by thy twig but who would lay hold thus of a reed if he means to support himself upon it?That Israel promised himself support from Egypt is evident from the result of the breaking of this reed-staff; while the wounded, torn shoulder leant upon it, the splinters of the reed ran thereinto.Klief.: the staff of reed pierced through the hand and arm, up even to the shoulder. The expressly says this, at the same time strengthening the laying hold of to a resting thereon with the whole body., Gesen.: only the Hiphil, transposed for (Psa 69:24 [23]), and makest shake. Hengst.: sarcastically, a pretty staying, which was, in fact, a casting down. If the root-meaning of is to draw together, it might stand here as = laming: and drawest together for them the whole loins (Meier). To make to totter, or shake, certainly says very little, and to make to stand, so that they must use their own loins, without any stay, can hardly be the right explanation. Klief.: it pierced through their shoulders, and made these, by injuring their muscles, ligaments, and joints, stiff and rigid, so that they could but stand, and move no more. (So fared it with the kingdom of the ten tribes under Hosea in connection with Egypt, and likewise with the kingdom of Judah under Zedekiah.J. D. Michaelis.)
Eze 29:8. Solemn conclusion, with feminine suffixes, on account of the reference to the land. The sword indicates war; Eze 14:17.
Eze 29:9. The consequence of this desolation of the land., as in Eze 29:6.Comp. at Eze 29:3. Because Pharaoh, regarding himself as all Egypt, in his lordly spirit asserts for himself the right and power of all, points back to ; , not so properly the Nile as generally what is to be made (Isa 10:13), always, however, with reference to the arms of the Nile,therefore, in Eze 29:10, Jehovah falls upon this pompous I, as well as its supports, the streams which it calls its own, and gives the land of Egypt, with which this I had identified itself, to a state of most complete desolation. The heaping together of the synonyms, and the double genitive, express a superlative. Here, as at Eze 29:5, the wilderness in contrast to the Nile. [Hitzig points , for deserts, desolation of the waste. Schmieder remarks on it, that definite pre-intimations of inevitable chastisements are commonly milder, and draws attention to an unmistakeable softening in what follows (Eze 29:12-16), which might be still more lightened in the execution of the punishment.] From Migdol, a similar bounding to that in Eze 25:13 (Sept.: ); placed over against Syene (Aswan), the most southerly boundary, on the cataracts of the Nile, and to be taken as the boundary on the north. It was, as the name imports, a fortress, perhaps the border-watch toward Syria; on account of which Jerome: a turre Syenes. , according to Champollion, from ouen, to open, and sa, through which it acquires the sense of the opener, the key (of Egypt). Here rise the mighty terraces of reddish granite (Syenite), which formed the building material of the Egyptian kings. The determining expression does not go beyond, but fixes Syene as the boundary on the Ethiopian side.
Eze 29:11 paints the desolation (Eze 29:9-10), corresponding to Eze 29:8. Neither traffic nor travel. , Hengst.: and it shall not sit (!); therefore it shall lie down. The forty years are (according to him) historical, to be branched off from the seventy of Jeremiah, Ezekiel 25, 29, which began in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, when, with the slaughter at Circesium on the Euphrates, the power of Egypt was for ever broken. Thirty years had it continued, till the war passed over to the proper head of the anti-Chaldean coalition, and Egypt was laid waste. Hitzig takes the number for a found one (1Sa 17:16; Exo 24:18, etc.), after the analogy of Eze 4:6 (but see there). The parallel already indicated at Eze 29:5, as well as the general character of the prophecy, Nebuchadnezzar not being named here, recommend the symbolical import of the number: Israel, when delivered from Egypt, forty years in the wilderness; Egypt, with respect to Israel, forty years a wilderness; there a proving, here a judgment, punishment. [Tholuck is of opinion that the number is indeed a round one, but still of an approximate nature as regards the probable reckoning, about 36 or 37.]On , comp. Eze 26:20. signifies: to be master of something, to possess, therefore: to tarry somewhere, and so here: to occupy house, be at home. We are not to regard it as a poetical phrase for being inhabited (Klief.), but rather to consider it as spoken with reference to the scattering, etc., of the inhabitants in Eze 29:12.
Eze 29:12. As an absolute contrast to Israel in the wilderness, corresponds in a symbolical respect the repeated delineation of the like total desolation of Egypt (Eze 12:20; Eze 14:15). In reality, this can only be understood relatively, as compared with Egypts former flourishing condition as a land.The twice repeated points to the neighbouring lands, with their cities, or to the provinces of Egypt, or to the members of the coalition against Babylon (Hengst.). Hv. regards it as purely ideal, since otherwise the article must have stood before . According to Hengst.: the desolation is not so precise a fact as the supremacy, which was decided by a single battle. It is sufficient if the beginning of the desolation took place within the fourth decennium from its end (?). The end of the forty years, at all events, coincides with that of the seventy years in Jeremiah, of which the first seventeen had elapsed at the time our prophecy was publishedseven under Jehoiakim, ten under Zedekiah. Therefore there still were thirteen years to expire before the beginning of the forty years. In Eze 29:17 the prophet has himself expressly determined the beginning of the four decenniums.By the scattering of the Egyptians is meant the deportation of the young and the noble, as such was then associated with every hostile occupation, Nah 3:10 (Tholuck). Also those scattered through terror are not to be forgotten. Hv.: Almost the same expressions here of Egypt, which elsewhere are used only of the dispersion and gathering again of Israel. Egypt the caricature of Israel.
Eze 29:13-16. The end.
Eze 29:13. The assigns a reason for the forty years, by pointing to what is to take place thereafter. But that by the end of this period respect is had to the end of the Chaldean supremacy, as in Jeremiah, is not indicated in the text, nor would it have been according to Ezekiels style (comp. Introd. to Ezekiel 25 sq.; comp. also Jer 46:26).The promised gathering of Egypt, in Eze 29:14, is restitution (comp. at Eze 16:53), indeed, to their original condition, but not to the height which it had then reached.Pathros is what belongs to the south; South or Upper Egypt, Thebes, which (as Ewald remarks) was not, according to the Manethonian dynasties, precisely the oldest seat of royalty, yet still a Southern Egypt older than Memphis; but after the time of the Hyksos, all the power of Egypt departed from Thebes.Comp. Herod. 2:4, 15; Diodor. 1:50., see at Eze 16:3 (Eze 21:35 [Eze 21:30]).On the expression: a low kingdom, comp. at Eze 17:14. Hengst.: This is no mere prediction, but an indirect practical advice (Isa 41:28), to dissuade from a foolish confidence in Egypt. The parallel, besides, with Israel has already been noticed.
Eze 29:15. Comparison with other kingdoms. Such it had often made, and therein gone to excess. Now God makes the comparison, and certainly with another result.
Eze 29:16. , compare therewith the repeated , Eze 28:26., masc., while formerly , a kingdom being thought of, but here it is conceived of as a people, or as king.That the Egyptian people (as the might indicate) could inspire Israel with confidence, so that the latter should lean upon them, support itself on them, especially as against Babylonin that respect they were a remembrancer of iniquity (comp. on Eze 21:28 [23]). This is what is plainly expressed by with , namely, to turn oneself to any one, in order to follow himon which comp. Eze 17:6-7; Psa 40:5 [4]. (Hengst.: Whosoever beguiles into iniquity brings iniquity to remembrance, or to the knowledge of him under whose cognizance it falls. For the iniquity which is committed cannot remain unmarked by the Judge of the whole earth, nor unpunished. Hv.: Now Egypt comes forth as an accuser of the covenant-people before God, as a witness in respect to their want of confidence in Him, their idolatrous admiration of worldly, external power, therefore of their falling away from God. Ewald translates: Still further the house of Israel had a Satan for their confidence.) The knowledge of Jehovah as Lord and Ruler, as in judgment, so in compassion, is the perpetual refrain; it is for Israel and for the heathen the end of the ways of God.
Eze 29:17-21. The appended key for understanding the prophecies concerning Egypt.Not merely the relation to what went before, but the relation also to what follows, calls for consideration. In the former respect, the section is an appendix; in the latter respect, and generally, it is a key for the understanding of the prophecies respecting Egypt. We have to regard it as a sort of parenthesis, since the announcement of time in Eze 29:17 expressly shows it was above 16 years later than Eze 29:1, later even than Ezekiel 40. [Schmieder: exactly 16 years, 2 months, 17 days after the preceding prophecy; not quite 17 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, two years after Ezekiels vision of the new temple. Hitzig: the new-moon day of April 572 b. c.] It consequently stands quite apart from the preceding prophecy, but so does it also from the one that follows, Eze 30:1-19, by its closing verse. Eze 30:1-19 stands related to Eze 29:1-16, as Eze 26:7-14 to Eze 26:2-6; so that the indication of time in Eze 29:1 holds good also for Eze 30:1. Hengst. denies the number seven for the prophecies upon Egypt, because the necessary chronological specification is wanting at Eze 30:1. This reason cannot avail against the consideration that the significant number, which rules the whole, in a way that perfectly accords with its symbolical import as well as with the relation of the close (of Egypt), reverts with this close to the whole, and thereby connects the whole together. The chronological specification has been omitted at Eze 30:1, because it would have been the same as that at Eze 29:1; and the verses 1721 are interjected here precisely on this account, that Eze 30:1-19, being contemporaneous with Eze 29:1-16, might form a separate prediction, and so complete the seven number of prophecies upon Egypt.
Eze 29:18. The thirteen years siege of Tyre furnishes the key for the more immediate understanding of the prophecy upon Egypt; the breaking off of the siege in question rendered possible the approaching fulfilment of the anti-Egyptian predictions.Eze 26:7.The work against Tyre, consequently the siege of the city, is designated great, and this not without respect to the consequences which it involved for the host of the king of Babylon. Of the bearing upon the head and shoulder, with reference to helmet and burdens, and are used, which presuppose long and heavy toil. According to Hengst. the works had to do with the erecting of besieging towers, and especially the casting up a rampart (Eze 26:8); but they suit decidedly better when viewed with respect to the mound running over to insular Tyre, as indicated by Ewald (Eze 26:10). Hitzig makes the ingenious remark, that the shallowness of the sea-strait in Alexanders time, mentioned by Arrian, may have been occasioned by the efforts of Nebuchadnezzar to construct this mound. However, it is not in such respect, therefore, as to what concerns the greatness of the work, that is to be understood of a like great reward corresponding to it. , according to its root-meaning, is a something made fast,either subjectively, what any one held fast by himself or had made fast with another, or objectively, what for material considerations must be held fast. It is in a general way denied that Nebuchadnezzar and his host had received from Tyre hire or reward for their work. As the siege was the work, the hire must mean the booty, especially with respect to the host. The separate mention of him and his host seems to point to a distinction between Nebuchadnezzar and his host in reference to the hire. Jerome affirms simply, though he does not say on what grounds, that the nobles and rich men of Tyre made away from it in ships, carrying with them their treasures over the sea, and Nebuchadnezzars host could find no spoil. Ewald accepts this; and Hv. cites in support of it Isa 23:6, and what happened at the siege of Tyre under Alexander (Diodor. xvii. 41; Curt. Eze 4:3). Probable, at all events more probable than the supposition of Hitzig that the money of the Tyrians was spent in the war, must be the consideration that the besiegers of Tyre also had an interest in sparing the city, and refraining from plundering it. Only the prophet does not say this, but makes the Chaldee host come to Egypt to its hurt. With the conquest of the city, however, whether it was or was not effected, our verse has nothing really to do, as Movers justly remarks. Eze 29:19 rather suggests another reference. For Nebuchadnezzar, at least, the consequence of the siege of Tyre, his hire, could only be Egypt, if the great work was not to remain without reward. First with the punishment of Egypt did the recompense become complete which must strike the anti-Chaldean coalition. Egypt also would otherwise have remained the spark which was ever ready to inflame a new Phnicia and Syria. If the overthrow of Tyre was to yield profit to Nebuchadnezzar, not merely must Jerusalem be laid prostrate, but Egypt also, the pillar of all opposition, as against Assyria so against Babylon, be brought down. It is from such points of view in Babylonian policy that we are to understand what is meant by his hire not having been given him. But what naturally mediates the result, what forms the consequence of the evil, this is in truth, spiritually considered, the divine punishment; and hence the therefore, etc., in Eze 29:19. The policy of the divine recompense as against Egypt (the prop of Israels unfaithfulness and treachery to the covenant), so for Nebuchadnezzars work (which they did for Me, Eze 29:20), in the service of Jehovah, is primarily the key of the prophecies touching Egypt. is noise, and from that a noisy multitude; here, on account of the connection, and because merely is used: the great mass of things, therefore: the riches. [Ewald: its noisy pomp.]As Herodotus and Diodorus report, certainly after the quite untrustworthy tradition of Egyptian vanity, Hophra had besieged the Phnicians and Cyprians by land and sea, and returned with rich booty to Egypt. There were assuredly no lasting results of such a thing; for after the defeat at Carchemish, and the miscarrying of the relief of Jerusalem, the position of Egypt was not adequate to that; although still, as also Duncker thinks, the Egyptians might have brought home spoil and trophies. There was a glimmering of Egypts early splendour in the Circumstance of its being given for a reward to Nebuchadnezzar.Hitzig takes as the subject to the land of Egypt (Eze 29:20).
Eze 29:20. , as in Psa 109:20, that which is wrought for, the fruit of labour. Ewald: as his pay. is perhaps, after the expression in Eze 29:18, , to he understood of the city of Tyre. It is commonly rendered: for which he wrought. Hitzig justly remarks: that Nebuchadnezzar had besieged Tyre in the service of Jehovah could have been declared by the prophet only then, if the city had been conquered; but since, according to Hitzig, this could not be, he applies to the Egyptians (!), as was already done in the Targum of Jonathan, and necessarily imposes on the signification: in regard to that which; that is, for that which.
Eze 29:21. This verse vividly represents the character of the whole section. It is a close which corresponds to the subsidiary character of the section, Eze 29:17-20, in relation to the general prophecy upon Egypt, by the generalness of the style in which it is given, as thereby also it accords with the design that this section should serve as a key to the Egyptian prophecies generally. Comp. the analogous Eze 28:25-26. In the latter respect it is indicated to us in Eze 29:21, that although the immediate fulfilment of that which concerned Egypt should be accomplished through Nebuchadnezzar, yet Egypt opens a farther prospect still, since it is to be regarded, in these prophecies of Ezekiel upon foreign peoples, as heathendom generally in its close coming into regard for Israels destruction. From this point of view, the certainly connects itself with the moment of the fulfilment through Nebuchadnezzar; but it at the same time conducts farther, expands this day to an ideal day (Hengst.)the day of the Lord (Eze 30:3)to the Messianic time, as Ewald has properly recognised. [Schmieder: every annihilation of a national power, which bent itself against the Lord, is to the prophet a type of all human power which rises against Goda type of the worlds judgment. Therefore also the promises, which were given Israel for the last time, connect themselves therewith, and now revive again.] According to Hitzig, the attack upon Egypt was to Ezekiel the pledge of the then also beginning salvation announced in Eze 20:40 sq., Eze 17:22, Eze 16:60., used of gradual growth out of small beginnings and constant burstings forth again, new shoots, with reference to the in Jeremiah and Zechariah.The horn, as very commonly derived from horned beasts, in particular the bull, a biblical expression for strength, and the courage resting thereon; not so properly with reference to pushing (Hengst.), for which the context affords no occasion; as in contrast to the impotence of Egypt (heathendom), the power and pomp of the fleshtherefore another sense of power, the consciousness of the victory which overcomes the world. Psa 75:5; Psa 132:17; Lam 2:3; Luk 1:69; comp. also 1Sa 2:1 with respect to the following .The opening, of the mouth points expressly to Eze 24:26. (See there.) What was said in that place upon the symbolical import of the dumbness of the prophet determines also his speaking here in the midst of Israel as a prophetical one. Only, the house of Israel must not be resolved into the community of the Lord, and the mouth of Ezekiel into the word of prophecy, agreeably to Joel 3, as Theodoret already explained the matter; but we have to cleave to the second chief part of the predictions of our prophet, for which the opening of his mouth to Israel is, according to Eze 24:26 sq., the characteristic, in contradistinction to the first main portion of his book. But in so far will such opening of Ezekiels mouth have place as his prophecy of the compassions of God shall then have found their confirmation.
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. Although the prophecy in Ezekiel 29 is of a general character, yet by the reference to Nebuchadnezzar, and especially from Eze 29:17 onwards, it gets a more specific character. We have therefore to hold by a fulfilment through the Chaldeans, and, indeed, in connection with what is said respecting Tyre. Apart from the circumstance that we have here to do with a prophet of God, we could not judge otherwise simply on this account, that a little reflection upon the inevitable disgrace of such a self-deception as would have been the case in respect to Tyre must alone have kept Ezekielinstead of merely suppressing the prophecy in question while the book was still in his own handfrom wishing now to compensate for the mistake by awakening like inconsiderate and rash expectations concerning Nebuchadnezzar in regard to Egypt. For one to whom the prophet is nothing but a writer must still at least credit him with this much of worldly prudence in respect to his literary honour. And if Ezekiel must needs prophesy ex eventu (as Hitzig, for example, conceives), then prophecies like those contained in Ezekiel 26 and some following ones are purely unthinkable, so far as they remained unfulfilled; since it cannot but be supposed, that when our prophet closed his book, matters must have stood before him widely different from what they are presented in his prophecy. The dogmatic criticism, however, cannot once admit now that a prophecy has been fulfilled,a limitation of the standpoint which is not improved by the circumstance that the truth of the divine word (2Pe 1:21) is made dependent on the statements or the silence of profane writers, and even of such as have given notoriously imperfect reports. The false prophet, he whose word did not come to pass, has by Gods word (Deu 18:22) been as clearly as possible excluded from the canon.
2. The reward for work, which, as Hitzig rightly enough says, had still to be given to Nebuchadnezzar, raises no question as to the conquest and, as could not fail to happen after a thirteen years siege, the destruction of Tyre. If the booty might have been thought of for the army, for Nebuchadnezzar it is necessary to think of Egypt. The song of triumph demanded by Hitzig for the fulfilment of the prophecy against Tyre is the double lamentation which we find in Ezekiel 27, 28. Every one has his peculiar manner. But as regards the so-called historical witnesses, who should speak the decisive word on the fulfilment or non-fulfilment particularly of the prophecy of Ezekiel in respect to Egypt, they are the Greek historians, at the head of whom stands Herodotus, and they know absolutely nothing of a Chaldean invasion of Egyptnay, their narration is opposed to anything of the kind (Hitzig). This is imposing; let us reflect, however, that Herodotus had also learned nothing from his Egyptian informants of the defeat at Carchemish. We need only mention farther, that this Greek historian himself reproaches the priests of Egypt, and precisely in regard to this particular time, with embellishing the history of their country. Now, according to Herodotus, Pharaoh Hophrain consequence of the defeat which his army sustained from the Cyrenians, against whom it was to have rendered help to the Libyans, and of the revolt which in consequence thereof, and of the foreign mercenary troops retained in Egypt, broke forth on the part of the Egyptian warrior-class against Amasis, who, instead of bringing back the rebels to obedience, suffered himself to be proclaimed king by themlost freedom and his throne, and by the infuriated people was even murdered. Tholuck, who, if the cattle with the ark of the Lord should once turn aside, would not obstinately drive forward, remarks that as a witness Herodotus alone comes into consideration; before whom, however, the testimony of Ezekiel, himself a contemporary of the events, has no need to be abashed. If Herodotus readily received intelligence of the prosperous battle fought by Necho at Megiddo, but none respecting the much more important defeat sustained by him on the Euphrates from the Chaldeans, should it be thought strange if the priests observed silence also regarding the irruption of the Chaldeans into their own land? yea, if the miserable end which Hophra suffered through the foreign conqueror should have been rather represented by them as the deed of his own people? (So also Rawlinsons Herod. B. ii. appen. c. 8.) With a fair appreciation of the historical representation of Herodotus, the cause there assigned, especially the revolution among the warrior-class of Egypt, might suffice for the overthrow of Hophra. Yet the hatred of the Egyptian people, not only expressed in Herodotus, but confirmed by monumental evidence (Rossellini points in this connection to a by-name of Hophra on the monuments: Remesto)such a hatred as is described in Herodotus toward Hophra (ii. 161169), manifested in respect to a native ruler, is scarcely to be explained from what is stated, if it did not come into some sort of connection with a Chaldean invasion of Egypt, whereby the haughtiness of Hophra might well appear all the more hateful to the Egyptian people, as the misery of the land and the inhabitants, occasioned by him, stood in sharpest contrast to the previous prosperity and splendour. The grudge of the Egyptian warrior-class against the foreign mercenaries could not be of such moment as some have supposed, since even Amasis, who thereafter held possession of the throne till his death (forty-four years), and was succeeded in it by his son, took lonians for his bodyguard, and generally granted to the Greeks still greater favour and privileges than his predecessor. Besides, as generally held, there is also the outline of the prophecy against Egypt in Ezekiel 29, which exhibits a distinction between Eze 29:6 sq. and Eze 29:4 sq.in the one, the sword constitutes the figure (Eze 29:8); in the other, overthrow with reference to the wilderness. Especially if Hitzigs interpretation of the fish (Eze 29:4) as denoting Pharaohs men of war is accepted, and under the wilderness there is couched an allusion to Libya, what is said in Eze 29:4 sq. might be explained by the narration which is reproduced by Herodotus, and Eze 29:6 sq. would, with the sword of Nebuchadnezzar, be such a supplementing as the conquest of Tyre to the siege of that city, also given elsewhere. Out of the miserable condition in which Hophra perished, Amasis would then have raised Egypt. Anyhow, as Tholuck brings out, the death of Hophra falls exactly into the time in which the occupation of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar must have occurred; and thus the position of matters approaches to that which is wont to be extracted from Josephus in confirmation of our prophecycontr. Ap. i. 19. It is there stated that Berosus reports of the Babylonian (Nebuchadnezzar) that he conquered Egypt, Syria, Phnicia, etc. Again, in Ezekiel 20, he states that Megasthenes placed Nebuchadnezzar above Hercules, since he had subjected to himself a great part of Libya and Iberia (comp. Antiq. x. 11. 1, and Strabo xv. 1. 6; see also Hv. Comm. p. 435, against Hitzigs remarks). In the 10th book of the Antiq. Eze 9:7, Josephus expresses himself to this effect, that in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the twenty-third of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, he made an expedition against Clesyria; and when he had got possession of it, he made war against the Ammonites and Moabites; and when he had brought these nations into subjection, he fell upon Egypt in order to overthrow it, and did indeed slay the king who then reigned, but set up another; after which he took those Jews that were there captive, and brought them to Babylon, etc. The ten years time, which Hitzig doubts as the period of the earlier warlike expeditions, is maintained by Tholuck. The fifth year after the taking of Jerusalem would be 581; the thirteen years siege of Tyre would fall into the period 586572 or 573. For the different actions which were in part parallel as to time, we have only to suppose various divisions of the army employed, so that the whole might of Nebuchadnezzar did not at the same time lie before Tyre. The forty years of the Egyptian oppression, Tholuck, like Niebuhr, extends over the entire space that lies between the disaster at Carchemish and the overthrow of Hophra (thirty-six years), during which Egypt, through the continued and in great part unfortunate warlike enterprises of Hophra, must have been much depopulated and extremely weakened, till at length the inroad of the Chaldeans consummated the oppression. Tholuck thinks that, as the prophets in the beginning of the fulfilment comprehended the future (Jer 13:18; Eze 30:24), in the last and completed fulfilment they also comprehended the earlier incomplete ones. The symbolical explanation of the forty years is not thereby denied (see the exposition). The worth of the statements of Josephus may be questioned, as is done by Hitzig; but for the relation of profane history to our prophecy, it suffices that Hophra miserably perished (Eze 29:4 sq.; Jer 44:30 sq.), and that Egypt again revived, as took place under Amasis, although as a kingdom it was fit to be compared neither with its ancient glory nor with other great monarchies (Eze 29:13 sq.). As regards the resuscitation of Egypt, Duncker mentions that, according to a return of the priests, it then reckoned 20,000 country towns and cities (Herzogs Realencyc. 1 p. 150), though it was the last period of Egypts glory; and Lepsius says of the same, that Egypt succumbed to the first pressure of the Persian power, and remained from 525 to 504 a Persian province; that afterwards it became again for a short time independent, until in 340 it was reconquered by the Persians, and in 332 fell under Alexander the Great, etc.
3. Upon the importance of Egypt for the revenge of Nebuchadnezzar, see the exposition of Eze 29:18. Also generally for the Chaldean policy the transition to Egypt is rendered plain to us from Eze 29:17 sq. (Hv.: if Nebuchadnezzar would make the possession of Phnicia once for all sure, Egypt must be completely broken.) Of the importance of Egypt by itself, its characteristic importance, some notice has already been taken, toward the close of the introductory remarks to Ezekiel 25; as also of the distinction, indicated with correct feeling by Keil, between Egypt and the other nations mentioned by Ezekiel. But what Egypt signifies in its connection here, this must be discerned from its relation to Israel. It is quite true that the charge laid against Ammon, Moab, etc., also against Tyre, for spiteful joy, hostility, envy toward Israel, is not mentioned in respect to Pharaoh and Egypt. It may be said that Egypts guilt in regard to Israel was that rather of a false, treacherous friendship. If, on the other hand, the excess of proud self-sufficiency must be regarded as the characteristic of Egypt, the same sort of self-elation meets us in the king of Tyre (Ezekiel 28); and in this respect Tyre formed a fitting transition-point to Egypt. The distinction between Tyre and Egypt might perhaps be found in this, that while in particular the kingdom of Tyre had had its time of sacred splendour and past greatness, as we have seen, in its former connection with the kingdom of David, Egypt on its part acquired importance on account of the sojournings of the pilgrim-fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and still more on account of the formation of their descendants into a people. Above all, the idea of redemption was associated with the land of Egypt. Here, therefore, the inverse relation holds good: Tyre has gone with Israel to school; Israel, on the other hand, was at school in Egypt, as was evidenced in manifold agreements and contrasts exhibited in their peculiarity as a people, without our needing on that account to ride off on the Spencerian principle [namely, of a servile borrowing from the institutions of Egypt]. More than from anything else, may be understood from Israels reminiscences as a people, and the impress of Egyptian style and manner even upon their sacred things, their abiding sympathetic turning back toward Egypt. That Israel could not let Egypt go out of sight had its root in human nature; we must learn even from the children of this world (Luk 2:6). But it had also its dangerous side. It was Israels worldliness, relapse, since Israel had been delivered by Jehovah from this world, and Jehovah had through Moses threatened them in connection with Egypt with the greatest evils (Deu 28:68). We have tribulation in the world, and we may have fear before the world; such fear, however, may be salutary in its operation. But dangerous is the stay that is sought in Egypt, trust and confidence therein. In this respect Egypt is designated a remembrancer of iniquity (Eze 29:16), since for Israel it had, and not as of yesterday, but from of old (comp. also Eze 16:26; Eze 23:8; Eze 23:19), the fatal significance of a pride which resists Jehovah and leads away from Him, of a consciousness of worldly power, which amid the characteristic Pharaonic arrogance expressed itself just as distinctly (Eze 29:3; Eze 29:9) as in Exo 5:2, and had this the more seductively, as a self-conscious abiding worldly power is in fact fitted to impose on people. Friendship with Egypt is the most contemptuous relation in which Israel can be thought of, on account of the indifference which it necessarily implied on the part of the Israelitish people not only in regard to their former house of bondage, but also to the mighty deliverance obtained from it, and generally in what concerned their relation to Jehovah, on whom, as their own and their fathers God, they had been thrown from their state of childhood. To make account of this specific historical position in respect to each other, according to which the growth, bloom, and decay of Israel were closely interwoven with Egypt, the prophecy of Ezekiel dwells at greater length on Egypt than on the other nations (Hv.). Still more, however, it serves to explain the representation of the judgment upon Egypt as strikingly parallel with that on Israel, and to the last carried out (comp. Eze 29:5; Eze 29:9 sq., 12, 13, etc.). Not less remarkable, because singular, is the prospect and declaration in regard to the resuscitation of Egypt, and of it alone, which have been introduced into the prediction of our prophet; by this also is Egypt quite expressly kept parallel with Israel. The reminiscence which brings up Egypt so distinctly is not simply that of the house of bondage, or of iniquity, but it is Josephs post of honour, and the corn granaries of Jacob, together with his family. Comp. also Deu 23:7.
4. The interpretation of Neteler strikes out what is certainly a quite different path, strikingly reminding one of Cocceius, only with a specially Catholic tendency. According to him, the prophecies against the foreign nations constitute four groups, each of which contains four pieces: the first, Ezekiel 25; the second, the overthrow of the Canaanitish culture – development, standing in contrast to the higher calling of Jerusalem, and reaching its culmination in Tyre. The prophecy against Sidon he severs from Tyre, in the interest of this fourfold division; it belongs to the Egyptian group, inasmuch as Sidons bloom falls into the time in which Egypt was the bearer of the Hamitic power and culture, and the Sidonian development was a shoot of the Hamitic-Egyptian. The promises for Israel in this third section (Eze 28:20 to Eze 30:19) must stand parallel with those of the same kind in the first group, wherein punishment is threatened to the four nations with reference to Israel; as the first group, through Ezekiel 21 (Ammon), is placed in connection with the first destruction of Jerusalem, so the third stands, through the opening of the mouth which occurs in it, in closer relation to the symbol of the second destruction of Jerusalem. The four last prophecies against Egypt are mere symbols, according to Neteler. As Ammon drove the surviving remnant, after the destruction of Jerusalem, out of Judea, so had Moab decoyed Israel into gross idolatry before their entrance into Canaan; and so, in the prophecies against Ammon and Moab, the beginning and end of Israel in regard to Canaan are connected together. The punishment of Edom and the Philistines must point to the re-establishment of the house of David. In regard to Tyre Neteler expresses himself thus: The command given to Israel to root out the Canaanites, but by them neglected to their destruction, God will execute on Tyre through Nebuchadnezzar; and this command must stand in a noteworthy relation to the historical development of the last period of 800 years before Christ, in which those to the west (Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans) brought a real advance, while those to the east (the Hamitic kingdoms of Ethiopia and Egypt, the Semitic kingdoms of Assyria and Chaldea, the Japhetic Medians and Persians) repeat the development of the two earlier periods in smaller measure, yet as if thereby the problem of the western circle should be solved. He says: If Israel, through the extirpation of the Canaanites, according to Num 36:6-9 (!), had entered into the place of the Phnicians, it would have formed the first member in the development of this period, and would have shown the right path to the Greek culture which came forth in the second third of it. To retrieve as much as possible that which was neglected (! ?), Nebuchadnezzar must subject the Hamitic Tyre, even to the pillars of Hercules, and unite the eastern circle to the monstrous Chaldean kingdom, so that the externally insignificant Israel might be set in the centre of this gigantic Semitic power, which extended its sway even over the Turanian tribes in the high north. This contrast between the Semitic and Hamitic races (already occurring in the prophecy of Noah) must be of great importance for the understanding of the symbolical representation of Ezekiel in the prophecies relating to Tyre and Egypt. Upon the third group which Neteler distributes, and which reaches to Eze 30:19, we learn that, first of all, in the prophecy against Sidon, the second possession of the land is associated with the first, as in Ezekiel 20 the first deliverance from Egypt is made parallel with a deliverance in a higher sense. As Israel did not fully carry out the extirpation of the Canaanites, whose place, according to Num 33:54, it was their part to occupy, these were turned for them into thorns and briers. With the second possession, on the other hand, the servitude of Canaan, which was announced even by Noah, was after a sort realized, since the Canaanitish history becomes extinct. The second piece in this section, namely Eze 29:1-16, connects the end of the first Israelitish sojourn in Canaan, brought about by Egypts iniquity, with the end of Egypt; and the humiliation of Egypt is such an elevation of Israel, that Christianity will not be under temptation to lean upon a decaying heathenism. The forty years occurring at Eze 29:11 sq. must not be distinguished from the forty years of Judah, for which the prophet had to lie forty days upon his right side; that is, as Neteler remarks on Ezekiel 4, a symbolical designation of the time, reaching from the destruction of the temple to the return from exile, derived from the sojourn in Kadesh. The two first pieces, Eze 28:20 to Eze 29:16, set forth the world-historical ideas, which were to be realized by the introduction of Christianity, but give, as to the way and manner in which the realization should be prepared for, begun, and carried forward, no informationthis being first introduced by the prophet in the third piece (Eze 29:17-21). The might of Shem, through which God conquered Canaan in the worlds history, must also carry forward the work in regard to Egypt. In the interest of Israel, whose service to God stands in contrast to Canaanitish industry, God will turn the Semitic world-power against Egypt, by which Israel was compelled to do Canaanitish work, and establish for them, on account of their labour in respect to Canaan, claims for compensation, which God would render valid because of the bondage laid by Egypt on the Israelites. The booty which God took from Egypt after the conflict, on occasion of the first deliverance, was only a type of a later plundering, which in a preparatory manner was begun by Nebuchadnezzar, and after the second deliverance from Egypt, that is, after the redemption achieved by the sufferings of the Servant of God was realized, when all power in heaven and on earth was committed to the episcopate of the Church (!!). The consequence of this victory over Egypt (Eze 30:1-19) is given in the form of a judgment upon Egypt, in which is delineated its desolation and the annihilation of its idols and yokes; but the sons also of the covenant – land are smitten by the judgment, which points to a fall that should take place among them. The continuation of this Catholic-theological-historical explanation and interpretation of Ezekiel will be given in No. 9.
5. Cocceius remarks on Eze 29:21 : Evil Merodach gave Jehoiachin freedom, and the first place of honour among the kings. Farther, Daniel was great in the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar, and under the Persian dominion. Cyrus was called by God to give command to lead the people back, that they might rebuild the temple. Still higher grew the horn of Israel when they became free, and their priests assumed the diadem, as a sign of the freedom of the people, and the Israelites had become greater than their fathers, as announced in Deu 30:5. But most especially was it so, when out of Davids house the horn grew, which set the people free from all slavery, which subdued their enemies, and rendered the Gentiles subject to Israel, Psa 132:13-18.
6. The day of Jehovah, Kliefoth remarks, is not judgment in one point of time and destruction over the whole heathen world; and then he continues: The day of Jehovah is a period of indefinite duration, in the course of which God will punish with judgment and destruction all heathen nations in succession, just as they have shown their hostility to the people of God, and He sees that their time has come. From this point of view, also, is the announcement always to be understood, that this day of Jehovah is at hand. The day continues so long, that it lasts till, in the final judgment, the whole world, in so far as hostile to God, shall be destroyed; but it constantly begins anew, when any particular people, on account of their malevolence manifested to the people of God, falls under the righteous doom of perdition. Hence the day of Jehovah upon the heathen nations has, in the several prophecies, a different terminus a quo, according as they refer to this or that kind of relations. Only it must not be overlooked, that in Eze 30:1 sq. not indeed Egypt alone is contemplated, but Egypt in its connection with heathen nations; and yet, that it is not the day of judgment upon all anti-theocratic powers that is to be understood, as already Hvernick makes the prophet see this general idea obtaining realization; but as the time of Jerusalem was come, the time when judgment had begun at the house of God, so the time must now be near when this judgment of God shall go forth upon the heathen. Hengstenberg finds here the fundamental passage for Luk 21:24, and points to the overthrow of the Roman Empire,the mountain which was to be cast into the sea after the fig-tree of the Jewish people was withered (Matthew 21.), the mulberry-tree which was to be plucked up and removed into the sea (Luk 2:7.).
7. As in the kingdom of Tyre, Ezekiel 28, allusion was made to a time of sacredness upon the holy mount of God, so there was also found there, by way of similitude, a bringing to remembrance of Eden, and especially of the garden of God. This retrospect of paradise furnishes the beau-ideal, the standard for the Old Testament world generally; hence with Assyria, and in connection therewith in reference to Egypt, which had not the same historical position as Tyre, it appropriately comes back again in Ezekiel 31. As in the New Testament all is measured with heaven, so in the Old Testament what is or was glorious upon earth is made to hold of Eden and paradise.
8. On the derivation of the word Sheol there confessedly prevails a great diversity of opinion. For the biblical idea, especially the signification of the word in the Old Testament, this only is to be learned from this matter of etymological controversy, that as well the derivation from , to be hollow (therefore for ), since it points to hollowing, and in so far to the grave, as the derivation which Hupfeld adopts from: to sink down, and: to go apart from one another, therefore: sinking down, depth, abyss, and: cleft, hollow, empty spacesince the burying and the being in the sepulchre can be thereby expressedboth alike avail for the affirmation, that Sheol and the grave more or less run together. The derivation, on the other hand, from to demand, expresses as to Sheol only what constitutes generally the power and manner of death to demand for itself with insatiable desire all living beings (comp. Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5; Pro 27:20; Pro 30:16). As to form an infinitive verbal substantive, the use of the word belongs predominantly to the poetic language of the Old Testament, whence also is to be explained the circumstance that it never stands with the article. Sheol appears as the aggregate of all graves. Who could venture to deny this aspect of the matter, at least for the 31st and 32d chapters of Ezekiel? It is the universal grave, which calls down to itself all earthly life, how high soever it may have reached, however magnificent it may have been, however valiantly it may have fought. But much, also, as Sheol and the grave () sometimes appear to approach (comp. also Isa 14:11; Isa 14:15), to cover one another, it must still not be overlooked that the grave, more exactly considered, is only the entrance into Sheol (Psa 16:10), which certainly, as it is commonly represented, keeps the hue of the grave, in generals as well as in particulars ( , Eze 32:23); it is the carrying over of the grave to the future state (while the grave as such is still always something here). It is quite reconcilable with this representation when Sheol is conceived of as a locality, and indeed as a deep abyss, just as the standing form of speech: to go down, to be thrown down, is thence explained as equivalent to being consigned to the dead. The occasional poetic delineation of this future must only not be formally dogmatized into an actual under-world with gates, rivers, etc. (Job 38:17; Psa 18:5 sq.) The going down of the company of Korah (Num 16:30) is often what is floating before the writers mind; and not so much the locality of Palestine, which was rich in grottoes and caverns, or the darkness of the Hebrew family tomb-vaults, the stillness of the Egyptian catacomb-world. The interior and inmost part of the earth (Eze 26:20; Eze 32:18), however, is not the earths inner region as such, but is the Sheol beneath (the underground, Eze 31:14); that is, partly the contrast to heaven as the region of the divine life, partly the distinction from the surface turned toward heaven, the face of the earth. Out of that contrast, in which, however, the earth also and its life have their place, and still more in accordance with this distinction from the earthly life, must Sheol and what is connected therewith be understood. The death to which one is surrendered (Eze 31:14) is not simply a going down, not annihilation, but as punishment for sin, the necessary consequence of the negation of God. Considered as a state, it is the contrast in respect to God, as curse, as judgment upon the sinner; hence the contrast in respect to life as divine, as salvation and blessedness, even to eternal perdition; and so Sheol posits a concrete, individual prolongation of life: the dead are represented in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 31.) as living on individually and in space. Passages such as Psa 104:29; Psa 146:4, and others, certainly have respect to the earthly life in the body, with its purposes and undertakings, doing and thinking, knowledge and wisdom together, Ecc 9:10 (so our Lord Himself in Joh 9:4 makes account of it for His diligence in working while in the flesh). As life on earth in a mortal body is for all men a troublesome, poor, and sorrowful thing, so certainly the advancing decay of the powers of life, with the dissolution of the union between soul and body, necessarily becomes quiescence, impotence, and withdrawal of their life-energy in regard to the appointed sphere of action. But passages like Job 26:5 sq., Eze 38:17, Pro 15:11, Psa 139:8, testify to the presence of the living God, through whom the subsisting and passing away of all beings is conditioned, as is said also in the made parallel with Sheol (comp. Mar 12:27; Luk 20:38). The contrast, therefore, to the heavenly upper world as the proper region of the divine life is not that of not-being and being; and just as little is the continued existence in Sheol an unconscious shade-existence, at least not according to Ezekiels representation: the heroes in Sheol speak and know themselves as such over against others, feel, etc. As the designation of shades () for the dead in the Old Testament times cannot be proved, so the appearance, for example, of Samuel (1 Samuel 28.), so entirely accordant with the spirit and address of Samuel as he actually lived, is not at all brought forward as an exception, somewhat after the manner of the Theban seer Tiresias (Odyss. x. 492 sq.). In the Old Testament, also, we read nothing of an instinctive repetition and continuation of the past life connected with the possession of blood. The representation of Sheol, into which there has often been greatly too much imported of heathen elements, is in no respect the localizing of the image, which, as Meier says, remains like a blanched, bloodless, shadowy form, in the spirit of the living, of their dead and buried fellow-men. Life in Sheol cannot, indeed, run counter to the conditions that prevail in respect to human life. Man is soul, but he has spirit, which for him constitutes the power wherein the life of the individual consists; while the soul is plainly the seat of that, as the body is its organ. If the life connected with the body appears as life in the flesh, when separated therefrom it will become an existence of the spirit, and departed men will necessarily have to be thought of as spirits, and can only in so far be termed souls as a retrospective sense of the earlier corporeal life has place. On this side the description of Sheol is certainly, and especially as contradistinguished from the earthly upperground life, kept in due regard to the state of things existing there. With the going down into the grave, the bright joyful sunlight vanishes for men; hence Sheol is the land of darkness and of the shadow of death (Job 10:21). While the world of light is an organized one, the midnight region of Sheol appears as a confused intermingling of substances, chaotic (Job 10:22). Busy life, so repeatedly designated tumult in this chapter of Ezekiel, becomes motionless in the grave; so in Psa 115:17 the dead go down to silence, to stillness (comp. Psa 104:17; Psa 31:18). The expression, however, of land of forgetfulness, Psa 88:12, must not be overstretched, though the reference is to be held fast in which it is said that, as God has given the earth to the children of men (Psa 115:16), so the manifestation of His wonder-working power and righteousness is promised to them on the earth while they are in the flesh. Not in the heathen materialistic sense, but Christologically, however still on the temporal side, the thought as to its form was presented in the Old Covenant. And thence are such passages as Psa 6:5; Psa 30:10 [Psa 30:9], Psa 88:10-11, Psa 115:17, Isa 38:18, to be understood. The dead, accordingly, are done (Psa 88:5); their state, Sheol, is without a history (on the other hand, comp. 1Co 15:19). But to complete our knowledge of the Old Testament Sheol, the ethical side is not to be overlooked, that is, the idea of recompense comes therein likewise into consideration (comp. Eze 32:23 sq.). The godly are there gathered to their fathers (Gen 25:8; Gen 35:29, etc.). It is a mode of representation which incidentally receives a very touching illustration in Luk 16:22 for the poor, who has no brother in the world, who is an abject, forlorn, when he is said to be received into Abrahams bosom. The righteous snatched away enters into peace, and rests therein upon the foundation of the grave (Isa 57:1). How far with the soul, when unclothed of the body, there takes place an ineffectual tormenting effort to consolidate itself corporeally (Beck)the spirit, however, being incapable of being contemplated apart from the soul, which conditions its individuality, therefore also not to be thought of as sunk after death into the corruption of the fleshmay be left undecided. It is enough that the rich man found himself in torment. With justice, however, Lange presses the thought that for the wicked Sheol is still not hell.
9. Neteler (comp. 4) maintains concerning Eze 30:21 to Eze 32:32, that is, the fourth of the groups set off by him, that through four symbols the overthrow of a power standing in antagonism to the Church is exhibited, and that what is said is to be taken eschatologically in a wider sense. Egypt is considered by him as a symbol of the power of Magog, and under the Chaldeans is found a combination of Romans and Germans. And here Netelers book dwells on the Russian Panslavism. The two last symbols must be fulfilled in the overthrow of Magog only provisionally, so that their complete fulfilment belongs to a still later future.
HOMILETIC HINTS
On Ch. 29
Eze 29:1-5. The close is made with Egypt, as Egypt was the beginning in respect to Israel.Egypt is with Ezekiel the oldest country of his peoples disgrace (Umer.).How clear is what God causes to be said to us! The address is plainly written, and can occasion no doubt to whom the word is directed; and not less clearly does it shine forth whose subscription stands under it, and who, therefore, will look after the punctual execution of the things spoken. It will not proceed according to mans sayings and opinions, but as God the Lord has said.The prophetic word so much the surer as the fulfilment of it now lies completely before us.What still survives of the Pharaohs lies in the midst of the wilderness; they are ruins to which the sand has still refused burial!Where can a mortal say: This is mine, or: This remains to me? But prosperity, where it is not understood as Gods blessing, makes people stupidly proud. See there, too, the blessing of tribulations, which demonstrate before our eyes, that nothing is our right, and nothing our abiding property (Stck.).Those who do not seek after the things which are above regard the Nile, which flows on the earth, with precisely such eyes.But that there is also a spiritual Egypt may be seen from Rev 11:8, and that is a people, kingdom, and dominion which holds in fetters the people of God and makes them slaves. Now, as under the great dragon in the sea Antichrist also comes to be considered, together with his scales and members that stick to him, and are in a manner innumerable, so shall this power also after the prince of Tyre receive his doom, with all his adherents, who by overbearing conscience have done so much wrong to the faithful. Then also will appear the vain help which the house of Israel has sometimes assumed as belonging to the reed of the fleshly arm (B. B.).Satan says to Jesus: All this will I give thee, all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, though still there was not an atom thereof in reality his (Luther).Oh how vain is man in prosperity! (St.)
Eze 29:4-5. Higher still than the highest is the Most High. He who comes from heaven is higher than all.It is bad when only amid loss people come wisely to learn that they had all of God, of which they were so proud and boasted themselves (Stck.).Pharaoh in the wilderness, and Jesus in the wilderness.They who set themselves up above others may readily observe that they are thrown off and away before they are themselves aware of it!The judgment of Jehovah upon the Pharaohs!Jehovah at the Pyramids, a very different object from Napoleon before them.The overthrow in the wilderness an image of a desolate ruin.
Eze 29:6-7. God punishes not those only who rely upon flesh, but those also who are flesh and yet wish others to find comfort in them.No knowledge of God and no knowledge of selfthis is what gives false self-confidence, and false confidence in man.The love of God in discovering the false and rotten props.A reed is everything that is in this world, as mans favour, temporal prosperity, beauty, yea, the corporeal life itself; from without it appears like a staff, and as if many were walking with it, but within it is hollow and brittle (Stck.).But for none is such a reed more suspicious than for the people to whom God has pledged Himself, and therewith all His wisdom and His omnipotence.It is certainly the same with the deceit and show of ones own righteousness, good purposes, and pious works. One cannot keep hand and shoulder far enough from these.How many a one has such like splinters in his conscience!The false reed-splinters in our bones, which make our going so feeble and our holding so insecure.The soldiers give to Christ a reed in mockery, Matthew , 27. (Luther).
Eze 29:8-16. The judgment of God by the sword in its significance for enemy and friend, warrior and conqueror, land and people.Desolation is always a mark of punishment. First men become waste, then their place is laid waste.Where the people become waste as regards God, there God causes the land to be waste of its people.Whosoever will have it that he has made himself to be what he says that he is, with him God must make an end, so that he may learn what he himself is, and how still God can do all.The mine and thine, as the grand controversy which moves the worlds history.So the sin of the people is their ruin; but though ancient history is full of examples, those who now live are not disposed to profit by them.Should one not be ashamed of such a speech, since it must so soon be changed into a pastit has been mine; and this often with much sorrow? (B. B.)The description of the earth is also a description of divine justice.By means of fragments and arrow-heads in the yellow sands of the desert, and obelisks which still point heavenwards, people now read the names of men, of kings, and such like; but the feci of God is likewise to be read there.The divine seasons of respite.The years of humiliating in their significance for Egypt and for us all as punishments and deliverance from high-mindedness.To stand low is to stand more secure than to go beyond bound and limit.All changes in the world have their bearing ultimately on the Church (St. ).God knows how to withdraw from the eyes of His own what dazzled their eyes and held them captive.Such is the aim of all the judgments that are inflicted, to withdraw the body of the faithful from confidence in what is human, and to supplant it by a firm trust in God (B. B.).
Eze 29:17-21. Warrior service hard service. He who serves God does not serve without pay.The recompense of our works is never made on the ground of merit, but is always of grace.The downfall of the world is the deliverance of the chosen (H. H.). Therefore lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh (Luk 21:28).When the world becomes poor, then the bones of the righteous flourish.The new life out of ruins.Upon silence to speak is better than to be silent upon speech.It is God who must open the mouth for us, and He also can do it.Immortality in the world and the eternal life in the sanctuary, Psa 23:6.
On Ch. 30
Eze 30:1-9. The judgments of God pass from His own people to other peoples; hence the day of the heathen could not be far off (Cocc.).Despair howls, hope waits.A day in clouds is also the day of death; the earth is shrouded from the eye, and especially when first the heaven has been covered to the spirit. Darkness then reigns below and above. How dark, then, is the grave!Bad times are met by watchfulness; howling merely goes before them as the loud blast before the outburst of the thunderstorm.
Eze 30:4-5. Many others are carried along with the fall of one. In every judgment that takes place in the world, behold a type and prelude of the judgment which is to be executed on the world.If not with the sinner immediately, yet on the sinner, and therefore through the sinner his companions shall be punished.Where God strikes the blow, there not only is the stir which a people makes, and with which it makes such a noise, its work and gain brought down, but also law and order and that whereon all rests are overthrown.
Eze 30:6-7. How helpless with all his appliances may one that was helpful to us prove in a night! May God be our help, who has made heaven and earth.
Eze 30:9. Everything does service as a messenger for God; in particular His word, which hence cannot be bound, but accomplishes that whereto it is sent.Gods seat of judgment stands always among mankind, and the worlds history is Gods judgment.The terrors in the history of the world.As there is a false security in individual men, so is there also a bad security with whole peoples.The national security a national loss.
Eze 30:10-19. When men do not sanctify God on holidays, God makes their bustling activity to keep holiday.When God wills, a mans name can cause terror to the world. But only One Name is given under heaven to men wherein we can happily exult before all terrors.Upon deeds of violence come still more violent ones, and tyrants are precipitated through tyrants.Whosoever sells himself to sin has already in doing so sold himself to his enemy (Stck.).Gods blessing fills, His curse impoverishes a land.
Eze 30:13. The hand of God alights some time upon all idols.From the overthrow of heathenism is seen the vanity of idols.Where are the famous cities of the olden times? Why do they lie buried in disorderly stone-heaps? Sinner, behold what sin may effect (St.),how it may build very high indeed, yet not for continuance, and still more may destroy.Gods and princes combined the common delusion of idolatry, at first in splendour, so afterwards in ruin!Terror is the opposite of courage, but not the fear of the Lord.Where God kindles a fire, it is always for judgment; the old is consumed therein, but a new springs forth out of the ruins.Without casting down, no progress in the life of humanity.
Eze 30:16. Must not man always be engaged in conflict?
Eze 30:17. With its youth the human future of a people goes down. Even the youth should be the chosen of God; instead of this, Satan at no period has so much of his nature in men as in the season of youth.
Eze 30:18-19. Walk in the light while ye still have the light,we, that is, who have the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.The judgment of God may, through the dogmas of men and a false philosophy, veil to us also the sun of truth, and wrap in darkness to mens view heaven and eternity.When at length, with the authority of God, the authority also of the law over men gives way, then, where superstition gives place to unbelief, there falls upon them yoke for yoke, one in the room of another; there is only an exchange of tyrants.How much old and high renown have the gravediggers of the worlds history already buried under the sod among other sweepings! What is gloria mundi?a transit.The new plagues of Egypt.The spirit of Pharaoh continued to be the spirit of the Pharaohs.Self heights are no heightsnone, at least, that stand in the judgment of God, and remain above though all else should go down and disappear; but a height in the true sense is that simply whereof it is said, As high as heaven is above the earth, Psa 103:11. This ought to be recognised, and that not merely at the last, amid howlings and gnashings of teeth, but betimes, when it may still serve for peace, with the calm open eye.The most wretched of all thoughts is that of having no part in God. How many an evil-doer has readily presented his head to the sword, in the conviction that through the punishment he should become a partaker of God! (H.)
Eze 30:20-26. How many the things are that men prize as an arm, and how easily these arms are broken!The arm of the Lord (Isaiah 53.), and the arm of man, and the armies of princes.More easily is an arm broken than healed; but now first of all the conscience, how Gainfully does it sting, and how long is it in healing! (Stck.)What God has broken, God only can heal.
Eze 30:22. But man never has enough by a fracture; so long as he can still move and stir otherwise, he must show himself. Therefore shall there come to be a destruction without mercy, if we will not submit to God on the footing of grace.Sickness breaks one arm, death both arms (Stck.).Every breakage which we must suffer is a call to repentance.
Eze 30:23. He who will not fear God in his fatherland has no injustice done him, if in a foreign land he is made to experience all sorts of misfortune (St.).
Eze 30:24-26. Strength and weakness come both from God (W.).Upon whose side Jehovah stands, that man prevails in the conflict; to him there is prosperity in life; he enjoys a blessing with his work. But this favour has the Lord promised to the righteous. Without God all ends unfortunately, mournfully, and in perdition (Stck.).What serves God, that serves also the kingdom and the power of the Spirit; just as at the last, all the kingdoms of this world shall become Gods and His Christs.
On Ch. 31
Eze 31:1-2. The greatness of Egypt was the presumption against the warnings of the prophet. But greatness is no security against destruction; no greatness upon earth can withstand the strokes of God (H.).With justice are kingdoms compared in Scripture to trees, as well on account of their form, the protection and shadow they afford to men and beasts, as also on account of their fruits; and still farther in this respect, that kingdoms, like trees, flourish and again cease to exist, torn up by the wind, or cut down by the hatchet of man (L.).It is very well for people to compare themselves with others, though not for the purpose of thinking better of themselves than others, as the Pharisee in the temple over against the publican, or in order to envy others; but humbly to learn that we are a part of mankind, and that what is human may befall us, and shall at last take place without exception. Also to make each one more contented with his lot, a comparison with others is, as a rule, fitted to be serviceable.Both the one and the other inference is right: As God has elevated that humble one, so can He, in His own time, elevate me; as God has abased that proud one, so may it also be done with me (Stck.).
Eze 31:3-9. The histories of the world might teach great lords much, that they should not rely upon their own powers (Lg.).Rulers and princes should be shady trees to the righteous.God has done good also to the heathen, that they might seek Him, if haply they might find Him, Act 17:26-27 (Stck.).Oh, what streams of grace flow upon the unthankful, if they would only perceive them! The waters are indeed not of one sortone portion swims in pure felicity, another in tribulation and adversity; but the aim is uniform, and the divine loving-kindnesses which are concealed under the latter are certainly greater than the former, in the eyes of those who know to estimate things aright (B. B.).But their favourable condition and the friendliness of God only serve with many to puff them up, and render them proud and arrogant,an end for which certainly all this was not given.He with whom it overflows should make it trickle over upon others.
Eze 31:7. To be radical in the proper sense is a good thing, namely, that one should know that his root is in God.The true comeliness of a prince stands in comely virtues, which adorn every man, especially a prince,clemency and justice above all; to afford protection and solace to the persecuted; to spread forth as it were his branches to the miserable; to have about him servants resplendent with his own virtues, so that, as in every branch the nature of the tree, so in every servant the character of the prince, may appear reflected. He and they must not be terrible to the good, nor oppressive to his subjects. The love of the people is a good root for a race of princes (Cocc.).
Eze 31:8. Better to be envied than commiserated. God makes man beautiful, as He alone also makes him good; the latter is the divine nature, the former the divine form, of a man.
Eze 31:10-13. I have given thee into the hand of such and such an onethis explains much darkness.The haughty spirit going before, the key to the fall afterwards.Now, however, we are all in Adam inclined to pride of soul; and the perishing things of this world, riches, honour, splendour, beauty, knowledge, etc., nourish our natural inclination, being all things which we overestimate. However, even a plain smockfrock often covers a repulsive arrogance. But kings are through their flatterers nourished in this vice, which is the root of all others (L.).One must grow in order to be able to lift the top so high; this is not so quickly reached;on the other hand, to arrive at the lowest depth there needs only one overthrow, which may take place in a single moment.One falls more quickly down a stair than one mounts up again.God cannot suffer pride; I am meek and lowly in heart, it was said by Him who was God manifest in the flesh, Mat 11:29.Out of the heart of man proceed also all high things that are offensive to God, which need not always wear a crown, but may have merely a pen behind the ear, or a pair of spectacles on the nose.
Eze 31:12-13. From the foreign land comes much sufferingfirst foreign sins, then punishment through foreigners.A shameful fall into sin, and a frightful fall into misfortuneboth invite to study.There must also fall into the valleys branches that have been broken off, that poor people may not think the great ones of the earth are freed from death and judgment.When the punishments of God break forth, then such as can flee gladly make off, while they were not to be enticed out of the shadow of sin, in which they delighted themselves.God shakes the luxurious tree from top to bottom, and then all that stuck to its branches fall off; and so they are struck off, since they did not allow themselves to be warned off.How does the shadow of the rich vanish with the sun of prosperity, and with the shadow depart also the flatterers and panegyrists ! (Stck.)He who chooses to be forsaken must become poor.Fate can keep up the interest, but a rich man who has become poor is a woe-begone phenomenon for the world.How often do the goods of a rich man become scattered over the world after his death! (Stck.)Discern false friends in adversity!To cut, and peck, and aid in plundering the very person in whose prosperity men formerly basked, and whom they hardly knew how to laud highly enough!So deeply is the friendship of the world rooted, and its caresses. So long as all goes well, friends and worshippers are readily found. But when that changes, all goes otherwise(B. B.).
Ver.14. Precautions must be taken that the trees do not grow into the heavens.All are born nakedno one comes in purple into the world; but that is far from working so powerfully as the thought that the king must die as the beggar.Death the moral of the human fable.A mighty lesson for our time (Richt.).Somewhat for People who would see clearly upon the death of Napoleon.That there is to be a general judgment after this life is evident alone from death, which strikes all, even great men.The consideration of the inevitable exit of all who live should beget moderation in pretensions. We take nothing with us of that which so many desire with such eagerness (L.).
Eze 31:15-18. Great fates cast forth also great shadows.If our terrors did but lead us to the knowledge of our misery, as well as of the glory of God!The grave unites all at the last.The glory of the earth must become dust and ashes, etc.But who believes our report may be said also here: he who exalts himself shall be abased, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.Thus God throws the loftinesses of men into one heap (B. B.).And so circumcision makes a distinction in deathnot, of course, that which is done in the flesh, but the circumcised heart; so that a circumcised person may have his place also among the uncircumcised, as, on the other side, uncircumcised persons, who are not so in heart, may be counted as circumcised. At the close, however, the prophet writes the name Pharaoh on the lid of the coffin (Cocc.).
On Ch. 32
Eze 32:1-2. How far otherwise have the court-poets ever and anon elegized !The comparison with lions and dragons withdraws much that is human in respect to Pharaoh.This robberfish (?) and dragon, which with his feet troubles the streams, is like the beast that should ascend out of the sea (Revelation 13.). Pharaoh is hence the enemy of the chosen, a roaring lion, which troubles the waters of heavenly wisdom with the slime of human additions, so that they provide no proper drink for those who thirst for salvation (H. H.).Should Christian kings be like lions and dragons? They ought to be the fathers of their country, caring day and night for the welfare of their subjects (St.).Tyrants and the covetous are insatiable, and cannot be at rest (Stck.).Ah! how much misfortune can be brought about by a restless ruler! Therefore pray for a peaceful government of the kingdom (St.).
Eze 32:3-10. The godless hasten to meet their destruction, without being afraid of it, but often secretly driven thereto by God (H. H.).God is the supreme hunter and fisher; He can throw upon the lions His toils, and upon the whales His net, to catch and destroy them (W.).God knows how to tame the untamed, to humble the proud, and to curb the fierce; who can resist His power? (Stck.)To be rejected, if not thrown entirely away, is the end of the mighty after the flesh.Corruption the last strophe also in heroic poetry.How mournful is it to be cast away by God! (Stck.)Even the ass will plant his footstep on the wounded dying lion.What the rich boast themselves so much of is but a carcase, which those who live after them will divide among themselves.After death, shame and reproach overtake the wicked and shameless (H. H.).
Eze 32:5-6. Overflowing for overflowing; for the waters of Egypt, now the blood of the hosts of Pharaoh.They who formerly swam in pleasures, shall by and by swim in their own blood (Stck.).
Eze 32:7. The greatness of the calamity is described by the prophet from the sense of those whom the tribulation affects, to whom it seems as if the whole world were enveloped in darkness (H. H.).The lights of heaven truly shine only for the happy; the sun exists not but for the sunlit eye (H.).The godly sustain themselves in such circumstances by the thought that the Lord is their light, and therefore will not suffer the light of their heart to go out (L.).But he who despises the light of grace, for him the light of glory also shall not shine (Stck.).It is also dark, and the stars even fall from the heaven, when great, noble, important, eminent men, heroes, sages, lawgivers, governors, teachers, are carried off by deathor worse, when they fall away into superstition or unbelief, ungodliness, injustice, and violence.
Eze 32:9. Many a fall leads to the elevation of others (St.).To be frightened is still not to be awakened, and awakening without enlightenment is spiritual tumult without spiritual life.The grave, too, is an unknown land, and thither we are all journeying. Yet for faith there is a sun which rises upon it, that never goes down.So the Lord loves to inspire terror, that He may break fleshly confidence (H. H.).Happy for him whom a sincere conversion has made secure against the terrors which seize upon the whole earth!He who still has to fear for his soul, let him consider that the whole world can profit him nothing!Every moment are we in danger of death, and consequently in sight of eternity.
Eze 32:11-16. If no other cure proves effectual, then God betakes Himself to the sword.The method of salvation through blood and iron; but what is the state of society presupposed in connection with it!The guillotine and the sword both do their work quickly, and bring what is before as it were under them.
Eze 32:13. It touches a miserly man much more nearly if his beast dies, than if his children are taken from him by death (St.).A stock of cattle a state of peace.
Eze 32:14-15. The stillness of the desert is indeed stillness, but it is not peace, any more than to flow like oil is the soft nature of the spirit.There is rest in the grave, but much unrest thereafter, yea, more unrest, and of a worse kind than existed before.There go the waters softly, as in mourning (Umbr.).But God knows how to set at rest a land and its creatures which have been plagued and misused by men. Where have the oppressors gone? They also lie still.Lamentation does not take away the pain, but in the lamentation it lives on.
Eze 32:17-32. Whoever would gain a thorough insight into the dominions and powers of the earth, he must look down into hell.The instructive glance into hell.The song of hell.La divina comdia of Ezekiel.The doctrine of Sheol as the doctrine of the state after death.What does the Sheol of the Old Testament signify? (1) According to its name, the demand of death on all persons and things, therefore the power of death over every individual person and thing; therefore that death is the wages of sin, the judgment of Gods wrath which takes effect on the flesh. (2) As to the thing, it is the state after death as existence in a spacious grave; that is, notwithstanding the dissolution of the body and the separation of soul and body, a continuous life of the spirit, and that with consciousness and recollectionhence, according to the character of this, in peace or disquiet.Woe to him whom the doom of death precipitates into condemnation in death!One can strike up no song to the living more unacceptable, yet at the same time none more profitable, than one about dying; should any one refuse to accompany it, it will still be sung upon him.He to whom the earth was all, when he sinks into the grave, all sinks with him. It is thus easily comprehensible how death stretches into the future, even into the grave, and how all appears as grave and graves.People and princes, Sheol demands both.Only to the pious is the tomb a chamber where they softly sleep, a resting-place without pain and commotion, a mothers bosom (as we are from the earth), a place of repose to lie down in (Stck.).
Eze 32:19. It will be so much the worse if one has been nothing but fleshly, for death seizes in a rough and frightful manner.
Eze 32:20. The sword cuts into the life, severs from life, sadly if also from God. For to die is what still goes on, to corrupt also; but to become lost for ever, that is the death without end, to die for evermore.
Eze 32:21. The salutation of the dead toward the living when they die.
Eze 32:22 sq. What is received into the human heart, finds its grave also there; so round about the prince of death are his grave-places, wherein after a spiritual manner he is buried (Gregory).The grave for the unconverted, the condemned, the perspective of the future world.The grave is very deep, even though in a material point of view it may be but a few feet down: it is deep enough to shroud all glory (H.).Powerfully seizes the mind and humbles the pride the ever-recurring There, when the subject of discourse has respect to a fallen king and his hosts. We look upon a limitless field of graves, and it is remarkable and peculiar to our prophet, that he transfers the graves also to the lower world (Umbr. ).As the elect come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God, so the cast off find their way to the uncircumcised, to the pierced by the sword, in the depths below (H. H)Here many graves, in the house of the Father many mansions.The counterpart of the fellowship of believers upon earth, of the elect in heaven.The lowest Sheol and the heavenly Jerusalem.The earth is everywhere indeed the Lords, but not all the dead die in the Lord.
Eze 32:27. Men take with them into the state of the dead their knowledge, and along therewith the judicial sentence due to their manner of life.Nothing is forgotten before God which is not forgiven.The wrath of God remains on them, it is said in John.
Eze 32:31. It is a wretched consolation which is derived from the circumstance that people see in others the same torments which themselves experience. And yet misguided mortals do really comfort themselves with it. It is a common necessity, they say; others have experienced the same, and are experiencing it daily, etc. (H. H.)The word of God, however, brings home to every man at last the application: this is such and such an one; as we find written on the tombstones: Here lies N. N.The Pharaohs prepare to swallow up without mercy: Jacobs Shepherd laughs at them, etc. (Hiller.)
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
In this chapter comes in the threatened overthrow of Egypt. The Lord is reckoning with the nations, and Israel’s ancient foe must not go unpunished.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Here are sad things to be done for the humbling of Egypt, and which God will certainly accomplish. But what I particularly beg the Reader to observe, because it is indeed the general cause the Lord assigns for his judgments upon those various nations, is, that it is to punish Egypt for the having done evil to his people. They have been, saith the Lord, a staff of reed to the house of Israel. The Reader will not need, I should hope, any observation from me to show the importance of this doctrine, neither the graciousness of it. Here again, as before, I beg the Reader to make a right calculation, if he can, of the greatness of the mercy.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Eze 29:21
Because the pulse seems to intermit, we must not presume that it will cease instantly to beat. The public must never be regarded as incurable.
Burke, First Letter on a Regicide Peace.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
XVII
PROPHECIES AGAINST THE FOREIGN NATIONS
Ezekiel 25-32
Ezekiel has grouped his prophecies in regard to the foreign nations that came in contact with Israel, as Jeremiah also groups his prophecies in Ezekiel 46-51. Isaiah also groups his, in reference to the foreign nations, in Ezekiel 13-23. These three greatest of the prophets had oracles on the nations with whom Israel came in contact during that period of their history. Amos also devotes the earlier part of his prophecies to utterances regarding these same nations. Nahum devotes his prophecy to predicting the downfall of Nineveh and the Assyrian Kingdom. Obadiah’s entire prophecy relates to the downfall of Edom.
Some may ask the question, Why these prophecies against the foreign nations? Let us endeavor to find some reasons why Ezekiel should give these oracles against the foreign powers. They were written during the siege of Jerusalem, at a time when Ezekiel was perfectly sure that the city would fall, as he had been preaching for many years that doctrine to the exiles. Jeremiah had been preaching the same thing to the people in Jerusalem and Judah. The fall of Jerusalem at the hands of foreign and heathen powers would seem to establish the triumph of heathenism. The nations would conclude from this fact that because Jehovah’s kingdom, city, and Temple had fallen and the great heathen powers had triumphed, therefore Jehovah was inferior to the heathen gods.
On this point the prophets of Jehovah had something to say, and such was apparently the occasion for these prophecies. They would serve to confirm the sentence of God upon Israel in showing that God dealt with the foreign nations as he did with Israel; that he punishes sin as surely and as severely among the heathen as he does in Israel, and although the heathen nations seem to survive for awhile, they are no exception to the rule of righteousness with Jehovah. Again, the downfall of these nations at the hand of Jehovah and the prophecies regarding them, would have their influence upon Israel for the future. With the heathen nations out of the way, Israel would be free to return to her land and set up the everlasting kingdom that Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel had prophesied. The enemies, the old hereditary enemies of Israel, shall be destroyed utterly and absolutely, therefore the kingdom of God shall have free course to be glorified.
Ezekiel speaks of seven nations; five of them are small, but two of them are large nations. He says nothing of Babylon except by way of inference. He is living in Babylon and doubtless that was sufficient reason for refraining from speaking against that great empire.
The prophecy against Ammon is found in Eze 25:1-7 . Ammon bordered on the tribe of Reuben, and when that tribe was deported by Tiglath-pileser, Ammon seized the territory of Reuben contrary to what was right. Ammon had suffered at the hands of Jephthah, and also David through his general, Joab. Ammon bore hatred against Israel, but along with Judah he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, out of no friendship to Judah, but with the possible hope of freedom for himself. When Judah was destroyed, Ammon rejoiced and because of that Ezekiel hurls his denunciation against him: “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thou saidst, Aha, against my sanctuary, when it was profaned; and against the land of Israel, when it was made desolate; and against the house of Judah, when they went into captivity; therefore, behold, I will deliver thee into captivity; thou shalt be utterly destroyed and thy capital, Rabbah, shall be a stable for camels and thy territory shall be possessed by the roving Bedouin Arabs of the desert.” He holds out no hope for the future whatever. Jeremiah did prophesy a future for Ammon, but Ezekiel does not.
Ezekiel’s prophecy against Moab is recorded in Eze 25:8-11 . Isaiah and Jeremiah also have oracles against Moab. Moab had, like Ammon, seized a part of the territory of Reuben and was famous for her pride, an inordinate, selfish pride. When Jerusalem fell Moab also scorned her and rejoiced over her fall and said, “Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the nations.” Because Moab said that Jehovah’s people, with their king, was just like other nations, “therefore,” says Ezekiel, “Moab shall be overwhelmed and destroyed forevermore.” No hope for the future is held out for Moab by Ezekiel. Jeremiah did give some hope to Moab, but none is given by Ezekiel.
Then follows the prophecy against Edom (Eze 25:12-14 ). The country of Edom lies south of the Dead Sea and north of the Gulf of Akabah. Edom had borne hatred against Israel since the days of Esau. It was born in her, and she was nourished in animosity toward her neighbor. David almost exterminated the Edomites, and they were brought into subjection time and time again. They never forgave Israel, and when Judah and Jerusalem were overwhelmed, Edom also rejoiced and took captive all the fleeing Israelites she could and sold them into slavery. Because of that Ezekiel pronounces an irretrievable doom: “Therefore thus saith the Lord God, I will stretch out my hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; even unto Dedan shall they fall by the sword.”
The prophecy against Philistia (Eze 25:15-17 ): These were likewise the old, hereditary foes of Israel. They were very much like the Edomites in their feelings against her. They were revengeful, filled with an everlasting enmity, and rejoiced when Jerusalem went up in smoke. Because of that Ezekiel hurls his denunciations against the Philistines: they were to be crushed by the yoke Nebuchadnezzar. They had already been almost wiped out by the Assyrians. They were destroyed as a nation by the Babylonians, and at the time of the Maccabees they were completely exterminated as a nation.
Tyre was one of the greatest commercial nations of the old world, corresponding to the English nation in the modern world. The date of this prophecy is 586 B.C., the first day of the first month of the siege of Jerusalem. The prophet devotes three chapters to his oracles against Tyre. That city had achieved great commercial importance. She traded with every known nation in the world; she had lent her influence to every nation; she was the envy of almost every nation. She was the most active, the most aggressive, had the greatest commercial power, in some respects the greatest wisdom and the greatest skill, as well as the greatest colonizing power, of any nation at that period. From the thirteenth century Tyre was the commercial center. She had been friendly to Judah and Jerusalem under David and Solomon and some later kings, but for a century or two her relations to Judah had been changed; she had grown jealous of Judah’s commercial advantages, and was now exhibiting the same hatred and jealousy toward Judah that all the other nations were manifesting. She rejoiced over the fall of Jerusalem the same as the other nations. Her business rival was now destroyed; her own chances were enhanced and, with the true spirit of commercial greed, she was glad that her sister nation had perished.
The destruction of the city of Tyre is described in Eze 26 . In Eze 26:2 the prophet gives his reason for hurling this denunciation and prophecy of destruction against Tyre: “Son of man, because that Tyre hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gate of the people; she is turned unto me; I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste.” Therefore, he denounced her and predicted her fate.
It was by Nebuchadnezzar, and in predicting her fall and end, Eze 26:5 says, “She shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God; and she shall become a spoil to the nations.” He would scrape the great rock, the island upon which Tyre was built, so that the very dust itself would be taken off and there would be nothing there but a bare rock for spreading and drying the nets of the fishermen. That is almost literally true today and has been for centuries.
From that verse on, he predicts the siege of the city by Nebuchadnezzar. Tyre was built upon an island rock a short distance from the shore and was one of the strongest forts of the world. Nebuchadnezzar had to build a causeway from the mainland to reach the city. Ezekiel describes his mode of attacking the city in verse Eze 26:9 : “And he shall set his battering engines against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers,” and he continues with a full description of the rushing of the chariots over the streets and the indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants, with a sack of the great city.
From Eze 26:15-19 we have the consternation of the various nations over the fall of this great commercial center. If New York, that center of commercial life, were to be destroyed, it would not send a greater thrill of consternation throughout the civilized world and would not more seriously affect the industrial life of America than did the fall of Tyre shock every nation and affect the commerce of every people of the world. They are represented as being in a state of consternation and it says in Eze 26:17 , “They shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How art thou destroyed, that wast inhabited by seafaring men, the renowned city, that was strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, that caused their terror to be on all that dwelt there.” In the last two verses of that chapter he describes the inhabitants of Tyre as sinking down into Sheol, the pit, or abyss, the abode of the dead, and there abiding in darkness forever.
We have a magnificent description of Tyre by Ezekiel under the figure of a great ship in Eze 27 . In this chapter we have one of the finest passages in the Old Testament and one of the best opportunities for the study of ancient commerce to be found anywhere. Tyre is pictured as a gallant ship, a splendid big ship, one of the great merchantmen of that age: “They have made all thy planks of fir trees from Senir [Hermon]; they have taken a cedar from Lebanon to make a mast for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; they have made thy benches of ivory inlaid in boxwood, from the isles of Kittim [Cyprus.”] Her sail was made of fine linen from Egypt, and it was an ensign. Ships did not carry flags in that age, but they had colored sails and figures marked upon them which served the purpose of a flag. Thus the purple of Egypt served as an ensign, or flag. Blue and purple linen of Elishah [which refers to Peloponnesus] furnished the awning for the ship.
The men of Sidon, a town about twenty miles north, and the men of Arvad, a town still farther north on the Mediterranean coast, were its mariners, or rowers. Ships in that age had one or two sets of rowers. The ship in which Paul sailed had rowers, and the mariners in Jonah’s ship rowed hard. The men of Tyre, the wisest of the world, as they thought, and the best seamen and navigators of the world, were their pilots. The elders of Gebal, the best carpenters, were their calkers, literally, the leak-stoppers. Look at the army on board to guard this magnificent ship: They were men of Arvad; “Persia and Lud, and Phut were in thine army, thy men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness . . . and valorous men were in thy towers.”
Then he goes on in (Eze 27:12-14 ) to describe the sea commerce of the great city of Tyre. To Tarshish, away on the western coast of Spain, the Strait of Gibraltar on the Atlantic Ocean her trade extended. “Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded for thy wares.” From Javan, Tubal, (south of the Black Sea) and Meshech, they brought vessels of brass and slaves. Togarmah is supposed to be modern Armenia, probably bordering on the Black Sea also. They reached this country by ships through the Black Sea and the straits. What did they get there? Horses and mules. So much for the sea commerce.
Now he gives the land commerce (Eze 27:15-25 ). Dedan was the Arab tribe bordering on the southern and eastern boundary of Palestine and Edom. Here they got horns of ivory and ebony which indicates that these merchants either went into Africa and made use of the elephant tusks, or went into India and obtained the ivory and ebony there.
Syria, round about Damascus, supplied them with emeralds, purple and broidered work, fine linen, coral and rubies.
Judah supplied them with wheat of Minnith, and Pannag (perhaps a kind of confection), honey, oil, and balm.
Damascus supplied them with the wine of Helbon, the finest and best wine of the world at that time; also with white wool.
Vedan and Javan supplied them with bright iron, cassia, and calamus.
Dedan supplied them with precious clothes for riding. When the ladies would go out riding, the fine clothes they wore came all the way from Dedan, probably located in southeastern Arabia.
Arabia and the princes of Kedar supplied them with lambs, rams, and goats.
Sheba and Raamah supplied them with all kinds of spices, precious stones, and gold.
Haran, Canneh, Eden, Asshur, and Chilmad supplied them with blue cloth and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords and made of cedar.
Now that is a magnificent description of the commerce of Tyre. It is the analogue of that marvelous description which we find in Rev 18:1-20 , where John pictures all the merchants of the earth mourning over the fall of the great city, Babylon. Many things there are identical with the articles of commerce here.
Next we have the fate of this magnificent ship (Eze 27:26-36 ): “Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the heart of the seas. Thy riches, and thy wares, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the dealers in thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, with all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the heart of the seas in the day of thy ruin.” Her rowers had rowed into dangerous waters, and the divine powers broke upon her. The east wind, or divine judgment, produced the fall of the great city of Tyre. In Eze 27:28-36 there is the lamentation of the nations over the fall of this great city, just as John pictures all the merchants of the world lamenting over the fall of the great mystical Babylon, Rome.
The pride and fall of Tyre are represented in Eze 28:1-19 . This is a representation of what he had already said, only here he takes the prince of Tyre as a personified spirit of the city, the prince, representing the people, and gathering up in himself, as it were, the spirit of the people. He directs his lamentation against the prince. He represents the prince of Tyre as saying, “I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas.” That was the spirit of Tyre and is the spirit of every great commercial center where the commercial spirit rules and reigns.
Babylon said, “I am, and there is none else beside me.” Self-glorification, self-deification, idolizing self, is the besetting sin of every great commercial city. It has been and is today, and because of this great commercialism and inordinate pride, the prince of Tyre was doomed to destruction. They had great wisdom, worldly wisdom; they had great power, great wealth, great glory, but they were great idolaters and as such they perished. In Eze 28:11-19 he pictures the prince of Tyre as a cherub in the garden of God, or on the mountain of God, clothed in all the magnificence of the finest and most precious and costliest stones that could be found. This cherub, this angelic being, fell prey to sin and was destroyed.
There is also a prophecy against Sidon in Eze 28:20-24 . (For the prophecies of this passage see the text.) Sidon was an important city a few miles north of Tyre and her fate was involved in the fate of Tyre. When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed one he destroyed the other, with all the villages and towns adjacent to it.
Then follows another wonderful prophecy of the restoration of Israel and the blessings upon her after her return (Eze 28:25-26 ).
Egypt was a great nation, one of the greatest nations of the world, and Ezekiel devotes four chapters to her fall. The date of it was during the siege of Jerusalem, 587 B.C. The following is a summary of the prophecy against her:
1. A general statement of the fall of Egypt (Eze 29:1-16 ). Egypt is compared to a dragon, a crocodile, a huge alligator floundering around in the river Nile and boasting, as he says in the latter part of verse Eze 29:3 : “My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.” That was the spirit of Egypt. That great dragon-crocodile shall be taken with hooks in his mouth and Jehovah will pull him up and drag him forth and all the little fishes that belong to him will hang onto his scales, and he will be taken out into the wilderness and there he will be meat for the beasts and fowls of the air. This means that Egypt shall be destroyed from one end to the other, from the tower of Seveneh unto the border of Ethiopia. “Yet thus saith the Lord God: At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the peoples whither they were scattered; and I will bring back the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their birth; and they shall be there a base kingdom.” After that Egypt shall be the basest of the kingdoms; “neither shall it any more lift itself up above the nations: and I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.” From that time until this, Egypt has been a poor, weak, and worthless power.
2. The reward of Nebuchadnezzar for failure to get booty at Tyre (Eze 29:17-21 ). The prophecy against Tyre that we have been studying was uttered in the year 586 B.C. Shortly after the fall of Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre and continued the siege for thirteen years. We are not told whether he succeeded in capturing and destroying the city or not. Now, this prophecy came from Ezekiel in the year 570 B.C., the first month, first day of the month, sixteen years after he had written the previous prophecy. During those sixteen years Nebuchadnezzar had been besieging Tyre for thirteen years and had apparently destroyed the city as Ezekiel had prophesied, but had taken no spoil. Ezekiel had definitely prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would utterly and completely overwhelm Tyre, and he had seemingly done it. This prophecy throws some light upon the situation. Eze 29:18 says, “Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre; every head was made bald, and every shoulder was worn; yet had he no wages, nor his army, from Tyre, for the service he had served against it.” How extremely hard was this thirteen years of toil I Now that plainly indicates that Nebuchadnezzar did not succeed in securing the wealth of the Tyre.
The truth seems to be that the people of Tyre spirited away by ships all their wealth and most of their inhabitants, and capitulated to Nebuchadnezzar at the end of about thirteen years, and when he entered the city he had nothing to destroy nor any wealth to take. Such seems probable, though we have no history that would justify the statement.
Now, because Nebuchadnezzar had performed this service for Jehovah against Tyre and had received no wages (Eze 29:19-20 ), God says, “Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and he shall carry off her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which he served, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord God.”
3. The terror and dismay of the surrounding nations (Eze 30:1-19 ). The fall of a nation sends a thrill of horror and dismay through the world, and the fall of a great nation like Egypt struck terror into the hearts of all the surrounding nations, Arabia, Ethiopia, Crete, etc.
4. The broken arm of Egypt (Eze 30:20-26 ). Egypt had had one arm broken, probably by Nebuchadnezzar. Now Ezekiel prophesies that Egypt shall have both arms broken, and her power shall be destroyed.
5. Pharaoh represented as a lordly cedar cut down (Eze 31:3 ), “Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon.” He is using Assyria as an example for Egypt. He goes on with his magnificent description of the cedar. It is cut down. The Babylonians and Medes lay the ax at the roots and the cedar falls, crashing among the nations. In Eze 31:16 he pictures them as going down into the nethermost part of the earth into the pit of Sheol to abide forever.
6. Lamentation over the fall of Egypt (Eze 32:1-16 ). Here we have the picture of the dragon again, destroyed and left for a prey of the birds and beasts.
7. The welcome to Sheol, or Hades, by the nations (Eze 32:17-32 ).
This has been said to be the most weird piece of literature in all the world. All the people of Egypt, the princes, the mighty men, the soldiers, who were slain in these wars, go down into Sheol, the underworld, the place of the departed, and there existing in their shadowy and weak existence, grouped together and with them is Assyria and all her hosts that were slain with the sword: grouped together also and with them, Elam and all her hosts; grouped around them Mesheck, Tubal, and all her multitude; Edom, her kings, and all her princes, and all the Sidonians grouped together in Sheol. These are all in the shadowy world below, surrounding Egypt. In Eze 32:31 , Pharaoh and his hosts and all these foreign countries and their hosts, are said to be in Sheol where light is as darkness, and are gathered together in groups and Pharaoh shall see them and shall be comforted over all this multitude of slain ones. It is a picture of their conception of the underworld, Sheol, which is the place of the dead who have passed through what we know to be the grave, down into the spirit world. Thus Ezekiel leaves these nations in Sheol, the place where there is no light.
QUESTIONS
1. What prophets prophesied against foreign nations and what can you say of the grouping of their prophecies?
2. Why these prophecies against foreign nations?
3. What and why the prophecy against Ammon? (Eze 25:1-7 .)
4. What and why the prophecy against Moab? (Eze 25:8-11 .)
5. What and why the prophecy against Edom? (Eze 25:12-14 .)
6. What and why the prophecy against Philistia? (Eze 25:15-17 .)
7. What can you say of Tyre’s commercial importance and her attitude toward Judah and Jerusalem?
8. How is the destruction of the city of Tyre described in chapter 26?
9. Give the magnificent description of Tyre by Ezekiel under the figure of a great ship (27).
10. How is the pride and fall of Tyre represented in Eze 28:1-19 ?
11. What is the prophecy against Sidon in Eze 28:20-24 , when fulfilled and what prophecy relative to the children of Israel?
12. Summarize the prophecy against Egypt (Ezekiel 29-32).
13. What is the added prophecy concerning Tyre in Eze 28:17-21 ?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Eze 29:1 In the tenth year, in the tenth [month], in the twelfth [day] of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. In the tenth year. ] The year before Jerusalem was taken. Eze 24:1
In the tenth month.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Ezekiel Chapter 29
The next series consists of four chapters directed against Egypt, as the last three against Tyre with its prince and king. The evil denounced is no longer commercial pride, but confident nature, and this especially in political wisdom. We shall see how God brings to nought the power which is thus characterized and set itself up in haughty independence of Him; for we have here the judgment of the nations, Israel included, before Babylon acquired its imperial supremacy.
“In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt: Speak and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers; thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.” (Ver. 1-6)
Thus should God deal with the self-confidence of Egypt, whose king is compared to the sea monster that crouches in the midst of the Nile’s branches. When its hour came, abasing destruction should fall not on it only but on all the fish that should cling to it for protection. The blow was to be fatal, and birds and beasts of prey, should feast on it.
“And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am Jehovah, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest”, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.” (Vers. 6, 7) The chosen people had repaired to Egypt for succour before now: what had been the issue? In vain the alliance of Israel with a nation who avowedly trusted in themselves, not in the Lord, save indeed to the sore wounding of Israel when Egypt was broken.
“Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am Jehovah: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it. Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syrene even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.” (Ver. 8-12) Egypt should be not only smitten, but most of all in what was its chief boast, its river. That granary of the world, and garden of the earth, should become a wilderness for forty years, and the Egyptians be scattered exiles: so great chastening should Nebuchadnezzar inflict.
But how evident the mouth and the hand of God! It was a measured sentence, and not more surely should the woe come than its worst should terminate according to His word. “Yet thus saith the Lord Jehovah, At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered: and I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their inhabitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations. And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I am the Lord Jehovah.” ( Ver. 13-16) How wonderful, and how punctually fulfilled! yet no wit of man could have forecast it in any of its parts. It was the reversal of its own experiences, and no other nation had a similar destiny or sentence. The more we ponder the word, the more we know its real history: not the prophecy from the history – no man ever yet learnt truly thus – but the history from the prophecy, for God alone sees and speaks without error or change; and our best wisdom is to learn of Him, honouring His word, let who will prefer the sight of their eyes or the hearing of men with their ears. Dull as Israel were, they should thus know that He was Jehovah. Egypt though restored rose to dominion no more, became a kingdom but the basest, and no more an object of confidence to Israel.
The rest of the chapter connects with the beginning of it a prophecy wholly distinct in time but kindred in subject. “And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it: therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord Jehovah.” (Ver. 17-20) It naturally follows the burden of Tyre, for it represents Jehovah as balancing the vast expenditure of Nebuchadnezzar on that hardly won city whose wealth in great part escaped his grasp with the conquest of Egypt, a rich booty to the conqueror and his greedy and before this disappointed host. No wonder the land of Egypt was to be long waste, though not for ever.
“In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them. and they shall know that I am Jehovah.” (Ver. 21) We have no account that so it was. But we need none. So Jehovah spoke; and so we are sure it was: Israel revived, and Ezekiel delivered His message in their midst, and they then knew who He is that would have them aware of what was coming before it came.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Eze 29:1-7
1In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth of the month, the word of the LORD came to me saying, 2Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt and prophesy against him and against all Egypt.
3Speak and say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,
Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,
The great monster that lies in the midst of his rivers,
That has said, ‘My Nile is mine, and I myself have made it.’
4I will put hooks in your jaws
And make the fish of your rivers cling to your scales.
And I will bring you up out of the midst of your rivers,
And all the fish of your rivers will cling to your scales.
5I will abandon you to the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers;
You will fall on the open field; you will not be brought together or gathered.
I have given you for food to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the sky.
6Then all the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am the LORD,
Because they have been only a staff made of reed to the house of Israel.
7When they took hold of you with the hand,
You broke and tore all their hands;
And when they leaned on you,
You broke and made all their loins quake.
Eze 29:1 There is a series of dates mentioned in connection with this literary unit related to God’s judgment on Egypt (i.e., Eze 29:1 to Eze 32:32). See note at Contextual Insights, B.
Eze 29:2 Son of man See note at Eze 2:1.
set your face against See note at Eze 28:21.
set. . .prophesy. . .speak These are all commands.
1. set, BDB 962, KB 1321, Qal IMPERATIVE
2. prophesy, BDB 612, KB 659, Niphal IMPERATIVE
3. speak, Eze 29:3, BDB 180, KB 210, Piel IMPERATIVE
These are not Ezekiel’s words nor his message!
Eze 29:3-7 This is a poetic lamentation.
Eze 29:3 the Lord GOD This is the recurrent title for deity (i.e., Adonai YHWH), used so often in the book of Ezekiel. See Special Topic: Names for Deity .
Pharaoh This (BDB 829, KB 971) is the characteristic title for Egyptian kings starting with the Eighteenth Dynasty. It means the great house (i.e., royal family).
That has said, My Nile is mine, and I myself have made it’ As the king of Tyre claimed deity (cf. Eze 28:2; Eze 28:9), so too, the Pharaohs of Egypt (cf. Eze 29:9 b). The name of the Pharaoh at that time was Hophra (589-570 B.C.). Herodotus mentions his claim to divine power in 2.169. The Nile and the sun were the chief deities of Egypt (i.e., depending on the city and the particular Pharaoh).
the great monster This term (BDB 1072) means
1. serpent, Exo 7:9; Exo 10:12; Deu 32:33; Psa 91:13
2. dragon, Neh 2:13; Jer 51:34
3. sea/river monster, Gen 1:21; Job 7:12; Psa 74:13; Psa 148:7. It is parallel to Leviathan (cf. Psa 74:13-14). It is used as a metaphor for Egypt in Isa 27:1; Isa 51:9-10; Eze 29:3; Eze 32:2.
The two great river systems of the Ancient Near East were the cradles of civilization (i.e., the Nile and the Tigris/Euphrates).
Tanin (BDB 1072) is parallel with
1. Leviathan, Psa 74:13-14; Isa 27:1
2. Rahab, Isa 51:9
3. Bashan, Psa 68:22; Amo 9:3 (cf. NIDOTTE, vol. 3, p. 87)
The context shows us that serpent, dragon, sea-monster (BDB 1072) is a better word choice than jackal (BDB 1072), though both are philologically possible.
Eze 29:4-8 These verses describe what YHWH will do to the arrogant leaders of Egypt.
1. I shall put hooks in your jaws, Eze 29:4
2. I shall make the fish cling to your scales, Eze 29:4 (twice)
3. I shall bring you up out of the midst of your rivers, Eze 29:4
4. I shall abandon you and all your fish to the wilderness, Eze 29:5
a. fall in open field
b. be gathered for food
(1) beasts
(2) birds
5. I shall bring a sword upon you, Eze 29:6; Eze 29:11
a. man
b. beasts
Notice all the FIRST PERSON SINGULAR NOUNS. YHWH is God. He alone can act in judgment. The mighty river beast is brought onto the land where he is helpless and will die. He will be eaten by the creatures of the wilderness.
Eze 29:4 hook This (BDB 296) can mean
1. thorn or thistle, cf. 2Ki 14:9; Pro 26:9; Isa 34:13; Hos 9:6
2. here, metaphorically of meat or fish hooks These were used (first by the Assyrians) to control and humiliate people being taken into exile/slavery (cf. Isa 37:29; Eze 19:4; Eze 19:9; Eze 29:4; Eze 38:4).
the fish of your rivers cling to your scales This refers to politically allied, but weaker, nations.
Eze 29:5
NASB, NKJVgathered
NRSV, NJB,
Peshsittaburied
TEV, JPSPOAunburied
NIVpicked up
REBnone to give you burial
The MT has gathered (BDB 867, KB 1062, Niphal IMPERFECT). Buried is found in some Hebrew manuscripts and the Aramaic Targums.
Proper burial (i.e., mummification and preservation) was a major requirement for happiness in the afterlife in Egyptian theology. Egyptian leaders were enamored with this issue (i.e., The Egyptian Book of the Dead). The great pyramids served this function as secure burial places for the elite.
The prophetic theme of animals and birds eating the fallen is common in Jeremiah (cf. Jer 7:33; Jer 9:22; Jer 15:3; Jer 16:4; Jer 19:7; Jer 34:20) and Ezekiel (cf. Eze 29:5; Eze 32:4; Eze 33:27; Eze 39:4; Eze 39:17-18). This seems to be a fulfillment of Deu 28:26.
Eze 29:6 Then all the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am the LORD This was the purpose of the ten plagues (each against an Egyptian deity, the same is true of the creation account [i.e., Genesis 1] condemnation of Babylonian astral deities). All humans are made in God’s image and likeness! All were created for fellowship with God! Tragically in the OT, often it is judgment (cf. Eze 29:9-10) that reveals YHWH!
they have been only a staff made of reed This is a metaphor of weakness and inability (cf. Isa 30:1-3; Isa 31:1-3; Jer 37:7).
Eze 29:7
NASB, NKJVyou broke and made all their loins quake
NRSVmade all their legs unsteady
Peshitta,
JPSOAyou would break, and make all their loins unsteady
NJB, REByou broke, making all their limbs give way
LXXthou wast utterly broken, and didst crush the loins of them all
The MT has you broke and you made to stand them all their loins. Most modern translations follow the Peshitta or Septuagint. The question is whether this phrase is sarcastic (God made them stand) or literal (God caused them to fall). The context is related to God’s judgment on Egypt.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
In the tenth year, &c.: i.e. a year and two days after the siege of Jerusalem began (Jer 39:1), and six months, less three days, before its fall. See notes on p. 1105.
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 29
Now as we get into chapter 29:
In the tenth year ( Eze 29:1 ),
That would be the year 587 B.C.
And in the tenth month, the twelfth day of the month ( Eze 29:1 ),
This prophecy came to Ezekiel concerning the Pharaoh who was the king of Egypt, who was Pharaoh Haaibre.
And it came against him, and against all of Egypt: [And He said,] Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is my own, and I have made it for myself ( Eze 29:2-3 ).
Glorying in the great Nile and its tributaries.
But I will put hooks in your jaws, and I will cause the fish of the rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven. And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel ( Eze 29:4-6 ).
Now, Israel leaned upon Egypt for help. It wasn’t right that they do so; God wanted them to lean upon Him. In fact, the prophet Jeremiah said, “If you lean upon Egypt, it’ll be like a broken reed and it’ll pierce your hand.” Now a reed is not a strong staff at all. A reed may look strong, but it’s very fibrous and it has no strength at all. Though it looks like you could really lean upon it, you go to lean upon a reed and the thing will just bend and you can just pierce through your hand with the thing if you really are leaning hard upon a reed, you’re trusting in something that just can’t hold you up. It’ll bend; it’ll break and you’ll fall.
Now, Egypt was likened unto a reed upon the people of God leaned. And Pharaoh Haaibre did come up with the Egyptian forces. And he caused Nebuchadnezzar to pull back from his sieging of Jerusalem for a while. But then the Pharaoh Haaibre returned to Egypt and Nebuchadnezzar continued his siege and destroyed Jerusalem. So because Pharaoh Haaibre was not really a help to Judah, God speaks against him. “You have been like a staff of reed to the house of Israel.”
When they took hold of thee by thy hand, you did break, and you tore all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, you broke, and you made their loins to be at a stand. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it ( Eze 29:7-9 ).
Again, as Nebuchadnezzar said, “This great Babylon is mine, I have made it.” And the watchers in heaven said, “Oh, we’ll put you down for that one.” And he went insane for a period of time. We’ll get that in a few weeks when we get to Daniel. Fascinating story.
Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast for a period of forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will gather the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries. Yet thus saith the Lord GOD; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered: And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations. And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, which brings their iniquity to remembrance. And it came to pass in the seventh and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me saying, Son of man ( Eze 29:10-18 ),
Now, there are those Bible critics who say, “Well, this did not happen during the time of Pharaoh Haaibre, that Nebuchadnezzar did not conquer Egypt during the time of his reign.” It is interesting that they have skipped this particular reference in verse Eze 29:17 . He doesn’t say that Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Pharaoh Haaibre and conquered Egypt during the time of his reign. But this came in the twenty-seventh year; the previous prophecy came in the tenth year. So the latter part of this chapter came seventeen years later, after the death of Pharaoh Haaibre.
Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it ( Eze 29:18 ):
Now God is saying, “Look, Nebuchadnezzar was My servant. He destroyed Tyrus but he didn’t get paid.” By the time he conquered the city, there was no spoil. So neither he nor his army got their pay for the job that they did for Me in the destruction of Tyrus. Therefore they will go down and they will conquer Egypt and there they will get their wages as they take the great wealth of Egypt unto themselves. And so the spoil of Egypt was to be the pay that God gave to Nebuchadnezzar and his troops for the lack of pay in the destruction of Tyrus. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Eze 29:1-7
FIRST OF FOUR CHAPTERS DIRECTED AGAINST EGYPT
“The first sixteen verses here are an introduction to the entire four chapters against Egypt. They describe the fate of Egypt, cite the sins of which she was guilty and indicate the nature of her judgment, and her future place among the nations of the world.
Ezekiel has seven oracles against Egypt, the first two of which are in this chapter: (1) Eze 29:1-16; (2) Eze 29:17-21; (3) Eze 30:1-19; (4) Eze 30:20-26; (5) Ezekiel 31; (6) Eze 32:1-16; and (7) Eze 32:17-32.
The date of this prophecy is specific. “It was a year and two days after Nebuchadnezzar began the siege of Jerusalem, and seven months before its destruction. This was in January, 587 B.C. “This was about the time when Pharaoh Hophra’s approach toward Jerusalem with an army caused Nebuchadnezzar temporarily to lift the siege, as recorded in Jer 37:5.
The chapter naturally falls into these divisions: (1) the crocodile captured and destroyed (Eze 29:1-7); (2) the allegory applied (Eze 29:8-12); (3) the restoration of Egypt after forty years (Eze 29:13-16); (4) Egypt awarded to Nebuchadnezzar as `wages’ for his ruin of Tyre (Eze 29:17-20); and (5) a glimpse of a New Age for Israel (Eze 29:21).
THE CROCODILE CAPTURED AND DESTROYED
Eze 29:1-7
“In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt; speak, and say, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lieth in the midst of his rivers, that hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. And I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales: and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, with all the fish of thy rivers which stick unto thy scales. And I will cast thee forth into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open field; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered; I have given thee for food to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens. And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am Jehovah, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. When they took hold of thee by the hand, thou didst break, and didst rend all their shoulders; and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.”
“The twelfth day of the month …” (Eze 29:1). F. F. Bruce gave this day as the 7th of January, 587 B.C.
“The great monster that lieth in the midst of his rivers …” (Eze 29:3). The word here means crocodile, an appropriate symbol indeed for Pharaoh and his nation. He was a terrible looking monster, not nearly as dangerous as he looked, lethargic and inactive most of the time. Of course, some of our radical commentators automatically find all kinds of mythological connections with a reference of this kind; but as Cooke stated, “Mythological associations are foreign to this context.” Furthermore, Pearson, writing in 1962, makes the same affirmation. Despite this, May, quoting some various readings, thought he found here some reflections of Sumerian mythology.
Historically, there is no excuse whatever for seeking sources here in ancient mythology. The crocodile was a well-known symbol of Egypt, found on Roman coins of that vintage, and being universally understood as a symbol of Egypt and its Pharaohs.
“The fish … which stick to thy scales …” (Eze 29:4). This represents the subjects, dependents, and allies of Pharaoh who would inevitably share in his ruin and downfall.
“I have given thee for food to the beasts, etc …” (Eze 29:5). The death prophesied here for Pharaoh was especially repulsive to the Egyptian, due to the care they usually bestowed upon their dead bodies, especially those of the Pharaohs.
Two reasons are here assigned as the prior causes of the terrible punishment God was bringing upon them. (1) Pharaoh had arrogated unto himself divine prerogatives, in the same manner as the prince of Tyre, even claiming to have created the Nile River! (Eze 29:3). (2) Egypt had bitterly deceived and betrayed Israel upon those occasions when, contrary to God’s warning, that had formed military alliances with Egypt. They had proved to be a “broken reed” indeed upon which Israel had vainly depended for help. Still another reason is cited later in Eze 29:9 b-16. (3) “Egypt possessed an exaggerated sense of self-sufficiency.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Ezekiel then uttered the doom of one. Egypt had been the principal foe of the people of God, and against her were uttered seven prophecies, which are placed here in an order of purpose rather than in the order of delivery. Again the prophet constantly insisted that the purpose of judgment was to make Jehovah known.
The first prophecy was against Pharaoh and all Egypt. The sin of Pharaoh was inclusively and poetically described pride, which claimed the river as his own creation. This description included the thought of Pharaoh as a great fish living in the river, and at once the folly of his claim is manifest. Ezekiel then foretold Pharaoh’s doom. This monster would be taken from his river, and cast on the land, where his flesh would become meat for the beasts of the earth and the fowls of the heaven. In this day of humiliation Egypt would know the folly of Israel when leaning on her for strength. Ezekiel then proceeded to describe the judgment as the coming of a sword on the land of Egypt, and the scattering of its people among the nations. After forty days he declared that Jehovah would gather them again, and in their own land make them a degraded people, no more to rule over the nations.
The second prophecy was brief, foretelling that the instrument of judgment would be Nebuchadnezzar, and that the capture of Egypt would be his wage for the defeat of Tyre.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Chapter Twenty-nine
Judgment On Egypt
From the days when the dynasty of the Pharaohs who were friendly to Joseph and his brethren ended, and another king arose who knew not Joseph: that is, a new dynasty which overthrew the former one and immediately began to take steps to enslave the people of Israel, Egypt had been an enemy of the Hebrew people, except for a very short time during the reign of King Solomon when it was otherwise, doubtless because of the alliance that Solomon had made with the daughter of Pharaoh. But, generally speaking, through many centuries Egypt was opposed to Israel, and either was allied with Israels foes or seeking to subjugate and make that nation a mere vassal state under Egyptian domination.
Only a few years had elapsed prior to the prophecies recorded in this chapter, since Pharaoh-Necho had invaded Palestine, besieged and conquered Jerusalem, carrying away King Jehoahaz, and setting up as a puppet king, his brother Eliakim, whose name Pharaoh-Necho changed to Jehoiakim.
The rise of Nebuchadnezzar and the enlargement of the Chaldean empire was recognized as a menace to Egyptian supremacy. Pharaoh at first sought to thwart the ambitions of the Babylonian leader, but was soon put on the defensive.
Ezekiel uttered the present prophecy, we are told, in the tenth month of the tenth year of Jehoiachins captivity.
In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt; speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lieth in the midst of his rivers, that hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. And I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales; and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, with all the fish of thy rivers which stick unto thy scales. And I will cast thee forth into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open field; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered; I have given thee for food to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens. And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am Jehovah, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and didst rend all their shoulders; and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand-vers. 1-7.
In Tyre we have seen a picture of the world viewed as a great commercial system, acting independently of God. Egypt is a picture of the world in a different aspect, as the place of bondage out of which God delivers His people. Pharaoh was both its prince and its god, and therefore typifies Satan, the prince and the god of this age.
Situated along the sides of the Nile, whose annual overflow fertilized its fields and provided its people with sustenance, Egypt aptly sets forth the world as the home of unsaved men dependent upon the bounty of heaven and living in independence of God. Thus Pharaoh is described here as a great monster lying in the midst of his rivers and saying in his heart, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. There was no realization of his direct dependence on the one true and living God who caused the waters of Ethiopia to fill the banks of the Nile and overflow unto the alluvial fields of Egypt. The people had become so accustomed to this phenomenon year after year that they took for granted that it would always be in the future as it had been in the past. If occasionally conditions at the upper Nile were such that the water did not flow down as in former years, they turned not to the true God but offered sacrifices to the river and to their idols, in order that they might procure the favor which they needed.
In the sight of God Pharaoh had become like a great crocodile lying in his rivers. The plural form is used because of the many streams of the Delta. In his pride and conceit Pharaoh defied all who dared to disregard him. But because of their independence of God, destruction was to come upon Pharaoh and all his land; so that all the inhabitants of Egypt would know that the Jehovah of Israel, from whom His own people had turned to lean upon a broken staff, when they tried to make a league with Egypt, was the only true God. They had entered into an alliance with Israel but had proven unfaithful and powerless to protect them against the Babylonian army. Judgment was, therefore, about to fall upon the entire land for a period of forty years.
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I mil bring a sword upon thee, and will cut off from thee man and beast. And the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste; and they shall know that I am Jehovah. Because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it; therefore, behold, I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from the tower of Seveneh even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be a desolation forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries-vers. 8-12.
A sword was to be brought upon Egypt-that great land which had from time to time sent its armies out to battle against other nations, but had so seldom known anything in the way of an invasion on its own ground.
Only a short time before, Pharaoh-Hophra had endeavored to help the Israelites against Nebuchadnezzar, by marching an army up into the land to raise the siege of Jerusalem, but he had almost immediately returned when Nebuchadnezzar came again with an augmented host. Pharaoh-Hophra was powerless to help. The Egyptians were soon to know what it meant to have an invading army enter into their own cities, spreading ruin and desolation everywhere it went.
It was some seventeen years or more after this prophecy was given before it began to be fulfilled, but in Gods due time this haughty power was made to feel the horrors of warfare such as in the past it had inflicted on other peoples. We may not be able to trace exactly the beginning and the end of that forty years desolation spoken of in verses 12 and 13, but we may be certain of this: even though the monuments of the past do not tell us anything about this period, Gods Word was fulfilled to the letter.
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the peoples whither they were scattered; and I will bring back the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their birth; and they shall be there a base kingdom. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it any more lift itself up above the nations: and I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations. And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing iniquity to remembrance, when they turn to look after them: and they shall know that I am the Lord Jehovah-vers. 13-16.
When the forty years should expire Egypt once more was to lift up her head, and many of its people who had fled to surrounding nations for refuge would return to their own patrimony. But never again would Egypt be the great power it had been in the past. They shall be a base kingdom, we are told; and verse 15 says, It shall be the basest of the kingdoms, which should no more rule over the nations. The time soon came when Egypt had so deteriorated that it was dependent on the nations roundabout; and through all the centuries since the days of the Ptolemies, Egypt has been a land of wretchedness and distress. Some from Israel sought to find refuge there after the destruction of Jerusalem and the first temple; and at one time there were more Jews settled in Egypt than in Palestine; yet Egypt was never again in a position to warrant Israels confidence.
We have seen something of a revival of Egyptian power in our own days, preparatory to the place its ruler is to take as the king of the south in the time of the end, but had it not been for Britains help it is questionable if Egypt would have ever occupied a place of any prominence among the nations.
The closing verses of the chapter tell us definitely just how the prophecy would be fulfilled:
And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was worn; yet had he no wages, nor his army, from Tyre, for the service that he had served against it. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall carry off her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which he served, because they wrought for Me, saith the Lord Jehovah. In that day will I cause a horn to bud forth unto the house of Israel, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am Jehovah-vers. 17-21.
As intimated above, seventeen years after the former prophecy was given, God caused Egypt to become the possession of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, as reward for the vengeance He had meted against Tyre. God Himself, as the Governor of the Universe, declared, as recorded in verse 20, I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which he served, because they wrought for Me, saith the Lord Jehovah. Little did the proud Chaldean monarch realize that his army was the sword of God executing what Jehovah had decreed upon Tyre, and later upon Egypt. But all was in accordance with the prophetic Word. And we may be certain that just as the prophecies that have to do with the past have been literally fulfilled, so will every prophecy that has to do with the future be fulfilled in due time.
While executing judgment on Egypt, God had not forgotten His promise to restore Israel in the future to Himself. The last verse reiterates this promise and assures us that the day will come when the house of Israel shall bud forth and the people of Jehovah will be recognized in the earth as those to whom has been committed the Word of the Lord.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Ezekiel 29-30. First Egypts desolation is announced (Eze 29:1-12). The king of Egypt addressed in this prophecy was Pharaoh-Hophra, called in Greek, Apries. He was the grandson of Pharaoh-Necho, who defeated King Josiah at Meggido 2Ch 35:20-27. King Zedekiah of Judah expected help and relief from Pharaoh-Hophra, when Jerusalem was besieged. The Egyptian army under Hophra advanced through Phoenicia and forced the Chaldeans to raise the siege of Jerusalem Jer 37:5-21. But the relief was only temporary, for the Egyptian army had to retire. The prophet Jeremiah announced also the doom of Hophra, associating it with Zedekiahs doom: Thus saith the LORD, Behold I will give Pharaoh-Hophra, King of Egypt, into the hands of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah, King of Judah, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, his enemy, and that sought his life Jer 44:30.
But have these predictions been fulfilled? Did Egypt pass through a period of forty years desolation and did a restoration take place after the forty years? Critics claim that these predictions were never literally fulfilled and that Nebuchadnezzar did not invade Egypt during the reign of Hophra. They point to the historical evidence that Amasis followed Hophra as King of Egypt, and under his reign Egypt was in a very flourishing condition. The historian, Herodotus, gives this information, and it is fully confirmed by Egyptian records on monuments. But did the prophet Ezekiel predict that Egypt should be invaded by Nebuchadnezzar during the reign of Pharaoh-Hophra? His predictions of disaster for Israel by trusting in Egypt had been used by the Assyrian officer in addressing Hezekiah: Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, upon Egypt, on which, if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it; so is Pharaoh, King of Egypt, unto all that trust on him 2Ki 18:21. And so it was. Egypt gave no help to Israel and only wounded them grievously, as a staff which breaks under the weight of him who leaneth upon it breaks and pierces the hand. Whenever Gods people turn to Egypt (the type of the world) for help, and form ungodly alliances, they do so to their own hurt and shame.
Eze 29:13-16 predict a future restoration of Egypt. Isaiah also shows its future history, both in judgment and in blessing (chapter 19). Yet the prediction of Ezekiel that Egypt after the forty years should be restored and be the basest of all kingdoms and shall have no more rule, but be in a diminished condition, excludes the application of this prophecy to the coming millennium. Egypt had such a period of forty years devastation, though the exact history of it may not be known to us. Prophecy is not learned by historical events, but history is revealed in prophecy. We believe prophecies, not because history has measured up to them, but we believe them because they are the inerrant Word of God. After Egypts sorrowful forty years experience and dispersion, this proud country went into a steady decline, and the Word of God was literally fulfilled when it became the basest of kingdoms, so that Israel put confidence no longer in Egypt. After Nebuchadnezzars raid, Egypt declined and sank lower still under the Persians and the Ptolemies, until she became the granary of Rome. And this degradation has continued throughout the centuries of this age, so that Egypt is literally the basest of the kingdoms. That she will play her part in the future at the close of our age we learn from Daniels prophecy Dan 11:36-45. Egypt will rise into prominence ere long in connection with the present-day world conflict.
Then follows another prediction, the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon (Eze 29:12-21). This also was literally fulfilled. In chapter 30 we find first a prophecy as to the desolation of Egypt and her allies (Eze 30:1-13).
The prophets first utterance is concerning the day, Howl ye! Alas for the day! For the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the Gentiles. What day is this? Other prophets mention the day of Jehovah as a day of judgment and wrath when the Lord will deal in His righteousness with the nations of the earth (Isa 2:1-22, Isa 13:6; Isa 13:9; Joe 1:15; Joe 2:11; Joe 2:11; Joe 3:14; Amo 5:18; Amo 5:20; Oba 1:1 :Oba 1:15; Zep 1:7; Zep 1:14; Zec 14:11, etc). This day in its final meaning is the day on which the Lord Jesus Christ will be visibly revealed from heaven. It is mentioned in the New Testament in 1Th 5:2; 2Th 2:2 (where day of Christ should be rendered day of the Lord) and 2Pe 3:10. This day will bring mans day to a close and usher in a new age, when righteousness shall reign as grace reigns now. This day of coming judgment of all nations is seen also here in a prophetic perspective. All previous judgments of nations as announced by Gods prophets, nations which sinned against Israel the chosen people, foreshadow the one great day, when the times of the Gentiles end in the revealed manner Dan 2:34 Dan 7:10-28). What came upon Egypt in the past through divine judgment will happen to the Gentile nations in the future at the close of our age, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 2Th 1:7-12). Ever since the times of the Gentiles began with Nebuchadnezzar the divinely appointed head Jer 27:4-22), this day of the Lord has been drawing near, till now, with the stupendous present-day events, we can see this day rapidly approaching.
Two weeks after the lamentations over Pharaoh, the prophet uttered this solemn and most impressive elegy over the multitude of Egypt and the heathen nations who have gone into sheol. It has been called a weird Dantesque funeral march over the whole heathen world; but it is more than that. We look here into sheol and see the nations gathered there, stripped of their glory, in deepest abasement and shame. Their bodies are in the pit, the grave, and their souls in sheol, the unseen regions. Gods patience was exhausted with them, the measure of their wickedness became full; then judgments swept them off the earth and they passed away and descended into sheol. And what irony there is connected with it! Whom does thou surpass in beauty? Go down and be thou laid with the uncircumcised. And as the king came there with his multitudes, whom did they find there? Asshur, that is Assyria, is mentioned first: Asshur is there and all her company. She was a cruel, pitiless, destructive power, and now she, who once caused terror in the land of the living, is helpless, with all her power gone in the unseen world. Elam, Meshech, Tubal, Edom, the princes of the North, and the Zidonians are named as being in existence there. Once great powers, but now cut off, they lie with the uncircumcised in weakness and disgrace. While in Eze 31:16 the dead and gone nations were comforted over Pharaoh who descended into sheol; in this passage Pharaoh, who sees these nations, now is himself comforted as he discovers his former enemies there.
A similar statement about sheol as a place of departed nations, who are nevertheless conscious, is found in the book of Isaiah. There the king of Babylon is seen in his descent into sheol. Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, all the chieftains of the earth, it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomps are brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols, the worm is spread under thee, and the worms over thee? Isa 14:9-32. Solemn words these are behind which stands the undeniable truth of a conscious and eternal existence of the human race. But only the New Testament Scriptures give the full light upon the future state.
The destruction of the principal cities of Egypt is announced in Eze 30:13-19. All has been literally fulfilled. Noph is Memphis, the seat of the worship of Ptah and Apis. The city No is Thebes, the ancient capital of Egypt, called by the Greeks Diospolis, the city of Jupiter. Her ruins bear witness of the past, indescribable splendor. The great temple of Carnac stood there. The other places mentioned are Sin, which is Pelusium, now completely buried in sand. Aven is Heliopolis, the center once of sun-worship; Pi-beseth is Bubastis, where the sacred cats were mummified, likewise a desolation now. Tehaphnehes or Daphnis also passed through judgment. What a remarkable fulfillment of what the Lord had announced through His prophet! May we here be reminded in our solemn times that the same omniscient Lord, who knows the end from the beginning, has spoken concerning this age, now closing in its predicted apostasy. Nations today steeped in bloodshed; nations filled with covetousness and hatred; an apostate professing Christendom and the indifferent masses have written over against them the judgment-wrath of the coming king. And He who fulfilled the words spoken through Ezekiel will also fulfill every other prediction uttered by His holy prophets and apostles.
The chapter closes with a prophetic description of the work of King Nebuchadnezzar, whom God used to execute His righteous judgments.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
tenth month i.e. January.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
am 3415, bc 589, Eze 29:17, Eze 1:2, Eze 8:1, Eze 20:1, Eze 26:1, Eze 40:1
Reciprocal: Isa 19:1 – Egypt Jer 25:19 – Pharaoh Jer 44:30 – I will Jer 46:2 – Against Egypt Jer 46:24 – she shall Eze 24:1 – the ninth year Eze 30:20 – General Eze 32:1 – in the twelfth
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 29:1. The prophet drops back a year in his prophecies and writes this passage in the tenth year which means the tenth year after he was taken to Babylon. He resumes his predictions against the heathen nations because of their mistreatment of Israel.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Section 5 (Eze 29:1-21; Eze 30:1-26; Eze 31:1-18; Eze 32:1-32).
Egypt: the abasement of creature-pride for ever before God.
We have seen, then, the judgment of the world, as represented in Tyre, the merchantman, rich with all that man’s energy can pillage from the earth and use with the lavishness of a prodigal who knows not its value -use it also as the prodigal away from his Father’s house, and with no reference any more to that Father whom he has forgotten. We come now finally to look at the world in another way, in which however it closely connects with what we have had before. It is a fallen world in the one case and in the other, and the marks of the fall upon it are essentially similar. The soul away from God, having lost faith in Him., must needs have faith in itself, or there would be despair at once. Thus man’s competency comes in to meet the defect of God’s incompetency, and while taking freely what God has graciously bestowed upon him, he uses it to build himself up in pride and self-sufficiency. We see this unmistakably in Egypt, the lesson of which is as clear as it is fundamental.
Egypt is, as we have seen long since, the land of Mizraim -the double strip: that is, the strip on each side of the river, the overflow of which has formed and enriches it. Wherever we look at it, it is essentially the land of independence, as far as heaven is concerned. The rain seldom falls there; it is not expected. The sources of the river are necessarily in the heavens themselves, but so far off that they are no more thought of, or if speculated about, the speculations themselves are of no great consequence. The practical thing is that the river is there, always there, overflowing at a certain regular time most convenient for man’s purposes, giving him little to think about, only how best to guide hither and thither the supply which is thus made his own. Indeed be values himself upon this, that he can direct this abundant water with great wisdom so as to meet with it his own needs. Thus Pharaoh can say, as we see him here doing: “My river is mine, and I have made it.” Practically it is the reverse of this, it is the river that has made him. Even the name of the first father of the Egyptians, Mizraim, is given to him, as one would say, by the land to which he owes his all: which is after all but the narrow strip through a desert in constant conflict with it, blowing its sand upon it in such a way as would soon annihilate the whole strip if it were not for the constant overflow of the river. Life is thus in perpetual conflict with death, and the Egyptians, one would say, were in a position to value life and enjoy it. No doubt in a way they did -yet from the earliest times Egypt was, what the earth at large very much is, a place of death rather than of life. Egypt is emphatically the land of tombs. Its literary memorial is a book of the dead. Their great men built their sepulchres with more extravagance than their palaces, for they realized that they were to use them longer; and, almost as if in mockery of themselves, they had their bodies embalmed that they might enjoy their sepulchres!
Thus if death is the stamp upon man’s fallen condition, it was not only over all the land of Egypt -it is everywhere -but was emphasized there in a most remarkable way. The very lesson that God would impress upon man, and would have him take to heart, he has taken to show how title his heart is impressed by it, for he remains the same vain, self-confident creature that he ever was. This, alas, is the fundamental moral condition of the fall. All blessing comes from keeping the creature-place, but there is this constant tendency to depart from it, God’s mercy being abused to that very end, as we have seen. Thus, in very mercy, must judgment come to abase the pride of man and give him wisdom in the only way possible. This, then, is what we find in the section before us. Egypt is everywhere in Scripture the type of that fallen condition out of which we have been redeemed; in this condition, he who has been awakened by the life-giving Spirit of God finds himself in captivity, and out of it he must be redeemed as Israel was redeemed out of Egypt.*
{* Tyre seems to represent the world in its intercourse and traffic; Egypt in its isolation and authority -S Ridout.}
1. We have, first, the causes of the judgment; they are, mainly, two: First, that pride and self-sufficiency itself, of which we have already spoken. Second, that Egypt has been a breaking staff to Israel; a staff of reed, which offered much, but never fulfilled its promises, bringing only ruin to all that trusted it. The going down to Egypt for help was the constant snare of the people of God, though they had been delivered from that land, and seen God’s judgment upon it in their own deliverance. Yet they could again and again turn back to it. Alas, it is an inconsistency which not one of us who knows himself can be a stranger to! Happy for those who are taught by any means at last to say, as the apostle says for Christians as such: “We are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” What blessing is implied in such a condition, but how slow we are in reaching it! God must, therefore, for Israel, Himself break this staff that they leaned upon; and although He show mercy in the end, and Egypt is not finally left to judgment, as with Edom or Babylon, yet it must be henceforth a “base,” that is, a low kingdom, something that will invite no more the confidence which it has hitherto invited, and be trusted no more by those about it. The lesson is as plain as it is fundamental. It is the lesson, “Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of?”
(1) The date of the prophecy is the tenth year, and the tenth month, the number of responsibility and of judgment being thus emphasized for us. It is given on the twelfth day of the month, the number which speaks of the manifestation of divine government, as it is manifested here. On this day, says the prophet, “The word of Jehovah came unto me saying, Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Speak and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great monster that lieth in the midst of his rivers, who hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.” Pharaoh is likened here to the crocodile of his rivers, the “long stretched,” as the word “monster” here literally means; a creature whom one might think took shape by his river, as the king of Egypt does -an unclean creature at the best; an ungainly one, however huge he may be, and however much the scales which shut him in may give him defence against all that may be adverse. He lies there, in no really exalted position, as is plain, and with little ability to survey things beyond the banks which on either side enclose him. Yet he can derive matter of boasting out of all this: “My river is mine own,” he says, “and I have made it for myself.” The ditches, the canals, the embankments and sluices are of his own manufacture truly, and this he calls making the river just as we think so much of the little we do, and so little of all that God has done for us. What a sight for the angels that excel in strength, to see a creature pinned to the earth that bears him, as the crocodile to his river-bank, and yet boasting himself to be in the place of God, and be his own god! And it was not Pharaoh’s boast alone, as we have sufficiently seen. A god to himself, he was a god also to his people, as is well known, whose fate is represented as identified with that of their king as the fish of the rivers sticking to his scales for all that he is to be brought out of his river, and in a way that will abase him utterly: “I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales and I will cast thee forth into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers thou shalt fall upon the open field thou shalt not be brought together nor gathered. I will give thee for food to the beasts of the earth and to the fowls of the heavens.” No overthrow can be more complete. Thus, in another sense than that of Samson’s riddle, “Out of the eater comes forth meat;” he becomes the prey of those upon whom hitherto he had preyed.
(2) We come now to the second cause of the judgment, and we see how God takes up the cause of His people, foolish and perverse as they may have been. Had they not been sufficiently warned that they must not trust in Egypt? Were they not fully accountable in doing this after all the care that God had taken to deliver them from it? This Pharaoh, then, who has invited their confidence in himself which he cannot justify, who, as thus leaned upon by Israel, has given way under them and rent all their shoulder and lamed all their loins, he must be put into the place where he belongs, and God Himself must break the staff that has broken to His people’s hurt. The fertility of Egypt, proverbial as it was, must therefore be turned into deserts and desolation from one end of it to the other. Migdol was on the east border of lower Egypt, as Syene was on the border of upper Egypt, on the boundary between it and Cush, or Ethiopia. Not only would the desolation for a time be extreme, but the people would be scattered from the land, and the cities laid waste forty years.
The judgment here has raised an historical question of which the critics have naturally not been slow to avail themselves. We must remember, in thinking of it, that the reckoning of Scripture is not that in respect to time with which we are familiar. That the words here do not necessitate that the desolation must be complete, after the manner spoken here, for the whole forty years, is easily to be proved by what is undeniable elsewhere. In Gen 15:13, God speaks to Abraham of his seed being strangers in a land that is not theirs, serving them, and to be afflicted by them 400 years. And again we have in Exo 12:40-41, the time more precisely stated: “Now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was 430 years and it came to pass at the end of the 430 years, even the self-same day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.” Thus complete accuracy is asserted. Yet, when we turn to the epistle to the Galatians, we find from the pen of one who certainly could not be ignorant or mistaken in what he asserted, that the law came just 430 years after the promise which God had given (Gal 3:17).
It is plain, therefore, that the 430 years are to be taken as from the promise, and that they define the time to which the captivity in Egypt lasted. Thus in the 15th of Genesis we must read this as meaning that the people should be captives to the Egyptians until 400 years from that time; the captivity is defined as to the end of it, instead of as we at first would naturally think, as to both ends. The forty years from the time of the prophecy here would reach to about the time of the overthrow of the Babylonian empire, the power of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, until the Persian overthrew his city and his dynasty. That it is Nebuchadnezzar’s hand which God uses to inflict this upon Egypt is plain from what follows almost immediately and while the critics have doubted whether Nebuchadnezzar himself ever was in Egypt, we have now the proof from Egyptian and from Babylonian records together, that he was there twice; and it is even stated that the land was scourged by him as far as to Syene. It was completely in his hand.
(3) At the end of the forty years, God announces a certain measure of restoration: “At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the place whither they were scattered; and I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return to the land of Pathros, unto the land of their birth, and they shall be there a base kingdom. It shall be the basest of kingdoms, neither shall it lift itself up any more above the nations; and I will diminish them so that they shall no more rule over the nations, and shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel.” This has been, as is well known, Egypt’s condition since. Under the Ptolemies, whether there might seem to be something more than this, it was the foreigner who had possession of the country, and Egypt has ever since been in the hand of foreigners; the more the power that reigned over them lifted itself up, the more was the burden upon the subject people.
2. We have now Nebuchadnezzar distinctly named as the instrument of this judgment, and this at a notable time. The prophecy, unlike the other prophecies with which this is connected, is stated to have been given in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, the first day of the month. At that time, after thirteen years, siege at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, Tyre had just fallen; and the prophecy with regard to it which Ezekiel had thus made long before, was fully proved; God was manifested as He whose judgment it was, and in whose hand, therefore, the conqueror himself was. The “twenty-seventh year” may as a number refer to this. It is the number of divine manifestation cubed. The reality of God’s government was made fully plain, and here we have one of the various ways in which God would speak to Nebuchadnezzar himself, as is so manifest in the book of Daniel. As the head of the new Gentile power that God had raised up, Nebuchadnezzar as king of kings owed all to the Hand that raised him, and God would have him learn the lesson of this.
Thus, with the seal upon God’s word in what he had already accomplished, Nebuchadnezzar was to carry with him into Egypt an assurance which every step towards his full exaltation would thus confirm. Egypt was to be the spoil given him for his lack of wages in his service against Tyre. It was God’s work that he had been doing, whether he regarded it as such or no, and yet in the thirteen years of the siege in which “every head was made bald, and every shoulder peeled,” he found in the end, very naturally indeed, nothing but a ruin left. Thus the land of Egypt would be given him as his recompense: “He shall carry away her multitude, and take her spoil and take her prey, and it shall be wages for his army.”
The prophecy ends here, as far as Nebuchadnezzar is concerned, and the voice to him in it is unmistakable. In that day God would cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and He would give Ezekiel the opening of his mouth in the midst of them. The budding of the horn speaks but of partial and more or less slow revival for the people of God, which shows itself, in its beginning, in what the end of the book of Kings supplies as to the altered treatment of Jehoiachin, from whose captivity, let us remember, these prophecies are all dated, and who was brought out of his prison by Nebuchadnezzar’s successor and given a place above all the subject kings that surrounded him. Later, we have also Daniel’s exaltation, after a period seemingly of forgetfulness under Belshazzar and Darius, which was soon followed by the return of the people to the land under Cyrus. Thus the horn of Israel was indeed budding. In the prophets of that period, as Haggai and Zechariah, we have intimations of a further and more wondrous budding of the horn in the announcement of Messiah’s coming. Israel’s sins still hindered, as we know, and Messiah Himself came only to be rejected; but that belongs not to God’s side, if we may so speak, but to the people’s. The final visions of Ezekiel (Eze 40:1-49; Eze 41:1-26; Eze 42:1-20; Eze 43:1-27; Eze 44:1-31; Eze 45:1-25; Eze 46:1-24; Eze 47:1-23; Eze 48:1-35) had been uttered just before the prophecy which we are now looking at, the fulfilment of which, however, would now cause them to speak in such a way as to be heard, though, as we know, only by a remnant.
3. We have now still another prophecy, which is, however, but the detailed announcement of that judgment upon the land already declared. The day of Jehovah is at hand, a day of sorrow and distress: “A day of clouds shall it be, the time of the nations;” that is, the full time is at hand in which the judgment will be accomplished by Nebuchadnezzar’s hand which, as we have already seen, prepares the way for the full establishment of the universal Gentile empire. Egypt seems to have been the last of these nations to experience this; but with and in Egypt it comes upon Ethiopia, Phut and Lud, and all the mingled people, “the children of the land of the covenant” -apparently those Israelitish colonists of whom Jeremiah speaks, and whose judgment he also emphatically announces. Thus Egypt is desolate in the midst of the countries that have been made desolate, and her cities in the midst of the cities that have been wasted. Egypt’s end is the full tale told, and Nebuchadnezzar is again clearly announced as the one by whose hand it is to be executed. The points that are marked out here are naturally those which either set before us the idolatry, in Egypt so monstrous, and which God could never forget, or on the other hand, the symbols of her power and might, and her capitals upper and lower (No or Thebes, and Noph or Memphis) Zoan also, which God had plagued of old in Moses, time, having its place among these: the strongholds are gone and the land is open to all assailants. The picture speaks for itself, hardly needing a word of explanation. The purpose is here, as everywhere -whether men will listen or whether they will forbear -that they may know that He is Jehovah.
4. We have now another distinct, short prophecy, with regard to the incurableness of the breach which God has already made upon Egypt, evidently when they were defeated at the battle of Carchemish -a blow from which they never recovered. The prophecy is to forbid all revival of hope on account of the activity and energy which Egypt for the time was again showing. The effort to relieve the siege of Jerusalem is of course specially in view, and God announces that no bandage should be applied to bind up the arm that has been broken, so that it should be able to hold the sword again. On the contrary, He would break that and the other arm also, and cause the sword to fall out of Pharaoh’s hand. The Egyptians should be scattered among the nations and dispersed through the countries the king of Babylon is once more named as the instrument of this. It is striking how these prophecies follow one another, which shows the urgency, on God’s part, that His people should encourage themselves in no false hope. We can see how every blow upon such hopes was intended to fasten their hope upon God Himself; but how little will man listen to anything short of experience itself, hard teacher though it is owned to be! How we have again and again to hear the word “Cease ye from man,” affirmed and emphasized by the event itself. How slow are we to come to that to which we must come finally, and which will have such abundant recompense for us!
5. We have now God’s governmental ways with the Assyrian as another lesson for Egypt. There was a strong link of connection between the lands themselves. Assyria, like Egypt, was as an oasis in the desert track which stretches across nearly the whole breadth of Africa and Asia, from the Atlantic to the China Sea; an oasis which for Assyria was made by its two rivers, to which it owed its all, as Egypt did to the Nile. Thus essentially dependent, as it might be seen to be, yet it was self-exaltation and not the sense of dependence that grew out of it. Thus in the end abasement had to follow, for God’s law is: He that exalteth himself shall be abased.
(1) The prophecy in this case is in the eleventh year, as was the last, and scarcely two months after it, On the first day of the third month, the word of Jehovah comes to Ezekiel, saying, “Son of man, say unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to his multitude: Whom art thou like in thy greatness?” How gladly would we make ourselves the one exception, so that that which applies to others should not apply to us! God therefore points them to Assyria, a power as strong as Egypt itself. The rivers that had made him great were the rivers of that old Eden which had passed away, but which might seem to have revived again in him and such as he -though just such as he among the neighboring powers there was not. In Tyre, one might have seen again, as it were, the precious stones of Eden. In Assyria and the neighboring powers, the trees of the Garden of God might seem to have reproduced themselves in another manner, but all alike dwelt under the shadow of the one preeminent power which was the envy of them all. Like a cedar in Lebanon was he, with fair branches and a shadowing thicket, and of high stature. All the fowls of the heavens made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches all the beasts of the field brought forth their young so under his shadow dwelt all the great nations. No tree in this Garden of God was like him in his beauty. But, thus made great by the fostering care of God, it was only to repeat the old story; for what gift of God is there that man will not abuse? And what hope is there, one would say, for the being with whom God’s mercies are turned to evil instead of good? It is a terrible lesson, but so constantly to be learned, that the wonder of it is sadly lessened by familiarity.
(2) The contrast of his humiliation was now correspondingly great. He too had been given into the hand of Babylon, one who would make thorough work with him for when God has work to be done, He will see that it is done. As a consequence, instead of seeking his protection, the birds and the beasts would dwell among his ruins. All the peoples of the earth had gone down from his shadow and had left him and this was no inexplicable calamity, but a warning which the sure government of God preaches everywhere against pride, and which, if it were but for the moment, was felt by all around. In fact, were they not all following in the same path which could only emphasize the claim of Sheol upon them? -the claim of the unseen world which gathers men on every side. For the wheel surely turns, as Ezekiel has over and over again assured us, and he that is lifted up is exalted but for the moment, then must come down to the lower parts of the earth. True it is that, if we follow this out, we shall find that in God’s thought there is a resurrection also, and that whatever is permanent in blessing lies in this for us. But man’s view in general does not reach thus far, and where the lesson is not accepted, the blessing itself is not reached. God therefore challenges Pharaoh here. Sheol had its rights over him also, rights which in God’s judgment were already conceded, but he must “lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with those slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord Jehovah.”
6. We now come to the twelfth year and the twelfth month, a period which speaks of the full manifestation of God’s governmental ways. But with this, in which there should be only blessing, there comes instead a voice of lamentation, a reminder for us of those tears actually wept on earth by One who was the manifestation of God Himself in flesh, over those that had despised His gracious invitations, and would not be gathered under the wings that would so safely have covered them. The creatures that God has made must ever be objects of interest to Him -such interest as we little realize who confound so much the clouds and darkness that are about Him with the One who is distinct from the cloud and from the darkness, in whom is no darkness at all, and who has now made Himself known to us for that which indeed He ever was. Nevertheless, man may make void all this as far as he is concerned, and with his back upon God he sees Him but as reflected in the depths of his own heart, in imaginations darkened by a guilty conscience.
Pharaoh is seen in this prophecy in a double character. He is not simply now the crocodile lying in the waters; he has broken forth as a young lion of the nations, as for some time past Egypt had been showing unwonted activity in this way, and Pharaoh sought to imitate the action of his predecessors of old, and to make himself an imperial power after the fashion of Assyria, and now of Babylon. But in this, as we know, he was doomed not to succeed. Like the restless monster which represents him, he could only trouble his own waters with his feet, and foul his streams. God, in fact, was spreading His net over him, and the human instruments were but means in His hands by which He would bring him up out of his streams and cast him upon the open field, and fill the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth with his great bulk; his flesh would lay upon the mountains and fill the valleys; his blood would water the land, and his dead bodies would fill the rivers wherein he had been swimming. All the bright lights of heaven would be made black over him, and darkness be upon the land through the darkening of sun and moon. This is the constant figure for the destruction of the powers which God has ordained for the preservation of order upon the earth. The darkness in which one could hardly find one’s way was the fitting representation of ensuing anarchy, and consternation would come upon all beholders; his fall would make all the nations around to tremble for their own lives.
Again it is announced that the sword of the king of Babylon is to do this, by reason of which the land of Egypt should be but a desolation, stripped of its plenteous fulness, its inhabitants smitten that they might know -if even yet they would know -that it was Jehovah’s hand. The prophecy closes as it began, with a lamentation.
7. One final prophecy now, a dirge over Egypt as gone down to the pit. We have still the twelfth year; and, as we may suppose, the twelfth month, and the fifteenth of the month, numbers in which the full government of God is seen displayed in judgment, for, alas, there is a monotony of judgment here. Nothing else can there be, for man’s wickedness permits nothing else! Sheol and the grave are now seen as receiving their claim, and the nations that have already passed into the shadow are those with whom Pharaoh and Egypt are now to be joined. Among these nations Tyre is not seen as yet; but Assyria, Elam, Meshech and Tubal, Edom, the Sidonians, are all seen as involved in one hopeless ruin. It is a judgment, as we see, not of individuals, but of nations -the judgment of the whole world, so far as it had yet come, as we may say, into the light of revelation -the circumcised with the uncircumcised; for Egypt was externally a circumcised people, but for whom it meant nothing; and now all together made equal in that which merges all distinctions, the common nervelessness and shadow of death. This monotonous dirge, the same for all of them, is part of the lesson meant by it -meant to impress us with the common blank and desolation in which so many energies, so many varieties of human character and activity, all come into one undistinguishable ruin. This is the lesson of death from which none is exempt, which God pressed upon man in that law which was the ministration of it, the common death and condemnation which man must accept in order to find blessing. It is therefore the natural end of all this part of the prophecy.
Thank God, we are going to emerge now into brighter things! But God’s lessons must be learned, and in their own order. There is no escape from this, and we have to have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we may not trust in ourselves but in Him who raiseth the dead. Resurrection is all of God. Here it is plain that man has no ability whatever; he is out of account, and thus God has freedom to manifest Himself as He desires to do; then the grave itself is no hindrance to Him, but rather the means of brighter display of His divine glory. Thus among the names here, Egypt herself is to have her resurrection and blessing in the coming day, and Assyria also, as Isaiah witnesses (Ezek. 19: 23-25): “In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria; and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.”
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
Eze 29:1. In the tenth year, &c. The prophecies of Ezekiel, in regard to foreign nations, are not placed according to the order of time in which they were delivered, but according to the respective distances of the nations from Judea, beginning with those which lay nearest to it. And with respect to the prophecies against Egypt, it is justly remarked by Dathius, that this and the three following chapters are joined together, because they treat of the same subject, though they consist of prophecies uttered at very different periods of time. The period assigned in the present text, in this verse, for the prophecy first recorded here, is during the siege of Jerusalem; and, agreeably to Eze 29:6-7, might be immediately after Pharaohs retreat, foretold by Jer 37:7.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Eze 29:2. Set thy face against Pharaoh. Against the dragon, the alligator, for the Nile once had alligators. The figurative language here is very majestic, and calculated to impress the Egyptians with terror.
Eze 29:10. I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate. In all that time, says Dr. Smith, more than two thousand four hundred years, Egypt has produced nothing great or remarkable, either in learning, wisdom, or exploit; but has continued a base tributary kingdom, with out ever having a prince of its own, being always subject to slaves and foreigners. It became first subject to the Babylonians, then to the Persians, afterwards to the Macedonians, then to the Romans. From them it passed to the Saracens, from the Saracens to the Mamelouks, or slave usurpers, and from the Mamelouks to the Ottoman empire; of which it now forms a province, governed by a Turkish Bashaw, and twenty four Beys or chiefs, advanced from among the slaves to the administration of public affairs; (the Egyptians being possessed with a superstitious notion, that it is decreed by fate that slaves must always rule, and the natives be subject.) And who could foresee and foretel the events of such remote futurity, but that omniscient Spirit, who spoke by the prophets, and whose image and superscription all their writings bear?
Eze 29:11. No foot of man shall pass through it for forty years. This happened when Nebuchadnezzar invaded the land, took all the strong places, put the citizens to the sword for making resistance, and carried into captivity a remnant fit for servitude. The slaughter was so severe, and the captivity so great, that the land was depopulated.
Eze 29:13-14. At the end of forty yearsI will bring again the captivity of Egypt. Xenophon, in his travels or march of Cyrus, Mentions a column of Egyptian soldiers, whom the Persians could not break. After the Babylonians were routed and slaughtered on the plains of Babylon, he sent a trumpeter to them with a flag of truce, to know what they wished to do. In a word, Cyrus gave those brave men emancipation and suitable rewards. They then returned to their own land with honour.
Eze 29:15. Egypt shall be the basest of kingdoms. Cambyses, son of Cyrus, overran it, when like a fool he sent his army against Ethiopia and Libya, without guides and without provisions, to perish in the deserts. The Carthaginians burned and ruined many cities of Egypt. Alexander also conquered Egypt; and lastly, the Romans gained possession of it, and partially held it till it fell under the Mahommedan power. By consequence, it has remained with a limited commerce, without illustrious men, and almost without shipping.
Eze 29:19. I will give Egypt to Nebuchadrezzar, whose army had besieged Tyre for thirteen years; and when about to be taken, the merchants fled with their riches to Carthage, and other places. The Lord therefore promised here to give them the riches of Egypt for their hire. These awful predictions are continued in the next chapter.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Ezekiel 29-32. Oracle against Egypt.Next and last to be denounced is Egypt, the great rival of Babylon, and consequently the opponent of Yahwehs purpose. The separate oracles were written either not long before (Eze 29:1) or not long after (Eze 32:1) the fall of Jerusalem. An Egyptian army marched to the relief of the city during the siege (Jer 37:5); probably Eze 29:6 is a warning of the futility of this attempt, while Eze 30:21 may definitely refer to its repulse by the Babylonians.
Eze 29:1-16. The Fall and Restoration of Egypt.Pharaoh (who incarnates the genius of Egypt, cf. Ezekiel 28), Lord of the Nile, is compared to a crocodile (no unapt symbol of the clumsy strength of Egypt) caught and flung upon the wilderness (= the battlefield) to be devoured. This is the doom of his blasphemous pride (Eze 29:3); Israel will have good reason to learn the folly of trusting Egypt (Eze 29:1-7). (In Eze 29:7 for shoulder read hand with LXX, and for to be at a stand read to shake.) The real meaning of the allegory is at once made plain in Eze 29:8-12. A sword (Nebuchadrezzars: cf. Eze 30:10) will work havoc and desolation throughout the length of the land, from Migdol (which should be read instead of tower in Eze 29:10) in the north-east, to Seveneh (now Assouan) in the extreme south. Egypts desolation and exile are to last, like Judahs (Eze 4:6) forty years: then she will be restored, but to a position of no political importance, so that Israel will be no more tempted to commit the sin of trusting her (Eze 29:13-16). (Pathros in Eze 29:14 = Upper Egypt.)
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
29:1 In the {a} tenth year, in the tenth [month], in the twelfth [day] of the month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
(a) That is, of the captivity of Jeconiah, or of the reign of Zedekiah. Of the order of these prophecies, and how the former sometimes stands after the latter. See Geneva “Jer 27:1”
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
1. An introductory prophecy of judgment on Egypt 29:1-16
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
This is another dated prophecy. It came to Ezekiel in the year before his first oracle against Tyre (26:1), namely, in 587 B.C. The specific date is January 7, 587 B.C. [Note: Parker and Dubberstein, p. 28.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
EGYPT
Eze 29:1-21; Eze 30:1-26; Eze 31:1-18; Eze 32:1-32
EGYPT figures in the prophecies of Ezekiel as a great world-power cherishing projects of universal dominion. Once more, as in the age of Isaiah, the ruling factor in Asiatic politics was the duel for the mastery of the world between the rival empires of the Nile and the Euphrates. The influence of Egypt was perhaps even greater in the beginning of the sixth century than it had been in the end of the eighth, although in the interval it had suffered a signal eclipse. Isaiah (chapter 19) had predicted a subjugation of Egypt by the Assyrians, and this prophecy had been fulfilled in the year 672, when Esarhaddon invaded the country and incorporated it in the Assyrian empire. He divided its territory into twenty petty principalities governed by Assyrian or native rulers, and this state of things had lasted with little change for a generation. During the reign of Asshurbanipal Egypt was frequently overrun by Assyrian armies, and the repeated attempts of the Ethiopian monarchs, aided by revolts among the native princes, to reassert their sovereignty over the Nile Valley were all foiled by the energy of the Assyrian king or the vigilance of his generals. At last, however, a new era of prosperity dawned for Egypt about the year 645. Psammetichus, the ruler of Sais, with the help of foreign mercenaries, succeeded in uniting the whole land under his sway; he expelled the Assyrian garrison, and became the founder of the brilliant twenty-sixth (Saite) dynasty. From this time Egypt possessed in a strong central administration the one indispensable condition of her material prosperity. Her power was consolidated by a succession of vigorous rulers, and she immediately began to play a leading part in the affairs of Asia. The most distinguished king of the dynasty was Necho II, the son and successor of Psammetichus. Two striking facts mentioned by Herodotus are worthy of mention, as showing the originality and vigour with which the Egyptian administration was at this time conducted. One is the project of cutting a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, an undertaking which was abandoned by Necho in consequence of an oracle warning him that he was only working for the advantage of foreigners-meaning no doubt the Phoenicians. Necho, however, knew how to turn the Phoenician seamanship to good account, as is proved by the other great stroke of genius with which he is credited-the circumnavigation of Africa. It was a Phoenician fleet, despatched from Suez by his orders, which first rounded the Cape of Good Hope, returning to Egypt by the straits of Gibraltar after a three years voyage. And if Necho was less successful in war than in the arts of peace, it was not from want of activity. He was the Pharaoh who defeated Josiah in the plain of Megiddo, and afterwards contested the lordship of Syria with Nebuchadnezzar. His defeat at Carchemish in 604 compelled him to retire to his own land; but the power of Egypt was still unbroken, and the Chaldaean king knew that he would yet have to reckon with her in his schemes for the conquest of Palestine.
At the time to which these prophecies belong the king of Egypt was Pharaoh Hophra (in Greek, Apries), the grandson of Necho II Ascending the throne in 588 B.C., he found it necessary for the protection of his own interests to take an active part in the politics of Syria. He is said to have attacked Phoenicia by sea and land, capturing Sidon and defeating a Tyrian fleet in a naval engagement. His object must have been to secure the ascendency of the Egyptian party in the Phoenician cities; and the stubborn resistance which Nebuchadnezzar encountered from Tyre was no doubt the result of the political arrangements made by Hophra after his victory. No armed intervention was needed to ensure a spirited defence of Jerusalem; and it was only after the Babylonians were encamped around the city that Hophra sent an Egyptian army to its relief. He was unable, however, to effect more than a temporary suspension of the siege, and returned to Egypt, leaving Judah to its fate, apparently without venturing on a battle. {Jer 37:5-7} No further hostilities between Egypt and Babylon are recorded during the lifetime of Hophra. He continued to reign with vigour and success till 571, when he was dethroned by Amasis, one of his own generals.
These circumstances show a remarkable parallel to the political situation with which Isaiah had to deal at the time of Sennacheribs invasion. Judah was again in the position of the “earthen pipkin between two iron pots.” It is certain that neither Jehoiakim nor Zedekiah, any more than the advisers of Hezekiah in the earlier period, would have embarked on a conflict with the Mesopotamian empire but for delusive promises of Egyptian support. There was the same vacillation and division of counsels in Jerusalem, the same dilatoriness on the part of Egypt, and the same futile effort to retrieve a desperate situation after the favourable moment had been allowed to slip. In both cases the conflict was precipitated by the triumph of an Egyptian party in the Judaean court; and it is probable that in both cases the king was coerced into a policy of which his judgment did not approve. And the prophets of the later period, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, adhere closely to the lines laid down by Isaiah in the time of Sennacherib, warning the people against putting their trust in the vain help of Egypt, and counselling passive submission to the course of events which expressed the unalterable judgment of the Almighty. Ezekiel indeed borrows an image that had been current in the days of Isaiah in order to set forth the utter untrustworthiness and dishonesty of Egypt towards the nations who were induced to rely on her power. He compares her to a staff of reed, which breaks when one grasps it, piercing the hand and making the loins to totter when it is leant upon. Such had Egypt been to Israel through all her history, and such she will again prove herself to be in her last attempt to use Israel as the tool of her selfish designs. The great difference between Ezekiel and Isaiah is that, whereas Isaiah had access to the councils of Hezekiah and could bring his influence to bear on the inception of schemes of state, not without hope of averting what he saw to be a disastrous decision, Ezekiel could only watch the development of events from afar, and throw his warnings into the form of predictions of the fate in store for Egypt.
The oracles against Egypt are seven in number:
(1) Eze 29:1-16;
(2) Eze 29:17-21;
(3) Eze 30:1-19;
(4) Eze 30:20-26;
(5) Eze 31:1-18.;
(6) Eze 32:1-16;
(7) Eze 32:17-32.
They are all variations of one theme, the annihilation of the power of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, and little progress of thought can be traced from the first to the last. Excluding the supplementary prophecy of Eze 29:17-21, which is a later addition, the order appears to be strictly chronological. The series begins seven months before the capture of Jerusalem, {Eze 29:1} and ends about eight months after that event. How far the dates refer to actual occurrences coming to the knowledge of the prophet it is impossible for us to say. It is clear that his interest is centred on the fate of Jerusalem then hanging in the balance; and it is possible that the first oracles {Eze 29:1-16; Eze 30:1-19} may be called forth by the appearance of Hophras army on the scene, while the {Eze 30:20-26} plainly alludes to the repulse of the Egyptians by the Chaldaeans. But no attempt can be made to connect the prophecies with incidents of the campaign; the prophets thoughts are wholly occupied with the moral and religious issues involved in the contest, the vindication of Jehovahs holiness in the overthrow of the great world-power which sought to thwart His purposes.
Eze 29:1-16 is an introduction to all that follows, presenting a general outline of the prophets conceptions of the fate of Egypt. It describes the sin of which she has been guilty, and indicates the nature of the judgment that is to overtake her and her future place among the nations of the world. The Pharaoh is compared to a “great dragon,” wallowing in his native waters, and deeming himself secure from molestation in his reedy haunts. The crocodile was a natural symbol of Egypt, and the image conveys accurately the impression of sluggish and unwieldy strength which Egypt in the days of Ezekiel had long produced on shrewd observers of her policy. Pharaoh is the incarnate genius of the country; and as the Nile was the strength and glory of Egypt, he is here represented as arrogating to himself the ownership and even the creation of the wonderful river. “My river is mine, and I have made it” is the proud and blasphemous thought which expresses his consciousness of a power that owns no superior in earth or heaven. That the Nile was worshipped by the Egyptians with divine honours did not alter the fact that beneath all their ostentatious religious observances there was an immoral sense of irresponsible power in the use of the natural resources to which the land owed its prosperity. For this spirit of ungodly self-exaltation the king and people of Egypt are to be visited with a signal judgment, from which they shall learn who it is that is God over all. The monster of the Nile shall be drawn from his waters with hooks, with all his fishes sticking to his scales, and left to perish ignominiously on the desert sands. The rest of the prophecy (Eze 29:8-16) gives the explanation of the allegory in literal, though still general, terms. The meaning is that Egypt shall be laid waste by the sword, its teeming population led into captivity, and the land shall lie desolate, untrodden by the foot of man or beast for the space of forty years. “From Migdol to Syene”-the extreme limits of the country-the rich valley of the Nile shall be uncultivated and uninhabited for that period of time.
The most interesting feature of the prophecy is the view which is given of the final condition of the Egyptian empire (Eze 29:13-16). In all cases the prophetic delineations of the future of different nations are coloured by the present circumstances of those nations as known to the writers. Ezekiel knew that the fertile soil of Egypt would always be capable of supporting an industrious peasantry, and that her existence did not depend on her continuing to play the role of a great power. Tyre depended on her commerce, and apart from that which was the root of her sin could never be anything but the resort of poor fishermen, who would not even make their dwelling on the barren rock in the midst of the sea. But Egypt could still be a country, though shorn of the glory and power which had made her a snare to the people of God. On the other hand the geographical isolation of the land made it impossible that she should lose her individuality amongst the nations of the world. Unlike the small states, such as Edom and Ammon, which were obviously doomed to be swallowed up by the surrounding population as soon as their power was broken, Egypt would retain her distinct and characteristic life as long as the physical condition of the world remained what it was. Accordingly the prophet does not contemplate an utter annihilation of Egypt, but only a temporary chastisement, succeeded by her permanent degradation to the lowest rank among the kingdoms. The forty years of her desolation represent in round numbers the period of Chaldean supremacy during which Jerusalem lies in ruins. Ezekiel at this time expected the invasion of Egypt to follow soon after the capture of Jerusalem, so that the restoration of the two peoples would be simultaneous. At the end of forty years the whole world will be reorganised on a new basis, Israel occupying the central position as the people of God, and in that new world Egypt shall have a separate but subordinate place. Jehovah will bring back the Egyptians from their captivity, and cause them to return to “Pathros, the land of their origin,” and there make them a “lowly state,” no longer an imperial power, but humbler than the surrounding kingdoms. The righteousness of Jehovah and the interest of Israel alike demand that Egypt should be thus reduced from her former greatness. In the old days her vast and imposing power had been a constant temptation to the Israelites, “a confidence, a reminder of iniquity,” leading them to put their trust in human power and luring them into paths of danger by deceitful promises (Eze 29:6-7). In the final dispensation of history this shall no longer be the case: Israel shall then know Jehovah, and no form of human power shall be suffered to lead their hearts astray from Him who is the rock of their salvation.
Eze 30:1-19.-The judgment on Egypt spreads terror and dismay among all the neighbouring nations. It signalises the advent of the great day of Jehovah, the day of His final reckoning with the powers of evil everywhere. It is the “time of the heathen” that has come (Eze 30:3). Egypt being the chief embodiment of secular power on the basis of pagan religion, the sudden collapse of her might is equivalent to a judgment on heathenism in general, and the moral effect of it conveys to the world a demonstration of the omnipotence of the one true God whom she had ignored and defied. The nations immediately involved in the fall of Egypt are the allies and mercenaries whom she has called to her aid in the time of her calamity. Ethiopians, and Lydians, and Libyans, and Arabs, and Cretans, the “helpers of Egypt,” who have furnished contingents to her motley army, fall by the sword along with her, and their countries share the desolation that overtakes the land of Egypt. Swift messengers are then seen speeding up the Nile in ships to convey to the careless Ethiopians the alarming tidings of the overthrow of Egypt (Eze 30:9). From this point the prophet confines his attention to the fate of Egypt, which he describes with a fulness of detail that implies a certain acquaintance both with the topography and the social circumstances of the country. In Eze 30:10 Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldaeans are for the first time mentioned by name as the human instruments employed by Jehovah to execute His judgments on Egypt. After the slaughter of the inhabitants the next consequence of the invasion is the destruction of the canals and reservoirs and the decay of the system of irrigation on which the productiveness of the country depended. “The rivers” (canals) “are dried up, and the land is made waste, and the fulness thereof, by the hand of strangers” (Eze 30:12). And with the material fabric of her prosperity the complicated system of religious and civil institutions which was entwined with the hoary civilisation of Egypt vanishes for ever. “The idols are destroyed; the potentates are made to cease from Memphis, and princes from the land of Egypt, so that they shall be no more” (Eze 30:13). Faith in the native gods shall be extinguished, and a trembling fear of Jehovah shall fill the whole land. The passage ends with an enumeration of various centres of the national life, which formed, as it were, the sensitive ganglia where the universal calamity was most acutely felt. On these cities, each of which was identified with the worship of a particular deity, Jehovah executes the judgments, in which He makes known to the Egyptian His sole divinity and destroys their confidence in false gods. They also possessed some special military or political importance, so that with their destruction the sceptres of Egypt were broken and the pride of her strength was laid low (Eze 30:18).
Eze 30:20-26.-A new oracle dated three months later than the preceding. Pharaoh is represented as a combatant, already disabled in one arm and sore pressed by his powerful antagonist, the king of Babylon. Jehovah announces that the wounded arm cannot be healed, although Pharaoh has retired from the contest for that purpose. On the contrary, both his arms shall be broken and the sword struck from his grasp, while the arms of Nebuchadnezzar are strengthened by Jehovah, who puts His own sword into his hand. The land of Egypt, thus rendered defenceless, falls an easy prey to the Chaldaeans, and its people are dispersed among the nations. The occasion of the prophecy is the repulse of Hophras expedition for the relief of Jerusalem, which is referred to as a past event. The date may either mark the actual time of the occurrence, {as in Eze 24:1} or the time when it came to the knowledge of Ezekiel. The prophet at all events accepts this reverse to the Egyptian arms as an earnest of the speedy realisation of his predictions in the total submission of the proud empire of the Nile.
Chapter 31 occupies the same position in the prophecies against Egypt as the allegory of the richly laden ship in those against Tyre (chapter 27). The incomparable majesty and overshadowing power of Egypt are set forth under the image of a lordly cedar in Lebanon, whose top reaches to the clouds and whose branches afford shelter to all the beasts of the earth. The exact force of the allegory is somewhat obscured by a slight error of the text, which must have crept in at a very early period. As it stands in the Hebrew and in all the ancient versions the whole chapter is a description of the greatness not of Egypt but of Assyria. “To whom art thou like in thy greatness?” asks the prophet (Eze 31:2); and the answer is, “Assyria was great as thou art. yet Assyria fell and is no more.” There is thus a double comparison: Assyria is compared to a cedar, and then Egypt is tacitly compared to Assyria. This interpretation may not be altogether indefensible. That the fate of Assyria contained a warning against the pride of Pharaoh is a thought in itself intelligible, and such as Ezekiel might very well have expressed. But if he had wished to express it he would not have done it so awkwardly as this interpretation supposes. When we follow the connection of ideas we cannot fail to see that Assyria is not in the prophets thoughts at all. The image is consistently pursued without a break to the end of the chapter, and then we learn that the subject of the description is “Pharaoh and all his multitude” (Eze 31:18). But if the writer is thinking of Egypt at the end, he must have been thinking of it from the beginning, and the mention of Assyria is out of place and misleading. The confusion has been caused by the substitution of the word “Asshur” (in Eze 31:3) for “Tasshur,” the name of the sherbin tree, itself a species of cedar. We should therefore read, “Behold a Tasshur, a cedar in Lebanon,” etc.; and the answer to the question of Eze 31:2 is that the position of Egypt is as unrivalled among the kingdoms of the world as this stately tree among the trees of the forest.
With this alteration the course of thought is perfectly clear, although incongruous elements are combined in the representation. The towering height of the cedar with its top in the clouds symbolises the imposing might of Egypt and its ungodly pride (cf. Eze 31:10, Eze 31:14). The waters of the flood which nourish its roots are those of the Nile, the source of Egypts wealth and greatness. The birds that build their nests in its branches and the beasts that bring forth their young under its shadow are the smaller nations that looked to Egypt for protection and support. Finally, the trees in the garden of God who envy the luxuriant pride of this monarch of the forest represent the other great empires of the earth who vainly aspired to emulate the prosperity and magnificence of Egypt (Eze 31:3-9).
In the next strophe (Eze 31:10-14) we see the great trunk lying prone across mountain and valley, while its branches lie broken in all the water-courses. A “mighty one of the nations” (Nebuchadnezzar) has gone up against it, and felled it to the earth. The nations have been scared from under its shadow; and the tree which “but yesterday might have stood against the world” now lies prostrate and dishonoured-“none so poor as do it reverence.” And the fall of the cedar reveals a moral principle and conveys a moral lesson to all other proud and stately trees, its purpose is to remind the other great empires that they too are mortal, and to warn them against the soaring ambition and lifting up of the heart which had brought about the humiliation of Egypt: “that none of the trees by the water should exalt themselves in stature or shoot their tops between the clouds, and that their mighty ones should not stand proudly in their loftiness (all who are fed by water); for they are all delivered to death, to the underworld with the children of men, to those that go down to the pit.” In reality there is no more impressive intimation of the vanity of earthly glory than the decay of those mighty empires and civilisations which once stood in the van of human progress; nor is there a fitter emblem of their fate than the sudden crash of some great forest tree before the woodmans axe.
The development of the prophets thought, however, here reaches a point where it breaks through the allegory, which has been hitherto consistently maintained. All nature shudders in sympathy with the fallen cedar: the deep mourns and withholds her screams from the earth; Lebanon is clothed with blackness, and all the trees languish. Egypt was so much a part of the established order that the world does not know itself when she has vanished. While this takes place on earth, the cedar itself has gone down to Sheol, where the other shades of vanished dynasties are comforted because this mightiest of them all has become like to the rest. This is the answer to the question that introduced the allegory. To whom art thou like? None is fit to be compared to thee; yet “thou shalt be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth, thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that are slain of the sword.” It is needless to enlarge on this idea, which is out of keeping here, and is more adequately treated in the next chapter.
Chapter 32 consists of two lamentations to be chanted over the fall of Egypt by the prophet and the daughters of the nations (Eze 32:16, Eze 32:18). The first (Eze 32:1-16) describes the destruction of Pharaoh, and the effect which is produced on earth; while the second (Eze 32:17-32) follows his shade into the abode of the dead, and expatiates on the welcome that awaits him there. Both express the spirit of exultation over a fallen foe, which was one of the uses to which elegiac poetry was turned amongst the Hebrews. The first passage, however, can hardly be considered a dirge in any proper sense of the word. It is essential to a true elegy that the subject of it should be conceived as dead, and that whether serious or ironical it should celebrate a glory that has passed away. In this case the elegiac note (of the elegiac “measure” there is hardly a trace) is just struck in the opening line: “O young lion of the nations!” (How) “art thou undone!” But this is not sustained: the passage immediately falls into the style of direct prediction and threatening, and is indeed closely parallel to the opening prophecy of the series (chapter 29). The fundamental image is the same: that of a great Nile monster spouting from his nostrils and fouling the waters with his feet (Eze 32:2). His capture by many nations and his lingering death on the open field are described with the realistic and ghastly details naturally suggested by the figure (Eze 32:3-6). The image is then abruptly changed in order to set forth the effect of so great a calamity on the world of nature and of mankind. Pharaoh is compared to a brilliant luminary, whose sudden extinction is followed by a darkening of all the lights of heaven and by consternation amongst the nations and kings of earth (Eze 32:7-10). It is thought by some that the violence of the transition is to be explained by the idea of the heavenly constellation of the dragon, answering to the dragon of the Nile, to which Egypt has just been likened. Finally all metaphors are abandoned, and the desolation of Egypt is announced in literal terms as accomplished by the sword of the king of Babylon and the “most terrible of the nations” (Eze 32:11-16).
But all the foregoing oracles are surpassed in grandeur of conception by the remarkable Vision of Hades which concludes the series-“one of the most weird passages in literature” (Davidson). In form it is a dirge supposed to be sung at the burial of Pharaoh and his host by the prophet along with the daughters of famous nations (Eze 32:18). But the theme, as has been already observed, is the entrance of the deceased warriors into the under-world, and their reception by the shades that have gone down thither before them. In order to understand it we must bear in mind some features of the conception of the underworld, which it is difficult for the modern mind to realise distinctly. First. of all, Sheol, or the “pit,” the realm of the dead, is pictured to the imagination as an adumbration of the grave or sepulchre, in which the body finds its last resting-place; or rather it is the aggregate of all the burying-grounds scattered over the earths surface. There the shades are grouped according to their clans and nationalities, just as on earth the members of the same family would usually be interred in one burying-place. The grave of the chief or king, the representative of the nation, is surrounded by those of his vassals and subjects, earthly distinctions being thus far preserved. The condition of the dead appears to be one of rest or sleep; yet they retain some consciousness of their state, and are visited at least by transient gleams of human emotion, as when in this chapter the heroes rouse themselves to address the Pharaoh when he comes among them. The most material point is that the state of the soul in Hades reflects the fate of the body after death. Those who have received the honour of decent burial on earth enjoy a corresponding honour among the shades below. They have, as it were, a definite status and individuality in their eternal abode, whilst the spirits of the unburied slain are laid in the lowest recesses of the pit, in the limbo of the uncircumcised. On this distinction the whole significance of the passage before us seems to depend. The dead are divided into two great classes: on the one hand the “mighty ones,” who lie in state with their weapons of war around them; and on the other hand the multitude of “the uncircumcised, slain by the sword”-i.e., those who have perished on the field of battle and been buried promiscuously without due funeral rites. There is, however, no moral distinction between the two classes. The heroes are not in a state of blessedness; nor is the condition of the uncircumcised one of acute suffering. The whole of existence in Sheol is essentially of one character; it is on the whole a pitiable existence, destitute of joy and of all that makes up the fulness of life on earth. Only there is “within that deep a lower deep,” and it is reserved for those who in the manner of their death have experienced the penalty of great wickedness. The moral truth of Ezekiels representation lies here. The real judgment of Egypt was enacted in the historical scene of its final overthrow; and it is the consciousness of this tremendous visitation of divine justice, perpetuated amongst the shades to all eternity, that gives ethical significance to the lot assigned to the nation in the other world. At the same time it should not be overlooked that the passage is in the highest degree poetical, and cannot be taken as an exact statement of what was known or believed about the state after death in Old Testament times. It deals only with the fate of armies and nationalities and great warriors who filled the earth with their renown. These, having vanished from history, preserve through all, time in the underworld the memory of Jehovahs mighty acts of judgment; but it is impossible to determine whether this sublime vision implies a real belief in the persistence of national identities in the region of the dead.
These, then, are the principal ideas on which the ode is based, and the course of thought is as follows. Eze 32:18 briefly announces the occasion for which the dirge is composed; it is to celebrate the passage of Pharaoh and his host to the lower world, and consign him to his appointed place there. Then follows a scene which has a certain resemblance to a well-known representation in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah (Isa 14:9-11). The heroes who occupy the place of honour among the dead are supposed to rouse themselves at the approach of this great multitude, and hailing them from the midst of Sheol, direct them to their proper place amongst the dishonoured slain. “The mighty ones speak to him: Be thou in the recesses of the pit: whom dost thou excel in beauty? Go down and be laid to rest with the uncircumcised, in the midst of them that are slain with the sword.” Thither Pharaoh has been preceded by other great conquerors who once set their terror in the earth, but now bear their shame amongst those that go down to the pit. For there is Asshur and all his company; there too are Elam and Meshech and Tubal, each occupying its own allotment amongst nations that have perished by the sword (Eze 32:22-26). Not theirs is the enviable lot of the heroes of old time who went down to Sheol in their panoply of war, and rest with their swords under their heads and their shields covering their bones. And so Egypt, which has perished like these other nations, must be banished with them to the bottom of the pit (Eze 32:27-28). The enumeration of the nations of the uncircumcised is then resumed; Israels immediate neighbours are amongst them-Edom and the dynasties of the north (the Syrians), and the Phoenicians, inferior states which played no great part as conquerors, but nevertheless perished in battle and bear their humiliation along with the others (Eze 32:29-30). These are to be Pharaohs companions in his last resting-place, and at the sight of them he will lay aside his presumptuous thoughts and comfort himself over the loss of his mighty army (Eze 32:31 f.).
It is necessary to say a few words in conclusion about the historical evidence for the fulfilment of these prophecies on Egypt. The supplementary oracle of Eze 29:17-21 shows us that the threatened invasion by Nebuchadnezzar had not taken place sixteen years after the fall of Jerusalem. Did it ever take place at all? Ezekiel was at that time confident that his words were on the point of being fulfilled, and indeed he seems to stake his credit with his hearers on their verification. Can we suppose that he was entirely mistaken? Is it likely that the remarkably definite predictions uttered both by him and Jeremiah {Jer 43:8-13; Jer 44:12-14; Jer 44:27-30; Jer 46:13-26} failed of even the partial fulfilment which that on Tyre received? A number of critics have strongly maintained that we are shut up by the historical evidence to this conclusion, They rely chiefly on the silence of Herodotus, and on the unsatisfactory character of the statement of Josephus. The latter writer is indeed sufficiently explicit in his affirmations. He tells us that five years after the capture of Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt, put to death the reigning king, appointed another in his stead, and carried the Jewish refugees in Egypt captive to Babylon. But it is pointed out that the date is impossible, being inconsistent with Ezekiels own testimony, that the account of the death of Hophra is contradicted by what we know of the matter from other sources (Herodotus and Diodorus), and that the whole passage bears the appearance of a translation into history of the prophecies of Jeremiah which it professes to substantiate. That is vigorous criticism, but the vigour is perhaps not altogether unwarrantable, especially as Josephus does not mention any authority. Other allusions by secular writers hardly count for much, and the state of the question is such that historians would probably have been content to confess their ignorance if the credit of a prophet had not been mixed up with it.
Within the last seventeen years, however, a new turn has been given to the discussion through the discovery of monumental evidence which was thought to have an important bearing on the point in dispute. In the same volume of an Egyptological magazine Wiedemann directed the attention of scholars to two inscriptions, one in the Louvre and the other in the British Museum, both of which he considered to furnish proof of an occupation of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar. The first was an Egyptian inscription of the reign of Hophra. It was written by an official of the highest rank, named “Nes-hor,” to whom was entrusted the responsible task of defending Egypt on its southern or Ethiopian frontier. According to Wiedemanns translation, it relates among other things an irruption of Asiatic bands (Syrians, people of the north, Asiatics), which penetrated as far as the first cataract, and did some damage to the temple of Chnum in Elephantine. There they were checked by Nes-hor, and afterwards they were crushed or repelled by Hophra himself. Now the most natural explanation of this incident, in connection with the circumstances of the time, would seem to be that Nebuchadnezzar, finding himself fully occupied for the present with the siege of Tyre, incited roving bands of Arabs and Syrians to plunder Egypt, and that they succeeded so far as to penetrate to the extreme south of the country. But a more recent examination of the text, by Maspero and Brugsch, reduces the incident to much smaller dimensions. They find that it refers to a mutiny of Egyptian mercenaries (Syrians, Ionians, and Bedouins) stationed on the southern frontier. The governor, Nes-hor, congratulates himself on a successful stratagem by which he got the rebels into a position where they were cut down by the kings troops. In any case it is evident that it falls very far short of a confirmation of Ezekiels prophecy. Not only is there no mention of Nebuchadnezzar or a regular Babylonian army, but the invaders or mutineers are actually said to have been annihilated by Hophra. It may be said, no doubt, that an Egyptian governor was likely to be silent about an event which cast discredit on his countrys arms, and would be tempted to magnify some temporary success into a decisive victory. But still the inscription must be taken for what it is worth, and the story it tells is certainly not the story of a Chaldean supremacy in the valley of the Nile. The only thing that suggests a connection between the two is the general probability that a campaign against Egypt must have been contemplated by Nebuchadnezzar about that time.
The second and more important document is a cuneiform fragment of the annals of Nebuchadnezzar. It is unfortunately in a very mutilated condition, and all that the Assyriologists have made out is that in the thirty-seventh year of his reign Nebuchadnezzar fought a battle with the king of Egypt. As the words of the inscription are those of Nebuchadnezzar himself, we may presume that the battle ended in a victory for him, and a few disconnected words in the latter part are thought to refer to the tribute or booty which he acquired. The thirty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar is the year 568 B.C., about two years after the date of Ezekiels last utterance against Egypt. The Egyptian king at this time was Amasis, whose name (only the last syllable of which is legible) is supposed to be that mentioned in the inscription. What the ulterior consequences of this victory were on Egyptian history, or how long the Babylonian domination lasted, we cannot at present say. These are questions on which we may reasonably look for further light from the researches of Assyriology. In the meantime it appears to be established beyond reasonable doubt that Nebuchadnezzar did attack Egypt, and the probable issue of his expedition was in accordance with Ezekiels last prediction: “Behold, I give to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the land of Egypt; and he shall spoil her spoil, and plunder her plunder, and it shall be the wages for his army”. {Eze 29:19} There can of course be no question of a fulfilment of the earlier prophecies in their literal terms. History knows nothing of a total captivity of the population of Egypt, or a blank of forty years in her annals when her land was untrodden by the foot of man or of beast. These are details belonging to the dramatic form in which the prophet clothed the spiritual lesson which it was necessary to impress on his countrymen-the inherent weakness of the Egyptian empire as a power based on material resources and rearing itself in opposition to the great ends of Gods kingdom. And it may well have been that for the illustration of that truth the humiliation that Egypt endured at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar was as effective as her total destruction would have been.