Matthew Poole and continuators on Ezekiel 29:11

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]