Matthew Poole and continuators on Ezekiel 29

1 IN the tenth year , in the tenth month , in the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

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.