Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 32:22
Asshur [is] there and all her company: his graves [are] about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword:
22, 23. Asshur.
her company ] In ref. to the other peoples “multitude” is used. The term “company” may be used of the many nationalities in the Assyrian empire, cf. Eze 23:24.
his graves him ] The gender varies as the country (fem.) or king, as representative of the people, is thought of. The ref. here is to the king. LXX. uses the mas. pron. throughout. The text here is shorter in LXX., but no difference of sense arises.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
In Jer. 25 there is an enumeration of nations destined to be subject to the fury of the Chaldaeans. Here we find those of them who had already fallen not named by Jeremiah. Asshur is the king of Assyria, representing as usual the whole nation. The king is surrounded by the graves of his people.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 22. Asshur is there] The mightiest conquerors of the earth have gone down to the grave before thee; there they and their soldiers lie together, all slain by the sword.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Asshur, the famous, warlike, victorious kings of Assyria, is there; in the state of the dead, in the land of darkness and oblivion;
and all her company; princes, captains, soldiers, subjects, and confederates.
His graves are about him; perhaps his the greater, yet a grave, and they about him who were slain with him.
All of them slain; some in wars, whilst the kingdom began, grew, and flourished; others, when the kingdom was destroyed; these fell by the sword. Awhile their sword was longest; at last a longer sword, that of Arbaces the Mede, with his accomplices, wounds Asshur to the heart, and he is brought to the grave.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
22. her . . . hisThe abruptchange of gender is, because Ezekiel has in view at one time thekingdom (feminine), at another the monarch. “Asshur,”or Assyria, is placed first in punishment, as being first in guilt.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Ashur is there, and all her company,…. In the state of the dead, or in a most desolate and ruinous condition; the great Assyrian monarchy, the kings of it, the princes, nobles, generals, soldiers, and the vast number of subjects in all the dominions of it; all his army, as the Targum; this, with what follows, shows who the mighty are, that should meet and address the king of Egypt at his funeral:
his graves are about him; either the graves of Pharaoh and his multitude are round about the graves of the Assyrian monarch and his subjects, as Kimchi; or rather the graves of his subjects and soldiers are round about him: it seems to represent the king of Assyria as having a more stately monument, and the graves of his people as lesser ones round about him, but all in the same condition:
all of them slain, fallen by the sword of their enemies, the Medes and the Babylonians, by whom the Assyrian monarchy was destroyed.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(22) Asshur is there.In the previous verses we have had a general picture of the fallen nations awaiting to receive Egypt as their companion; in Eze. 32:22-30 there follows an enumeration of the most prominent of them, with a few words about each. Some of them were not yet fallen; but in this prophetic view it is their ultimate condition which rises to the prophets mind. All worldly power that opposes itself to God must go down and share the judgment soon to fall on Egypt.
His graves are about him.The graves of the people are about those of their monarch. All are fallen together into one common ruin.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
22-31. The prophet, in a style which Dante has imitated, now catalogues the nations whom he sees in the underworld. This has well been called “one of the most weird passages in literature.” He sees Assyria, whose graveyards Nebuchadnezzar had filled with dead. Once these strong warriors had “caused terrors,” but now they lie with their allies “in the uttermost parts of the pit” (Eze 32:23). He sees Elam also, the nation which bordered on Assyria, Media, and Persia, the long-time enemy of Babylon (Isa 21:2; Isa 22:6; Jer 25:25; Jer 49:34; Jer 49:39), who in the most ancient texts is called the “hostile Elamite,” “the evil one,” now fallen by the stroke of Nebuchadnezzar and occupying a place of shame with the “uncircumcised” in some base part of Sheol (Eze 32:24-25). He sees Meshech and Tubal (see notes Eze 27:13) with all their multitudes who fell upon the field of battle, but with their bones unburied and dishonored their heads not lying upon their swords as the “mighty ones” loved to lie (compare Eze 32:21; Vergil, AEneid, 6:233; Herodotus, 1:62, and other references in the Pulpit Commentary) now gone down into hell (literally, Sheol), “because they caused terror” while in the land of the living (Eze 32:26-27). So also shall Pharaoh fall and lie dishonored with the half-civilized hordes of Meshech and Tubal, whom he despises (Eze 32:28). There are the princes of Edom also (notes Eze 25:12) who “for all their might” now lie helpless (Eze 32:29); and also the underchiefs of the north (Damascus, Hamath, etc.), with the Sidonians, ashamed “for all the terror which they caused by their might” (R.V., margin, Eze 32:30). The only comfort that can come to Pharaoh as he drops with all his army into the comfortless abode is the fact that his predecessors and rivals suffer a like calamity (Eze 32:31; compare Eze 31:16). Again it is emphasized that it was because “he put his terror in the land of the living [Eze 32:32, LXX.] that Pharaoh is now dishonored in the land of the dead.” Such is the general meaning of this passage, the text of which is in considerable disorder, as may be seen by comparing the usual reading of Eze 32:27 with that of the Polychrome text, “And they lie not down with the fallen warriors of old who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, with their swords under their heads, and their shields on their bones because the terror of their might was in the land of the living.” As the Expositor’s Bible justly says, it should not be overlooked that the picture is in the highest degree poetical, and cannot be taken as an exact statement of what the Hebrews believed about the state after death.
APPENDIX ON THE BABYLONIAN AND HEBREW UNDERWORLD.
The underworld of the Babylonians was pictured as a cold, dark, cheerless place “the land whence none return, a land of corruption, a city of darkness and dust, a house of chaos, the hostile land.” The cemeteries and the underworld were very closely connected in ancient imagery and thought. There was indeed at least some Assyriologists think so one spot in the future world, “a field of the blessed,” where there was water and health-giving food and cure for disease, whose inhabitants were “bright as the heavens,” holding communion with the gods; but only great heroes or special divine favorites could ever hope to enter. Mankind in general must sink down into a shadowy, ghostlike, feeble existence, where “their nourishment is dust and their food clay.” For yet others, whose bodies had been mutilated or for whom the funeral rites had been omitted, there was prepared a yet deeper depth of horror and torture by the lord of the underworld, who is called “the Destroyer” (compare Rev 9:11), “the Devourer,” “the Terrifier,” “the Pitiless One.” One inscription reads:
He who was killed in battle,
Thou seest it, I have seen it,
His father and his mother hold his head,
His wife stands at his side
Whose corpse, however, lies upon the field,
Thou seest it, I have seen it
Whoso does not rest in the earth
His soul has no one to care for it.
* * * * * * * * *
What is thrown upon the streets he eats.
This explains the terrible threat of Ezekiel, that these Babylonians should die without being paid funeral honors. The heaviest curse upon an enemy that the cuneiform inscriptions reveal is this:
That his body may be cast aside,
No grave be his lot.
(See notes Eze 27:29-36.) This also explains why the Assyrian and Babylonian kings mutilated the bodies and scattered the pieces “like thorns and thistles,” beyond all hope of future recovery. So Assurbanipal, when the king of Lydia broke his oath, cried out, “May his corpse be thrown before his enemies; may he have no burial;” and Sennacherib dug up the bones of the ancestors of one of his most hated enemies and scattered them far and wide. But even if one escaped this future torture, the world of the dead was a hopeless, comfortless abode of gloom, full of monsters and presided over by cruel lion-headed deities.
The day is but a sigh, a stream of tears the night,
Crying fills the months, and bitter woe the year.
A very pathetic appeal found in one of these cuneiform funeral texts shows the anxiety of a deceased sister to be remembered by her brother in annual gifts and songs:
My only brother, let me not perish.
On the day of Tammuz, play for me on the flute of lapis lazuli;
Together with the lyre of pearl, play for me.
Together let the professional dirge singers, male and female, play for me,
That the dead may arise and inhale the incense of offerings.
The Old Testament writers also conceive of Sheol, the subterranean world of the dead, as a place of silence, dust, and darkness. The very word Sheol ( Su-alu) means “hollow,” and zalmat, the Assyrian word for darkness, is exactly reproduced in the Hebrew zalmoth. (Compare Psa 49:19; Job 3:5; Job 12:22; Job 16:16; Job 24:17; Job 33:18.) The Hebrews do not picture the future world as full of dangers, as do all other ancient nations, but nevertheless it is heavy with chill and painful negations. As Dr. Salmond has so well shown, the only important difference between the Hebrews’ thought of the future and the thought of other nations is found in their conception of the potentialities of God. The future world might be full of gloom and unknown foes, but God was there, still merciful and gracious, as truly Lord of Sheol as of earth. He was omnipotent, and his wings could shelter and his arm could as easily protect there as here. It was the Hebrew’s belief in a living omnipotent God that made him take it for granted that he would live on in the future and live on under the same divine protection which never failed him here. For this reason he cared nothing for charms and amulets or magical words to guard him from the perils of the long hard journey beyond the grave. For this reason he could confidentially write as the epitaph of his departed friend this hopeful word so full of prophecy concerning his eternal well-being “God took him” (Gen 5:24). Jeremias, Die Babylonish-Assyrischen Vorstellung, vom Leben nach dem Tode, Leipzig, 1887; W. St. Chad. Boscawen, Sheol and other Essays; Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 1895; Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Jastrow, 1898.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Asshur (Assyria) is there and all her company, his graves are round about him. All of them slain, fallen by the sword. Whose graves are set in the uttermost parts of the pit. And her company is round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused terror in the land of the living.”
Assyria had caused terror in the land of the living, but now she is silent in the grave. It is twice stressed that she and her people are gathered there, slain by the sword. Israel had good cause to be pleased about that. Assyria had been a bitter enemy and a cruel overlord. They were the mighty empire destroyed and taken over by Babylon.
Of course Assyria still flourished above ground, although subject to Babylon. The idea would seem to be that the Assyria of the past, the powerful overlord, had died, along with those slain by Babylon, those who had once distressed Israel.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Eze 32:22 Asshur [is] there and all her company: his graves [are] about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword:
Ver. 22. Ashur is there. ] To wit, in the belly of hell, among the uncircumcised, as Lazarus and other saints are in the bosom of Abraham, the place of bliss. Slain they were with the sword; but that was but a beginning of their sorrows, a trap door to eternal torment. Virgil, by a like figure, brings in Aeneas going down to hell, and there seeing Agamemnon, Dido, the Titans, Cyclopes, and other tyrants.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Eze 32:22-23
22Assyria is there and all her company; her graves are round about her. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword, 23whose graves are set in the remotest parts of the pit and her company is round about her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword, who spread terror in the land of the living.
Eze 32:23 whose graves are set in the remotest parts of the pit This is an idiom for the worst (cf. Isa 14:15) or lowest places in the netherworld. They were slain in this world and humiliated in the next (cf. Eze 32:27; Eze 32:32)!
Note the list of humiliated nations.
1. Egypt, Eze 32:17-21; Eze 32:31
2. Assyria, Eze 32:22-23
3. Elam, Eze 32:24-25
4. Meshech, Tubal (Anatolia), Eze 32:26-28
5. Edom, Eze 32:29
6. Princes of the north (i.e., Syrians or Armenians) and Sidon, Eze 32:30
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Asshur: i.e. the great empire of Assyria.
graves. Hebrew. keber = burying-places, or sepulchres. See App-36. Same word as in verses: Eze 32:23, Eze 32:25, Eze 32:26.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Eze 32:24, Eze 32:26, Eze 32:29, Eze 32:30, Eze 31:3-18, Num 24:24, Psa 83:8-10
Asshur: Isa 30:33, Isa 37:36-38, Nah 1:7-12, Nah 3:1-19
Reciprocal: Gen 10:11 – Asshur 1Ch 1:17 – Asshur Nah 3:18 – O King
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 32:22. Asshttr (or Assyria) is there means that she bad gone down into this state of forgetfulness or desolation. (See Eze 31:3; Eze 31:11.)
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Eze 32:22-23. Asshur is there and all her company The Assyrians, both king and people, whose destruction is represented in the foregoing chapter: though famous, warlike, and victorious, that mighty monarch fell. His graves are about him The graves of his soldiers slain in the war. This expression, and that in the next verse, her company is round about her grave, seem to signify no more than a universal destruction of high and low, and that death had made them all equal. The masculine and feminine genders are promiscuously used in the following verses. The masculine referring to the prince, whose subjects the deceased were; the feminine to the nation or country to which they belonged. Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit Here is supposed a spacious vault, in the midst whereof the king of Asshur lies, and round the vault, in receptacles hewn about its sides, his famous captains and commanders. And her company is round about her grave Like lesser graves placed round the monument of some person of great quality. All of them slain, which caused terror, &c.
Who were a terror while they were alive to their neighbours.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Assyria and her allies were already in the grave having perished in war. Even though the Assyrians had struck terror into the hearts of other peoples in their day, they now lay in the grave while others viewed them and marveled.