Ezekiel 29 commentary

Worldly, carnal minds pride themselves in their property, forgetting that whatever we have, we received it from God, and should use it for God. Why, then, do we boast? Self is the great idol which all the world worships, in contempt of God and his sovereignty. God can force men out of that in which they are most secure and easy. Such a one, and all that cleave to him, shall perish together. Thus end men's pride, presumption, and carnal security. The Lord is against those who do harm to his people, and still more against those who lead them into sin. Egypt shall be a kingdom again, but it shall be the basest of the kingdoms; it shall have little wealth and power. History shows the complete fulfilment of this prophecy. God, not only in justice, but in wisdom and goodness to us, breaks the creature-stays on which we lean, that they may be no more our confidence.

The besiegers of Tyre obtained little plunder. But when God employs ambitious or covetous men, he will recompense them according to the desires of their hearts; for every man shall have his reward. God had mercy in store for the house of Israel soon after. The history of nations best explains ancient prophecies. All events fulfil the Scriptures. Thus, in the deepest scenes of adversity, the Lord sows the seed of our future prosperity. Happy are those who desire his favour, grace, and image; they will delight in his service, and not covet any earthly recompence; and the blessings they have chosen shall be sure to them for ever.

CHAPTER 29

Eze 29:1-21. The Judgment on Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar; though about to Be Restored after Forty Years, It Was Still to Be in a State of Degradation.

This is the last of the world kingdoms against which Ezekiel's prophecies are directed, and occupies the largest space in them, namely, the next four chapters. Though farther off than Tyre, it exercised a more powerful influence on Israel.

2. Pharaoh--a common name of all the kings of Egypt, meaning "the sun"; or, as others say, a "crocodile," which was worshipped in parts of Egypt (compare Eze 29:3). Hophra or Apries was on the throne at this time. His reign began prosperously. He took Gaza (Jr 47:1) and Zidon and made himself master of Phoenicia and Palestine, recovering much that was lost to Egypt by the victory of Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish (2Ki 24:7; Jr 46:2), in the fourth year of Jehoiakim [Wilkinson, Ancient Egypt, 1.169]. So proudly secure because of his successes for twenty-five years did he feel, that he said not even a god could deprive him of his kingdom [Herodotus, 2.169]. Hence the appropriateness of the description of him in Eze 29:3. No mere human sagacity could have enabled Ezekiel to foresee Egypt's downfall in the height of its prosperity. There are four divisions of these prophecies; the first in the tenth year of Ezekiel's captivity; the last in the twelfth. Between the first and second comes one of much later date, not having been given till the twenty-seventh year (Eze 29:17; 30:19), but placed there as appropriate to the subject matter. Pharaoh-hophra, or Apries, was dethroned and strangled, and Amasis substituted as king, by Nebuchadnezzar (compare Jr 44:30). The Egyptian priests, from national vanity, made no mention to Herodotus of the Egyptian loss of territory in Syria through Nebuchadnezzar, of which Josephus tells us, but attributed the change in the succession from Apries to Amasis solely to the Egyptian soldiery. The civil war between the two rivals no doubt lasted several years, affording an opportunity to Nebuchadnezzar of interfering and of elevating the usurper Amasis, on condition of his becoming tributary to Babylon [Wilkinson]. Compare Jr 43:10-12, and see on Jr 43:13, for another view of the grounds of interference of Nebuchadnezzar.

3. dragon--Hebrew, tanim, any large aquatic animal, here the crocodile, which on Roman coins is the emblem of Egypt.

lieth--restest proudly secure.

his rivers--the mouths, branches, and canals of the Nile, to which Egypt owed its fertility.

4. hooks in thy jaws--(Is 37:29; compare Job 41:1, 2). Amasis was the "hook." In the Assyrian sculptures prisoners are represented with a hook in the underlip, and a cord from it held by the king.

cause ... fish ... stick unto ... scales--Pharaoh, presuming on his power as if he were God (Eze 29:3, "I have made it"), wished to stand in the stead of God as defender of the covenant-people, his motive being, not love to them, but rivalry with Babylon. He raised the siege of Jerusalem, but it was only for a time (compare Eze 29:6; Jr 37:5, 7-10); ruin overtook not only them, but himself. As the fish that clung to the horny scales of the crocodile, the lord of the Nile, when he was caught, shared his fate, so the adherents of Pharaoh, lord of Egypt, when he was overthrown by Amasis, should share his fate.

5. wilderness--captivity beyond thy kingdom. The expression is used perhaps to imply retribution in kind. As Egypt pursued after Israel, saying, "The wilderness hath shut them in" (Ex 14:3), so she herself shall be brought into a wilderness state.

open fields--literally, "face of the field."

not be brought together--As the crocodile is not, when caught, restored to the river, so no remnant of thy routed army shall be brought together, and rallied, after its defeat in the wilderness. Pharaoh led an army against Cyrene in Africa, in support of Aricranes, who had been stripped of his kingdom by the Cyrenians. The army perished and Egypt rebelled against him [Junius]. But the reference is mainly to the defeat by Nebuchadnezzar.

beasts ... fowls--hostile and savage men.

6. staff of reed to ... Israel--alluding to the reeds on the banks of the Nile, which broke if one leaned upon them (see on Eze 29:4; Is 36:6). All Israel's dependence on Egypt proved hurtful instead of beneficial (Is 30:1-5).

7. hand--or handle of the reed.

rend ... shoulder--by the splinters on which the shoulder or arm would fall, on the support failing the hand.

madest ... loins ... at a stand--that is, made them to be disabled. Maurer somewhat similarly (referring to a kindred Arabic form), "Thou hast stricken both their loins." Fairbairn, not so well, "Thou lettest all their loins stand," that is, by themselves, bereft of the support which they looked for from thee.

8. a sword--Nebuchadnezzar's army (Eze 29:19). Also Amasis and the Egyptian revolters who after Pharaoh-hophra's discomfiture in Cyrene dethroned and strangled him, having defeated him in a battle fought at Memphis [Junius].

9. I am the Lord--in antithesis to the blasphemous boast repeated here from Eze 29:3, "The river is mine, and I have made it."

10. from the tower of Syene--Grotius translates, "from Migdol (a fortress near Pelusium on the north of Suez) to Syene (in the farthest south)"; that is, from one end of Egypt to the other. So "from Migdol to Syene," Eze 30:6, Margin. However, English Version rightly refers Syene to Seveneh, that is, Sebennytus, in the eastern delta of the Nile, the capital of the Lower Egyptian kings. The Sebennyte Pharaohs, with the help of the Canaanites, who, as shepherds or merchants, ranged the desert of Suez, extended their borders beyond the narrow province east of the delta, to which they had been confined by the Pharaohs of Upper Egypt. The defeated party, in derision, named the Sebennyte or Lower Egyptians foreigners and shepherd-kings (a shepherd being an abomination in Egypt, Ge 46:34). They were really a native dynasty. Thus, in English Version, "Ethiopia" in the extreme south is rightly contrasted with Sebennytus or Syene in the north.

11. forty years--answering to the forty years in which the Israelites, their former bondsmen, wandered in "the wilderness" (compare Note, see on Eze 29:5). 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 Egypt's overthrow by Nebuchadnezzar and the deliverance by Cyrus, was about forty years. The ideal forty years' wilderness state of social and political degradation, rather than a literal non-passing of man or beast for that term, is mainly intended (so Eze 4:6; Is 19:2, 11).

12. As Israel passed through a term of wilderness discipline (compare Eze 20:35, &c.), which was in its essential features to be repeated again, so it was to be with Egypt [Fairbairn]. Some Egyptians were to be carried to Babylon, also many "scattered" in Arabia and Ethiopia through fear; but mainly the "scattering" was to be the dissipation of their power, even though the people still remained in their own land.

13. (Jr 46:26).

14. Pathros--the Thebaid, or Upper Egypt, which had been especially harassed by Nebuchadnezzar (Na 3:8, 10). The oldest part of Egypt as to civilization and art. The Thebaid was anciently called "Egypt" [Aristotle]. Therefore it is called the "land of the Egyptians' birth" (Margin, for "habitation").

base kingdom--Under Amasis it was made dependent on Babylon; humbled still more under Cambyses; and though somewhat raised under the Ptolemies, never has it regained its ancient pre-eminence.

16. Egypt, when restored, shall be so circumscribed in power that it shall be no longer an object of confidence to Israel, as formerly; for example, as when, relying on it, Israel broke faith with Nebuchadnezzar (Eze 17:13, 15, 16).

which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them--rather, "while they (the Israelites) look to (or, turn after) them" [Henderson]. Israel's looking to Egypt, rather than to God, causes their iniquity (unfaithfulness to the covenant) to be remembered by God.

17. The departure from the chronological order occurs here only, among the prophecies as to foreign nations, in order to secure greater unity of subject.

18. every head ... bald, ... shoulder ... peeled--with carrying baskets of earth and stones for the siege works.

no wages ... for the service--that is, in proportion to it and the time and labor which he expended on the siege of Tyre. Not that he actually failed in the siege (Jerome expressly states, from Assyrian histories, that Nebuchadnezzar succeeded); but, so much of the Tyrian resources had been exhausted, or transported to her colonies in ships, that little was left to compensate Nebuchadnezzar for his thirteen year's siege.

19. multitude--not as Fairbairn, "store"; but, he shall take away a multitude of captives out of Egypt. The success of Nebuchadnezzar is implied in Tyre's receiving a king from Babylon, probably one of her captives there, Merbal.

take her spoil ... prey--literally, "spoil her spoil, prey her prey," that is, as she spoiled other nations, so shall she herself be a spoil to Babylon.

20. because they wrought for me--the Chaldeans, fulfilling My will as to Tyre (compare Jr 25:9).

21. In the evil only, not in the good, was Egypt to be parallel to Israel. The very downfall of Egypt will be the signal for the rise of Israel, because of God's covenant with the latter.

I cause the horn of ... Israel to bud--(Psa 132:17). I will cause its ancient glory to revive: an earnest of Israel's full glory under Messiah, the son of David (Lu 1:69). Even in Babylon an earnest was given of this in Daniel (Da 6:2) and Jeconiah (Jr 52:31).

I will give thee ... opening of ... mouth--When thy predictions shall have come to pass, thy words henceforth shall be more heeded (compare Eze 24:27).

In the tenth year - Of Zedekiah; and tenth of the captivity of Jeconiah.

The ten month, in the twelfth day of the month - Answering to Monday, the first of February, A.M. 3415.

Set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt - This was Pharaoh-hophra or Pharaoh-apries, whom we have so frequently met with in the prophecies of Jeremiah, and much of whose history has been given in the notes.

The great dragon - התנים hattannim should here be translated crocodile, as that is a real animal, and numerous in the Nile; whereas the dragon is wholly fabulous. The original signifies any large animal.

The midst of his rivers - This refers to the several branches of the Nile, by which this river empties itself into the Mediterranean. The ancients termed them septem ostia Nili, "the seven mouths of the Nile." The crocodile was the emblem of Egypt.

I will put hooks in thy jaws - Amasis, one of this king's generals, being proclaimed king by an insurrection of the people, dethroned Apries, and seized upon the kingdom; and Apries was obliged to flee to Upper Egypt for safety.

I will cause the fish - to stick unto thy scales - Most fish are sorely troubled with a species of insect which bury their heads in their flesh, under their scales, and suck out the vital juices. The allusion seems to be to this. Pharaoh was the crocodile; the fish, the common people; and the sticking to his scales, the insurrection by which he was wasted and despoiled of his kingdom.

I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness - Referring to his being obliged to take refuge in Upper Egypt. But he was afterwards taken prisoner, and strangled by Amasis. Herod. lib. 2 s. 169.

They have been a staff of reed - An inefficient and faithless ally. The Israelites expected assistance from them when Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem; and they made a feint to help them, but retired when Nebuchadnezzar went against them. Thus were the Jews deceived and ultimately ruined, see Eze 29:7.

From the tower of Syene - ממגדל מונה mimmigdol seveneh, "from Migdol to Syene." Syene, now called Essuan, was the last city in Egypt, going towards Ethiopia. It was famous for a well into which the rays of the sun fell perpendicularly at midday.

Shall be desolate forty years - The country from Migdol or Magdolan, which was on the isthmus between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, was so completely ruined, that it might well be called desert; and it is probable that this desolation continued during the whole of the reign of Amasis, which was just forty years. See Herod. lib. 3 c. 10; and see Calmet.

Will I gather the Egyptians - It is probable that Cyrus gave permission to the Egyptians brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, to return to their own country. And if we reckon from the commencement of the war against Pharaoh-hophra by Nebuchadnezzar, to the third or fourth year of Cyrus, the term will be about forty years.

Into the land of Pathros - Supposed to mean the Delta, a country included between the branches of the Nile, called Δ delta, from its being in the form of the Greek letter of that name. It may mean the Pathrusim, in Upper Egypt, near to the Thebaid. This is most likely.

Shall be there a base kingdom - That is, it shall continue to be tributary. It is upwards of two thousand years since this prophecy was delivered, and it has been uninterruptedly fulfilling to the present hour.

1. Egypt became tributary to the Babylonians under Amasis.

2. After the ruin of the Babylonish empire, it became subject to the Persians.

3. After the Persians, it came into the hands of the Macedonians.

4. After the Macedonians it fell into the hands of the Romans.

5. After the division of the Roman empire it was subdued by the Saracens.

6. About a.d. 1250, it came into the hands of the Mameluke slaves.

7. Selim, the ninth emperor of the Turks, conquered the Mamelukes, a.d. 1517, and annexed Egypt to the Ottoman empire, of which it still continues to be a province, governed by a pacha and twenty-four beys, who are always advanced from servitude to the administration of public affairs. So true is it that Egypt, once so glorious, is the basest of kingdoms. See Newton on the prophecies.

The seven and twentieth year - That is, of the captivity of Jeconiah, fifteen years after the taking of Jerusalem; about April 20, 3432. The preceding prophecy was delivered one year before the taking of Jerusalem; this, sixteen years after; and it is supposed to be the last which this prophet wrote.

Caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus - He was thirteen years employed in the siege. See Joseph. Antiq. lib. 10 c. 11. In this siege his soldiers endured great hardships. Being continually on duty, their heads became bald by wearing their helmets; and their shoulders bruised and peeled by carrying baskets of earth to the fortifications, and wood, etc., to build towers, etc.

Yet had he no wages, nor his army - The Tyrians, finding it at last impossible to defend their city, put all their wealth aboard their vessels, sailed out of the port, and escaped for Carthage; and thus Nebuchadnezzar lost all the spoil of one of the richest cities in the world.

I have given him the land of Egypt for his labor - Because he fulfilled the designs of God against Tyre, God promises to reward him with the spoil of Egypt.

Will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud - This may refer generally to the restoration; but particularly to Zerubbabel, who became one of the leaders of the people from Babylon. Or it may respect Daniel, or Mordecai, or Jeconiah, who, about this time, was brought out of prison by Evil-merodach, and afterwards kindly treated.

The tenth year - Of Jeconiah's captivity.

The great dragon - The crocodile; our prophet, as well as Isaiah, compares the Egyptian king to that devouring serpent, or dragon. That lieth - Not only at rest, but waiting for prey. My river - My kingdom, power, riches, and forces, all the strength and glory of Egypt.

Put hooks - The Allegory is continued. The fish - The people of Egypt. To stick - To adhere to their king.

Leave thee - When thus brought out, I will leave thee. The wilderness - The deserts of Libya and Syene. All the fish - The whole army of the Egyptians. The open fields - There was this king and his army ruined. Gathered - These were not buried, but left in the wilderness, a prey to wild beasts, and birds.

Rent - Didst them much mischief instead of benefiting them, as thou hast promised, Jer 37:7.

Syene - Boundary between Ethiopia and Egypt; that is, all Egypt from north - east to south - west.

Forty years - These forty years began about the thirtieth year of Jeconiah's captivity, and end with the seventieth year of the captivity, which was the first of Cyrus.

Pathros - The southern part of Egypt, in which was the famous city Thebae, known for its hundred gates. Their habitation - The ancient habitation of their fathers. A base - A low, tributary, dependent kingdom.

No more rule - Though in the times of the Ptolemeys, it was considerable, yet then, even then it did not rule the nations about her.

Which - Which sinful reliance on the arm of flesh provoked God to call to mind their other iniquities. When - When they forgot God, and respected Egypt. They - The house of Israel.

In the seven and twentieth year - Of Jeconiah's captivity, the year after the conquest of Tyre.

Caused - The army, and commanders were weary of the siege, but the immovable resolution of the king kept them on. A great service - It was service to the justice of God. It was great service both for hardness of work, heaviness of burdens, and length of the siege, thirteen years together. Made bald - Through age, or sicknesses, or continued wearing of helmets. Peeled - Galled with carrying burdens. No wages - For though Tyre was very rich, when first besieged, much wealth was carried away during the siege, much spent and wasted in the siege, and what was left, preserved by articles of surrender.

Her multitude - Common people, who shall be made captives, and servants or slaves. Her prey - What she had before taken from others. The wages - God will be behind - hand with none, who do any service for him; one way or other he will recompence them. None shall kindle a fire at his altar for nought.

They - The Babylonians. For me - God's work was doing by them, tho' they thought nothing less.

The horn - Jehoiakim, who was then advanced by Evil - Merodach. The opening of the mouth - Thou shalt have liberty, to open thy mouth in comforting the good among them, and to give praise to God.

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,

Of Ieconiah's Captivity.

Which answers to part of our December, and part of Ianuary.

2 Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesie against him, and against all Egypt.

Vide chap. 20. ver. 46. let. o. and chap. 21. ver. 2 let. i

Hophra, as the Scripture stiles him, Ier. 44.30. the Greek Authors call him Aprees, and Vaphres, most like he was Grandson to Necho, who slew Iosiah in Fight, 2 Chron. 35.23, 24.

In Prophetick stile, and Authority declare what shall be done to him in his person.

The whole multitude of Egyptians, for 'tis the place, for the people dwelling in it.

Marginal references: Isa. 19.1. Jer. 25.19. and 46.2.

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 my self .

That God that drowned one of thy Predecessors with his Army, Horsemen, and Horses in the Red Sea, at whose Name thou shouldest tremble, who ever fulfilled his word, and is the same, 'tis he foretells thee by my mouth what is to be.

See chap. 28. ver. 22. let. f.

See ver. 2. let. d.

It may refer, either to the Grandeur of this King, as if he had been Pharaoh the great, or to the largeness of this Creature, to which he is by this Hieroglyphick compared.

Some would have it the Whale, but that lies not in Rivers, as in his own place, 'tis surely the Crocodile, of which Nilus hath many; and chap. [illegible: 1 letter]2.2. our Prophet doth, and so Isa. 51.9. compare the Egyptian King to that devouring Serpent, or Dragon.

Not only at rest, but waiting for a prey, which never scapes, if this devourer lay any considerable hold of it.

Nilus was the chief River of Egypt, but, either there were some less Rivers, that run into Nilus, or some divisions of it, where it made some Islands, or the seven mouths of it, where it falls into the Sea, which may give the Name of Rivers to it, or those Channels that were cut large, and deep, to convey water into the Country, in all which these Crocodiles bred, and rested, and waited for their prey.

Which hath thought, accounted, and boasted, by which it appears, the Prophet speaks of a Dragon in a figurative sense.

Kingdom, Power, Riches, and Forces signified here by a River: All the strength and glory of Egypt are mine, saith this proud King.

At my dispose, and will; 'tis probable, that this King of Egypt was an aspiring King, who aimed at absolute power, and thought he had secured it to himself, for the River, the Emblem of the Kingdom is mine, saith he.

This seems to give some credit to the conjecture, that this King had raised the Prerogative Royal, and done what others before him would, but could not, and therefore assumes it to himself, as his own work, forgetting God who gives Kingdoms, and whose they are.

Somewhat like the proud boast, I have built for the Glory of my Name. Dan. 4.30. and like to meet as sad an end.

Marginal references: Psal. 74.13, 14. Isa. 27.1. &c.

4 But I will put hooks into thy chaws, 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.

Thou art secure against all, but God will draw thee out of thy River to thy ruine.

The Allegorie is continued; Fish are drawn out with hooks and lines, and God hath Hooks for this proud Dragon, first Amasis, and next the Babylonian King: The expedition of Amasis in the head of the Cynen[illegible: 1 letter]eans and Graecians, and the event of it is exactly represented in▪ this Hieroglyphick in the Text. Amasis with those Forces mastered Libya, the King thereof applys for help to this Pharaoh, he gathers all the Power of Egypt out of Egypt with him into Cyrene, where he was defeated, lost all, but a few that fled with him, and on this occasion the Egyptians rebelled against him; now this short history opens the parable. The first Hook you see in the chaws of this Dragon, this drew him out of his River, i. e. his Kingdom.

These are the people of Egypt, the subjects of this Kingdom.

To adhere to their King in this War.

Both the King, and his Subjects, which made up his Army go out of the Rivers, leave Egypt, and march into Cyrene (which was part of that Kingdom now called Barca) with their King, as if they had been litt[illegible: 1 letter]e Fishes on the back of a mighty one. Thus far the Emblem, the rest follows.

Marginal references: Isa. 37.29. chap. 38.4.

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, or gathered ; I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the fields, and to the fowls of the heaven.

When thus brought out, as a Fish out of the water, I will leave thee▪ God le[illegible: 1 letter]t this King.

The Deserts of Libya and Cyrene.

The whole Army of Egyptia[illegible: 1 letter]s.

There was this King and his Army ruin'd.

As usually the slain are to be buried, these were not buried, but le[illegible: 1 letter]t in the Wilderness, where they fell to be a prey to wild Beasts, and Birds of prey which haunted the Wilderness, and would soon gather to their prey.

Marginal references: Heb. face of the field.

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.

Both King, Princes, Councellors, and people of Egypt.

Treacherously, as next verse, dealt with the Iews, whom they seduced to trust, and depend on them, and then perfidiously broke promise with them; It was the sin of the Iews to trust Egypt, it was Egypts great sin to falsifie promise with the Iew, and for this God now punisheth Egypt.

This mighty overthrow shall be known through all Egypt, and as it shall fill them with fears and troubles, so it should be a convincing argument to them, that God had done this, and punisht them, and their proud King, who used to say as Herodote reports, That God could not turn him out of his Kingdom.

Marginal references: 2 King 18.21. Isa. 36.6.

7 When they took hold of thee by thy hand thou didst break , and rent all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.

The Iews unable to stand on their own legs, as men ready to fall.

Catch thine hand to lean on, as when besieged by the Chaldaeans.

It includes a designed, and voluntary faileur: Egypt would not support.

Didst tear, and pierce, and wound Arm and Shoulder, didst them much mischief instead of benefitting them, as thou hadst promised. Ier. 37.7. and 42.17.

The same thing in words little different.

These are the strength of a man, thou hast put them to use all their strength to repel the Enemy, thou h[illegible: 1 letter]st been chief occasion of their engaging against.

8 ¶ Therefore, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee.

For thy Atheistical Pride, and thy perfidious mischief to the House of Israel, and other thy sins.

War, and the effects of it. First, a Civil war arose against this King Hophra, who weak, and contemned, and fallen under the jealousies, and disgusts of his Subjects after his overthrow in the De[illegible: 1 letter]erts of Libya, and Cyrene was again overthrown by his Rebel Subjects in a bloody Battel at Memphis, was taken in his [illegible: 1 letter]light towards Sain his Royal Seat, and sometime after strangled by the enraged rout. The next Sword brought on Hophra's Successor, and on the Land of Egypt was the Sword of Nebuchadnezzar in the same year after the overthrow of Tyrus, the Civil War of Egypt inviting him to take the occasion, and some few requests, 'tis likely from the Rebellious to assist them.

By the Sword in Battle, and Sieges, and by Famine.

Eaten up by a numerous Army invading, and prevailing, and which will drive away what they eat not. The same phrase you have chap. 14. ver. 12. let. z. and ver. 17. let. r.

9 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.

That part here intended, say some, and in the 10th verse bounded from Syene to the Borders of Aethiopia, nor is this inconsistent with that ver. 2. against all Egypt, for all Egypt suffered much, though all were not equally wasted, and turned into a desolation, as these parts shall be

A Desolation, i. e. most desolate, and wastness by the Sword of the Enemie, and by drought, as the word imports both, and this latter part of the Judgment was executed by the folly of the 12 Egyptian [illegible: 1 letter]oitelets, who made a mighty Lake Maeris, to fill which they much drained and weakned Nilus that it could not as before it did, water, and fertilize the Land sutable to Isa 19.5.

See ver. 3. let. n. o. p. q. r.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 paragraph]

10 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 Aethiopia .

Chap. 28. verse 22. let. f.

Verse 4. let. y.

Verse 9. let. t.

Thus as a common name, we, and the French, and others read it, but some account it a proper name of a Town or City, called Magdalum, for ought I know, the old Migdol. Exod. 14.2. and Num. 33.7, 8. 'twas on the Red Sea side, North-East of Egypt, from this part unto Syene.

A City on the East of Nilus over against Arabia, saith one, a City that is just below the great chataract or fall of Nilus toward Aethiopia, and such a boundary between Aethiopia, and Egypt, as admits dispute, to which it belongs.

Now, to dispute nothing of this Geography, it seems likely to me, that what we render Aethiopia is not so well, and plainly rendred, for Syene being so near to Aethiopia, we must look some place of Egypt at some greater distance from Syene, than this Aethiopia is, if then 'twere translated the border of Cush, to whom Moses assigns Arabia, Gen. 10.7. Let us suppose then Magdalum instead of the Tower, as one term; Syene on the edge of Aethiopia, as another, and the opposite point on the Red Sea towards Arabia, and then almost all Egypt is comprised herein from North-east to South-east down the Red Sea, thence to the Westward, as far as Aethiopia, and thence up the Nile, as high Northward as Magdalum.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] of [illegible: 1 word].; chap. 3.[illegible: 1 letter]; Heb. [illegible: 1 word]

11 No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.

Not strictly to be taken, but in an accommodated sense, or comparatively to what once was, or so little Traffick and passing to, and fro, that no footsteps, or tracts of men found. It's a Scripture Hyperbole, as Luk. 19.44. Isa. 14.33. and Ezek. 26.14. and 21.

Of profitable, useful, and tractable, as Sheep, Oxen, and Horses, but wild beasts, too many are in the desolate places of that part of the World.

Accounting these years from the first wastings of Egypt by their civil Dissensions and Wars some 9 or 10 years before Neb[illegible: 1 letter]chadnezzar subdued, and wasted it which he did in the 35th, 36th, and 37th years of his Reign, or thereabout. So that these Forty years will fall in about the 30th year of Ieconiah's Captivity, and end with the 70th year of the Captivity, which was the first of Cyrus.

Marginal references: chap. [illegible: 2 letters]

12 And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countreys 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 countreys.

Some into Captivity, others by a timely retirement disperst themselves, and got among their Neighbours, who escapt, and where they kept, till the forty years expired.

This verse is a farther repeated confirmation of what was said before, and needs no new explication, every thing in it being already spoken to in the former verses.

Marginal references: chap. 30.7.

13 ¶ Yet thus saith the Lord GOD; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered.

See ver. 11. let. f.

By some eminent acts of Providence toward them, perhaps inclining the generous mind of Cyrus to favour them, and proclaim liberty to them, and under the Government of old Amasis, that Reigned 55 years saith Diodorus, some 10 or 12 of which might be under Cyrus, who had a kindness for the old man, and he, to repair the wastes; obtain'd and publisht great priviledges for the new replanters.

Babylon, Aethiopia, Libya, and other Countreys, that can be but conjectured to have been receptacles for them.

Marginal references: Isa. 19.23. Jer. 46.26.

14 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.

Which Nebuchadnezzar led away into Babylon,

One Province, or Country of Egypt, it was a Southern part of Egypt, in which was the famous City Thebae, or Thebais known for its hundred Gates.

The Antient Habitation of the Fathers of the most of those that did return, forty years having eaten up almost all that had lived there before.

A low, tributary, dependent Kingdom subject to the Persian Kingdom as Amasis was to Cyrus, and though it did at length grow great, yet was it alwaies dependent on Greeks or Romans.

Marginal references: Or, birth.; Heb. low.

15 It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt it self any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.

The most abject, debased, and most underling, 'tis likely the Kings, to whom Egypt was Tributary, kept them lowest, as knowing how dangerous that Kingdom might be, as it recovered its antient greatness, and the word seems to intimate this, for 'tis more than the Kingdoms, it shall be depressed.

Its Masters would so watch and check it.

Beside the hard and cruel usages of the Persian Kings, which might be unjust enough, God's most just Judgment should follow them to lessen their Numbers, Power, Wealth, and Honour.

Though once they had subdued, and ruled, yet should they not any more, in the times of the Ptolomey's though 'twas considerable, yet then 'twas not a Kingdom, tha[illegible: 1 letter] ruled the Nations about her, though she made war upon them.

16 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 GOD.

On every occasion the Iews were wont, against express prohibition, to renew friendship with Egypt, and make Leagues for defence by them, and her[illegible: 1 letter] they sinfully rested, as Isa. 30.2. and 31.1. and 36.6, 9. vid. v. 7.

Which sinful reliance on the arm of flesh provok't God to call to mind other their iniquities, which accompa[illegible: 1 letter]ied this, viz. their Idolatry, and going a Whoring with these their Confederates.

God never forgets, but when he visits, punisheth, and judgeth a Nation for their sin, then their sin is come up into remembrance.

Or in their, i. e. the house of Israel's looking after, i. e. with desire that the Egyptians would, with hope they will, and with confidence, that they c[illegible: 1 letter]n relieve, rescue; and save them; when they forgot God, and respected Egypt.

The House of Israel shall know, that I am the Lord, and whoso know him, will put their trust in him. Psal. 9.10.

17 ¶ And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first moneth , in the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Of Ieconiah's Captivity, the year after the Conquest of Tyrus, and the 35th of Nebuchadnezzar.

Part of our March, and April.

18 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 for his army for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it:

The Army, the inferiour Officers, and principal Commanders 'tis like were weary of the siege, and might advise the raising it, but the Authority, Presence, and immoveable Resolution of the King kept them on still, and made them hold [illegible: 1 word] ▪

'Twas service to the justice of God in punishing the Tyrians by the Ambition of Nebuchadnezzar, who would not endure any thing to stand against him. 'Twas great Service both for hardness of work, heaviness of burthens, and unreasonable length of the siege, thirteen years together.

Either age, or sicknesses, (which often make men bald) or continued wearing of the Helmets, spoiled the best heads of hair amongst them, or perhaps it noteth the weeping bargain they had, though they mastered Tyre, where they got no booty, and both Nebuchadnezzar and his Army might shave their heads in token of mourning for their loss, rather than crown their heads with Garlands of joy for gaining of the City.

Either clothes wore out, they had scarce any to their backs in so long a siege, or galled and blistered with carrying Burthens, Stones, Timber, Iron and Earth for Fortifications, and to make a passage from the Continent to Tyre, which sores, when healed, left Scabs, or dead skin that peeled off.

For though Tyrus was very rich, when first besieged, no doubt very much wealth was carryed away by shipping at beginning, and during the siege, which none could prevent, very much spent and wasted in the Siege, and what was left preserved by Articles of surrender; for most conclude that it was delivered on composition, and the Conqueror had only victory for his pains, and charge.

19 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt to 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.

Yet 'tis certain that the Discontents of Egypt gave occasion, and the revolts of some of the Subjects from Hophra, or Apries, and their inviting Nebuchadnezzar gave him Egypt, but these were the irregularities of men, which God did wisely, and justly manage to effect what he design'd, and God gave, and men gave too; as the Ten Tribes gave, so God gave the Kingdom to Ieroboam, so the first cause, and second causes produce the same effect.

Common people, who shall be made Captives by the power of the Conqueror, and Servants, or Slaves next by the will of those that buy them of the Souldier.

Much of the Egyptian Riches were the spoil of other Nations, or the spoiles of one another in the late civil Wars between Pharaoh, Hophra, and Amasis, and now their dishonest gains shall be a prey to Babylonians.

That, which was once anothers possession, whilest right prevailed, but became a prey when Egypts power mastered the possessors.

His Army could not have plunder of Tyre, because it was surrendred on terms, but now they shall, and this shall be their prey.

Marginal references: Heb. spoil her spoil, and prey her prey.

20 I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it , because they wrought for me , saith the Lord GOD.

'Tis as sure as in his possession; though he must fight for it, and it will cost blood, yet he shall surely have success.

Tyre.

The proud, revengeful, covetous, and cruel Babylonians.

They designed themselves, and did work for themselves, but God had farther, higher, and more excellent ends, his work was doing by them, who thought nothing less.

Marginal references: Or, for his hire.

21 ¶ 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 the LORD.

About that time, when Egypt was spoiled, Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylon, his Wars first, and soon after his life ended, about four or five years after his return out of Egypt into Babylon; for about the 37th, or 38th of his Reign, he finisht his conquest of Egypt, and in the 43 year he dyed at Babylon.

Iehoiakim by Evil Merodack was advanced Ier. 52.31, 32, 33▪ beside dignities given to Daniel, the three Children, and many others, under whose Authority, and favour the Affairs of the Iews began, as a root that had life in it, to spring and flourish, and whatever was the more immediate visible cause, that prevailed with Evil Merodach we are sure the principal cause was this, God's mercy, and veracity, who had promised he would do it, and foretold the time when he would begin to do it.

Thou shalt with greater Authority be heard speaking, when the sorrows thou foretoldest, and the joyes thou promisedst both come to pass; and both Iews, and Babylonians shall see, and own it, or thou shalt have liberty, and freedom as well, as will and cause to speak, to open thy mouth in comforting the good among them, and to give praise to God, who revived their hopes, and made them know him, as the Lord their God.

Against Egypt - Ezekiel 29-32

The announcement of the judgment upon Egypt is proclaimed in seven “words of God.” The first five are threats. The first (Ezekiel 29:1-16) contains a threat of the judgment upon Pharaoh and his people and land, expressed in grand and general traits. The second (Eze 29:17-21) gives a special prediction of the conquest and plundering of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar. The third (Ezekiel 30:1-19) depicts the day of judgment which will break upon Egypt and its allies. The fourth (Eze 30:20-26) foretells the annihilation of the might of Pharaoh by the king of Babylon; and the fifth (Ezekiel 31) holds up as a warning to the king and people of Egypt the glory and the overthrow of Assyria. The last two words of God in Ezekiel 32 contain lamentations over the destruction of Pharaoh and his might, viz., Ezekiel 32:1-16, a lamentation over the king of Egypt; and Ezekiel 32:17-32, a second lamentation over the destruction of his imperial power. - Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning Egypt assumes this elaborate form, because he regards the power of Pharaoh and Egypt as the embodiment of that phase of the imperial power which imagines in its ungodly self-deification that it is able to uphold the kingdom of God, and thus seduces the people of God to rely with false confidence upon the imperial power of this world.

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.

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, ἐν τῷ ἔτει τῷ δωδεκάτω; 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. תּנּים (here and Eze 32:2) is equivalent to תּנּין, 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 יארים 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 עשׂיתני stands in the place of לי, 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. יארי 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 לי, 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 לי, and affirm more than “I have put myself in possession of this through my own power, or have acquired its blessings for myself” (Hävernick); 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 Déscription de l'Egypte, I p. 27). The form חחיים with a double Yod is a copyist’s error, probably occasioned by the double Yod occurring after ח in בּלחייך, which follows. A dual form for חחים 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 'יען היותם וגו 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 וידעוּ כּי אני יהוה, 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 יען is just as invariably followed by an apodosis introduced by לכן, 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 'יען ה as the beginning of a protasis, the apodosis to which commences with לכן 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 יען 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 לכן in Eze 29:8, and Hävernick maintains. The suffix attached to היותם, to which Hitzig takes exception, because he has misunderstood the construction, and which he would conjecture away, refers to מצרים 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 בכפך causes some difficulty, since the ordinary meaning of כּף (hand) is apparently unsuitable, inasmuch as the verb תּרוץ, from רצץ, 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 בּכּף is a bad emendation, based upon the rendering “to grasp with the hand,” which is grammatically inadmissible. תּפשׂ with ב 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 בכפך can only be an explanatory apposition to בּך. The meaning grip, or grasp of the hand, is also unsuitable and cannot be sustained, as the plural כּפּות alone is used in this sense in Sol 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 כּפּות for palm-branches in Lev 23:40, and of the singular כּפּה 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. העמיד 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. העמד cannot have any other meaning than that of המעד, 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 עליך and ממּך in the place of the masculine suffixes בּך and עליך 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. חרבות is intensified into a superlative by the double genitive חרב שׁממה, 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 Màktr (Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr. I pp. 261f.), the most northerly place in Egypt. סונה, to Syene (for the construction see Eze 30:6 and Eze 21:3), Συήνη, 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. לא תשׁב, 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 כּי, 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 מכוּרה, see Eze 16:3), namely, to Pathros. פתרוס, the Egyptian Petorēs (Παθούρης, 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 ולא יהיה is Egypt as a nation, notwithstanding the fact that it has previously been construed in the feminine as a land or kingdom, and in אחריהם the Egyptians are spoken of in the plural number. For it is out of the question to take מזכּיר עון as the subject to לא יהיה 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 מזכּיר עון as 'בּפנותם אח 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.” מזכּיר עון is in apposition to מבטח; 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.

Eze 29:17-21

Conquest and Plundering of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar

Eze 29:17. In the seven and twentieth year, in the first (moon), on the first of the moon, the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 29:18. Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has made his army perform hard work at Tyre: every head is bald, and every shoulder grazed, and no wages have been given to him and to his army from Tyre for the work which he performed against it. Eze 29:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I give Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, the land of Egypt, that he may carry away its possessions, and plunder its plunder, and make booty of its booty, and this may be the wages of his army. Eze 29:20. As the pay for which he worked, I give him the land of Egypt, because they did it for me, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Eze 29:21. In that day will I cause a horn to sprout to the house of Israel, and I will open the mouth for thee in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am Jehovah. - This brief prophecy concerning Egypt was uttered about seventeen years after the preceding word of God, and was the latest of all the predictions of Ezekiel that are supplied with dates. But notwithstanding its brevity, it is not to be taken in connection with the utterance which follows in Ezekiel 30:1-19 so as to form one prophecy, as Hitzig supposes. This is at variance not only with the formula in Eze 30:1, which is the usual introduction to a new word of God, but also with Eze 29:21 of the present chapter, which is obviously intended to bring the previous word of God to a close. This termination, which is analogous to the closing words of the prophecies against Tyre and Sidon in Eze 28:25-26, also shows that the present word of God contains the last of Ezekiel’s prophecies against the Egyptian world-power, and that the only reason why the prophet did not place it at the end when collecting his prophecies - that is to say, after Ezekiel 32 - was, that the promise in v. 30, that the Lord would cause a horn to bud to the house of Israel, contained the correlate to the declaration that Egypt was henceforth to be but a lowly kingdom. Moreover, this threat of judgment, which is as brief as it is definite, was well fitted to prepare the way and to serve as an introduction for the more elaborate threats which follow. The contents of the prophecy, namely, the assurance that God would give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as spoil in return for the hard labour which he and his army had performed at Tyre, point to the time immediately following the termination of the thirteen years’ siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. If we compare with this the date given in Eze 29:17, the siege was brought to a close in the twenty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, i.e., b.c. 572, and must therefore have commenced in the year b.c. 586, or about two years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and with this the extract given by Josephus (c. Ap. i. 21) from the Tyrian annals agrees.For the purpose of furnishing the proof that the temple at Jerusalem lay in ruins for fifty years, from the time of its destruction till the commencement of its rebuilding, Josephus gives in the passage referred to above the years of the several reigns of the kings and judges of Tyre from Ithobal to Hirom, in whose reign Cyrus took the kingdom; from which it is apparent that fifty years elapsed from the commencement of the siege of Tyre to the fourteenth year of Hirom, in which Cyrus began to reign. At the same time, the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar is given by mistake instead of the seventeenth or nineteenth as the date of the beginning of the siege. (Compare on this point Movers, Phönizier, II 1, pp. 437ff.; M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs u. Bab. pp. 106ff.; and M. Duncker, Gesch. des Altert. I p. 841.) העביד עבדה, to cause a work to be executed, or service to be rendered. This labour was so severe, that every head was bald and every shoulder grazed. These words have been correctly interpreted by the commentators, even by Ewald, as referring to the heavy burdens that had to be carried in order to fill up the strait which separated Insular Tyre from the mainland. They confirm what we have said above, in the remarks on Eze 26:10 and elsewhere, concerning the capture of Tyre.

But neither he nor his army had received any recompense for their severe toil. This does not imply that Nebuchadnezzar had been unable to accomplish the work which he had undertaken, i.e., to execute his design and conquer the city, but simply that he had not received the recompense which he expected after this severe labour; in other words, had not found the booty he hoped for when the city was taken (see the introductory remarks on Ezekiel 26-28). To compensate him for this, the Lord will give him the land of Egypt with its possessions as booty, ונשׂא המנהּ, that he may carry off the abundance of its possessions, its wealth; not that he may lead away the multitude of its people (De Wette, Kliefoth, etc.), for “נשׂא is not the appropriate expression for this” (Hitzig). המון, abundance of possessions, as in Isa 60:5; Psa 37:16, etc. פּעלּה, the doing of a thing; then that which is gained by working, the recompense for labour, as in Lev 19:13 and other passages. אשׁר עשׂוּ is taken by Hitzig as referring to the Egyptians, and rendered, “in consequence of that which they have done to me.” But although אשׁר may be taken in this sense (vid., Isa 65:18), the arguments employed by Hitzig in opposition to the ordinary rendering - ”for they (Nebuchadnezzar and his army) have done it for me,” i.e., have performed their hard work at Tyre for me and by my commission - have no force whatever. This use of עשׂה  is thoroughly established by Gen 30:30; and the objection which he raises, namely, that “the assertion that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre in the service of Jehovah could only have been properly made by Ezekiel in the event of the city having been really conquered,” is out of place, for this simple reason, that the assumption that the city was not taken is a mere conjecture; and even if the conjecture could be sustained, the siege itself might still be a work undertaken in the service of Jehovah. And the principal argument, namely, “that we should necessarily expect עשׂה (instead of עשׂוּ), inasmuch as with עשׂוּ every Hebrew reader would inevitably take אשׁר as referring to מצרים,” is altogether wide of the mark; for מצרים does not signify the Egyptians in this passage, but the land of Egypt alone is spoken of both in the verse before us and throughout the oracle, and for this עשׂוּ is quite unsuitable, whereas the context suggests in the most natural way the allusion to Nebuchadnezzar and his army. But what is absolutely decisive is the circumstance that the thought itself, “in consequence of what the Egyptians have done to me,” i.e., what evil they have done, is foreign to, if not at variance with, all the prophecies of Ezekiel concerning Egypt. For the guilt of Egypt and its Pharaoh mentioned by Ezekiel is not any crime against Jehovah, but simply Pharaoh’s deification of himself, and the treacherous nature of the help which Egypt afforded to Israel. ליהוה = עשׂה לי is not the appropriate expression for this, in support of which assertion we might point to עשׂוּ לי in Eze 23:38. - Eze 29:21. On that day, namely, when the judgment upon Egypt is executed by Nebuchadnezzar, the Lord will cause a horn to sprout or grow to the house (people) of Israel. The horn is a symbol of might and strength, by which the attacks of foreigners are warded off. By the overthrow of Judah the horn of Israel was cut off (Lam 2:3; compare also Jer 48:25). In עצמיח קרן the promise coincides, so far as the words are concerned, with Psa 132:17; but it also points back to the prophetic words of the godly Hannah in 1Sa 2:1, “My horn is exalted in Jehovah, my mouth hath opened itself wide over my enemies,” and is Messianic in the broader sense of the word. The horn which the Lord will cause to sprout to the people of Israel is neither Zerubbabel nor the Messiah, but the Messianic salvation. The reason for connecting this promise of salvation for Israel with the overthrow of the power of Egypt, as Hävernick has observed, is that “Egypt presented itself to the prophet as the power in which the idea of heathenism was embodied and circumscribed.” In the might of Egypt the world-power is shattered, and the overthrow of the world-power is the dawn of the unfolding of the might of the kingdom of God. Then also will the Lord give to His prophet an opening of the mouth in the midst of Israel. These words are unquestionably connected with the promise of God in Eze 24:26-27, that after the fall of Jerusalem the mouth of Ezekiel should be opened, and also with the fulfilment of that promise in Eze 33:22; but they have a much more comprehensive meaning, namely, that with the dawn of salvation in Israel, i.e., in the church of the Lord, the word of prophecy would sound forth in the richest measure, inasmuch as, according to Joel (Eze 2:1-10), a universal outpouring of the Spirit of God would then take place. In this light Theodoret is correct in his remark, that “through Ezekiel He signified the whole band of prophets.” But Kliefoth has quite mistaken the meaning of the words when he discovers in them the thought that “God would then give the prophet a new word of God concerning both Egypt and Israel, and that this is contained in the oracle in Ezekiel 30:1-19.” Such a view as this is proved at once to be false, apart from other grounds, by the expression בּתוכם (in the midst of them), which cannot be taken as applying to Egypt and Israel, but can only refer to בּית ישׂראל, the house of Israel.

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, v. 4, 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 (v. 6, 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.

Fall and Restoration of Egypt. (b. c. 589.)

8 Therefore thus saith the Lord God ; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. 9 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. 10 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. 11 No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years. 12 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. 13 Yet thus saith the Lord God ; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered: 14 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. 15 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. 16 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 God .

This explains the foregoing prediction, which was figurative, and looks something further. Here is a prophecy,

I. Of the ruin of Egypt. The threatening of this is very full and particular; and the sin for which this ruin shall be brought upon them is their pride, v. 9. They said, The river is mine and I have made it; therefore their land shall spue them out. 1. God is against them, both against the king and against the people, against thee and against thy rivers. Waters signify people and multitudes, Rev. xvii. 15. 2. Multitudes of them shall be cut off by the sword of war, a sword which God will bring upon them to destroy both man and beast, the sword of civil war. 3. The country shall be depopulated. The land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste (v. 9), the country not cultivated, the cities not inhabited. The wealth of both was their pride, and that God will take away. It shall be utterly waste (wastes of waste, so the margin reads it), and desolate (v. 10); neither men nor beasts shall pass through it, nor shall it be inhabited (v. 11); it shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are so, v. 12. This was the effect not so much of those wars spoken of before, which were made by them, but of the war which the king of Babylon made upon them. It shall be desolate from one end of the land to the other, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. The sin of pride is enough to ruin a whole nation. 4. The people shall be dispersed and scattered among the nations (v. 12), so that those who thought the balance of power was in their hand should now become a contemptible people. Such a fall does a haughty spirit go before.

II. Of the restoration of Egypt after awhile, v. 13. Egypt shall lie desolate forty years (v. 12) and then I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, v. 14. Some date the forty years from Nebuchadnezzar's destroying Egypt, others from the desolation of Egypt some time before; however, they end about the first year of Cyrus, when the seventy years' captivity of Judah ended, or soon after. Then this prediction was accomplished, 1. That God will gather the Egyptians out of all the countries into which they were dispersed, and make them to return to the land of their habitation, and give them a settlement there again, v. 14. Note, Though God will find out a way to humble the proud, yet he will not contend for ever, no, not with them in this world. 2. That yet they shall not make a figure again as they have done. Egypt shall be a kingdom again, but it shall be the basest of the kingdoms (v. 15); it shall have but little wealth and power, and shall not extend its conquests as formerly; it shall be the tail of the nations, and not the head. It is a mercy that it shall become a kingdom again, but, to humble it, it shall be a despicable kingdom; it shall be a long time before it recover any thing like its ancient lustre. For two reasons it shall be thus mortified:—(1.) That it may not domineer over its neighbours, that it may not exalt itself above the nations, nor rule over the nations, as it has done, but that it may know what it is to be low and despised. Note, Those who abuse their power will justly be stripped of it; and God, as King of nations, will find out a way to maintain the injured rights and liberties, not only of his own, but of other nations. (2.) That it may not deceive the people of God (v. 16): It shall no more be the confidence of the house of Israel; they shall no more be in temptation to trust in it as they have done, which is a sin that brings their iniquity to remembrance, that is, provokes God to punish them not for that only, but for all their other sins. Or it puts them in mind of their idolatries to return to them, when they look to the idolaters, to repose a confidence in them. Note, The creatures we confide in are often therefore ruined, because there is no other way effectually to cure us of our confidence in them. Rather than Israel shall be ensnared again, the whole land of Egypt shall be laid waste. He that once gave Egypt for their ransom (Isa. xliii. 3) will now give Egypt for their cure; and it shall be destroyed rather than Israel shall not in this particular be reformed. God, not only in justice, but in wisdom and goodness to us, breaks those creature-stays which we lean too much upon, and makes them to be no more, that they may be no more our confidence.

A Promise to Nebuchadnezzar. (b. c. 589.)

17 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 the Lord came unto me, saying, 18 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: 19 Therefore thus saith the Lord God ; 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. 20 I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord God . 21 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 the Lord .

The date of this prophecy is observable; it was in the twenty-seventh year of Ezekiel's captivity, sixteen years after the prophecy in the former part of the chapter, and almost as long after those which follow in the next chapters; but it comes in here for the explication of all that was said against Egypt. After the destruction of Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar spent two or three campaigns in the conquest of the Ammonites and Moabites and making himself master of their countries. Then he spent thirteen years in the siege of Tyre. During all that time the Egyptians were embroiled in war with the Cyrenians and one with another, by which they were very much weakened and impoverished; and just at the end of the siege of Tyre God delivers this prophecy to Ezekiel, to signify to him that that utter destruction of Egypt which he had foretold fifteen or sixteen years before, which had been but in part accomplished hitherto, should now be completed by Nebuchadnezzar. The prophecy which begins here, it should seem, is continued to the twentieth verse of the next chapter. And Dr. Lightfoot observes that it is the last prophecy we have of this prophet, and should have been last in the book, but is laid here, that all the prophecies against Egypt might come together. The particular destruction of Pharaoh-Hophrah, foretold in the former part of this chapter, was likewise foretold Jer. xliv. 30. This general devastation of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar was foretold Jer. xliii. 10. Observe,

I. What success God would give to Nebuchadnezzar and his forces against Egypt. God gave him that land, that he might take the spoil and prey of it, v. 19, 20. It was a cheap and easy prey. He subdued it with very little difficulty; the blood and treasure expended upon the conquest of it were inconsiderable. But it was a rich prey, and he carried off a great deal from it that was of value. Their having been divided among themselves, no doubt, gave a common enemy great advantage against them, who, when they had been so long preying upon one another, soon made a prey of them all. En! quo discordia cives perduxit miseros—What wretchedness does civil discord bring! Jeremiah foretold that Nebuchadnezzar should array himself with the land of Egypt as a shepherd puts on his coat, which intimates what a rich and cheap prey it should be.

II. Upon what considerations God would give Nebuchadnezzar this success against Egypt; it was to be a recompence to him for the hard service with which he had caused his army to serve against Tyre, v. 18, 20. 1. The taking of Tyre was a tedious piece of work; it cost Nebuchadnezzar abundance of blood and treasure. It held out thirteen years; all that time the Chaldean army was hard at it, to make themselves masters of it. A large current of the sea, between Tyre and the continent, was filled up with earth, and many other difficulties which were thought insuperable they had to struggle with; but so great a prince, having begun such an undertaking, thought himself bound in honour to push it on, whatever it cost him. How many thousand lives have been sacrificed to such points of honour as this as! In prosecuting this siege every head was made bald, and every shoulder peeled, with carrying burdens and labouring in the water when they had a strong tide and a strong town to contend with. Egypt, a large kingdom, being divided within itself, is easily conquered; Tyre, a single city, being unanimous, is with difficulty subdued. Those that have much to do in the world find some affairs go on a great deal more readily and easily than others. But, 2. In this service God own that they wrought for him, v. 20. He set them at work, for the humbling of a proud city and its king, though they meant not so, neither did their heart think so, who were employed in it. Note, Even great men and bad men are tools that God makes use of, and are working for him even when they are pursuing their own covetous and ambitious designs; so wonderfully does God overrule all to his own glory. Yet, 3. For this service he had no wages nor his army. He was at a vast expense to take Tyre; and when he had it, though it was a very rich city, and he promised himself good plunder for his army from it, he was disappointed; the Tyrians sent away by ship their best effects, and threw the rest into the sea, so that they had nothing but bare walls. Thus are the children of this world ordinarily frustrated in their highest expectations from it. Therefore, 4. He shall have the spoil of Egypt to recompense him for his service against Tyre. Note, God will be behind-hand with none for any service they do for him, but, one way or other, will recompense them for it; none shall kindle a fire on his altar for nought. The service done for him by worldly men, with worldly designs, shall be recompensed with a mere worldly reward, which his faithful servants, that have a sincere regard to his will and glory, would not be put off with. This accounts for the prosperity of wicked men in this world; God is in it paying them for some service or other, in which he has made use of them. Verily they have their reward. Let none envy it them. The conquest of Egypt is spoken of as Nebuchadnezzar's full reward, for that completed his dominion over the then known world in a manner; that was the last of the kingdoms he subdued; when he was master of that he became the head of gold.

III. The mercy God had in store for the house of Israel soon after. When the tide is at the highest it will turn, and so it will when it is at the lowest. Nebuchadnezzar was in the zenith of his glory when he had conquered Egypt, but within a year after he ran mad (Dan. iv.), was so seven years, and within a year or two after he had recovered his senses he resigned his life. When he was at the highest Israel was at the lowest; then were they in the depth of their captivity, their bones dead and dry; but in that day the horn of the house of Israel shall bud forth, v. 21. The day of their deliverance shall begin to dawn, and they shall have some little reviving in their bondage, in the honour that shall be done, 1. To their princes; they are the horns of the house of Israel, the seat of their glory and power. These began to bud forth when Daniel and his fellows were highly preferred in Babylon; Daniel sat in the gate of the city; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were set over the affairs of the province (Dan. ii. 49); these were all of the king's seed, and of the princes, Dan. i. 3. And it was within a year after the conquest of Egypt that they were thus preferred; and, soon after, three of them were made famous by the honour God put upon them in bringing them alive out of the burning fiery furnace. This might very well be called the budding forth of the horn of the house of Israel. And, some years after, this promise had a further accomplishment in the enlargement and elevation of Jehoiachin king of Judah, Jer. lii. 31, 32. They were both tokens of God's favour to Israel, and happy omens. 2. To their prophets. And I will give thee the opening of the mouth. Though none of Ezekiel's prophecies, after this, are recorded, yet we have reason to think he went on prophesying, and with more liberty and boldness, when Daniel and his fellows were in power, and would be ready to protect him not only from the Babylonians, but from the wicked ones of his own people. Note, It bodes well to a people when God enlarges the liberties of his ministers and they are countenanced and encouraged in their work.

CHAP. XXIX.

Ver. 1. IN the tenth year] The year before Jeruſalem was taken, chap. 24.1.

In the tenth moneth] Called Thebeth, Eſtth. 2. and it anſwereth to our January, ſaith Bede, Chronology is the eye of Prophecy, as well as of Hiſtory.

In Euterpt.Ver. 2. Set thy face againſt Pharaoh] This was Pharaoh Ophra, whom Horodotus calleth Apryes, and ſaith, that he gave out that no God, how great ſoever could deprive him of his Kingdom. Dionyſius the tyrant of Sicily alſo was wont to ſay, that his Kingdom was tyed unto him with chaines of adamant: but it proved otherwiſe. Noli gloriari.

And againſt all Egypt] Which held it ſelf able to hold out againſt all the world, and is therefote here threatened at large in this, and the three next Chapters.

Ver. 3. The great dragon] Or Whale, or Crocodile, the figure of Pharaoh; whoſe Princes alſo and people are fitly compared to leſſer fiſhes, and Egypt to waters, wherewith it aboundeth.Oecol. Theſe ſhall all ſuffer together, ſaith the Prophet: Principis enim calamitas, populi clades eſt. Confer Pſal. 74.13, 14.

That lieth in the midst of his rivers] That lieth at eaſe in the ſwolen waters of his Nilus, and battleth.

Which hath ſaid My river is mine own] The river Nilus watereth Egypt and maketh it fruitful beyond credulity. They do but caſt in the ſeed, and have four rich harveſts in leſſe then four moneths, ſay travellers. Hence the Egyptians were generally proud, riotus, and ſuperſtitious above meaſure: Plin. Paneg. Nequitias tellus ſcit dare nulla magis. The moſt poyſonous flies are bred in the ſweeteſt fruit-trees. See on 1 Tim. 6.17.

And I have made it for my ſelf] i. e. Uſeful and ſerviceable to my Country, with much paines and expence, by ditches, channels, water-courſes, &c. Theſe were cleanſed and repaired by the command of Auguſtus Caeſar, Sueton. when he had ſubdued Egypt, and reduced it into a Province. Some render it Ego feci meipſum, I have made my ſelf; a moſt arrogant ſpeech!

Ovid.Sum felix; quis enim neget hoc? felix que manebo; Hoc quoque quis dubitet? tutum me copia fecit. Major ſum quam cui poſſit fortuna nocere.

Ver. 4. But I will put hooks in thy chaws] Speaking to Tyru[illegible: 1 letter] a Sea-town, Sea-Metaphors were made uſe of. Now he fetcheth them from waters and fiſhes, that he may frame himſelf to his hearers: A good precedent for Preachers.

To ſtick unto thy ſcales] Thy ſubjects ſhall all follow thee into the field, that there you may all fall together. Had they kept themſelves in Egypt, they might have been far ſafer; for that Country could hardly be come at by an enemy. But they went forth to meet their bane, as if they had been ambitious of deſtruction. God had a holy hand in it.

Ver. 5. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderneſſe] As fiſh when they are caught are caſt upon the dry land, and there they dye: for how ſhould a fiſh live out of his own element? It may be the Chaldees ſought Pharaoh and his forces in the Wilderneſſe, killed him and caſt him out unburied; which the Heathens held a great unhappineſſe: for they thought their ghoſts could not paſſe the river Styx, but muſt wander through Hels waſte wilderneſſes, unleſſe their dead bodies were buried.

I have given thee for meat] Whales fleſh is no better worth.

Ver. 6. And all the inhabitants, &c.] Shall feel my power in their juſt deſtruction, though they think themſelves inſuperable.

Becauſe they have been a ſtaff of reed] See this fully expounded in the next words. See alſo on Iſa. 36.6. Jer. 37.7, 8. Egypt was a reedy Country, Lib. 13. cap. 11. as Pliny telleth us. Arando autem ipſa per ſe fluctuat, & in neceſſitate eludit.

Ver. 7. When they took hold of thee by thy hand] i. e. Made a Covenant with thee, and hoped for help from thee. See Job 8.20. The holy Scripture is its own beſt interpreter.

Thou didſt break] So unfaithful are many friends: ſo uncertain are all humane helps.

And madeſt all their loines to be at a ſtand] Thou lefteſt them in the lurch, as we ſay, to ſhift for themſelves as they could.

Ver. 8. And cut off man and beaſt] With both which thou aboundeſt exccedingly: as being a very fruitful Country; populoſa, & pecoroſa.

Ver. 9. Becauſe he hath ſaid, The river is mine, and I have made it] With this proud ſpeech he is twice twitted, ſee ver. 3. The Egytians ſo truſted in their river Nilus, as if they needed no help from heaven. Aegyptus ſine nube ferax, ſaith Claudian. Epigram. 6. And Lucan to like purpoſe: Terra ſuis contenta bonis, non indiga mercis Aut Jovis: in ſolo tanta eſt fiducia Nilo. How much better might God have ſaid to theſe Egyptians, then Veſpaſian did, Haurite à me tanquam à Nilo, Come ye to Me the fountain of living waters, and hew not out thus to your ſelves broken ciſterns that can hold no water! But they uſed in mockery to tell the Grecians, that if God ſhould forget to rain, they might chance to ſtarve for it: they thought the rain was of God, but not the river: Te propter nullos tellus tua poſt ulat imbres: T[illegible: 1 letter]bul. de Nilo. Arida nec pluvio ſupplicat herba Jovi. God therefore threateneth hers to dry it up, and ſo he did: Ingratitude forfeiteth all. In the reign of Cleopatra, Nilus overflowed not the banks for two years together, ſaith Seneca: he brings in Callimachus telling of a time, wherein it had not done ſo for nine years ſpace. Hence Ovid, Creditur Aegyptus caruiſſe juvantibus arva Imbribus, atque annis ſicca fuiſſe novem, Art. lib. 1. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Athenaeus. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Nazianz.. Thus their gold-flowing and fruit-giving river failed them, becauſe they attributed too much to it. In Joſeph's time they had ſeven years famine.

Ver. 10. And againſt thy rivers] The Jealous God will down with the earthly idol, whatever it be: See on ver. 9.

And I will make the land of Egypt utterly waſt] Heb. waſt of waſts,

From the tower of Syene] i. e. From South to North.

Ver. 11. No foot of man or beaſt ſhall paſſe through it] This was ſolitudo ſolitudinis indeed; a dreadful deſolation. When it fell out, no hiſtory mentioneth: but that it was ſo, is moſt ſure. Oh the diſmal effects of ſin in all ages, as now in ſundry parts of Turkey, utterly unpeopled, though once flouriſhing!

Ver. 12. In the midſt of the Countries] Paleſtine, Moab, Edom, Judea, &c. See Jer. 46.

And her Cities] Which are ſaid to have been 20000. in the reign of Amaſis, the chief whereof were Alexandria, Thebes, Babylon, Memphis, &c.

Ver. 13. Will I gather the Egyptians] God loveth to help men that are forſaken of their hopes. Cyrus ſent them home likely, about that time that he took Babylon; and his ſon Cambyſes had ſomewhat to do to ſubdue them; ſo high they were ſoon grown and head-ſtrong; humbled they were, but not humble: low, but not lowly.

Ver. 14. Into the land of Pathros] A part of the lower Egypt; a corner of the Country ſay ſome; but big enough to hold the remnant that returned.

And they ſhall be there a baſe Kingdom] Reditum & regnum illis promittit, ſed humile, a Kingdom God promiſeth them, but baſe and abject; becauſe ſubject and tributary to the Perſian, ſo that the Iſraelites ſhall no more lean upon it. God oft removeth occaſions of ſin from his people, taketh away their ſtumbling blocks, that they may not fall under his heavy diſpleaſure.

Ver. 15. It ſhall be the baſeſt of the Kingdoms] And worthily for their worſhiping the baſeſt creatures (See Rom. 1.23, 24.) but eſpecially for their faithleſneſſe to Gods Iſrael.

Turk. Hiſt. For I will diminiſh them] As God hath likewiſe done the Perſians at this day (who have undone their confederates, the Egyptians and Georgians) and the Grecians no leſſe; who have now loſt their liberty, and are ſo degenerate by means of the Turkiſh oppreſſion,Ib. 260. that in all Graecia is hardly to be found any ſmall remembrance of the glory thereof.

Ver. 16. And it ſhall be no more the confidence] For I will cut them, and keep them ſhort enough: I will pull their plumes, ſo that they ſhall not ſtretch their wings beyond the neſt: they ſhall have nothing ſo many clients, and adherents.

Which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance] Creature-confidence is ſo hated of God, that it inmindeth him of former miſcarriages alſo, and cauſeth him to plague men for the new and the old together.

Ver. 17. In the ſeven and twentieth year] Of Jeconiah's captivity (as Ezekiel ordinarily counteth) or of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, ſay the Jew-doctours: when as Tyre was overthrown, ſome part of Egypt waſted, Jeremy and Baruch taken into his protection.Sedar-olam.

The Word of the Lord came] This was Ezekil's laſt ſermon, his ſwan-like ſong: ſhewing wherefore and whereby Egypt ſhould be ſo laid waſte.

Ver. 18. To ſerve a great ſervice] For thirteen years together, as ſaith Joſephus.

Every head was made bald] ſc. By continual carrying upon their heads and ſhoulders, earth, wood, and ſtones (for which they were much laughed at by the Tyrian ſouldiers) to fill up that ſtrait of the Sea, which ſeparated Tyre from the Continent, before it could be taken.

Yet he had no wages] The Tyrians, when they ſaw they could hold out no longer, had ſent much of their wealth away to Carthage, and other places: much of it alſo they caſt into the Sea, ſaith Lyra; ſo that Nebuchadnezzar at his entrance found nothing but a bare rock, ſaith Hierom, out of an old Aſſyrian Chronicle.

Ver. 19. Behold I will give the land of Egypt] As pay for his pains at Tyre. God is a liberal pay-maſter, and his retributions are more then bountiful. Serve him therefore with chearfulneſſe.

Turk. Hiſt. 345. lb. 227.Ver. 20. I have given him the land of Egypt] As the great Turk gave his ſouldiers the rich ſpoil of Conſtantinople: and as Tamerlan never forgat the good ſervice of his ſervants, nor left the ſame long unrewarded; often ſaying that day to be loſt, wherein he had not given them ſomething.

Becauſe they wrought for me] By mine inſtinct, though beſide their own intent.

Ver. 21. The horn] i. e. The ſtrength, power and authority, in the Kingdom of Chriſt eſpecially, Luke 1.69.

The opening] Occaſion to bleſſe my Name.

They ſhall know] Nebuchadnezzar alſo and his Babylonians.