In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, “Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
‘Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt, and tell him, “You were likened to a young lion of the nations; yet you are as a monster in the seas. You broke out with your rivers, and troubled the waters with your feet, and fouled their rivers.”
The Lord Yahweh says: “I will spread out my net on you with a company of many peoples; and they will bring you up in my net.
I will leave you on the land. I will cast you out on the open field, and will cause all the birds of the sky to settle on you. I will satisfy the animals of the whole earth with you.
I will lay your flesh on the mountains, and fill the valleys with your height.
I will also water the land in which you swim with your blood, even to the mountains. The watercourses will be full of you.
When I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and make its stars dark. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon won’t give its light.
I will make all the bright lights of the sky dark over you, and set darkness on your land,” says the Lord Yahweh.
“I will also trouble the hearts of many peoples, when I bring your destruction among the nations, into the countries which you have not known.
Yes, I will make many peoples amazed at you, and their kings will be horribly afraid for you, when I brandish my sword before them. They will tremble at every moment, every man for his own life, in the day of your fall.”
For the Lord Yahweh says: “The sword of the king of Babylon will come on you.
I will cause your multitude to fall by the swords of the mighty. They are all the ruthless of the nations. They will bring the pride of Egypt to nothing, and all its multitude will be destroyed.
I will destroy also all its animals from beside many waters. The foot of man won’t trouble them any more, nor will the hoofs of animals trouble them.
Then I will make their waters clear, and cause their rivers to run like oil,” says the Lord Yahweh.
“When I make the land of Egypt desolate and waste, a land destitute of that of which it was full, when I strike all those who dwell therein, then they will know that I am Yahweh.
“ ‘ “This is the lamentation with which they will lament. The daughters of the nations will lament with this. They will lament with it over Egypt, and over all her multitude,” says the Lord Yahweh.’ ”
Also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her and the daughters of the famous nations, to the lower parts of the earth, with those who go down into the pit. Whom do you pass in beauty? Go down, and be laid with the uncircumcised. They will fall among those who are slain by the sword. She is delivered to the sword. Draw her away with all her multitudes. The strong among the mighty will speak to him out of the middle of Sheol with those who help him. They have gone down. The uncircumcised lie still, slain by the sword.
“Asshur is there with all her company. Her graves are all around her. All of them slain, fallen by the sword; whose graves are set in the uttermost parts of the pit, and her company is around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who caused terror in the land of the living.
“There is Elam and all her multitude around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who have gone down uncircumcised into the lower parts of the earth, who caused their terror in the land of the living, and have borne their shame with those who go down to the pit. They have set her a bed among the slain with all her multitude. Her graves are around her; all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for their terror was caused in the land of the living, and they have borne their shame with those who go down to the pit. He is put among those who are slain.
“There is Meshech, Tubal, and all their multitude. Their graves are around them, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for they caused their terror in the land of the living. They will not lie with the mighty who are fallen of the uncircumcised, who have gone down to Sheol with their weapons of war, and have laid their swords under their heads, and their iniquities are on their bones; for they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.
“But you will be broken among the uncircumcised, and will lie with those who are slain by the sword.
“There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, who in their might are laid with those who are slain by the sword. They will lie with the uncircumcised, and with those who go down to the pit.
“There are the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who have gone down with the slain. They are put to shame in the terror which they caused by their might. They lie uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword, and bear their shame with those who go down to the pit.
“Pharaoh will see them, and will be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army, slain by the sword,” says the Lord Yahweh. “For I have put his terror in the land of the living. He will be laid among the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude,” says the Lord Yahweh.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32 Which was the first year of the general captivity…
Which was the first year of the general captivity under Zedekiah.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–32 Eze 32:1 And it came to pass in the…
Eze 32:1 And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first [day] of the month, [that] the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. In the twelfth month.] About a year and a half after the city was taken.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–32 In the twelfth year of the captivity of Jeconiah.
In the twelfth year of the captivity of Jeconiah.
In the twelfth month, answering to part of our February and part of March, and called Sabat. In the first day; and was the 15th of February old style, and the 5th new style.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 17 Here, I. The prophet is ordered to take up…
Here, I. The prophet is ordered to take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, Eze 32:2. It concerns ministers to be much of a serious spirit, and, in order thereunto, to be frequent in taking up lamentations for the fall and ruin of sinners, as those that have not desired, but dreaded, the woeful day. Note, Ministers that would affect others with the things of God must make it appear that they are themselves affected with the miseries which sinners bring upon themselves by their sins. It becomes us to weep and tremble for those that will not weep and tremble for themselves, to try if thereby we may set them a weeping, set them a trembling.
II. He is ordered to show cause for that lamentation.
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1. Pharaoh has been a troubler of the nations, even of his own nation, which he should have procured the repose of: He is like a young lion of the nations (Eze 32:2), loud and noisy, hectoring and threatening as a lion when he roars. Great potentates, if they by tyrannical and oppressive, are in God's account no better than beasts of prey. He is like a whale, or dragon, like a crocodile (so some) in the seas, very turbulent and vexatious, as the leviathan that makes the deep to boil like a pot, Job 41:31. When Pharaoh engaged in an unnecessary war with the Cyrenians he came forth with his rivers, with his armies, troubled the waters, disturbed his own kingdom and the neighbouring nations, fouled the rivers, and made them muddy. Note, A great deal of disquiet is often given to the world by the restless ambition and implacable resentments of proud princes. Ahab is he that troubles Israel, and not Elijah.
2. He that has troubled others must expect to be himself troubled; for the Lord is righteous, Jos 7:25.
(1.) This is set forth here by a comparison. Is Pharaoh like a great whale, which, when it comes up the river, gives great disturbance, a leviathan which Job cannot draw out with a hook? (Job 41:1), yet God has a net for him which is large enough to enclose him and strong enough to secure him (Eze 32:3): I will spread my net over thee, even the army of the Chaldeans, a company of many people; they shall force him out of his fastnesses, dislodge him out of his possessions, throw him like a great fish upon dry ground, upon the open field (Eze 32:4), where being out of his element, he must die of course, and be a prey to the birds and beasts, as was foretold, Eze 29:5. What can the strongest fish do to help itself when it is out of the water and lies gasping? The flesh of this great whale shall be laid upon the mountains (Eze 32:5) and the valleys shall be filled with his height. Such numbers of Pharaoh's soldiers shall be slain that the dead bodies shall be scattered upon the hills and there shall be heaps of them piled up in the valleys. Blood shall be shed in such abundance as to swell the rivers in the valleys. Or, Such shall be the bulk, such the height, of this leviathan, that, when he is laid upon the ground, he shall fill a valley. Such vast quantities of blood shall issue from this leviathan as shall water the land of Egypt, the land wherein now he swims, now he sports himself, Eze 32:6. It shall reach to the mountains, and the waters of Egypt shall again be turned into blood by this means: The rivers shall be full of thee. The judgments executed upon Pharaoh of old are expressed by the breaking of the heads of leviathan in the waters, Psa 74:13, Psa 74:14. But now they go further; this old serpent not only has now his head bruised, but is all crushed to pieces.
(2.) It is set forth by a prophecy of the deep impression which the destruction of Egypt should make upon the neighbouring nations; it would put them all into a consternation, as the fall of the Assyrian monarchy did, Eze 31:15, Eze 31:16. When Pharaoh, who had been like a blazing burning torch, is put out and extinguished it shall make all about him look black, Eze 32:7. The heavens shall be hung with black, the stars darkened, the sun eclipsed, and the moon be deprived of her borrowed light. It is from the upper world that this lower receives its light; and therefore (Eze 32:8), when the bright lights of heaven are made dark above, darkness by consequence is set upon the land, upon the earth; so it shall be on the land of Egypt. Here the plague of darkness, which was upon Egypt of old for three days, seems to be alluded to, as, before, the turning of the waters into blood. For, when former judgments are forgotten, it is just that they should be repeated. When their privy-counsellors, and statesmen, and those that have the direction of the public affairs, are deprived of wisdom and made fools, and the things that belong to their peace are hidden from their eyes, then their lights are darkened and the land is in a mist. This is foretold, Isa 19:13. The princes of Zoan have become fools. Now upon the spreading of the report of the fall of Egypt, and the bringing of the news to remote countries, countries which they had not known (Eze 32:9), people shall be much affected, and shall feel themselves sensibly touched by it. [1.] It shall fill them with vexation to see such an ancient, wealthy, potent kingdom thus humbled and brought down, and the pride of worldly glory, which they have such a value for, stained. The hearts of many people will be vexed to see the word of the God of Israel fulfilled in the destruction of Egypt, and that all the gods of Egypt were not able to relieve it. Note, The destruction of some wicked people is a vexation to others. [2.] It shall fill them with admiration (Eze 32:10): They shall be amazed at thee, shall wonder to see such great riches and power come to nothing, Rev 18:17. Note, Those that admire with complacency the pomp of this world will admire with consternation the ruin of that pomp, which to those that know the vanity of all things here below is no surprise at all. [3.] It shall fill them with fear: even their kings (that think it their prerogative to be secure) shall be horribly afraid for thee, concluding their own house to be in danger when their neighbour's is on fire. When I shall brandish my sword before them they shall tremble every man for his own life. Note, When the sword of God's justice is drawn against some, to cut them off, it is thereby brandished before others, to give them warning. And those that will not be admonished by it, and made to reform, shall yet be frightened by it, and made to tremble. They shall tremble at every moment, because of thy fall. When others are ruined by sin we have reason to quake for fear, as knowing ourselves guilty and obnoxious. Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?
(3.) It is set forth by a plain and express prediction of the desolation itself that should come upon Egypt. [1.] The instruments of the desolation appear here very formidable. It is the sword of the king of Babylon, that warlike, that victorious prince, that shall come upon thee (Eze 32:11), the swords of the mighty, even the terrible of the nations, all of them (Eze 32:12), an army that there is no standing before. Note, Those that delight in war, and are upon all occasions entering into contention, may expect, some time or other, to be engaged with those that will prove too hard for them. Pharaoh had been forward to quarrel with his neighbour and to come forth with his rivers, with his armies, Eze 32:2. But God will now give him enough of it. [2.] The instances of the desolation appear here very frightful, much the same with what we had before, Eze 29:10-12; Eze 30:7. First, The multitude of Egypt shall be destroyed, not decimated, some picked out to be made examples, but all cut off. Note, The numbers of sinners, though they be a multitude, will neither secure them against God's power nor entitle them to his pity. Secondly, The pomp of Egypt shall be spoiled, the pomp of their court, what they have been proud of. Note, in renouncing the pomps of this world we did ourselves a great kindness, for they are things that are soon spoiled and that cheat their admirers. Thirdly, The cattle of Egypt, that used to feed by the rivers, shall be destroyed (Eze 32:13), either cut off by the sword or carried off for a prey. Egypt was famous for horses, which would be an acceptable booty to the Chaldeans. The rivers shall be no more frequented as they have been by man and beast, that came thither to drink. Fourthly, The waters of Egypt, that used to flow briskly, shall now grow deep, and slow, and heavy, and shall run like oil (Eze 32:14), a figurative expression signifying that there should be such universal sadness and heaviness upon the whole nation that even the rivers should go softly and silently like mourners, and quite forget their rapid motion. Fifthly, The whole country of Egypt shall be stripped of its wealth; it shall be destitute of what whereof it was full (Eze 32:15), corn, and cattle, and all the pleasant fruits of the earth; when those are smitten that dwell therein the ground is untilled, and that which is gathered becomes an easy prey to the invader. Note, God can soon empty those of this world's goods that have the greatest fulness of those things and are full of them, that enjoy most and have their hearts set upon those enjoyments. The Egyptians were full of their pleasant and plentiful country, and its rich productions. Every one that talked with them might perceive how much it filled them. But God can soon make their country destitute of that whereof it is full; it is therefore our wisdom to be full of treasures in heaven. When the country is made destitute, 1. It shall be an instruction to them: Then shall they know that I am the Lord. A sensible conviction of the vanity of the world, and the fading perishing nature of all things in it, will contribute much to our right knowledge of God as our portion and happiness. 2. It shall be a lamentation to all about them: The daughters of the nations shall lament her (Eze 32:16), either because, being in alliance with her, they share in her grievances and suffer with her, or, being admirers of her, they at least share in her grief and sympathize with her. They shall lament for Egypt and all her multitude; it shall excite their pity to see so great a devastation made. By enlarging the matters of our joy we increase the occasions of our sorrow.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–32 And it came to pass in the twelfth year,....…
And it came to pass in the twelfth year,.... Of Jeconiah's captivity, above a year and a half after the taking of Jerusalem; the Syriac version reads in the eleventh year:
in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month; the month Adar, which answers to part of our February, and part of March; the Septuagint version reads it the tenth month: according to Bishop Usher (t), this was on the twenty second of March, on the fourth day of the week (Wednesday), 3417 A.M.or 587 years before Christ:
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that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows:
(t) Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3417.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 The destruction of Egypt is represented under the similitude…
The destruction of Egypt is represented under the similitude of killing a lion and a crocodile, ver. 1-16. Under that of the funeral of a great general, ver. 17-30.
Twelfth year - Of the captivity of Jeconiah.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32 The prophet goes on to predict the fall of…
CHAPTER XXXII
The prophet goes on to predict the fall of the king of Egypt,
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under the figure of an animal of prey, such as a lion or
crocodile, caught, slain, and his carcass left a prey to the
fowls and wild beasts, 1-6.
The figure is then changed; and the greatness of his fall
(described by the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars)
strikes terror into all the surrounding nations, 7-10.
The prophet adds, that the overthrow of the then reigning
Egyptian dynasty was to be effected by the instrumentality of
the king of Babylon, who should leave Egypt so desolate, that
its waters, (alluding to the metaphor used in the second
verse,) should run as pure and smooth as oil, without the foot
of man or the hoof of a beast to disturb them, 11-16.
A beautiful, nervous, and concise description of a land ruined
and left utterly desolate. In the remaining part of the chapter
the same event is pourtrayed by one of the boldest figures ever
attempted in any composition, and which at the same time is
executed with astonishing perspicuity and force. God is
introduced ordering a place in the lower regions for the king
of Egypt and his host, 17, 18.
The prophet delivers his messsage, pronounces their fate, and
commands those who buried the slain to drag him and his
multitudes to the subterraneous mansions, 19, 20.
At the tumult and commotion which this mighty work occasions,
the infernal shades are represented as roused from their
couches to learn the cause. They see and congratulate the king
of Egypt, on his arrival among them, 21.
Pharaoh being now introduced into this immense subterraneous
cavern, (see the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, where a similar
imagery is employed,) the prophet leads him all around the
sides of the pit; shows him the gloomy mansions of former
tyrants, tells their names as he goes along; beautifully
contrasts their former pomp and destructive ambition, when they
were a terror to the surrounding states, with their present
most abject and helpless condition; declares that all these
oppressors of mankind have not only been cut off out of the
land of the living, but have gone down into the grave
uncircumcised, that is, they have died in their sins, and
therefore shall have no resurrection to eternal life; and
concludes with showing Pharaoh the place destined for him in
the midst of the uncircumcised, and of them that have been
slain by the sword, 22-32.
This prophetic ode may be considered as a finished model in
that species of writing which is appropriated to the exciting
of terror. The imagery throughout is sublime and terrible; and
no reader of sensibility and taste can accompany the prophet in
this funeral procession, and visit the mansions of Hades,
without being impressed with a degree of awe nearly approaching
to horror.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXII
Verse 1. In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month] On Wednesday, March 22, the twelfth year of the captivity of Jeconiah, A.M. 3417.
Instead of the twelfth year, five of Kennicott's MSS., and eight of De Rossi's, read בעשתי עשרה in the eleventh year. This reading is supported by the Syriac; and is confirmed by an excellent MS. of my own, about four hundred years old.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 26, 29 Eze 32:1-2. In the twelfth year — Namely, of…
Eze 32:1-2. In the twelfth year — Namely, of Jehoiachin’s captivity, about which time Amasis began to set up himself against the king of Egypt, concerning whom this prophecy is. Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh — “To the preceding funeral panegyric over Assyria, the fate of which was past, Ezekiel prophetically subjoins a similar panegyric over Egypt, though its fate was still future; making plainly here a happy variation in the oratorical figure, by which past events are brought down and represented as now present before our eyes; whereas, on the contrary, by this prophetic figure future events are anticipated, and represented as already past.” — Obs. on Books, 2:188. Thou art like a young lion of the nations — Thou art like a beast of prey, devouring far and near. Thou art as a whale in the seas — By the word tannim we may fitly understand a crocodile, as has been observed upon Eze 29:3, and the description that follows agrees very well to a crocodile, but cannot be applied to a whale. And thou camest forth with thy rivers, &c. — Or rather, Thou rushedst forth through thy streams, and didst trouble the waters, &c.; that is, thou wentest beyond the bounds of thine own kingdom, and didst trouble and tread down, or subdue, the neighbouring cities and nations.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 9, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 30, 31, 32 In the twelfth month - About one year and…
In the twelfth month - About one year and seven months after the destruction of Jerusalem. In the meantime had occurred the murder of Gedaliah and the flight into Egypt of the Jews left behind by the Chaldaeans Jer. 41–43. Jeremiah, who had accompanied them, foretold their ruin Jer. 44 in a prophecy probably contemporaneous with the present - the sixth against Egypt, delivered in the form of a dirge Eze 44:2-16.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32 Twelfth. He counts from the captivity of Jechonias, as…
Twelfth. He counts from the captivity of Jechonias, as Sedecias reigned only eleven years. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 1And it came to pass in the twelfth year,…
CHAPTER 32
1And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first 2[day] of the month, the word of Jehovah came to me, saying: Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and say to him: Young lion of the heathen peoples thou didst imagine thyself [thou didst compare thyself to such an one], and thou [wast] as the dragon in the sea [in the seas], and brakest forth in thy streams, and didst trouble the water with thy feet, and didst trample their streams! 3Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, And I spread forth My net over thee in the 4assembly of many peoples, and they pull thee up in My draw-net. And I set thee free into the land [push thee away thither], upon the plains of the field will I sling thee; and I make all the birds of heaven to sit down on thee, and let the 5living creatures of the whole earth satisfy themselves with thee. And I give thy 6flesh upon the mountains, and fill the valleys with thy high heap [thy height]. And I cause the land of thy overflowing to drink out of thy blood, even to the mountains: 7and the hollows shall be full of thee. And I cover [veil], while I extinguish thee, the heaven, and darken its stars; the sun will I cover with a cloud, and the 8moon will not make her light to shine. All luminaries of light in the heaven, I will make them dark over thee; and I give darkness upon thy land: sentence of 9the Lord Jehovah. And I vex the heart of many peoples, when I bring thy breach [destruction] among the heathen peoples, to lands which thou knowest not. 10And I make many peoples astonished over thee, and their kings shall shudder shudderings over thee, when I brandish My sword before their face; and they tremble every moment, each one for his soul [life], on the day of thy downfall. 11For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: The sword of the king of Babylon will come to thee. 12By the swords of heroes will I make thy tumult to fall; the violent of the heathen [are] they all, and they lay waste the pride of Egypt, and all its 13tumult is destroyed. And I extirpate all the beasts thereof from many [the great] waters, and foot of man shall not trouble them any more, nor shall the hoofs of beasts trouble them. 14Then will I make their waters to sink, and make their 15streams go as the oil: sentence of the Lord Jehovah. When I give [to] desolation the land of Egypt, and the land is wasted away from its fulness, when I 16smite all that dwell in it, then they know that I am Jehovah. This is lamentation, and as lamentation they intone it, the daughters of the heathen peoples will intone it as a lamentation; upon Egypt and upon all its tumult shall they intone it as a lamentation: sentence of the Lord Jehovah. And 17it came to pass in the twelfth year, on the fifteenth [day] of the month, the word of Jehovah came to me, saying: 18Son of man, wail for the tumult of Egypt, and cast it down, it and [as] the daughters of the glorious heathen peoples, to the land of the depths, with those that go down to the pit. 19Whom dost thou surpass in being lovely? Go 20down, and lie with the uncircumcised! In the midst of those pierced through with the sword shall they fall; sword is given; they drag it [Egypt] and all its 21tumults away. The strong of the heroes from the midst of hell [sheol] shall speak of [to] him with his helpers: they go down, they lie, the uncircumcised, pierced 22through with the sword! There is Asshur and his whole company; round about 23him his [their] graves; they all pierced through, fallen by the sword: Whose graves were [are] given in the innermost of the pit, and his company was [is] round about his grave; they all pierced through, fallen by the sword, who gave 24terror in the land of the living. There [is] Elam and all his tumult round about his grave: they all pierced through, fallen by the sword, who are gone down, uncircumcised, to the land of depths, who gave their terror in the land of the 25living, and henceforth bear their shame with them that go down to the pit. Amid the pierced through they gave him a couch with all his tumult; round about him his graves; they all uncircumcised, pierced through with the sword; for their terror was given [spread] in the land of the living, and they henceforth bear their shame with those that go down to the pit; among the pierced through is he 26given [laid]. There [is] Meshech, Tubal, and all his tumult; round about him his [their] graves; they all uncircumcised, pierced through with the sword; for they 27gave their terror in the land of the living. And they do not [they shall not] henceforth lie with the heroes, the fallen of the uncircumcised, who went down to hell in [with] their weapons of war; and they gave their swords under their heads, and their iniquities were upon their bones, for terror of heroes [were they] in the land of 28the living. And [also] thou among the uncircumcised, thou shalt be broken, and 29shalt lie with the pierced through by the sword. There [is] Edom, his kings and all his princes, who have been given in [with, in spite of] their strength with the pierced through by the sword; they lie henceforth with the uncircumcised, and 30with those that go down to the pit. There are the princes of the North, they all and all the Zidonians, who went down with the pierced through, in their terror [the terror before them] from their strength [proceeding from their strength] come to shame; and they lie henceforth uncircumcised with the pierced through by the sword, and bear from this time onwards their shame with those that go down to the 31pit. Them will Pharaoh see, and will comfort himself over all his tumult; pierced 32through are Pharaoh and all his host: sentence of the Lord Jehovah. For I gave his terror [that which is before him] in the land of the living, and Pharaoh and all his tumult is laid [now] among the uncircumcised with the pierced through by the sword: sentence of the Lord Jehovah.
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Eze_32:1. Sept.: ... μια τ. μηνος—(Anoth. read.: בעשתי עשרה, undecimo anno.)
Eze_32:2. … Λεοντι … ὁμοιωθης … κ. ὲκερατιζες τοις ποταμοις … τ. ποταμους σου. Vulg.: Leoni assimilatus es et draconi … et ventilabas cornu in—(Other readings: ותרפמ and בנהרתַיִך.)
Eze_32:3. ... και ἀνκξω σε ἐν τ.ἀγκιστρω̣ μου; so too the Vulg.
Eze_32:4. ... Πεδια πλησθησεται σου—(Anoth. read.: כל חיה הארץ, Syr.)
Eze_32:5. ... ἀπο τ.αἱματος σου τασαν γην Vulg.: … colles tuos sanie tua. Anoth. read.: רמותיךְ, excelsa tua; רמתיךּ, projectionibus tuis (Targ.), v. vermibus tuis (Syr.).
Eze_32:6. ... ποτισθησετκι ἡ γη ἀπο τ. χωρηματον σου κ. ἀπο τ. πληθους σου … φκραγγας ἐμπλησω κ̓πο σου. Vulg.: fœtore sanguinis tui—
Eze_32:8. Vulg.: mœrere faciam super te—
Eze_32:9. Sept.: ... ἡνιχα ἀν … αἰχμαλωσιαν σου … εἰς γην ἡν—Vlug.: irritabo contritionem tuam—
Eze_32:10. Sept.: ... προσδεχομενοι την πτωσιν αὐτων ἀφʼ ἡμερας πτωσεως σου.
Eze_32:12. ἐν μαχαιραις γιγαντων, κ. καταβαλω τ.ἰσχυν σου Λοιμοι ἀπο ἐθνων—
Eze_32:14. Οὑτως τοτε ἡσυχασει—Vulg.: Tunc púrissimas reddams … adducam—
Eze_32:15. cum dedero … deseretur autem—(Anoth. read.: ומשמה in Hophal.)
Eze_32:17. Anoth. read.: בעשתי עשרה, Syr. and interlined Bible. Sept.: ... ἐν τ. πρωτω̣ μηνι—
Eze_32:18. Sept.: ... κκι καταβιβασουσιν αὐτης τας θυγατερας τκ ἐθνς νεκρας εἰς το βαθος τ. γης προς τους … (Eze_32:19 :Εν μεσω̣ τραυματιων μακαιρα πεσουνται μετʼ αὐτου,κ. κοιμηθησεται πασα ἡ ἰσκυς. κ. ἐρουσιν σοι οἱγιγαντες Ἐν βαθει βοθρου γινου τινος χρειττων εἱ; κ. καταβηθι κ. κοιμηθητι. Vulg.: gentium robustarum ad terram ultimam (Other read.: והורידו, and אל ארץ תחתית, and אל יורדי, Sept.)
Eze_32:19. ʼΕξ ὑδατων εὑπρεπους χαταβηθι, κ. κοιμηθητι μετα
Eze_32:20. πεσουνται μετʼαὐτου, κ. κοιμηθησεται πασα ἡ ἰσχυς αὐτου. (Other read.: המונה.)
Eze_32:21. Sept.: ... σοι οἱ γιγαντες. ʼΕν βαθει βοθρον γινου,τινος χρειττων ει; Καταβηθι κ.κοιμηθητι μετα—Vlug.: qui cum auxiliatoribus ejus descenderunt et dormierunt—
Eze_32:22. … συναγωγη αὐτου, πχντες τραυματιαι ἐχει ἐδοθησαν ἡ ταφη αὐτων ἐν βαθει βαθρου χ ἐγενηθη ἡ συνχγωγη αὐτου περιχυχλω̣ τ. μνηατος αὐτου,παντες—
Eze_32:23. οἱ ἐδωχαν τ. ταφχς αὐτης ἐν μηροις λαχχου—
Eze_32:25. The words כי־נתן׳ are not represented in the Sept.
Eze_32:26. Sept.: ʼΕχει ἐδοθησαν … κ. Θοβελ … περιχυχλω τ. μνηματος αὐτου, παντες τραυματιαι αὐτου, παντες ἀπεριτμητοι τραυματιαι ἀπο μαχαιρας, οἱ δεδωχοτες—Vulg,; … interfectique et cadentes gladio—
Eze_32:27. Και ἐχοιμηθχσαν μετα τ. γιγαντων … ἀπ’ αἰονος, οι … ὁτι ἐξεφοβησαν γιγαντας—Vulg.: … et incircumcisis—(Anoth. read.: עונם, Syr.)
Eze_32:29. Sept.: κ. οἱ βασιλεις αὐτης κ … οἱ ἁρχοντες Ἀσσουρ οἱ δοντες τ. ἰσχυν αὐτων εἰς τρκυμα μαχαιρας, κὐτοι ἐκοιμηθησαν μετα τραυματιων μαχαιρας, ἐκοιμηθησαν μετα—
Eze_32:30. παντες στρατηγοι "Ασσουρ, οἱ … τραυματιαι σον τ. φοβω̣ χὑτων χ. τ. ἰσχυι αὐτων—Vulg.: … et universi venatores, qui … paventes et in … confusi—(Anoth. read.: וכל צדונים, Chald., Syr.; or they read סרנֵי, satraps. Instead of אשר, Sept. read אשור.)
Eze_32:31. Vulg.: Vidit eos et consolatus est—
Eze_32:32. Quia dedi terrorem meum … et dormivit—
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
Eze_32:1-16. The Lamentation over Pharaoh.
Hitzig justly finds the date, as also the place of this section, quite correctly given. He likewise abides, for the more exact determination of the time, by the Hebrew text of Eze_32:1; while the old translations read, some the tenth, others the eleventh year, some the tenth, others the twelfth month. It was twenty-one months after Eze_31:1, almost two months after that the prophet had received intimation of the destruction of Jerusalem; and to this time also belongs the flight of the remnant of Judah to Egypt, which was prohibited through the mouth of Jeremiah. [Schmieder: “The first of these two death-songs (Eze_32:1-32) is dated on the day of the new moon, the second on the day of the full moon.” Hengst.: “The occasion of this lamentation was probably the circulation of the Lamentations of Jeremiah among the exiles. Ezekiel delights generally to follow that prophet as his leader. The double lamentation-song of this chapter accompanies, by way of consolation, the lamentation-songs among the people of God.”]
Eze_32:2. Comp. Eze_19:1.—As Eze_27:2 upon Tyre, and Eze_28:12 upon the prince of Tyre, so here it is first upon Pharaoh, and afterwards, Eze_32:17 sq., upon Egypt.—The designation as young lion (Eze_19:2) of the heathen nations (meaning of them not in the sense of being among them, but in that of showing himself to be such toward them), כְּפִיר גּוֹיִם, as in Eze_31:11 אל גוים, an antithetical reference, very fitly applies to the personality of Hophra. The youthful, rapacious, conquest-loving spirit of this prince may have been characterized.—נִדְמֵיָת, Niph. (from דמה), “to make one’s self like” (the subjective of Pharaoh’s to the objective of Jehovah’s, Eze_31:2; Eze_31:18).—אֶל dropt, perhaps, on account of the immediately preceding אֵלָיו, or to be construed accusatively; anyhow, perfectly plain as to the meaning, since כַּתנים immediately follows. That Pharaoh could not be found “like a lion and also a dragon,” as Hitzig alleges, has this only as a ground of offence, that it overlooks the distinction, the contrast, between the two resemblances. As a young lion Pharaoh is conscious of what belonged to him out of himself, whereas the other image rather represents the customary, perhaps also the limits to be kept by the Pharaohs of Egypt. (“With the third Ramses,” says Duncker, “Egypt had ceased to be the first power of the old world. About the same time, when the warlike ambition of Assyria began to display itself, Egypt returned to a peaceful mode of life, and remained quiet within its old natural boundaries.”) Philippson: “Pharaoh, who belonged only to Egypt as crocodile, would also as a lion seize upon other lands.” So also Raschi. [Hitzig translates נדמית: “thou art a dead man” (Cocceius); Hengst.: “thou art undone; נדמה never means: to be made like, always: to be silent, undone.” According to him, Eze_32:2 is a short outline which must be afterwards filled up.]—The representation generally is not that of the glory of the fallen king (Keil), and the image of the dragon in particular will not explain that of the lion (Hengst.); though it is right to say that the bearing of Pharaoh is meant to be set forth, only not so properly among the peoples as in his own relation. For in the sea is neither the sea of the peoples (Hengst.), nor to be taken along with what precedes = on land and in water (Rosenm.), but a reproduction of the Nile-situation (Eze_29:3, “in the midst of his streams”) corresponding to the self-elation implied in the “young lion of the heathen,” as (comp. Isa_19:5) in Homer the Nile is called ὠκεανος, and the native designation speaks of the white, blue seas. The counter-position (וְאַתָּה) is this: To the heathen nations thou wouldst show thyself as a young lion, and thine own people thou didst destroy, didst ruin—as is presently brought out in the prophet’s delineation. To the יַמִּים correspond the נַהֲרוֹת ;וַתָּגַח. from גּוֹחַ (גִּיחַ?), is, according to Kimchi, the Kal; who, however, allows it also as Hiphil, which Fürst takes to be the form, wishing, however, to understand it transitively: “and broughtest forth thy waters through thy streams;” but of Hiphil, as of Kal, is only the intransitive signification known. [Hitzig, who holds that the breaking forth of the crocodile is not meant to be expressed, would fain make it: “thou causest thy streams, namely, out of thy nostrils, to break forth;” but the streams and בְּ are against him, and he hence reads with Ewald: נְחִרתיך, who translates: “since thou art as the crocodile in the waters, and with thy nostrils dost splutter (Job_41:20).” Hengst. cites, for the mischief which Pharaoh did among the nations, the North American crocodiles (“thou brakest forth with thy rivers”)—how, while breathing with the most frightful noise, they spurt forth streams of smoke and water, like a torrent in a hurricane, through their jaws and blowholes.] The sense, however, is much simpler: while in Eze_29:3, Pharaoh, the great dragon, lies in the midst of his streams at his ease, he is now represented as breaking forth in the same (“thine,” as he there pretends); that is, not precisely with his hosts, but in this, his national-Egyptian pride of power, rising up, elevating himself—which elevation of Pharaoh (as indicated by Jerome, Vulg., and Sept.) troubled the waters of Egypt (דלח, comp. Eze_32:13), while he with his feet trampled their streams or caused a muddy jumbling. [Schmieder: “With his restless ambition for war he stirred up the slumbering passions (the mire) among his peoples.”] Very good Philippson: “brought his people into agitation, guilt, and danger;” while the heterogeneous intermingling of the figure of the dragon with that of the lion, and in consequence thereof the explanation with reference to the nations, occasions misunderstanding and needless attempts at interpretation—as when Ewald, who is followed by Hävernick, speaks of the crocodile foully wallowing with mouth and feet in the fresh waters and life-sources of the nations—as troubling all that was pure.
Eze_32:3. See Eze_12:13; Eze_17:20.—בִּקְהַל׳, on comparison with Eze_23:24, can scarcely be understood of mere spectators, since they pull up, therefore, as helpers, associates, servants, carry the matter into effect. The peoples punish the sin of Pharaoh committed on his own people. Under the many we may think of the Chaldean army as composed of many races (Dereser), or also of the diverse peoples that followed the Chaldeans in making war upon Egypt.—Comp. Eze_26:5; Eze_26:14; Eze_29:4. In Siam, people often spread nets upon the river to catch the crocodile. Comp. Ælian, Var. Hist. Eze_10:21.
Eze_32:4. Comp. Eze_29:5.—בָאָרֶץ, land, in contrast to the water; while in Ezekiel 29 it is the “wilderness.”—טוּל, “to throw down,” Hiphil, strengthens נָטַשׁ, as בָאָרֶץ is pictured out by עַל פְּנֵי׳, “on the plains (face) of the field.”—Eze_31:13. It is acutely remarked by Bunsen, that in the description, as it passes over into the monstrous, the prophet comes to do with the matter, touches less upon the image.
Eze_32:5. As the guilt, so the punishment takes place within the land, which is represented by mountains and valleys (Eze_31:12). Pharaoh is laid there as to his flesh, together with his warriors.—רָמוּת, Gesen. from רוּם, “a high heap of corpses.” Hengst.: “with thy height,” in contrast to the valleys as low ground, “with the proud corpse.” It were better to read רִמָּתֶךָ, from רִמָּה, collective, “worms.” Hitzig thinks of the blood which should flow down from the mountains into the valleys. Others take it, after the plural reading, of the hosts of which Pharaoh was proud, their corpses; Raschi, from רמה, “to throw away:” thy thrown away, that is: thy fallen.
Eze_32:6. Here צָפָה (from צוּף, “to overflow,” “to inundate”) with אֶרֶץ is not “the land of thy swimming” (Gesen.), in which thou as crocodile hast swimmed, but Egypt—only not as Hengst.: “the land which thou formerly didst overflow with thy rivers.” At least Eze_32:2 cannot be adduced for this sense, except in so far as the Nile, which Pharaoh in Ezekiel 29 had in a manner claimed for himself, overflows Egypt, and thereby provides the ground of prosperity and strength to Pharaoh. That God “causes the land to drink” (Gen_2:10) is placed over against the boasted overflowing of it through Pharaoh’s Nile; besides, however, the closer determination of the meaning by “out of (with) thy blood” (Exo_7:17 sq.), which Hitzig explains as a gloss of רָמוּתֶךָ in Eze_32:5. (Keil takes צָפָה as the “outflowing,” and construes הִשְׁקֵּיתִי with two objects, so that מִדָּמְךָ announces whence the outflowing comes, and wherein it consists. Schmieder: “Pharaoh’s life-juice, which flows with his blood from his wounds, the most precious, most peculiar possessions of his home-power.” Häv.: “I saturate the earth with thy current, on occasion of thy blood covering the mountains.” Hitzig: “the soil of the earth with thy outflow.” Kimchi takes צפה as a fem. part.: “thy land over which the waters swam.” Others: the land which from thee was overflowed, namely, by thy blood. Attention has been called by Kimchi also to צָפָה, “to spy out”—the land of thy spying out—so that the high places thereof might be meant.)—Even to the mountains signifies: to as far as the overflowing of the Nile usually extends.
Eze_32:7 (Eze_30:18). The covering of the heaven, in its symbolic character, fitly enough regarded as analogous to the judgment-day of God (Eze_30:3; Joe_2:4), need not, however, be conceived of from this point of view, but may remind us of Exo_10:21 sq., while still it is expressly thought of in connection with Pharaoh’s extinction, who in his glory must not be contemplated merely as a bright shining light (Hengst.), but, according to the Egyptian style of thought, as the light of the world for his subjects, beaming forth upon the land and imparting prosperity and blessing (comp. at Eze_29:6 a, Eze_30:17; see also Duncker, i. p. 150). It is unnecessary, therefore, for Hitzig to fall back upon Dereser, who, under the expression: “when thou art extinguished,” makes the constellation of a dragon follow here upon the image of a sea-dragon, as then the zodiac might be of Egyptian origin. Keil regards Ezekiel as leaning upon Isa_14:12; but the discourse is not at all of Pharaoh as a star of the first magnitude (Dereser), but with his extinction the heaven (the heaven, namely, of Egypt), the higher, the governing supremacy and glory, one may say, is veiled, which in what follows is more nearly defined and expressed. Comp. Eze_31:15. The heaven comes into consideration as to its stars, and as such are specified (in place of all) sun and moon, which, again, appear in Eze_32:8 as מְאוֹרִים,—the sun, with כָּסָה pointing back to כִּסֵּיתִי; the moon, with negative reproduction of the הִקְדַּרְתִי. That with what is said, mourning, condolence should be expressed (as at Eze_31:15), does not lie in the words; and just on that account Eze_32:9-10 do not give, as Hitzig would have it, the import of the figurative speech here in Eze_32:7-8. Finally, neither kingdoms, nor peoples, nor individual men of distinction are indicated by the stars.
Eze_32:8. Gen_1:14.—עָלֶיךָ, agreeably to Eze_32:7 (בְכַבּוֹתְךָ): on account of thee, or as upon thy land.—All the luminaries resume the “stars” in Eze_32:7; אַקְדִירֵם repeats הִקְדַּרְתִי there, and the darkness, sq., combines what is said of sun and moon together in the effect. Through “thy land” light falls upon the “land of thy overflowing,” in Eze_32:6.
Eze_32:9. The vexing of the heart is to be understood according to Eze_32:10. Sorrow; not sympathy, but, in consideration of themselves, and of that which might still also be done to them, grief. It is not hard words only which vex us, but there are also hard fates which cause us vexation, especially the more we would live and would let live. שֵׁבֶר (and with Segol twice), probably: the report (but not necessarily to be read, as Ewald, with an Aramaic signification, שׂברך)of the destruction; that such a world-power was broken could not but cause many heart-breakings in the world. The addition: which thou knowest not, however, points to more than simple knowledge, namely, to persons who become acquainted with that of which they had hitherto been entirely ignorant, regions utterly unknown to them. (Targum of Jonathan: those broken through the war; Häv., with a reference to the Sept.: the prisoners, who, as ruins of the old glory of Egypt, are themselves the heralds of the misfortune among the nations.) Comp. Eze_30:9.
Eze_32:10. See Eze_27:35; Eze_28:19.—שָׂער, so that the hair stands on end.—עוֹפֵף, Pilel from עוּף, to make to fly. The sword, while they see how it flies to and fro over Pharaoh, is swung before their face, that they may with shuddering take a warning from it to themselves.—On וְחָרְדוּ לִרְגָעִים, comp. Eze_26:16.—Eze_31:16.
Eze_32:11. Since Jehovah’s sword which is brandished is that of the king of Babylon, the coming of this king can now be fitly spoken of. תְּבוֹאֶךָ for תָּבוֹא לְךָ. Comp. also. Eze_30:10. There is a similar break in the discourse.
Eze_32:12. Comp. on Eze_31:2; Eze_31:12; Eze_28:7.—כֻּלָּם, in their collective character; עָריצֵי, from עָרַץ, properly: spreading terror.—On אֶת־גְּאוֹן׳ Hitzig remarks: “not that of which Egypt is proud, but what is proud in Egypt, what raises itself up, pushes into the height.” Comp. Eze_30:6; Eze_30:18.
Eze_32:13. The extirpation of the beasts is explained by Schmieder figuratively of the potentates of Egypt, beside the crocodile Pharaoh, who stir up the population. As to the reality, Hitzig thinks of the grassy banks of the Nile, whither large herds of cattle were driven to get drink and to pasture (Gen_47:6; Gen_41:2 sq.; Exo_9:3). Rosenm. brings also to remembrance the Egyptian horse - training. The beasts, however, appear rather as embellishment, for the Nile with its waters forms the chief feature, as it also had led the inhabitants of the land of Egypt at an early period from shepherd life to agriculture, and had consequently given rise to the prosperity of the country. The desolation of the greatness and glory of Egypt, the annihilation of all its tumult (Eze_32:12), is represented by the extirpation of the beasts; in which the not unintentionally repeated לֹא תִדְלָחֵם, in the transition to the רַבִּיס מַיִם, points back with a certain irony to מיס׳ וַתִּדְלַח־ in Eze_32:2, while such a ruinous result for the land through the punishment of Pharaoh is rendered still more remarkable. The not any more does not import that it should no more at all happen, but only in comparison with the earlier—no more in such a sense, that the earlier ascendency of power should again have place. Foreign dominion, inflicting mischief, causing man and beast to disappear (Eze_32:12), should bring to a stand the native pernicious rule of Pharaoh. [According to the interpretation of others, it is to be understood with respect to other nations—as Hengst.: “in part also of the seductive glitter of Egypt”—of the ambitious military expeditious of Pharaoh (Cocc., Grotius), or generally of the pushing character of Egypt as a worldly power (Keil).]
Eze_32:14. אז, when this takes place. What follows is explained by Hitzig to mean, that the Nile’s fulness of water, which hitherto had overflowed the land and made it fruitful, should no longer have any aim (Eze_30:12); Kliefoth: that God Himself would change the nature of these streams. But this would imply too much, while the words—though not to be understood as Hävernick thinks, who applies Eze_32:13 improperly to troubling through hostile armies—would still express nothing more than the reference back to Eze_32:2 already indicated in Eze_32:13; namely thus: that instead of “the breaking forth in thy streams” there, now a depression takes place, their waters sink, that is, those waters which in the former state of prosperity man and beast troubled, but which in particular Pharaoh’s haughtiness rendered turbid; i.e., the well-being of Egypt, as this is represented by its Nile, is now gone, and shall no longer give occasion for abuse. The position of Egypt as to power must henceforth be of another description. וְנַהֲרוֹתָם (Eze_32:2), “their,” of the “waters,” which through Pharaoh go in a confused manner—כַּשֶּׁמֶן, Hitzig: flowing softly and slowly, keeping within the prescribed path. The latter does not lie in the comparison, after the manner of oil; and that they do not as hitherto rush forth in impetuous volumes of water is not the contrast; although the citation in Hitzig from Isa_8:6 corresponds, for, as with Asshur there, so was the case here with Pharaoh. Hengst. rightly: that the comparison with oil has respect to the soft flowing. Comp. Eze_29:14. There needs only the sentence of the Lord, and then the proud waves subside, and that which fancies itself so high becomes low. (Now, inasmuch as such a state can be taken as a contrast to the ruin of Eze_32:13, some modern expositors, after the example of earlier ones, have found a promise here in relation to other peoples; Targum, Grotius: that they should be left in peace; Häv., Keil: that for Egypt a time of divine blessing shall follow, the Nile shall flow with oil; Ewald even: “then first might the Messianic times come also upon Egypt, where the waterfloods should no longer be desolating and troubled, by reason, namely, of the true knowledge to which the chastisement conducts.”)
Eze_32:15. Here is combined together, through a double parallel, בְְּ the divine judgment and its result,—the giving up of the land of Egypt to desolation, and the realization of what this implied instead of its former fulness (Eze_12:19).—Rosenm., Hengst., translate וּנְשַׁמָּה: “and the land wasted.” It might also mean: when I give, etc., then the land is wasted.—The killing of all the inhabitants, and the knowing of Jehovah. According to Hitzig, בְּהַכּוֹתִי must be subordinated to the declaration.
Eze_32:16. Comp. Eze_19:14. The lamentation (Eze_32:2) comes here to a close. Its female singers, as this was laid upon women (Jer_9:16 [17]), will be the heathen nations themselves represented as such (daughters), or the mourning women of those nations mentioned in Eze_32:9. So certain is the matter.
Eze_32:17-32. Dirge upon Egypt.
Eze_32:17. The indication of the month is wanting here; according to Hitzig and others, from oversight. Comp. on Eze_26:1. Hengst, and many derive it from Eze_32:1, therefore the twelfth month, so that what here follows falls only fourteen days later. It is the last word upon Egypt, save one after the conquest of Jerusalem, for Eze_29:17 sq. is absolutely the last; consequently a conclusion with respect to Egypt, and indeed in the manner of a d’outre tombe.
Eze_32:18. Here we have a נְהִי, distinguished from the קִינָה going before, in particular, through its character (“gloomy, sorrowful grave-song,” Ewald), and its six windings, its strophe-form.—What is meant by the tumult has been already said in Eze_32:15-16 : it is those who dwelt in Egypt, and are now slain. Besides, in what follows there is a leaning on Eze_31:16 sq.—To wail over any one after the manner of our section is as much as to throw him down with the word. By such a juxtaposition, also, we prevent a false explanation of the נְהֵה, confounding the prophet with hired howling women, after the manner of Egyptian funerals, when as such even the daughters of mighty nations should figure. (Ewald: while the same are let down; as a grave-song, therefore, at the interment. Häv.: identity of the divine will with the prophetic announcement.)—The fem. אוֹתָהּ does not resume again the regular masc. הָמוֹן, nor is it shown from the question in Eze_32:19 that we are to take it as אַתָּה (Hitzig, Ewald); but it is very simple, grammatically correct, and logical,—an impressive ranking of Egypt, as a land, beside the daughters, etc. What Hitzig says to the contrary is not worthy of consideration. Egypt, as the party referred to, is the more natural, as it also was what in the preceding context determined the המון.—The daughters of the glorious heathen peoples must, according to Dereser, Ewald, Hitzig, be those meant in Eze_32:16—a view that will scarcely commend itself; according to Rosenm.: the populations subject to the Egyptians, or in league with them—of whom there has been no discourse here; according to most: those specified in Eze_32:22 sq. If these last are already in Sheol, as in reality is the case, then is וּבְנוֹת׳ to be understood as if it stood thus: like those, etc., who have gone down conformably to the prophetic word. The process must in no way, as Hengst. expresses himself, be repeated anew; for, according to Eze_32:21 sq., the parties concerned speak out of hell to the Egyptians, therefore are not sent down with these “as it were a second time.” The representation on occasion of the throwing down, which plainly has respect to Egypt, includes those already thrown down (“the daughters,” etc.) in order to render the certainty of the fate of Egypt the more indubitable by patent facts, with which also the immediately following question in Eze_32:19 accords. The designation of the peoples as daughters is the more appropriate, as adornment and attractiveness, splendour and grace, would shine forth in them. For the rest, comp. at Eze_26:20; Eze_31:14.
Eze_32:19. The question with which our dirge begins—to supply לֵאמֹר or נְהֵה is superfluous, the address is more energetic without such an addition—is spoken either to the tumult of Egypt (Eze_32:18), or to Pharaoh and all his tumult (Eze_32:32). The נָעַם, “to be lovely,” is indeed conceded, but it is held from the first to be a vain conceit that it was beyond any other, namely, the glorious heathen peoples, more lovely, therefore, than one of them. Ewald translates: “before whom wert thou more prosperous?” Which would not be so suitable as his allusion to the meaning of “uncircumcised” for Egyptians, and even also for Tyrians (Eze_31:18; Eze_28:10). (Hitzig declares himself in favour of the Sept. on the weakest grounds.)—Hence, as they, so also thou, “go down”—in which remembrance is made of the “cast down” of the prophet in Eze_32:18, as also of those “going down” with whom Egypt must go down. Besides, comp. Eze_28:10; Eze_31:18.
Eze_32:20. Of the sword it was already spoken, Eze_32:11. They who should fall are the Egyptians, Pharaoh and his tumult. Targum Jon. takes נִתָּנָה as אוֹתָהּ of Egypt, but understands that it is given up to the sword.—מָשְׁכוּ, either 3 pret. or imperat. for מִשְׁכּוּ. Of whom it speaks or to whom it is addressed is clear from חֶרֶב נִתּ׳; they are those to whom the sword is already given. And since they must fall, must fall in the midst of the pierced through, the seizing and dragging away is not to be regarded as of evil-doers to the judgment-seat; but if the death-blow is to be considered, and if there is a carrying out of the falling among the pierced through, still, there remains as that to which they are to be dragged, indirectly as well as directly, if not precisely, Sheol, at least the grave.
Eze_32:21. To the question above corresponds the speaking below. What they speak is not said, and confessedly with דָּבַר does not need to be said. If לוֹ is “to him,” as Hengst. thinks, then the speaking is as much as: they greet him (Häv., with malignant welcome) as a colleague (comp. Isa_14:10-11); and “his helpers” is to be viewed as connected with “to him”—together with his helpers. Rosenm. connects “his helpers” with “the strong of the heroes,” so that also his helpers address him. If לוֹ is to be translated “of him,” then the discourse takes place with the helpers, who, besides, are the parties that remained to the last with him—ch. Eze_30:8; Eze_30:5 sq.—גִבּוֹים אֵלֵי—comp. Eze_31:11—which Gesen. renders: “the strongest of the heroes.” Ewald calls to remembrance in how high consideration a quiet natural death stood, with a correspondingly quiet burial, accompanied by the proper solemnities.—The words: “they go down,” etc., might serve less as a closer description of the strong heroes (Hengst.), than as a ground for their being in the midst of Sheol. But if they are taken as the address of the strong heroes, for which also the tone of the words speaks, treating scornfully the Egyptians like other heathens, then “the uncircumcised” must be applied to the Egyptians; and it will hence be understood that they fall in the midst of the uncircumcised (their helpers), appear like these. By Eze_32:19 we are not obliged to take the speakers from hell as the uncircumcised. In Eze_32:22 follows their mention by name. Asshur, primarily on account of the comparison in Ezekiel 31, but especially on account of its so great, still recent experience, which also gave occasion to the beginning of the Chaldean ascendency, ever in Ezekiel appearing as the foil of the other, and, finally, on this more general account, from its importance as compared with the other nations to be named, opens the dark muster-roll.—In respect to gender, the kingdom, which is feminine, interchanges with the king, masculine, because in point of fact the one runs into the other.—The ruler, or his grave, is surrounded by the graves which might be called his, because they are those of members of his people; or קִבְרֹתָיו refers to קָהֵל. This will import: Asshur is only a field of graves, and thereby indicate that the sword which threatens Egypt has already fallen upon it.
Eze_32:23. In order, however, to bridge still more completely the contrast between this hereafter and the preceding here, the graves of Asshur (אֲשֶׁר, perhaps a play upon אַשּׁוּר; anyhow, not: because) are still more particularly characterized. רְַכָתַיִם, dual, the two divergent sides, therefore the extreme part, here by means of בּוֹר determined to be the innermost—the point, namely, to which the pit turns off with its two walls. (Gesen.: the hindermost, farthest.) As much as: buried in the deepest place.—The graves are in Sheol; the latter, therefore, comprehensive of the former. The distinction is a fluctuating one.—Again אֲשֶׁר, certainly a play of words.—נָתְנוּ, antithesis to נִתְּנוּ, for that which was given to them, that which they previously had given! The land of the living, as at Eze_26:20, contrast to their deepest graves.
Eze_32:24. Elam appears in the earliest times among the inhabited countries lying on the farther side of the Tigris, to the east of Babylonia—a Semitic people, nearly related to the Assyrians. On this account alone it might here be made to follow immediately after Asshur; comp. Gen_10:22; Gen_14:1 sq. From the commencement warlike, ambitious of conquest, the Elamites continued to the last true to this character. Strabo makes mention of their expeditions against Susiana and Babylonia. Originally settled in the valleys between the Zagrus range and the mountains which bound the Assyrian plains on the east, they are mentioned along with other marauding tribes. The Assyrians subdued Elam, so that its dreaded bowmen (Jer_49:35) figure in the Assyrian army (Isa_22:6). This explains Elam’s position immediately after Asshur. And agreeably to such a relation to Asshur, the utterance concerning Elam is almost, entirely similar.—The designation “their terror” makes it more expressive: the terror before them. With such a past their future laden with shame contrasts quite as expressively, just as the description: “those that go down to the pit,” stands related to: “in the land of the depths.”
Eze_32:25. The “couch in the midst of the pierced-through” is an ignominious one, because implying their conquest, their fall by the sword. And after all the tumult this idle lying now!—נָתְנוּ, the subject undetermined; or if any one is to be thought of, then Asshur lies not less near than Nebuchadnezzar, by whom Hengst. maintains that Elam was vanquished (comp. at Eze_8:16; Eze_30:5).—בְּבָל׳, in company with.—Round about the king (him) the graves of Elam (הָ as in לָהּ previously).—For, wild lovers of the sword, a terror to the living, their end consequently becomes associated with terror, their state in death takes the form of like to like.—נִתּן against נִתַּן. Elam himself now, not: his couch. He is laid by the sword with the dead, while formerly the terror before him and his would not be allayed among the living.
Eze_32:26. For similar reasons, probably, as in the case of Elam, the Moschi and Tibareni now follow—comp. at Eze_27:13—linked as by a hyphen into one power. According to Hitzig, these represent the Scythians, whose numbers had recently been much reduced. Ewald takes the Chaldeans to be meant by the Scythians (!); Keil, here as in Ezekiel 38, understands by them a northern power, that should succumb, and here prophetically represented as having already succumbed.—The description as formerly, only כִּי־נָתְנוּ׳ instead of previously כִּי־נִתַּן׳, which Hitzig refers to God. The ground of procedure here turns more expressly on the guilt of the parties.
Eze_32:27. Corresponding to such a presentation of the matter is ולֹא׳, which by many expositors is taken for a question indicated merely by the tone, as often in lively discourse: “and should they not,” etc.; that is, they especially could expect no better fate, among whom the significant custom prevailed of burying their fallen warriors with their slaughter-weapons, so that guilt and punishment are still combined together in the grave! (Hengst.: to the dead is ascribed what took place by their order, since they, like the race of Cain, placed therein their honour, saw in the murder of their brother a piece of bravery.) Others take it differently, as indicating that they were not to participate in the honour of resting with those for whom, because they had fallen gloriously, their armour was deposited in the grave. With the interrogatory mode of explanation the affirmative rendering of the Sept. seems to agree; but the other mode has this decidedly in its favour, that manifestly there is meant to be expressed, only in a different way, what was expressed in Eze_32:23 respecting Asshur by the humiliating words: “whose graves were given in the innermost of the pit,” and in Eze_32:24-25 regarding Elam, through the repeated: “and they bear their shame ”—namely, that they are the conquered, pierced through by the sword, ignominiously fallen under the victor’s hand, as was always again declared. With this agrees the mention of the heroes (comp. Eze_32:12; Eze_32:21), in particular the latter passage, where these in a manner boast themselves over the Egyptians. The meaning therefore is: that their hereafter is not that of heroes, though these also have fallen from among the uncircumcised, and hence were likewise guilty.—אֲשֶׁר׳, therefore not the Moschi and Tibareni, as Hengst. thinks, “they who,” etc., but a description of the “heroes.”—בִּכְלֵי, in their weapons of war, in armour of defence, and offence, that is, as conquerors of whom one can win no triumph, such as is done by those who carry forth in triumph the equipments of the vanquished.—And they gave, etc., as much as: “and men gave”; the survivors honoured their heroes after such a manner.—And their iniquities were, etc., is undoubtedly a continuation of the immediately preceding context, since to the marks of honour and judgment given on the part of men, there is very fitly added the judgment of God,—that “their iniquities were upon their bones,” or “came upon their bones,” though their swords were no longer on but under them, as also is presently said. To suppose, with Keil, that there is here a continuation to יִשְׁכְּבוּ will scarcely do, as they were not to lie down with the heroes, nor could they be named “terror of heroes.” Hengst. translates: “heroes of terror.” Ewald, with a threatening reference to the Chaldeans: “because the terror of tyrants reigns in the land,” etc. (?). Häv. makes Gen_6:4; Gen_10:9 sq. swim before the eyes of the prophet. Hitzig accepts simpliciter the translation of the Sept. But it may be regarded as a question whether Ezekiel did not think of the mode of burial among the Scythian princes, which has been similarly described by Herodotus.
Eze_32:28. An address to Egypt (Hitzig: the tumult of Egypt); but certainly without an underlying word of threatening to the Chaldean king, as Ewald supposes. (Hengst.: “thou art broken and liest down,” etc.)—תִשָּׁבַר for תִשָּׁבֵר Eze_32:29. שָׁמָּה either = שָׁם, as a sort of variation, or “thither,” which Häv. takes prophetically (“in like manner belong”) of such as it stands before. Hengst. on the other hand, as he makes Meshech and Tubal to have been probably conquered with the Assyrians, supposes that the Chaldean storm had swept over Edom immediately after the downfall of Judah, certainly as to the beginning only.—The kings, who were elective, are distinguished from all his princes (comp. Gen_36:15 sq., 40 sq., 31 sq.), the tribal heads or chiefs of the greater race-stems, who according to Keil probably chose the kings.—בִגְבוּרָתָם, “corporeal strength,” “bravery;” very suitable where “heroes” had just been spoken of. We might understand: in proof and trial of the same, or: notwithstanding it. Hitzig points to the olden time (Num_20:14 sq.; Gen_36:35), and the wars with David.
Eze_32:30. נָסִיךְ, from נָםךְ, to pour out, scarcely to be understood as = anoint, hence: “anointed,” as מָשִׁיחַ, but, according to a derived signification: to inaugurate, or to place forth, the former in the sacrificial libation (drink-offering), the latter through a casting of metal.—The princes of the north, who are conjoined with כָל־צִדֹנִי, a collective singular, are thereby, according to Hävernick, more exactly defined as the many rulers of the biblical Aram (Damascenes, Syrians). In Jer_25:26 we have: “all the kings of the north, near and afar off.” Comp. Eze_28:20 sq. The Zidonians, therefore, may have already fallen. Tyre is not mentioned, so (Hengst. thinks) it still stood, although the siege had commenced. The mention of the Zidonians appears obviously designed to suggest that by “the north” is meant not the high far north, but that in relation to Palestine, therefore distinguishing them from Meshech and Tubal, formerly noticed. Perhaps also the significant number of seven must be made out for the peoples.—In their terror, etc., merely as much as, notwithstanding the terror before them, which their strength produced.—בּוֹשִׁים, so that they bear their shame (Eze_32:24-25).
Eze_32:31. There is now the express application to Pharaoh. Hitzig gives וְנִחַם עַל׳: “and will make himself be sorry for all his host,” namely, that those in Eze_32:27-30 still have on their clothing and equipment, as contrasted with those who had gone down with himself naked !! Hengst.: “he sighs.” It is here the case of Eze_31:16. Hav. thinks it is spoken ironically.
Eze_32:32. The reason assigned has respect to the overthrow of the military force of Pharaoh, in so far as he could inspire terror only after God’s will. He was not by reason of his own power an object of dread for a time on earth, but through the operation of God’s providence, which made use of him as its instrument. In conclusion Kliefoth remarks very well: “People are wont to visit the pyramids of Egypt or its catacombs for the purpose merely of seeing that the glory of the Pharaohs is one that has its abode in Sheol; even to the new Ptolemaic Egypt, the old Egyptian existence was a complete riddle, a thing forgotten and incapable of being understood.”
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. Although the prophecy in Ezekiel 29 is of a general character, yet by the reference to Nebuchadnezzar, and especially from Eze_29:17 onwards, it gets a more specific character. We have therefore to hold by a fulfilment through the Chaldeans, and, indeed, in connection with what is said respecting Tyre. Apart from the circumstance that we have here to do with a prophet of God, we could not judge otherwise simply on this account, that a little reflection upon the inevitable disgrace of such a self-deception as would have been the case in respect to Tyre must alone have kept Ezekiel—instead of merely suppressing the prophecy in question while the book was still in his own hand—from wishing now to compensate for the mistake by awakening like inconsiderate and rash expectations concerning Nebuchadnezzar in regard to Egypt. For one to whom the prophet is nothing but a writer must still at least credit him with this much of worldly prudence in respect to his literary honour. And if Ezekiel must needs prophesy ex eventu (as Hitzig, for example, conceives), then prophecies like those contained in Ezekiel 26 and some following ones are purely unthinkable, so far as they remained unfulfilled; since it cannot but be supposed, that when our prophet closed his book, matters must have stood before him widely different from what they are presented in his prophecy. The “dogmatic criticism,” however, cannot once admit now that a prophecy has been fulfilled,—a limitation of the standpoint which is not improved by the circumstance that the truth of the divine word (2Pe_1:21) is made dependent on the statements or the silence of profane writers, and even of such as have given notoriously imperfect reports. The false prophet, he whose word did not come to pass, has by God’s word (Deu_18:22) been as clearly as possible excluded from the canon.
2. The reward for work, which, as Hitzig rightly enough says, had still to be given to Nebuchadnezzar, raises no question as to the conquest and, as could not fail to happen after a thirteen years’ siege, the destruction of Tyre. If the booty might have been thought of for the army, for Nebuchadnezzar it is necessary to think of Egypt. The song of triumph demanded by Hitzig for the fulfilment of the prophecy against Tyre is the double lamentation which we find in Ezekiel 27, 28. Every one has his peculiar manner. But as regards the so-called “historical witnesses,” who should speak the decisive word on the fulfilment or non-fulfilment particularly of the prophecy of Ezekiel in respect to Egypt, they are “the Greek historians, at the head of whom stands Herodotus, and they know absolutely nothing of a Chaldean invasion of Egypt—nay, their narration is opposed to anything of the kind” (Hitzig). This is imposing; let us reflect, however, that Herodotus had also learned nothing from his Egyptian informants of the defeat at Carchemish. We need only mention farther, that this Greek historian himself reproaches the priests of Egypt, and precisely in regard to this particular time, with embellishing the history of their country. Now, according to Herodotus, Pharaoh Hophra—in consequence of the defeat which his army sustained from the Cyrenians, against whom it was to have rendered help to the Libyans, and of the revolt which in consequence thereof, and of the foreign mercenary troops retained in Egypt, broke forth on the part of the Egyptian warrior-class against Amasis, who, instead of bringing back the rebels to obedience, suffered himself to be proclaimed king by them—lost freedom and his throne, and by the infuriated people was even murdered. Tholuck, who, “if the cattle with the ark of the Lord should once turn aside, would not obstinately drive forward,” remarks that as a witness Herodotus alone comes into consideration; before whom, however, the testimony of Ezekiel, himself a contemporary of the events, has no need to be abashed. “If Herodotus readily received intelligence of the prosperous battle fought by Necho at Megiddo, but none respecting the much more important defeat sustained by him on the Euphrates from the Chaldeans, should it be thought strange if the priests observed silence also regarding the irruption of the Chaldeans into their own land? yea, if the miserable end which Hophra suffered through the foreign conqueror should have been rather represented by them as the deed of his own people?” (So also Rawlinson’s Herod. B. ii. appen. c. 8.) With a fair appreciation of the historical representation of Herodotus, the cause there assigned, especially the revolution among the warrior-class of Egypt, might suffice for the overthrow of Hophra. Yet the hatred of the Egyptian people, not only expressed in Herodotus, but confirmed by monumental evidence (Rossellini points in this connection to a by-name of Hophra on the monuments: “Remesto”)—such a hatred as is described in Herodotus toward Hophra (ii. 161–169), manifested in respect to a native ruler, is scarcely to be explained from what is stated, if it did not come into some sort of connection with a Chaldean invasion of Egypt, whereby the haughtiness of Hophra might well appear all the more hateful to the Egyptian people, as the misery of the land and the inhabitants, occasioned by him, stood in sharpest contrast to the previous prosperity and splendour. The grudge of the Egyptian warrior-class against the foreign mercenaries could not be of such moment as some have supposed, since even Amasis, who thereafter held possession of the throne till his death (forty-four years), and was succeeded in it by his son, took lonians for his bodyguard, and generally granted to the Greeks still greater favour and privileges than his predecessor. Besides, as generally held, there is also the outline of the prophecy against Egypt in Ezekiel 29, which exhibits a distinction between Eze_29:6 sq. and Eze_29:4 sq.—in the one, the sword constitutes the figure (Eze_29:8); in the other, overthrow with reference to the wilderness. Especially if Hitzig’s interpretation of “the fish” (Eze_29:4) as denoting Pharaoh’s men of war is accepted, and under “the wilderness” there is couched an allusion to Libya, what is said in Eze_29:4 sq. might be explained by the narration which is reproduced by Herodotus, and Eze_29:6 sq. would, with the sword of Nebuchadnezzar, be such a supplementing as the conquest of Tyre to the siege of that city, also given elsewhere. Out of the miserable condition in which Hophra perished, Amasis would then have raised Egypt. Anyhow, as Tholuck brings out, the death of Hophra falls exactly into the time in which the occupation of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar must have occurred; and thus the position of matters approaches to that which is wont to be extracted from Josephus in confirmation of our prophecy—contr. Ap. i. 19. It is there stated that Berosus reports of the Babylonian (Nebuchadnezzar) that he “conquered Egypt, Syria, Phœnicia,” etc. Again, in Ezekiel 20, he states that Megasthenes placed Nebuchadnezzar above Hercules, since he had subjected to himself a great part of Libya and Iberia (comp. Antiq. x. 11. 1, and Strabo xv. 1. 6; see also Häv. Comm. p. 435, against Hitzig’s remarks). In the 10th book of the Antiq. Eze_9:7, Josephus expresses himself to this effect, that “in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the twenty-third of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, he made an expedition against Cœlesyria; and when he had got possession of it, he made war against the Ammonites and Moabites; and when he had brought these nations into subjection, he fell upon Egypt in order to overthrow it, and did indeed slay the king who then reigned, but set up another; after which he took those Jews that were there captive, and brought them to Babylon,” etc. The ten years’ time, which Hitzig doubts as the period of the earlier warlike expeditions, is maintained by Tholuck. The fifth year after the taking of Jerusalem would be 581; the thirteen years’ siege of Tyre would fall into the period 586–572 or 573. For the different actions which were in part parallel as to time, we have only to suppose various divisions of the army employed, so that the whole might of Nebuchadnezzar did not at the same time lie before Tyre. The forty years of the Egyptian oppression, Tholuck, like Niebuhr, extends over the entire space that lies between the disaster at Carchemish and the overthrow of Hophra (thirty-six years), “during which Egypt, through the continued and in great part unfortunate warlike enterprises of Hophra, must have been much depopulated and extremely weakened, till at length the inroad of the Chaldeans consummated the oppression.” Tholuck thinks that, “as the prophets in the beginning of the fulfilment comprehended the future (Jer_13:18; Eze_30:24), in the last and completed fulfilment they also comprehended the earlier incomplete ones.” The symbolical explanation of the forty years is not thereby denied (see the exposition). The worth of the statements of Josephus may be questioned, as is done by Hitzig; but for the relation of profane history to our prophecy, it suffices that Hophra miserably perished (Eze_29:4 sq.; Jer_44:30 sq.), and that Egypt again revived, as took place under Amasis, although as a kingdom it was fit to be compared neither with its ancient glory nor with other great monarchies (Eze_29:13 sq.). As regards the resuscitation of Egypt, Duncker mentions that, according to a return of the priests, it then reckoned 20,000 country towns and cities (Herzog’s Realencyc. 1 p. 150), though it was “the last period of Egypt’s glory;” and Lepsius says of the same, that Egypt succumbed to the first pressure of the Persian power, and remained from 525 to 504 a Persian province; that afterwards it became again for a short time independent, until in 340 it was reconquered by the Persians, and in 332 fell under Alexander the Great, etc.
3. Upon the importance of Egypt for the revenge of Nebuchadnezzar, see the exposition of Eze_29:18. Also generally for the Chaldean policy the transition to Egypt is rendered plain to us from Eze_29:17 sq. (Häv.: “if Nebuchadnezzar would make the possession of Phœnicia once for all sure, Egypt must be completely broken.”) Of the importance of Egypt by itself, its characteristic importance, some notice has already been taken, toward the close of the introductory remarks to Ezekiel 25; as also of the distinction, indicated with correct feeling by Keil, between Egypt and the other nations mentioned by Ezekiel. But what Egypt signifies in its connection here, this must be discerned from its relation to Israel. It is quite true that the charge laid against Ammon, Moab, etc., also against Tyre, for spiteful joy, hostility, envy toward Israel, is not mentioned in respect to Pharaoh and Egypt. It may be said that Egypt’s guilt in regard to Israel was that rather of a false, treacherous friendship. If, on the other hand, the excess of proud self-sufficiency must be regarded as the characteristic of Egypt, the same sort of self-elation meets us in the king of Tyre (Ezekiel 28); and in this respect Tyre formed a fitting transition-point to Egypt. The distinction between Tyre and Egypt might perhaps be found in this, that while in particular the kingdom of Tyre had had its time of sacred splendour and past greatness, as we have seen, in its former connection with the kingdom of David, Egypt on its part acquired importance on account of the sojournings of the pilgrim-fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and still more on account of the formation of their descendants into a people. Above all, the idea of redemption was associated with the land of Egypt. Here, therefore, the inverse relation holds good: Tyre has gone with Israel to school; Israel, on the other hand, was at school in Egypt, as was evidenced in manifold agreements and contrasts exhibited in their peculiarity as a people, without our needing on that account to ride off on the Spencerian principle [namely, of a servile borrowing from the institutions of Egypt]. More than from anything else, may be understood from Israel’s reminiscences as a people, and the impress of Egyptian style and manner even upon their sacred things, their abiding sympathetic turning back toward Egypt. That Israel could not let Egypt go out of sight had its root in human nature; we must learn even from the children of this world (Luk_2:6). But it had also its dangerous side. It was Israel’s worldliness, relapse, since Israel had been delivered by Jehovah from this world, and Jehovah had through Moses threatened them in connection with Egypt with the greatest evils (Deu_28:68). We have tribulation in the world, and we may have fear before the world; such fear, however, may be salutary in its operation. But dangerous is the stay that is sought in Egypt, trust and confidence therein. In this respect Egypt is designated a remembrancer of iniquity (Eze_29:16), since for Israel it had, and not as of yesterday, but from of old (comp. also Eze_16:26; Eze_23:8; Eze_23:19), the fatal significance of a pride which resists Jehovah and leads away from Him, of a consciousness of worldly power, which amid the characteristic Pharaonic arrogance expressed itself just as distinctly (Eze_29:3; Eze_29:9) as in Exo_5:2, and had this the more seductively, as a self-conscious abiding worldly power is in fact fitted to impose on people. Friendship with Egypt is the most contemptuous relation in which Israel can be thought of, on account of the indifference which it necessarily implied on the part of the Israelitish people not only in regard to their former house of bondage, but also to the mighty deliverance obtained from it, and generally in what concerned their relation to Jehovah, on whom, as their own and their fathers’ God, they had been thrown from their state of childhood. To make account of this specific historical position in respect to each other, according to which the growth, bloom, and decay of Israel were closely interwoven with Egypt, the prophecy of Ezekiel “dwells at greater length on Egypt than on the other nations” (Häv.). Still more, however, it serves to explain the representation of the judgment upon Egypt as strikingly parallel with that on Israel, and to the last carried out (comp. Eze_29:5; Eze_29:9 sq., 12, 13, etc.). Not less remarkable, because singular, is the prospect and declaration in regard to the resuscitation of Egypt, and of it alone, which have been introduced into the prediction of our prophet; by this also is Egypt quite expressly kept parallel with Israel. The reminiscence which brings up Egypt so distinctly is not simply that of the house of bondage, or of iniquity, but it is Joseph’s post of honour, and the corn granaries of Jacob, together with his family. Comp. also Deu_23:7.
4. The interpretation of Neteler strikes out what is certainly a quite different path, strikingly reminding one of Cocceius, only with a specially Catholic tendency. According to him, the prophecies against the foreign nations constitute four groups, each of which contains four pieces: the first, Ezekiel 25; the second, the overthrow of the Canaanitish culture - development, standing in contrast to the higher calling of Jerusalem, and reaching its culmination in Tyre. The prophecy against Sidon he severs from Tyre, in the interest of this fourfold division; it belongs to the Egyptian group, inasmuch as “Sidon’s bloom falls into the time in which Egypt was the bearer of the Hamitic power and culture,” and “the Sidonian development was a shoot of the Hamitic-Egyptian.” The promises for Israel in this third section (Eze_28:20 to Eze_30:19) must stand parallel with those of the same kind in the first group, wherein punishment is threatened to the four nations with reference to Israel; as the first group, “through Ezekiel 21 (Ammon), is placed in connection with the first destruction of Jerusalem,” so “the third stands, through the opening of the mouth which occurs in it, in closer relation to the symbol of the second destruction of Jerusalem.” The four last prophecies against Egypt are “mere symbols,” according to Neteler. As Ammon “drove the surviving remnant, after the destruction of Jerusalem, out of Judea,” so had “Moab decoyed Israel into gross idolatry before their entrance into Canaan;” and so, in the prophecies against Ammon and Moab, the beginning and end of Israel in regard to Canaan are connected together. The punishment of Edom and the Philistines must point to the “re-establishment of the house of David.” In regard to Tyre Neteler expresses himself thus: “The command given to Israel to root out the Canaanites, but by them neglected to their destruction, God will execute on Tyre through Nebuchadnezzar;” and this command must stand in a noteworthy relation to the historical development of the last period of 800 years before Christ, in which “those to the west (Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans) brought a real advance, while those to the east (the Hamitic kingdoms of Ethiopia and Egypt, the Semitic kingdoms of Assyria and Chaldea, the Japhetic Medians and Persians) repeat the development of the two earlier periods in smaller measure, yet as if thereby the problem of the western circle should be solved.” He says: “If Israel, through the extirpation of the Canaanites, according to Num_36:6-9 (!), had entered into the place of the Phœnicians, it would have formed the first member in the development of this period, and would have shown the right path to the Greek culture which came forth in the second third of it.” To retrieve as much as possible that which was neglected (! ?), “Nebuchadnezzar must subject the Hamitic Tyre, even to the pillars of Hercules, and unite the eastern circle to the monstrous Chaldean kingdom, so that the externally insignificant Israel might be set in the centre of this gigantic Semitic power, which extended its sway even over the Turanian tribes in the high north.” This contrast between the Semitic and Hamitic races (already occurring in the prophecy of Noah) must be of great importance for the understanding of the symbolical representation of Ezekiel in the prophecies relating to Tyre and Egypt. Upon the third group which Neteler distributes, and which reaches to Eze_30:19, we learn that, first of all, in the prophecy against Sidon, “the second possession of the land is associated with the first, as in Ezekiel 20 the first deliverance from Egypt is made parallel with a deliverance in a higher sense.” “As Israel did not fully carry out the extirpation of the Canaanites, whose place, according to Num_33:54, it was their part to occupy, these were turned for them into thorns and briers. With the second possession, on the other hand, the servitude of Canaan, which was announced even by Noah, was after a sort realized, since the Canaanitish history becomes extinct. The second piece in this section, namely Eze_29:1-16, connects the end of the first Israelitish sojourn in Canaan, brought about by Egypt’s iniquity, with the end of Egypt; and the humiliation of Egypt is such an elevation of Israel, that Christianity will not be under temptation to lean upon a decaying heathenism.” The forty years occurring at Eze_29:11 sq. must not be distinguished from the forty years of Judah, for which the prophet had to lie forty days upon his right side; that is, as Neteler remarks on Ezekiel 4, “a symbolical designation of the time, reaching from the destruction of the temple to the return from exile, derived from the sojourn in Kadesh.” “The two first pieces, Eze_28:20 to Eze_29:16, set forth the world-historical ideas, which were to be realized by the introduction of Christianity, but give, as to the way and manner in which the realization should be prepared for, begun, and carried forward, no information—this being first introduced by the prophet in the third piece (Eze_29:17-21). The might of Shem, through which God conquered Canaan in the world’s history, must also carry forward the work in regard to Egypt. In the interest of Israel, whose service to God stands in contrast to Canaanitish industry, God will turn the Semitic world-power against Egypt, by which Israel was compelled to do Canaanitish work, and establish for them, on account of their labour in respect to Canaan, claims for compensation, which God would render valid because of the bondage laid by Egypt on the Israelites. The booty which God took from Egypt after the conflict, on occasion of the first deliverance, was only a type of a later plundering, which in a preparatory manner was begun by Nebuchadnezzar, and after the second deliverance from Egypt, that is, after the redemption achieved by the sufferings of the Servant of God was realized, when all power in heaven and on earth was committed to the episcopate of the Church (!!). The consequence of this victory over Egypt (Eze_30:1-19) is given in the form of a judgment upon Egypt, in which is delineated its desolation and the annihilation of its idols and yokes; but the sons also of the covenant - land are smitten by the judgment, which points to a fall that should take place among them.” The continuation of this Catholic-theological-historical explanation and interpretation of Ezekiel will be given in No. 9.
5. Cocceius remarks on Eze_29:21 : “Evil Merodach gave Jehoiachin freedom, and the first place of honour among the kings. Farther, Daniel was great in the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar, and under the Persian dominion. Cyrus was called by God to give command to lead the people back, that they might rebuild the temple. Still higher grew the horn of Israel when they became free, and their priests assumed the diadem, as a sign of the freedom of the people, and the Israelites had become greater than their fathers, as announced in Deu_30:5. But most especially was it so, when out of David’s house the horn grew, which set the people free from all slavery, which subdued their enemies, and rendered the Gentiles subject to Israel, Psa_132:13-18.”
6. The day of Jehovah, Kliefoth remarks, “is not judgment in one point of time and destruction over the whole heathen world;” and then he continues: “The day of Jehovah is a period of indefinite duration, in the course of which God will punish with judgment and destruction all heathen nations in succession, just as they have shown their hostility to the people of God, and He sees that their time has come. From this point of view, also, is the announcement always to be understood, that this day of Jehovah is at hand. The day continues so long, that it lasts till, in the final judgment, the whole world, in so far as hostile to God, shall be destroyed; but it constantly begins anew, when any particular people, on account of their malevolence manifested to the people of God, falls under the righteous doom of perdition. Hence the day of Jehovah upon the heathen nations has, in the several prophecies, a different terminus a quo, according as they refer to this or that kind of relations.” Only it must not be overlooked, that in Eze_30:1 sq. not indeed Egypt alone is contemplated, but Egypt in its connection with heathen nations; and yet, that it is not the day of judgment upon all anti-theocratic powers that is to be understood, as already Hävernick makes the prophet see this general idea obtaining realization; but as the time of Jerusalem was come, the time when judgment had begun at the house of God, so the time must now be near when this judgment of God shall go forth upon the heathen. Hengstenberg finds here the fundamental passage for Luk_21:24, and points to the overthrow of the Roman Empire,—the “mountain” which was to be cast into the sea after the fig-tree of the Jewish people was withered (Matthew 21.), the “mulberry-tree” which was to be plucked up and removed into the sea (Luk_2:7.).
7. As in the kingdom of Tyre, Ezekiel 28, allusion was made to a time of sacredness upon the holy mount of God, so there was also found there, by way of similitude, a bringing to remembrance of Eden, and especially of the garden of God. This retrospect of paradise furnishes the beau-ideal, the standard for the Old Testament world generally; hence with Assyria, and in connection therewith in reference to Egypt, which had not the same historical position as Tyre, it appropriately comes back again in Ezekiel 31. As in the New Testament all is measured with heaven, so in the Old Testament what is or was glorious upon earth is made to hold of Eden and paradise.
8. On the derivation of the word “Sheol” there confessedly prevails a great diversity of opinion. For the biblical idea, especially the signification of the word in the Old Testament, this only is to be learned from this matter of etymological controversy, that as well the derivation from שָׁעַל, to be hollow (therefore for שְׁעֹל), since it points to “hollowing,” and in so far to the grave, as the derivation which Hupfeld adopts from: “to sink down,” and: “to go apart from one another,” therefore: sinking down, depth, abyss, and: cleft, hollow, empty space—since the burying and the being in the sepulchre can be thereby expressed—both alike avail for the affirmation, that Sheol and the grave more or less run together. The derivation, on the other hand, from שָׁאַל to demand, expresses as to Sheol only what constitutes generally the power and manner of death to demand for itself with insatiable desire all living beings (comp. Isa_5:14; Hab_2:5; Pro_27:20; Pro_30:16). As to form an infinitive verbal substantive, the use of the word belongs predominantly to the poetic language of the Old Testament, whence also is to be explained the circumstance that it never stands with the article. Sheol appears as the aggregate of all graves. Who could venture to deny this aspect of the matter, at least for the 31st and 32d chapters of Ezekiel? It is the universal grave, which calls down to itself all earthly life, how high soever it may have reached, however magnificent it may have been, however valiantly it may have fought. But much, also, as Sheol and the grave (בור) sometimes appear to approach (comp. also Isa_14:11; Isa_14:15), to cover one another, it must still not be overlooked that the grave, more exactly considered, is only the entrance into Sheol (Psa_16:10), which certainly, as it is commonly represented, keeps the hue of the grave, in generals as well as in particulars (ירכתי בור, Eze_32:23); it is the carrying over of the grave to the future state (while the grave as such is still always something here). It is quite reconcilable with this representation when Sheol is conceived of as a locality, and indeed as a deep abyss, just as the standing form of speech: “to go down,” “to be thrown down,” is thence explained as equivalent to being consigned to the dead. The occasional poetic delineation of this future must only not be formally dogmatized into an actual under-world with gates, rivers, etc. (Job_38:17; Psa_18:5 sq.) The going down of the company of Korah (Num_16:30) is often what is floating before the writer’s mind; and not so much the locality of Palestine, which was rich in grottoes and caverns, or the darkness of the Hebrew family tomb-vaults, the stillness of the Egyptian catacomb-world. The interior and inmost part of the earth (Eze_26:20; Eze_32:18), however, is not the earth’s inner region as such, but שְׁאוֹל תַּכְתִיָּה is the Sheol “beneath” (the underground, Eze_31:14); that is, partly the contrast to heaven as the region of the divine life, partly the distinction from the surface turned toward heaven, the face of the earth. Out of that contrast, in which, however, the earth also and its life have their place, and still more in accordance with this distinction from the earthly life, must Sheol and what is connected therewith be understood. The death to which one is surrendered (Eze_31:14) is not simply a going down, not annihilation, but as punishment for sin, the necessary consequence of the negation of God. Considered as a state, it is the contrast in respect to God, as curse, as judgment upon the sinner; hence the contrast in respect to life as divine, as salvation and blessedness, even to eternal perdition; and so Sheol posits a concrete, individual prolongation of life: the dead are represented in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 31.) as living on individually and in space. Passages such as Psa_104:29; Psa_146:4, and others, certainly have respect to the earthly life in the body, with its purposes and undertakings, doing and thinking, knowledge and wisdom together, Ecc_9:10 (so our Lord Himself in Joh_9:4 makes account of it for His diligence in working while in the flesh). As life on earth in a mortal body is for all men a troublesome, poor, and sorrowful thing, so certainly the advancing decay of the powers of life, with the dissolution of the union between soul and body, necessarily becomes quiescence, impotence, and withdrawal of their life-energy in regard to the appointed sphere of action. But passages like Job_26:5 sq., Eze_38:17, Pro_15:11, Psa_139:8, testify to the presence of the living God, through whom the subsisting and passing away of all beings is conditioned, as is said also in the אֲבַדּוֹן made parallel with Sheol (comp. Mar_12:27; Luk_20:38). The contrast, therefore, to the heavenly upper world as the proper region of the divine life is not that of not-being and being; and just as little is the continued existence in Sheol an unconscious shade-existence, at least not according to Ezekiel’s representation: the heroes in Sheol speak and know themselves as such over against others, feel, etc. As the designation of shades (דפאים) for the dead in the Old Testament times cannot be proved, so the appearance, for example, of Samuel (1 Samuel 28.), so entirely accordant with the spirit and address of Samuel as he actually lived, is not at all brought forward as an exception, somewhat after the manner of the Theban seer Tiresias (Odyss. x. 492 sq.). In the Old Testament, also, we read nothing of an instinctive repetition and continuation of the past life connected with the possession of blood. The representation of Sheol, into which there has often been greatly too much imported of heathen elements, is in no respect the localizing of the image, which, as Meier says, “remains like a blanched, bloodless, shadowy form, in the spirit of the living, of their dead and buried fellow-men.” Life in Sheol cannot, indeed, run counter to the conditions that prevail in respect to human life. Man is soul, but he has spirit, which for him constitutes the power wherein the life of the individual consists; while the soul is plainly the seat of that, as the body is its organ. If the life connected with the body appears as life in the flesh, when separated therefrom it will become an existence of the spirit, and departed men will necessarily have to be thought of as spirits, and can only in so far be termed “souls” as a retrospective sense of the earlier corporeal life has place. On this side the description of Sheol is certainly, and especially as contradistinguished from the earthly upperground life, kept in due regard to the state of things existing there. With the going down into the grave, the bright joyful sunlight vanishes for men; hence Sheol is the land of darkness and of the shadow of death (Job_10:21). While the world of light is an organized one, the midnight region of Sheol appears as a confused intermingling of substances, chaotic (Job_10:22). Busy life, so repeatedly designated “tumult” in this chapter of Ezekiel, becomes motionless in the grave; so in Psa_115:17 the dead go down to silence, to stillness (comp. Psa_104:17; Psa_31:18). The expression, however, of “land of forgetfulness,” Psa_88:12, must not be overstretched, though the reference is to be held fast in which it is said that, as God has given the earth to the children of men (Psa_115:16), so the manifestation of His wonder-working power and righteousness is promised to them on the earth while they are in the flesh. Not in the heathen materialistic sense, but Christologically, however still on the temporal side, the thought as to its form was presented in the Old Covenant. And thence are such passages as Psa_6:5; Psa_30:10 [Psa_30:9], Psa_88:10-11, Psa_115:17, Isa_38:18, to be understood. The dead, accordingly, are done (Psa_88:5); their state, Sheol, is without a history (on the other hand, comp. 1Co_15:19). But to complete our knowledge of the Old Testament Sheol, the ethical side is not to be overlooked, that is, the idea of recompense comes therein likewise into consideration (comp. Eze_32:23 sq.). The godly are there gathered to their fathers (Gen_25:8; Gen_35:29, etc.). It is a mode of representation which incidentally receives a very touching illustration in Luk_16:22 for the poor, who has no brother in the world, who is an abject, forlorn, when he is said to be received into Abraham’s bosom. The righteous snatched away enters into peace, and rests therein upon the foundation of the grave (Isa_57:1). How far with the soul, when unclothed of the body, there takes place “an ineffectual tormenting effort to consolidate itself corporeally” (Beck)—the spirit, however, being incapable of being contemplated apart from the soul, which conditions its individuality, therefore also not to be thought of “as sunk after death into the corruption of the flesh”—may be left undecided. It is enough that the rich man found himself “in torment.” With justice, however, Lange presses the thought that for the wicked Sheol is still not hell.
9. Neteler (comp. 4) maintains concerning Eze_30:21 to Eze_32:32, that is, the fourth of the groups set off by him, that “through four symbols the overthrow of a power standing in antagonism to the Church is exhibited,” and that what is said is to be taken “eschatologically in a wider sense.” Egypt is considered by him as “a symbol of the power of Magog,” and under the Chaldeans is found “a combination of Romans and Germans.” And here Neteler’s book dwells on the “Russian Panslavism.” The two last symbols must be fulfilled in the overthrow of Magog “only provisionally,” so that “their complete fulfilment belongs to a still later future.”
HOMILETIC HINTS
On Ch. 29
Eze_29:1-5. The close is made with Egypt, as Egypt was the beginning in respect to Israel.—“Egypt is with Ezekiel the oldest country of his people’s disgrace” (Umer.).—How clear is what God causes to be said to us! The address is plainly written, and can occasion no doubt to whom the word is directed; and not less clearly does it shine forth whose subscription stands under it, and who, therefore, will look after the punctual execution of the things spoken. It will not proceed according to man’s sayings and opinions, but as God the Lord has said.—The prophetic word so much the surer as the fulfilment of it now lies completely before us.—What still survives of the Pharaohs lies in the midst of the wilderness; they are ruins to which the sand has still refused burial!—“Where can a mortal say: This is mine, or: This remains to me? But prosperity, where it is not understood as God’s blessing, makes people stupidly proud. See there, too, the blessing of tribulations, which demonstrate before our eyes, that nothing is our right, and nothing our abiding property” (Stck.).—Those who do not seek after the things which are above regard the Nile, which flows on the earth, with precisely such eyes.—“But that there is also a spiritual Egypt may be seen from Rev_11:8, and that is a people, kingdom, and dominion which holds in fetters the people of God and makes them slaves. Now, as under the great dragon in the sea Antichrist also comes to be considered, together with his scales and members that stick to him, and are in a manner innumerable, so shall this power also after the prince of Tyre receive his doom, with all his adherents, who by overbearing conscience have done so much wrong to the faithful. Then also will appear the vain help which the house of Israel has sometimes assumed as belonging to the reed of the fleshly arm” (B. B.).—“Satan says to Jesus: All this will I give thee, all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, though still there was not an atom thereof in reality his” (Luther).—“Oh how vain is man in prosperity!” (St.)
Eze_29:4-5. Higher still than the highest is the Most High. He who comes from heaven is higher than all.—“It is bad when only amid loss people come wisely to learn that they had all of God, of which they were so proud and boasted themselves” (Stck.).—Pharaoh in the wilderness, and Jesus in the wilderness.—They who set themselves up above others may readily observe that they are thrown off and away before they are themselves aware of it!—The judgment of Jehovah upon the Pharaohs!—Jehovah at the Pyramids, a very different object from Napoleon before them.—The overthrow in the wilderness an image of a desolate ruin.
Eze_29:6-7. God punishes not those only who rely upon flesh, but those also who are flesh and yet wish others to find comfort in them.—No knowledge of God and no knowledge of self—this is what gives false self-confidence, and false confidence in man.—The love of God in discovering the false and rotten props.—“A reed is everything that is in this world, as man’s favour, temporal prosperity, beauty, yea, the corporeal life itself; from without it appears like a staff, and as if many were walking with it, but within it is hollow and brittle” (Stck.).—But for none is such a reed more suspicious than for the people to whom God has pledged Himself, and therewith all His wisdom and His omnipotence.—It is certainly the same with the deceit and show of one’s own righteousness, good purposes, and pious works. One cannot keep hand and shoulder far enough from these.—How many a one has such like splinters in his conscience!—The false reed-splinters in our bones, which make our going so feeble and our holding so insecure.—“The soldiers give to Christ a reed in mockery, Matthew , 27.” (Luther).
Eze_29:8-16. The judgment of God by the sword in its significance for enemy and friend, warrior and conqueror, land and people.—Desolation is always a mark of punishment. First men become waste, then their place is laid waste.—Where the people become waste as regards God, there God causes the land to be waste of its people.—Whosoever will have it that he has made himself to be what he says that he is, with him God must make an end, so that he may learn what he himself is, and how still God can do all.—The mine and thine, as the grand controversy which moves the world’s history.—So the sin of the people is their ruin; but though ancient history is full of examples, those who now live are not disposed to profit by them.—“Should one not be ashamed of such a speech, since it must so soon be changed into a past—it has been mine; and this often with much sorrow?” (B. B.)—The description of the earth is also a description of divine justice.—By means of fragments and arrow-heads in the yellow sands of the desert, and obelisks which still point heavenwards, people now read the names of men, of kings, and such like; but the feci of God is likewise to be read there.—The divine seasons of respite.—The years of humiliating in their significance for Egypt and for us all as punishments and deliverance from high-mindedness.—To stand low is to stand more secure than to go beyond bound and limit.—“All changes in the world have their bearing ultimately on the Church” (St. ).—God knows how to withdraw from the eyes of His own what dazzled their eyes and held them captive.—“Such is the aim of all the judgments that are inflicted, to withdraw the body of the faithful from confidence in what is human, and to supplant it by a firm trust in God” (B. B.).
Eze_29:17-21. Warrior service hard service. He who serves God does not serve without pay.—The recompense of our works is never made on the ground of merit, but is always of grace.—“The downfall of the world is the deliverance of the chosen” (H. H.). Therefore lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh (Luk_21:28).—When the world becomes poor, then the bones of the righteous flourish.—The new life out of ruins.—Upon silence to speak is better than to be silent upon speech.—It is God who must open the mouth for us, and He also can do it.—Immortality in the world and the eternal life in the sanctuary, Psa_23:6.
On Ch. 30
Eze_30:1-9. “The judgments of God pass from His own people to other peoples; hence the day of the heathen could not be far off” (Cocc.).—Despair howls, hope waits.—A day in clouds is also the day of death; the earth is shrouded from the eye, and especially when first the heaven has been covered to the spirit. Darkness then reigns below and above. How dark, then, is the grave!—Bad times are met by watchfulness; howling merely goes before them as the loud blast before the outburst of the thunderstorm.
Eze_30:4-5. Many others are carried along with the fall of one. In every judgment that takes place in the world, behold a type and prelude of the judgment which is to be executed on the world.—If not with the sinner immediately, yet on the sinner, and therefore through the sinner his companions shall be punished.—Where God strikes the blow, there not only is the stir which a people makes, and with which it makes such a noise, its work and gain brought down, but also law and order and that whereon all rests are overthrown.
Eze_30:6-7. How helpless with all his appliances may one that was helpful to us prove in a night! May God be our help, who has made heaven and earth.
Eze_30:9. Everything does service as a messenger for God; in particular His word, which hence cannot be bound, but accomplishes that whereto it is sent.—God’s seat of judgment stands always among mankind, and the world’s history is God’s judgment.—The terrors in the history of the world.—As there is a false security in individual men, so is there also a bad security with whole peoples.—The national security a national loss.
Eze_30:10-19. When men do not sanctify God on holidays, God makes their bustling activity to keep holiday.—When God wills, a man’s name can cause terror to the world. But only One Name is given under heaven to men wherein we can happily exult before all terrors.—Upon deeds of violence come still more violent ones, and tyrants are precipitated through tyrants.—“Whosoever sells himself to sin has already in doing so sold himself to his enemy” (Stck.).—God’s blessing fills, His curse impoverishes a land.
Eze_30:13. The hand of God alights some time upon all idols.—From the overthrow of heathenism is seen the vanity of idols.—“Where are the famous cities of the olden times? Why do they lie buried in disorderly stone-heaps? Sinner, behold what sin may effect” (St.),—how it may build very high indeed, yet not for continuance, and still more may destroy.—Gods and princes combined the common delusion of idolatry, at first in splendour, so afterwards in ruin!—Terror is the opposite of courage, but not the fear of the Lord.—Where God kindles a fire, it is always for judgment; the old is consumed therein, but a new springs forth out of the ruins.—Without casting down, no progress in the life of humanity.
Eze_30:16. Must not man always be engaged in conflict?
Eze_30:17. With its youth the human future of a people goes down. Even the youth should be “the chosen” of God; instead of this, Satan at no period has so much of his nature in men as in the season of youth.
Eze_30:18-19. Walk in the light while ye still have the light,—we, that is, who have the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.—The judgment of God may, through the dogmas of men and a false philosophy, veil to us also the sun of truth, and wrap in darkness to men’s view heaven and eternity.—When at length, with the authority of God, the authority also of the law over men gives way, then, where superstition gives place to unbelief, there falls upon them yoke for yoke, one in the room of another; there is only an exchange of tyrants.—How much old and high renown have the gravediggers of the world’s history already buried under the sod among other sweepings! What is gloria mundi?—a transit.—The new plagues of Egypt.—The spirit of Pharaoh continued to be the spirit of the Pharaohs.—Self heights are no heights—none, at least, that stand in the judgment of God, and remain above though all else should go down and disappear; but a height in the true sense is that simply whereof it is said, As high as heaven is above the earth, Psa_103:11. This ought to be recognised, and that not merely at the last, amid howlings and gnashings of teeth, but betimes, when it may still serve for peace, with the calm open eye.—“The most wretched of all thoughts is that of having no part in God. How many an evil-doer has readily presented his head to the sword, in the conviction that through the punishment he should become a partaker of God!” (H.)
Eze_30:20-26. How many the things are that men prize as an “arm,” and how easily these arms are broken!—The arm of the Lord (Isaiah 53.), and the arm of man, and the armies of princes.—“More easily is an arm broken than healed; but now first of all the conscience, how Gainfully does it sting, and how long is it in healing!” (Stck.)—What God has broken, God only can heal.
Eze_30:22. But man never has enough by a fracture; so long as he can still move and stir otherwise, he must show himself. Therefore shall there come to be a destruction without mercy, if we will not submit to God on the footing of grace.—“Sickness breaks one arm, death both arms” (Stck.).—Every breakage which we must suffer is a call to repentance.
Eze_30:23. “He who will not fear God in his fatherland has no injustice done him, if in a foreign land he is made to experience all sorts of misfortune” (St.).
Eze_30:24-26. “Strength and weakness come both from God” (W.).—“Upon whose side Jehovah stands, that man prevails in the conflict; to him there is prosperity in life; he enjoys a blessing with his work. But this favour has the Lord promised to the righteous. Without God all ends unfortunately, mournfully, and in perdition” (Stck.).—What serves God, that serves also the kingdom and the power of the Spirit; just as at the last, all the kingdoms of this world shall become God’s and His Christ’s.
On Ch. 31
Eze_31:1-2. “The greatness of Egypt was the presumption against the warnings of the prophet. But greatness is no security against destruction; no greatness upon earth can withstand the strokes of God” (H.).—“With justice are kingdoms compared in Scripture to trees, as well on account of their form, the protection and shadow they afford to men and beasts, as also on account of their fruits; and still farther in this respect, that kingdoms, like trees, flourish and again cease to exist, torn up by the wind, or cut down by the hatchet of man” (L.).—It is very well for people to compare themselves with others, though not for the purpose of thinking better of themselves than others, as the Pharisee in the temple over against the publican, or in order to envy others; but humbly to learn that we are a part of mankind, and that what is human may befall us, and shall at last take place without exception. Also to make each one more contented with his lot, a comparison with others is, as a rule, fitted to be serviceable.—“Both the one and the other inference is right: As God has elevated that humble one, so can He, in His own time, elevate me; as God has abased that proud one, so may it also be done with me” (Stck.).
Eze_31:3-9. “The histories of the world might teach great lords much, that they should not rely upon their own powers” (Lg.).—Rulers and princes should be shady trees to the righteous.—“God has done good also to the heathen, that they might seek Him, if haply they might find Him, Act_17:26-27” (Stck.).—“Oh, what streams of grace flow upon the unthankful, if they would only perceive them! The waters are indeed not of one sort—one portion swims in pure felicity, another in tribulation and adversity; but the aim is uniform, and the divine loving-kindnesses which are concealed under the latter are certainly greater than the former, in the eyes of those who know to estimate things aright” (B. B.).—But their favourable condition and the friendliness of God only serve with many to puff them up, and render them proud and arrogant,—an end for which certainly all this was not given.—He with whom it overflows should make it trickle over upon others.
Eze_31:7. To be radical in the proper sense is a good thing, namely, that one should know that his root is in God.—“The true comeliness of a prince stands in comely virtues, which adorn every man, especially a prince,—clemency and justice above all; to afford protection and solace to the persecuted; to spread forth as it were his branches to the miserable; to have about him servants resplendent with his own virtues, so that, as in every branch the nature of the tree, so in every servant the character of the prince, may appear reflected. He and they must not be terrible to the good, nor oppressive to his subjects. The love of the people is a good root for a race of princes” (Cocc.).
Eze_31:8. Better to be envied than commiserated. God makes man beautiful, as He alone also makes him good; the latter is the divine nature, the former the divine form, of a man.
Eze_31:10-13. I have given thee into the hand of such and such an one—this explains much darkness.—The haughty spirit going before, the key to the fall afterwards.—“Now, however, we are all in Adam inclined to pride of soul; and the perishing things of this world, riches, honour, splendour, beauty, knowledge, etc., nourish our natural inclination, being all things which we overestimate. However, even a plain smockfrock often covers a repulsive arrogance. But kings are through their flatterers nourished in this vice, which is the root of all others” (L.).—One must grow in order to be able to lift the top so high; this is not so quickly reached;—on the other hand, to arrive at the lowest depth there needs only one overthrow, which may take place in a single moment.—One falls more quickly down a stair than one mounts up again.—God cannot suffer pride; I am meek and lowly in heart, it was said by Him who was God manifest in the flesh, Mat_11:29.—Out of the heart of man proceed also all high things that are offensive to God, which need not always wear a crown, but may have merely a pen behind the ear, or a pair of spectacles on the nose.
Eze_31:12-13. From the foreign land comes much suffering—first foreign sins, then punishment through foreigners.—A shameful fall into sin, and a frightful fall into misfortune—both invite to study.—There must also fall into the valleys branches that have been broken off, that poor people may not think the great ones of the earth are freed from death and judgment.—When the punishments of God break forth, then such as can flee gladly make off, while they were not to be enticed out of the shadow of sin, in which they delighted themselves.—God shakes the luxurious tree from top to bottom, and then all that stuck to its branches fall off; and so they are struck off, since they did not allow themselves to be warned off.—“How does the shadow of the rich vanish with the sun of prosperity, and with the shadow depart also the flatterers and panegyrists ! ” (Stck.)—He who chooses to be forsaken must become poor.—Fate can keep up the interest, but a rich man who has become poor is a woe-begone phenomenon for the world.—“How often do the goods of a rich man become scattered over the world after his death!” (Stck.)—Discern false friends in adversity!—To cut, and peck, and aid in plundering the very person in whose prosperity men formerly basked, and whom they hardly knew how to laud highly enough!—“So deeply is the friendship of the world rooted, and its caresses. So long as all goes well, friends and worshippers are readily found. But when that changes, all goes otherwise”(B. B.).
Ver.14. Precautions must be taken that the trees do not grow into the heavens.—All are born naked—no one comes in purple into the world; but that is far from working so powerfully as the thought that the king must die as the beggar.—Death the moral of the human fable.—“A mighty lesson for our time” (Richt.).—Somewhat for People who would see clearly upon the death of Napoleon.—That there is to be a general judgment after this life is evident alone from death, which strikes all, even great men.—“The consideration of the inevitable exit of all who live should beget moderation in pretensions. We take nothing with us of that which so many desire with such eagerness” (L.).
Eze_31:15-18. Great fates cast forth also great shadows.—If our terrors did but lead us to the knowledge of our misery, as well as of the glory of God!—The grave unites all at the last.—“The glory of the earth must become dust and ashes,” etc.—But who believes our report may be said also here: he who exalts himself shall be abased, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.—“Thus God throws the loftinesses of men into one heap ” (B. B.).—“And so circumcision makes a distinction in death—not, of course, that which is done in the flesh, but the circumcised heart; so that a circumcised person may have his place also among the uncircumcised, as, on the other side, uncircumcised persons, who are not so in heart, may be counted as circumcised. At the close, however, the prophet writes the name ‘Pharaoh’ on the lid of the coffin” (Cocc.).
On Ch. 32
Eze_32:1-2. How far otherwise have the court-poets ever and anon elegized !—The comparison with lions and dragons withdraws much that is human in respect to Pharaoh.—“This robberfish (?) and dragon, which with his feet troubles the streams, is like the beast that should ascend out of the sea (Revelation 13.). Pharaoh is hence the enemy of the chosen, a roaring lion, which troubles the waters of heavenly wisdom with the slime of human additions, so that they provide no proper drink for those who thirst for salvation” (H. H.).—“Should Christian kings be like lions and dragons? They ought to be the fathers of their country, caring day and night for the welfare of their subjects” (St.).—“Tyrants and the covetous are insatiable, and cannot be at rest” (Stck.).—“Ah! how much misfortune can be brought about by a restless ruler! Therefore pray for a peaceful government of the kingdom” (St.).
Eze_32:3-10. “The godless hasten to meet their destruction, without being afraid of it, but often secretly driven thereto by God ” (H. H.).—“God is the supreme hunter and fisher; He can throw upon the lions His toils, and upon the whales His net, to catch and destroy them” (W.).—“God knows how to tame the untamed, to humble the proud, and to curb the fierce; who can resist His power?” (Stck.)—To be rejected, if not thrown entirely away, is the end of the mighty after the flesh.—Corruption the last strophe also in heroic poetry.—“How mournful is it to be cast away by God!” (Stck.)—Even the ass will plant his footstep on the wounded dying lion.—What the rich boast themselves so much of is but a carcase, which those who live after them will divide among themselves.—“After death, shame and reproach overtake the wicked and shameless” (H. H.).
Eze_32:5-6. Overflowing for overflowing; for the waters of Egypt, now the blood of the hosts of Pharaoh.—“They who formerly swam in pleasures, shall by and by swim in their own blood” (Stck.).
Eze_32:7. “The greatness of the calamity is described by the prophet from the sense of those whom the tribulation affects, to whom it seems as if the whole world were enveloped in darkness” (H. H.).—“The lights of heaven truly shine only for the happy; the sun exists not but for the sunlit eye” (H.).—“The godly sustain themselves in such circumstances by the thought that the Lord is their light, and therefore will not suffer the light of their heart to go out” (L.).—“But he who despises the light of grace, for him the light of glory also shall not shine” (Stck.).—It is also dark, and the stars even fall from the heaven, when great, noble, important, eminent men, heroes, sages, lawgivers, governors, teachers, are carried off by death—or worse, when they fall away into superstition or unbelief, ungodliness, injustice, and violence.
Eze_32:9. “Many a fall leads to the elevation of others” (St.).—To be frightened is still not to be awakened, and awakening without enlightenment is spiritual tumult without spiritual life.—The grave, too, is an unknown land, and thither we are all journeying. Yet for faith there is a sun which rises upon it, that never goes down.—“So the Lord loves to inspire terror, that He may break fleshly confidence” (H. H.).—Happy for him whom a sincere conversion has made secure against the terrors which seize upon the whole earth!—He who still has to fear for his soul, let him consider that the whole world can profit him nothing!—Every moment are we in danger of death, and consequently in sight of eternity.
Eze_32:11-16. If no other cure proves effectual, then God betakes Himself to the sword.—The method of salvation through blood and iron; but what is the state of society presupposed in connection with it!—The guillotine and the sword both do their work quickly, and bring what is before as it were under them.
Eze_32:13. “It touches a miserly man much more nearly if his beast dies, than if his children are taken from him by death” (St.).—A stock of cattle a state of peace.
Eze_32:14-15. The stillness of the desert is indeed stillness, but it is not peace, any more than to flow “like” oil is the soft nature of the spirit.—There is rest in the grave, but much unrest thereafter, yea, more unrest, and of a worse kind than existed before.—“There go the waters softly, as in mourning” (Umbr.).—But God knows how to set at rest a land and its creatures which have been plagued and misused by men. Where have the oppressors gone? They also lie still.—Lamentation does not take away the pain, but in the lamentation it lives on.
Eze_32:17-32. Whoever would gain a thorough insight into the dominions and powers of the earth, he must look down into hell.—The instructive glance into hell.—The song of hell.—La divina comœdia of Ezekiel.—The doctrine of Sheol as the doctrine of the state after death.—What does the Sheol of the Old Testament signify? (1) According to its name, the demand of death on all persons and things, therefore the power of death over every individual person and thing; therefore that death is the wages of sin, the judgment of God’s wrath which takes effect on the flesh. (2) As to the thing, it is the state after death as existence in a spacious grave; that is, notwithstanding the dissolution of the body and the separation of soul and body, a continuous life of the spirit, and that with consciousness and recollection—hence, according to the character of this, in peace or disquiet.—Woe to him whom the doom of death precipitates into condemnation in death!—One can strike up no song to the living more unacceptable, yet at the same time none more profitable, than one about dying; should any one refuse to accompany it, it will still be sung upon him.—He to whom the earth was all, when he sinks into the grave, all sinks with him. It is thus easily comprehensible how death stretches into the future, even into the grave, and how all appears as grave and graves.—People and princes, Sheol demands both.—“Only to the pious is the tomb a chamber where they softly sleep, a resting-place without pain and commotion, a mother’s bosom (as we are from the earth), a place of repose to lie down in” (Stck.).
Eze_32:19. It will be so much the worse if one has been nothing but fleshly, for death seizes in a rough and frightful manner.
Eze_32:20. The sword cuts into the life, severs from life, sadly if also from God. For to die is what still goes on, to corrupt also; but to become lost for ever, that is the death without end, to die for evermore.
Eze_32:21. The salutation of the dead toward the living when they die.
Eze_32:22 sq. “What is received into the human heart, finds its grave also there; so round about the prince of death are his grave-places, wherein after a spiritual manner he is buried” (Gregory).—The grave for the unconverted, the condemned, the perspective of the future world.—“The grave is very deep, even though in a material point of view it may be but a few feet down: it is deep enough to shroud all glory” (H.).—“Powerfully seizes the mind and humbles the pride the ever-recurring There, when the subject of discourse has respect to a fallen king and his hosts. … We look upon a limitless field of graves, and it is remarkable and peculiar to our prophet, that he transfers the graves also to the lower world” (Umbr. ).—“As the elect come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God, so the cast off find their way to the uncircumcised, to the pierced by the sword, in the depths below” (H. H)—Here many graves, in the house of the Father many mansions.—The counterpart of the fellowship of believers upon earth, of the elect in heaven.—The lowest Sheol and the heavenly Jerusalem.—The earth is everywhere indeed the Lord’s, but not all the dead die in the Lord.
Eze_32:27. Men take with them into the state of the dead their knowledge, and along therewith the judicial sentence due to their manner of life.—Nothing is forgotten before God which is not forgiven.—The wrath of God remains on them, it is said in John.
Eze_32:31. “It is a wretched consolation which is derived from the circumstance that people see in others the same torments which themselves experience. And yet misguided mortals do really comfort themselves with it. It is a common necessity, they say; others have experienced the same, and are experiencing it daily,” etc. (H. H.)—The word of God, however, brings home to every man at last the application: this is such and such an one; as we find written on the tombstones: Here lies N. N.—“The Pharaohs prepare to swallow up without mercy: Jacob’s Shepherd laughs at them,” etc. (Hiller.)
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 Pharaoh--"Phra" in Burmah, signifies the king, high priest, and…
Pharaoh--"Phra" in Burmah, signifies the king, high priest, and idol.
whale--rather, any monster of the waters; here, the crocodile of the Nile. Pharaoh is as a lion on dry land, a crocodile in the waters; that is, an object of terror everywhere.
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camest forth with thy rivers--"breakest forth" [FAIRBAIRN]. The antithesis of "seas" and "rivers" favors GROTIUS rendering, "Thou camest forth from the sea into the rivers"; that is, from thy own empire into other states. However, English Version is favored by the "thy": thou camest forth with thy rivers (that is, with thy forces) and with thy feet didst fall irrecoverably; so Israel, once desolate, troubles the waters (that is, neighboring states).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 1. Twelfth year — This is March, 584 B.C.,…
1. Twelfth year — This is March, 584 B.C., a little more than a year and a half after Jerusalem’s ruin had been accomplished. The fall of the holy city has caused him to hear the sound of the falling empires which were her destruction.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–32 1. The prophecy is dated the first of the…
1. The prophecy is dated the first of the twelfth month of the twelfth year, nearly a year and seven months after the fall of Jerusalem. Syr. reads eleventh year.
Ch. 32 Final prophecy against Pharaoh
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The chapter contains two parts:
First, Eze_32:1-16. A lament over Pharaoh.
Second, Eze_32:17-32. A funeral dirge over the interment of him and his multitude.
The line of thought in Eze_32:1-16 resembles that in the other chapters:
(1) Eze_32:1-6. Pharaoh, represented as a dragon in the waters, is dragged out by the net of Jehovah, and flung upon the land, where all fowls and beasts feed on him. His carcase fills the land and his blood the water-courses.
(2) Eze_32:7-10. Shock of nature and commotion among the nations, even the most distant and unknown to Egypt, over his fall.
(3) Eze_32:11-16. The instrument of his destruction is the king of Babylon. The overthrow of Pharaoh and his people shall be complete. The land shall be desolate and life shall cease in it; no foot of living creature, man or beast, shall trouble its waters, which shall run smooth and dead.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31 (1) In the twelfth year.—This was one year and…
(1) In the twelfth year.—This was one year and between six and seven months after the destruction of Jerusalem, and when, therefore, one great hindrance to Nebuchadnezzar’s march upon Egypt had been removed. It is also nearly two months (Eze_33:21) since Ezekiel had heard of this calamity through a fugitive. It could not have been very long before the arrival of the fugitive Jews in Egypt, after the murder of Gedaliah; yet that it was somewhat earlier is plain from Eze_33:24. It was about the same time with the similar prophecies of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 43, 44); but as the date both of the murder and of the flight are unknown (except that the former occurred in the seventh month—Jer_41:1—but of what year is not stated), the exact chronological relation of these things must remain uncertain.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 In the twelfth year, etc. March, B.C. 584, nineteen…
In the twelfth year, etc. March, B.C. 584, nineteen months attar the destruction of Jerusalem. The two sections of the chapter, Vers. 1-16 and 17-32, belong to the same year, and probably, though the date of the month is net given for the second, were written within a fortnight of each other. The thoughts of the prophet still dwell upon the downfall of Egypt, and he is stirred, as by a special inspiration, to write an elaborate "lamentation" over its departed greatness. It would seem, from the repetition of the word in Ver. 16, as if the elegy had originally been intended to end there. Possibly it may have occurred to the prophet that what he had written was rather a prediction of coming evil than a lamentation, and therefore needed to be completed by a second, coming more strictly under that title.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-10. Judgment on a proud king.
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The mightiest king is not irresponsible. Although he may find no authority on earth to exercise control over him, he shall find that an unseen Power holds him in check, and chastises his oppressions. From the ubiquity of God"s scepter he cannot escape. We have here described
I A MONSTER OF MISCHIEF. He is represented as "a young lion of the nations," as "a whale in the seas." He is noteworthy, not for intellectual or manly qualities, but merely for animal strength and violence. This is ignoble and infamous. This is to degrade one"s self. He who was created to be a ruler over the animal tribes lowers himself to be their equal. His crown is gone. To do good is worthy of a man; to do mischief is beast-like. "Thou troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers." It is easy to do mischief; it is tenfold harder to do permanent good. Amaniac can destroy in an hour what a man of genius has taken long years to create. The king who devotes himself to aggressive warfare lowers himself to the level of a beast. A lion of the forest does the same.
II HIS HUMILIATING CAPTURE. "I will therefore spread out my net over thee." The man who has been a firebrand among the nations, a pestilent destroyer, God often takes, with facility, in one of his nets. In the net of bodily disease King Herod was taken eaten up of worms, and died." Sometimes God captures men by means of their own vices. Their lust or their drunkenness hath slain them. Sometimes God uses the plot of a conspirator, the intrigue of a palace cabal. Sometimes God uses the simplest agency of nature, as when the snow-flakes overwhelmed Napoleon"s army, and defeated his purpose. A change of wind is sufficient to capture the royal monster, as when God turned the waves of the Red Sea over Pharaoh and his host. It is the height of folly for a king to be self. willed or to lose sight of the King of kings.
III HIS COMPLETE DESTRUCTION. "I will cast thee forth upon the open field." The figure is maintained, viz. that the dead carcass of the monster shall lie unburied in the open field. This is not spoken of the person of Pharaoh, but of his imperial power, his existence as a monarch. His rule was to be destroyed. His crown and scepter should pass into hostile hands. Improbable as this event seemed at the moment of Ezekiel"s announcement, it nevertheless came to pass. The dynasty of the Pharaohs ceased. The line of the Ptolemies occupied the throne. The improbable very frequently becomes the actual.
IV NOTORIOUS DISHONOR. "I will fill the beasts of the whole earth with thee." The extreme idea of degradation and infamy is here delineated. Men crave for posthumous fame. They yearn to have a place of honor in the memory of coming generations. For the lifeless body to be treated with insult and neglect is a perpetual dishonor. Still greater is the dishonor when precious human blood is poured out, as a worthless thing, to irrigate the soil. Herein is the old doctrine confirmed, "They that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." In silent, unexpected methods God vindicates himself,
V HIS FUNERAL DIRGE. "I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light." The inanimate objects of nature are poetically described as sympathizing with the doleful event. Man and nature are linked together. Man"s fall was felt throughout the natural world. "The whole creation groaneth and travalleth together in pain until now." Man"s recovery wilt be the consummation of nature"s joy. "Then shall all the trees of the field rejoice;" "There shall be new heavens and a new earth." If only to give to men a livelier impression of the greatness of the disaster in Egypt, the luminaries of heaven are supposed to hide their faces in a mantle. In Egypt the light of the sun and of the moon are most brilliant. Seldom ever is a cloud seen. Hence the singular occurrence of sudden darkness would leave a deeper effect upon the human mind. The distant stars are moved by man"s rise or fall.
VI A WORLD-WIDE SHOCK. "I will make many people amazed at thee, and their kings shall be horribly afraid for thee." Pharaoh had seemed to be the highest embodiment of strength. His army had been prodigious. The desert on every side had been a rampart of defense. His power was well-established had been of long continuance. His scepter had wide renown. If he fell, who can stand? where could safety be found? A sense of insecurity shock every monarch. Every man"s life seemed to tremble in a balance. Distant nations heard the news of Pharaoh"s fall with bated breath. Clearly a tremendous power hovered about them, all the more to be dreaded because unseen. Each man felt that he might be the next to be stricken down. All human calculations failed. Calm self-possession, in all seasons, is the special heritage of the godly. D.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-10. God"s teaching in history.
As the prophet continues his utterance in the same strain, our thought is directed to the same class of truths, and we learn
I THAT GREAT SINNERS ARE GREAT TROUBLERS. Egypt was a young lion among the nations, fierce, dangerous, dreaded (Ver. 2). It was a crocodile in the river, "breaking forth," troubling the waters," and "fouling" them (Ver. 2). Great cities like Rome and Sparta, powerful kingdoms like Assyria anti Egypt, strong men like Scylla and Napoleon, have been sad troublers of their time. They have been invaders of territory, destroyers of institutions, disturbers of domestic life. And whenever strength is found dissociated from Christian principle and the Christian spirit, there must always be grave danger of trouble. To propound their own notions, to contrive their own comfort, to extend their own influence, unprincipled or selfish men will use their strength to disturb their neighbors" peace, reckless of the good they are undoing and of the misery and mischief they are causing.
II THAT THEY FIND THEMSELVES DEFEATED IN THE END. God spreads out his net (Ver. 3), and the raging animal, the powerful fish, is taken in it. In the height of their power great nations and strong men imagine themselves to be absolutely secure, and they laugh at the designs of their enemies. But they do not know what forces are at work either within or around them; and they do not calculate that there is One who is working above them and against them. And as surely as the night follows the day, the hour of darkness will come to those who use the light of heaven to abuse their privileges and to wrong their fellow-men. Defeat and calamity await them. And sometimes it will be found
III THAT PALPABLE DISCOMFITURE SUCCEEDS DEFEAT. This great dragon of the deep could not be buried out of sight; its carcass was "upon the green field," "laid upon the mountains," and "filling the valleys," even" watering the laud with its blood" (Vers. 4-6). It could not be hidden; the ruin of the once proud kingdom should be
Gross as a mountain, open, palpable.
Every eye should see it, every tongue should talk about it. Let men who are now prominent in power take heed lest they should become conspicuous for shame and for destitution, lest the name that is now on the lip of praise should be branded with dishonor. Unrighteousness, impurity, and selfish cruelty, when they have run their guilty and wretched course, will be held up before the eyes of men to receive the execration they deserve. The false divinity of today will be the fiend of tomorrow.
IV THAT THE DISCOMFITURE OF ONE MAY MEAN THE CONFUSION OF MANY. When Egypt"s light went out, the world immediately around it would be in darkness; all those who were walking in its light would be utterly benighted and confused (Vers. 7, 8). If we live in no better and no more enduring light than that of a very strong but unprincipled power, we may prepare for utter darkness before long. Our light will be extinguished; we shall lose our guide, and grope our way miserably. Well it is for those who choose the Sun of Righteousness, the Light of the world, that in the beams of his Divine truth they may rejoice all the day, may do their life-work, may "have light at eventide," and may be ready for a still brighter and everlasting morning under other skies. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v27 Gone down to hell with their weapons of war.
Eze_32:27
Gone down to hell with their weapons of war.
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Teaching from ancient tombs
I. The utter helplessness of mortality.
1. What might is there that call withstand death! From armies, thrones, castles, courts, and empires, death hath plucked his prey.
2. The universality of deaths empire.
(1) We walk not an untrodden path; It is the way of all flesh.
(2) Though it is the way of all flesh, yet we must each walk that path alone, and yet not alone (Psa_23:4).
3. What a picture is here drawn of all enmity against God! Rebellion against God is madness (Psa_2:1-12).
4. What a contrast the grave of the Saviour presents to these! Victorious death in that bright Easter morn was subdued and crushed. Ours is the triumph also. Though mortality be helpless, and must bow to the dust, yet humanity is triumphant, and shall rise again.
II. The fond tenacity of memory. Memory surrounds the living with relics of the dead and mementoes of the past. Even the dead are surrounded with tokens of their circumstances, character, and career. Above the grave stands the grey tombstone, with the simple inscription, To the memory. What memories are you preparing for your deathbed and the grave? Our moral actions, mental emotions, and impressions we cannot bury in everlasting oblivion. Our character is our true epitaph cut deeply into our tomb. (R. S. Latimer.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 PROPHETIC DIRGES OVER EGYPT’S FALL (Chap. 32)
PROPHETIC DIRGES OVER EGYPT’S FALL (Chap. 32)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_32:1. “In the twelfth year”—in the twelfth year from the carrying away of Jehoiakin: Jerusalem was by this time overthrown, and Amasis was beginning to revolt against Pharaoh-Hophra.
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Eze_32:2. “Like a young lion and as a whale”—any monster of the waters: here the crocodile of the Nile. As a lion on dry land and a crocodile in the waters, Pharaoh is terrible alike by land and sea.
Eze_32:3. “I will spread my net”—the Chaldeans (chap. Eze_29:3-4; Hos_7:12.) “Jehovah spreads His net in the congregation of many nations, and gives it over to them that they may draw it out.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_32:4. “Then I will leave thee upon the land”—it will fare no better with thee than with a fish, which must perish miserably because it is taken out of its element.
Eze_32:5. “I will fill the valleys with thy height”—“thy hugeness” (Fairbairn). “The multitude of thy forces, on which thou pridest thyself, shall only be a great heap of corpses to fill the valleys up to the sides of the mountains.”—Fausset.
Eze_32:7-8. “I will put thee out”—extinguish thy light in the political sky. In great political catastrophes and the endless woe connected with them, the heavenly luminaries appear to be extinguished (Isa_13:10; Amo_8:9-10; Mat_24:29; Rev_6:12).
Eze_32:9. “When I shall bring thy destruction among the nations”—“the tidings of thy destruction (breakage) carried by captive and dispersed Egyptians among the nations” (Grotius); or, “When I bring thy ruins among the nations—thy broken people, resembling one great fracture, the ruins of what they had been.”—Fairbairn.
Eze_32:14. “Then will I make their waters deep”—“to subside into the deep, to sink, or decrease” (Fairbairn). “To settle and grow clear. The Nile fertilises Egypt by its black mud, whence it is called ‘the black.’ Ezekiel poetically saw it become a clear-flowing stream in the Messianic times.”—Geikie. “Their rivers to run like oil”—their canals flow like oil—emblem of quietness, or sluggish action.
Eze_32:16. “This is the lamentation wherewith they shall lament her”—frequently repeated. “This is a prophetical lamentation; yet so shall it come to pass.”—Grotius.
Eze_32:18. “The daughters of the famous nations”—the glorious nations themselves, some of whom are enumerated in the succeeding verses. They were as virgins, or daughters, once splendid in the bloom of youth, lovely to behold.
Eze_32:19. “Whom dost thou pass in beauty?” “Beyond whom art thou lovely?”—Hengstenberg.—“Art thou any fairer than others?”—Geikie. “Go down”—to Sheol, the under-world, where all beauty is speedily marred.
Eze_32:20. “Draw her and all her multitudes”—to the shades of the grave, ye powers of the under-world. As if addressing her executioners—drag her forth to death.
Eze_32:21. “The strong among the mighty shall speak to him”—with a taunting welcome, as now one of themselves.
Eze_32:22. “Asshur is there and all her company—his graves are about him.” “The abrupt change of gender is because Ezekiel has in view at one time the kingdom (feminine), at another the monarch. Assyria is placed first in punishment as being first in guilt.”—Fausset. “The brightest example of greatness going to destruction.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_32:23. “Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit.” “In the depths of Sheol.”—Geikie. “Deepest in guilt, they occupy the lowest depths.”—Fairbairn. “The grave is deep even if, materially taken, it be only a few feet, as a stream is very deep if it be only six feet. The grave is deep enough to cover all glory.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_32:24. “There is Elam.” “Placed next as having been the auxiliary of Assyria. Its territory lay in Persia. In Abraham’s time an independent kingdom (Gen_14:1). Famous for its bowmen (Isa_22:6).”—Fausset.
Eze_32:25. “Slain by the sword.” The very monotony of the same phraseology so often repeated gives to the dirge an awe-inspiring effect.
Eze_32:26. “Meshech, Tubal, and her multitude”—the Moschi and Tibareni on the Pontic Mountains, between the Black and Caspian Seas.
Eze_32:27. “With their weapons of war.” “The custom, regarded as significant by the prophet, prevailed among them, to bury their fallen warriors with their death-weapons, in which they have their misdeeds with them, so that guilt and punishment are united in the grave.”—Hengstenberg. “But their iniquities shall be upon their bones.” “Their iniquities shall come upon their very bones.”—Geikie. Their swords buried with them bear witness of their violence, and of the retributive cause of their own humiliation.
Eze_32:29. “Edom and all her princes.” Edom was not only governed by kings, but by subordinate princes or dukes (Gen_37:36). This people had shown a malicious joy in the downfall of Judah. “They shall lie with the uncircumcised.” Though Edom was circumcised, being descended from Isaac, he shall lie with the uncircumcised.
Eze_32:30. “There be the princes of the north.” “Syria, which is still called by the Arabs the north; or the Tyrians, north of Palestine, conquered by Nebuchadnezzar (chaps. 26–28)”—Grotius. “And all the Zidonians”—who shared the fate of Tyre (chap Eze_28:21).
Eze_32:31. “Pharaoh shall be comforted.” “He sighs, is troubled. Others explain, He comforts himself. But Pharaoh could so much the less derive comfort from the view of the others, as they had been not his foes but his confederates on earth, and their defeat was at the same time his own.”—Hengstenberg. Pharaoh’s comfort was but a sigh.
Eze_32:32. “I have caused my terrors.” Pharaoh was a long time terrible, not by his own power, but by the operation of God, who made use of him as His instrument. The terror he had been to others shall be experienced by himself and his people. “He shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised.” “Used up, Pharaoh is now destroyed by the same power which employed him before for its own ends. He has in the time of the power vouchsafed to him proved himself unclean and uncircumcised, and hence must share the fate of the uncircumcised.”—Hengstenberg.
HOMILETICS
THE TERRIBLENESS OF THE DIVINE VENGEANCE
(Eze_32:1-16.)
I. Provoked by the reckless abuse of power (Eze_32:2). Egypt is here represented as a young lion, or enraged crocodile working havoc by land and sea in sheer wantonness and prodigality of strength. The needs and enjoyments, the rights and privileges, of others are utterly disregarded in the reckless and excessive exercise of absolute power. Egypt had oppressed the people of God, and this was not forgotten. It had already measured its strength against the Asiatic forces, and had been checked in its ambitious projects. Its defeat abroad tended to intensify its tyranny at home, until its oppression and viciousness became unbearable. The day of retribution was at hand. It had roused the righteous anger of Heaven, and the fiat had gone forth—“Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord; shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” (Jer_5:9).
II. Seen in the utter ruin of a mighty nation.
1. Its power to harm others shall be crippled (Eze_32:3-6.) In the graphic style of Ezekiel, Egypt is represented as a huge crocodile caught in a net, dragged from the waters, slung out upon the open field, and left stranded in the valley, its vast bulk spreading on the mountain-sides, the land soaked and the torrent-beds filled with the gushing-out of its blood, the birds and beasts of prey gorging themselves on its distended carcass. The great tyrant is now powerless to oppress, and is in the death-grip of the avenger.
2. Its glory is quenched (Eze_32:7-8). The sun is veiled with clouds and the moon gives no light, the stars and all the shining lights of heaven become black, and darkness is poured over the land. The plague of darkness in a former age (Exo_10:21-23), filling the people with awe while it lasted, was temporary; but the dense gloom that now settled upon the nation meant the permanent extinction of its brilliant career.
3. Its desolation is complete (Eze_32:11-15). The sword of the mighty will beat down the proud pomp of Egypt and destroy its people. The cattle that browsed beside its rivers shall be swept away, so that no foot of man or hoof of beast shall trouble these waters more. The waters shall then settle and grow clear and the canals flow like oil; no longer shall they descend violently, as the overflowing Nile, on other countries, but shall become still and sluggish in political action. The land shall be stripped of its abundance—“destitute of that whereof it was full”—and desolation shall reign supreme.
III. Fills surrounding nations with dread (Eze_32:9-10). The rehearsal of Egypt’s tragic fate shall paralyse the people of other lands with fear. Kings shall shake with terror and tremble continually, as if apprehensive that a similar punishment is impending over them. It shall then be evident that Egypt had a greater foe than Nebuchadnezzar, and one who could not be insulted and ignored with impunity. “Then shall they know that I am the Lord” (Eze_32:15). The desolating weapon was the sword of Babylon; but it was brandished by the arm of the invisible Jehovah. If men will not seek to know God in the tenderness of His mercy, they shall know Him in the severity of His judgment. “Let all the earth fear the Lord: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. He bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: He maketh the devices of the people of none effect” (Psa_33:8; Psa_33:10).
IV. Is the occasion of national sorrow. “This is the lamentation that they will raise; the daughters of the nations shall chant it: they will sing this dirge for Egypt and for all her multitude” (Eze_32:16).—Geikie. London witnessed the other day a remarkable military pageant, when the remains of Field-Marshal Lord Napier of Magdala, the hero of many a fierce battle fought for his country, were borne in funeral procession to their last resting-place in St. Paul’s Cathedral. The packed masses of the people in the streets silently and sorrowfully saluting the coffin as it passed; the solemn, melting music of the Grenadiers and Scots Greys, the best musicians of the British army, playing the funeral march; the long lines of Guards in soldierly array, and the softened sunshine occasionally brightening the scene, made up a wonderfully imposing and impressive spectacle. In the presence of royalty and the highest magnates of the realm, and amid the tears of an appreciative people, the body of the great warrior was reverently placed alongside the tombs of heroes who had won distinction in many a hard-fought battle by land and sea. A nation may well mourn the loss of its brave defenders; but who can fathom the depths of grief of a people wildly lamenting over national disaster—the throne overturned, government disorganised, homes wrecked, the land ravaged by the ruthless destroyer, and chaos everywhere!
LESSONS.—
1. Divine vengeance is never inflicted without ample warning.
2. Is based on the highest principles of justice and equity.
3. Will be a terrible awakening to the impenitent wicked.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_32:2-16. “With the Chaldean conquest the political ascendancy of Egypt began finally to decline; the arm of its power was for ever broken; its monarch could no more move about as he pleased and trouble the nations; he was henceforth to reside in comparatively still and peaceful waters, himself on every hand restrained and hemmed in by superior force, and all his pride and glory, as the head of empire, reduced to perpetual desolation. It is Egypt’s doom as a kingdom, not the mere condition of its soil and surface, that the prophet throughout has in view.”—Fairbairn.
Eze_32:2-10. Difficulties and their Conquest.
1. Difficulties terrify the weak and indolent. “Like a young lion—as a whale in the seas” (Eze_32:2).
2. Difficulties are resolutely encountered by the brave and strong. “I will spread My net over thee” (Eze_32:3).
3. Great difficulties are not conquered without great havoc.
(1.) Their hugeness evident in their ruins (Eze_32:4-6).
(2.) Their dazzling glamour quenched in darkness (Eze_32:7-8).
4. Conquered difficulties the admiration and the fear of others.
Eze_32:2. “Take up a lamentation.” “Ministers that would affect others with the things of God must make it appear that they are themselves affected with the miseries that sinners bring upon themselves by their sins. It becomes us to weep and tremble for those that will not weep and tremble for themselves, to try if thereby we may set them weeping, set them atrembling.”—M. Henry.
—“Like a young lion and crocodile”—“for pride, fierceness, and cruelty. Thou domineerest over sea and land, far and wide; thou playest rex.”—Trapp.
—“Troubledst the waters.” “A great deal of disquiet is often given to the world by the restless ambition and implacable resentments of proud princes. Ahab is he that troubles Israel, and not Elijah. The princes and conquerors of this earth, who, like Pharaoh, gain a great name by aggression and violence, are no better in God’s eyes than beasts which live by making the weaker their prey, or monsters of the deep which ‘trouble the waters and foul the rivers’ in pursuit of their victims.”—Fausset.
Eze_32:3. “A large, long, and wide net drawn out to full extent, with which both lions and crocodiles might be taken, and in which this lion and crocodile should certainly be taken, for God, whose hand never errs, will spread the net. In brief, war by land and sea, by a confederacy of many people against Hophra, shall be God’s net, wherein he shall be taken, kept a prisoner as he was, and at last strangled.”—Pool.
—“He will repay them in their own coin. ‘All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword’ (Mat_26:22). As they had spread their net over weaker peoples, with a company of many peoples, so God will spread out His net over them with a company of stronger people, the Chaldeans, who should bring them up as fishes caught in His net (Hab_1:14-17).”—Fausset.
Eze_32:7-8. Darkness.
1. A symbol of destruction and mourning.
2. A proof of the awfulness and completeness of the destruction.
3. Suggests how all the forces of nature are subservient to the purpose of an avenging Deity.
—“As a torch is extinguished. A description of great sorrows, fears, troubles, and perplexities. Or it may intimate particularly the total ruin of the whole kingdom, in which the best, greatest, and noblest parts are: for heaven suppose the government, the sun the king, the moon the queen, the stars the princes and nobles, the bright lights the most eminent of the subjects for wisdom and understanding, and the land the common people. All shall be covered with clouds and darkness of misery and sorrow.”—Pool.
Eze_32:8. I will involve thee, thy house, thy people, and the whole land in desolation and woe.
Eze_32:10. Reasons for Fear.
1. When conscious of personal sin.
2. When the sword of vengeance is brandished before our eyes.
3. When we witness the fall of the proud and great.
4. When in trembling uncertainty as to the nearness and manner of our approaching fate.
—“All they who had admired the grandeur and power of Egypt when the tidings of her destruction should be brought, would be ‘amazed and horribly afraid.’ The kings, whosoever were conscious of similar sins to those of Pharaoh, would ‘tremble, every man for his own life, when the Lord should brandish His sword before them.’ Those who admire the pomp of worldly greatness shall necessarily be astonished at its downfall, and shall tremble for themselves as involved in the same condemnation as the world which they love. But the fall of earthly things will not take by surprise nor alarm the children of God, whose portion is not in this world, and who know its real emptiness.”—Fausset.
Eze_32:12. “Spoil the pomp.”—“Break her strength, rob her treasures, sack her cities, captivate her people, make the kingdom tributary, and so stain all her glory.”—Pool.
Eze_32:11-16. The Desolation of the Sword.
1. The occasion of savage delight to the warlike.
2. Silences the proud boaster.
3. Depreciates the value of human life.
4. The foe of commerce and national prosperity.
5. Is the theme of bitter lamentation among the suffering survivors.
Eze_32:11-12. “Those that delight in war and are on all occasions entering into contention may expect some time or other to be engaged with those who may prove too hard for them. Pharaoh had been forward to quarrel with his neighbours, and to come forth with his rivers—his armies. God will now give him enough of it.”—M. Henry.
Eze_32:13. “There should be so few men left in Egypt that they should not, as formerly, disturb the waters by digging, swimming, or rowing on them; or no more trouble the waters with the passing of mighty armies over them to invade their neighbours; so few horses or cows that they should not at watering times, or in the heat of the day, foul the waters by running into them and stamping or trampling in them; but the waters should continue pure and undisturbed.”—Pool.
Eze_32:15. “God can soon empty those of this world’s goods that have the greatest fulness of those things and are full of them; that enjoy most, and have their hearts set upon those enjoyments. The Egyptians were full of their pleasant and plentiful country and its rich productions. Every one that talked with them might perceive how much it filled them. But God can soon make their country ‘destitute of that whereof it is full.’ It is, therefore, our wisdom to be full of treasures in heaven.”—M. Henry.
—“Then shall they know that I am the Lord.” “The awful and destructive visitation shall be sanctified to those that survive; it shall yield them important instruction, and they shall give glory to My power and justice, while a sensible conviction of the vanity of the world, and of the fading and perishing nature of all things in it, shall draw their affections from it and from all that it contains, and induce them to seek an acquaintance with Me as their portion and happiness.”—Benson.
HOMILETICS
A FUNERAL CHANT OVER THE GRAVES OF FALLEN NATIONS
(Eze_32:17-32.)
In this paragraph Ezekiel, the prophet of the captivity, foresees the approaching downfall of the great monarchies who had oppressed and were then oppressing his beloved Israel. He sees them marching to the grave in slow and solemn funeral pomp, and as if standing by the huge sepulchre into which they disappear, chanted over them a sad, pathetic dirge which rises here and there into strains of the wildest and weirdest character. “The seers of Judah,” writes Milman, “uttered their sublime funeral anthems over the greatness of each independent tribe or monarchy as it was swallowed up, first in the empire of Assyria, and then Chaldea. They were like the tragic chorus of the awful drama which was unfolding itself to the Eastern world.” This funeral chant of Ezekiel’s has in it more of sorrow than exultation. The old-world kingdoms, with all their tyranny and oppression, are not allowed to pass away without a sigh. He is friendless indeed who does not leave behind a solitary mourner. Observe—
I. That the grave brings the proudest nationalities to a common level. Egypt, with her sedate antiquity and stately pride; Assyria, with her vast empire and riches; Elam, with her strong-armed bowmen; Edom, with her fierce highlanders; and the princes and kinglets of the North—Meshech, Tubal, and the Zidonians—are all buried in the same earth over which their mighty armies tramped. The clash of arms, the flutter of banners, the noisy pomp of regal magnificence, the shout of triumph, and the groan of defeat are alike unheard and unheeded. The rules of etiquette, the rights of precedence and supremacy, about which so many bloody battles were fought, are now utterly meaningless.
II. That the grave knows no distinction of persons. Prince and peasant, the general and the humblest soldier, the great in wisdom, wealth, and power, lie side by side with the common multitude; rich and poor, circumcised and uncircumcised, are huddled together in the same capacious sepulchre. The Egyptian, with his fastidious notions of cleanliness, shrank from the contamination of the uncircumcised, but the grave effectually cured all such scruples. The reflective Cyrus, the great Persian conqueror, saw how completely the grave would strip him of his imperial glory when he ordered this inscription to be engraven on his tomb—“O man! whatsoever thou art, and whencesoever thou comest, I know that thou wilt come to the same condition in which I now am. I am Cyrus, who brought the empire to the Persians: do not envy me, I beseech thee, this little piece of ground which covereth my body!”
III. That the grave reveals the vanity of national strife and ambition. Questions of boundaries, official privilege, insulted honour, or tarnished fame dwindle into utter insignificance. Great warriors have cherished to the last the memory of their victories and parted reluctantly with the trophies of their ambition. A king of Prussia, conscious of the near approach of death, desired to see his army defile before him for the last time, and his couch was moved to a window where by reflection in a mirror he was able to take a last adieu of his troops as they marched past; and it is said that Napoleon Bonaparte ordered himself to be seated on his deathbed and arrayed in military dress that he might meet the King of Terrors as he had been accustomed to meet his mortal foes. In the grave all military glory is for ever quenched. Philip III. of Spain, who strove to do his duty as king, once said he would rather lose his kingdom than willingly offend God. Convinced of the vanity of all imperial ambitions in comparison with the claims of religion, he broke forth with the lament—“Would to God I had never reigned! Oh that those years I have spent in my kingdom I had lived a solitary life in the wilderness! Oh that I had lived a life alone with God! What doth all my glory profit, but that I have so much the more torment in my death!”
IV. That it is but meagre comfort to the fallen that in the grave they share the same fate as those who have been as great as they” (Eze_32:31). Yet this is all the comfort some will have: it was all that proud Egypt found. It is no satisfaction and but little relief to the sufferer to know that many others suffer with him. In this verse there is a clear indication of a consciousness after death. This indestructible consciousness will be the vehicle of future joy or sorrow.
LESSONS.—
1. National reverses evoke sympathy.
2. The grave suggests many salutary reflections.
3. The highest and best work we do survives the tragedy of the grave.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_32:17-32. “Thus closes the Divine word against Pharaoh and his kingdom; they go down to the land of forgetfulness in common with all the surrounding heathen who stood in a position of rivalry or antagonism to Israel. Throughout the whole series of the predictions we find the one grand point of difference between the two parties steadily kept in view; the judgment that lights on Israel is only partial and temporary, the power and dominion again return to him and settle in everlasting possession, while the neighbouring kingdoms that in turn aspired to the supremacy fall to rise no more. The question virtually discussed in all such predictions is this—Who shall give law to the world; Israel, or the rival nations of heathendom? And the answer returned, though with manifold variety of form, is perpetually the same. All other dominions are destined to pass away; that of Israel alone becomes permanent and universal. This is to be sought only in Christ, in whom all that peculiarly belonged to Israel concentrates itself and rises to its proper perfection. In Him, therefore, it is that the pre-eminence destined for Israel has its accomplishment, and all the external victories gained over the surrounding heathen, or the advantages granted to Israel in preference to them, were but the sign and prelude of that glorious ascendancy over the whole earth which in right is already Christ’s, and in due time shall also be His in actual possession.”—Fairbairn.
—“The prophet in this funeral song brings Egypt into connection with the congeries of nations on which the Chaldean judgment fell. The practical aim is expressed in the words of the Psalmist—‘Trust not in oppression and fraud; if riches increase, set not your heart on them.’ The prophecy is fitted to call forth a deep feeling of the vanity of earthly things; to warn against carnal confidence in earthly power and its abuse by violence and wrong; and, what comes specially into account here, to guard against envying those who enjoy such power for the moment. Human nature, what is it? In an hour it falls to the ground!”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_32:18. “The Egyptians affected to be buried either in the isle Chemnis or in the Pyramids. Their kings and great ones thus would be laid by themselves, but Ezekiel provides them their grave among common people—buries them where they fall. They shall not have what they account so much of in their funeral.”—Pool.
“Where they an equal honour share,
Who buried or unburied are;
Where Agamemnon knows no more
Than Irus, he condemned before;
Where fair Achilles and Thersites lie,
Equally naked, poor, and dry.”
Eze_32:19. Beauty.
1. A rare endowment, whether national or personal.
2. No modern type that has not been equalled in the past.
3. No protection against the ravages of time.
4. Undistinguishable when the grave has done its work.
5. Its possession no ground for vain boasting.
—“ ‘Art thou better than others that thou shouldst not die and be laid in dust? Speak, Hophra, if thou hast any privilege to plead, what hast thou to say why thou shouldst not go down to the pit as a despised mortal?’ The prophet, hearing no plea of privilege, says sarcastically, ‘Go down; take up thy lodging, thy long, dark, dismal recess, where thy dust and bones shall never be known by any royal figure.’ ”—Pool.
—“How little does it signify whether a mummy be well embalmed, wrapped round with rich stuff, and beautifully painted on the outside or not! Go down into the tombs, examine the niches, and see whether one dead carcass be preferable to another.”—A. Clarke.
Eze_32:20. “Make no ceremony more than usually is made when common soldiers, slain in the field where the battle is fought, are dragged by scores into mighty pits and thrown into them promiscuously, or, suppose any of them unwilling to stoop, draw them to it against their will.”—Pool.
Eze_32:21-32. The Grim Welcome of the Dead. A welcome.
1. To the great majority—“All her multitude.”
2. To defeat—“Slain by the sword.”
3. To humiliation and shame—“They lie with the uncircumcised, though they caused terror in the land of the living.”
4. To whatever comfort may be found in sharing the same fate as great conquerors—“Pharaoh shall see them and be comforted.”
Eze_32:22-26. “His graves are about him.” The Graves of our Kindred.
1. Recall many tender memories of affection, acts of kindness, and words of counsel received from those who sleep so peacefully there.
2. Arrest the tendency to reproach those who are gone for any injustice they may have done to us when living.
3. Remind us we shall soon be called to share their resting-place, and how utterly useless all worldly gain, power, and reputation will be to us there.
4. While reverently bending over them we should solemnly resolve, by God’s help, to seek that glorious immortality which the grave is powerless to destroy.
Eze_32:23. “All which caused terror”—“where a terror to all they would be enemies to, and proudly boasted of and inhumanly used their power, now lie quiet, their dust little regarded, less feared, and least of all pitied.”—Pool.
Eze_32:27. “With their weapons of war.” “It was usual in former times to put swords, shields, and other armour in the graves of military men, as they did in the grave of Theseus and on the bier of Alexander the Great. But the meaning of the prophet here is, that those of whom he speaks should be without these usual martial solemnities with which people formerly honoured their dead.”—Benson.
Eze_32:32. “It is God who speaks, who had punished former tyrants, that the world might see His just judgments. They were a terror to the world by their cruelty, oppression, and continued violence; by their covetousness, ambition, and pride; and God had made them a terror by His just severities in their punishment.”—Pool.
—“Surely men disquiet themselves about a vain thing in so keenly pursuing pleasure, gain, fame, and power, at the cost of their immortal souls. What will all these objects of worldly men’s pursuit do for them when they are laid in the grave? Lord, do Thou teach us the blessedness of having Thee as our portion for ever!”—Fausset.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Two Lamentations for Pharaoh and Egypt
Two Lamentations for Pharaoh and Egypt
This chapter consists of two prophecies, both dated more than a year and a half after the capture of Jerusalem, and separated from each other by a fortnight. In the first Pharaoh is likened, no longer to a young lion, but to a foul river monster, which will be caught, cast on the mountains, and devoured by birds and beasts of prey. At the monster's end the lights of heaven will be darkened, and the nations will be dismayed (Eze_32:1-10). The allegory is explained to mean the desolation of Egypt by the king of Babylon (Eze_32:11-16).
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The second prophecy is a burial song over Pharaoh and his people (Eze_32:17-32). They go down to the under-world, which is weirdly conceived as a vast land of graves, the occupants of which, however, retain their consciousness and their speech. Two regions are distinguished in it. Sheol or 'hell' (Eze_32:21, Eze_32:27) is the abode of the ancient heroes who have received honourable burial, while 'the pit' is a remoter region, reserved for the nations which have filled the earth with violence and terror, and whose people have died ingloriously in battle. Each of these nations has its own portion of 'the pit,' where the graves of its people are grouped around a central grave, occupied by the king or the personified genius of the nation. Pharaoh and his people will have a place among these dishonoured nations, and will be comforted to find that they are not alone in their humiliation.
1. The twelfth year.. the twelfth month] February-March, 584 b.c., almost a year and seven months after the fall of Jerusalem.
2. Thou art like.. and thou art] RV 'thou wast likened.. yet art thou,' a contrast between a noble and a base comparison. Whale] RV 'dragon': probably a crocodile or a hippopotamus is meant.
3. People] RV 'peoples.'
6. With thy blood.. swimmest] probably 'the earth with the outflow of thy blood.'
7. Put.. out] RV 'extinguish.' Pharaoh is represented as a heavenly luminary, at the extinction of which the other heavenly bodies veil their light. Some suppose that there is a special reference to the constellation of the Dragon.
14. Deep] RV 'clear.' Clear and smooth rivers betoken an uninhabited land: see Eze_32:13.
17. The month is not mentioned, but it may be assumed to be the same as in Eze_32:1.
18. Cast them down] i.e. in the burial song. Even her, etc.] rather, 'thou and the daughters,' etc., following up the thought of Eze_32:16.
19. Uncircumcised] dishonourably buried: see on Eze_28:10. The term is practically equivalent to 'slain by the sword': so in Eze_32:21, Eze_32:24-25, Eze_32:26, Eze_32:29-30, Eze_32:32.
20. Draw her] RV 'draw her away,' to her burial-place in the under-world.
21. The strong among the mighty] the ancient heroes, referred to also in Eze_32:27. Hell] Sheol, the place of the honoured dead: so in Eze_32:27.
They are gone down, etc.] the taunt uttered by the heroes against the Egyptians and their allies.
22. Asshur] Assyria. His graves are about him] The central grave is that of the king, or of the embodied genius of the nation ('her grave,' Eze_32:23, etc.).
23. Sides] RV 'uttermost parts,' a remoter region of the under-world than that assigned to the heroes.
24. Elam] a country E. of the Tigris, formerly a part of the Assyrian empire (Isa_22:6, where Elamite archers appear in Sennacherib's army). In Jer_49:34-39; Elam is an independent state, and is threatened with conquest by Nebuchadrezzar.
26. Meshech, Tubal] see on Eze_27:18. These tribes may have taken part in the Scythian invasion: see Intro, and Eze_38:2, Eze_38:3.
27. The mighty of.. the uncircumcised] A very slight change in the original gives the much better sense of the LXX, 'the mighty, the Nephilim of old time.' The violent nations would not be permitted to share the place of the heroes in the under-world. For the Nephilim see Gen_6:4; Num_13:33 RV. Their iniquities shall be] rather, 'their shields are.' The heroes were buried honourably with their weapons and armour.
29. Edom] see on Num_25:12.
30. Princes of the north.. Zidonians] the states of Syria and Phoenicia.
32. I have caused my terror] RV 'I have put his terror.' Pharaoh in his violence had been unconsciously carrying out God's purpose.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 21 twelfth month
twelfth month
i.e. March. Also Eze 32:17.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 17 Lament over the King of Egypt
Lament over the King of Egypt
v. 1. And it came to pass in the twelfth year, after the carrying away of Jelioiachin, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
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v. 2. Son of man, a weak human being, and yet the messenger of the almighty God, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, very likely Pharaoh-hophra, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, in his behavior over against them, in the terror which he inspired, and thou art as a whale in the seas, rather, a dragon or crocodile, an object of fear wherever he was known; and thou camest forth with thy rivers, as a mighty stream from its underground bed, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, deliberately dirtying it, and fouledst their rivers. Egypt had gone forth to vanquish and subdue other nations, taking away their independence and troubling them in various other ways.
v. 3. Thus saith the Lord God, I will therefore spread out My net over thee, the invading armies being his instruments, with a company of many people, all associated in the work of carrying out the Lord’s vengeance upon Pharaoh; and they shall bring thee up in My net, the picture being that of the capture of a crocodile.
v. 4. Then will I leave thee upon the land, I will cast thee forth upon the open field, Cf.Ezekiel 29:5, and will cause all the fowls of the heaven, scavengers and birds of prey, to remain upon thee, and I will fill the beasts of the whole earth with thee, the thought thus being the same as in chapter 31:13.
v. 5. And I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains, like a huge corpse in the process of decay, and fill the valleys with thy height, with great heaps of his followers, or in utter humiliation of his boundless pride.
v. 6. I will also water with thy blood, in great streams of blood shed in the great slaughter, the land wherein thou swimmest, in which he had till now disported himself as he chose, even to the mountains, the entire lowland thus being filled with the outflowing of Pharaoh’s strength; and the rivers shall be full of thee. Thus the destruction of Pharaoh was to bring death and destruction upon the entire land of Egypt, while other nations would derive benefit there from.
v. 7. And when I shall put thee out, as when one extinguishes the light of a candle, I will cover the heaven and make the stars thereof dark, to express mourning and condolence; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light, the underlying thought being that of the great Day of Judgment, for every judgment upon the nations of the world is a type and precursor of the Last Judgment.
v. 8. All the bright lights of heaven, otherwise given as lights for men, and for the delight of their eves, will I make dark over thee, on account of the judgment upon godless Egypt, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God.
v. 9. I will also vex the hearts of many people, filling them with extreme fear and terror, their sympathy with fallen Egypt taking this form, when I shall bring thy destruction among the nations, when the information concerning the manner and extent of its destruction would be spread, into the countries which thou hast not known, as the tidings were carried by captive and dispersed Egyptians.
v. 10. Yea, I will make many people amazed at thee, in horrified astonishment over the fall of Egypt, and their kings shall be horribly afraid for thee, literally, "shudder over thee shudderings," strong enough to make their hair stand on end, when I shall brandish My sword before them, swinging it back and forth before their faces in a menacing attitude; and they shall tremble at every moment, every man for his own life, fearing that the fate of Egypt would strike them next, in the day of thy fall. All this is now more specifically set forth.
v. 11. For thus saith the Lord God, The sword of the king of Babylon, in this case in the service of the one almighty God, shall come upon thee.
v. 12. By the swords of the mighty will I cause thy multitude, the inhabitants of Egypt with all their wealth and pomp, to fall, the terrible of the nations, the fierce and violent Chaldean soldiers, all of them; and they shall spoil the pomp of Egypt, that of which Egypt boasted in her pride, and all the multitude thereof shall be destroyed, all that had caused them to boast of their numbers and of their wealth.
v. 13. I will destroy also all the beasts thereof, one of the chief sources of Egypt’s wealth being the immense herds of cattle in the delta of the Nile, from beside the great waters; neither shall the foot of man trouble them any more, the depopulation being so great that it would happen but seldom that a man would touch the waters of any canal of the Nile, nor the hoofs of beasts trouble them. "Foreign dominion inflicting mischief, causing man and beast to disappear, should bring to a stand the native pernicious rule of Pharaoh. "
v. 14. Then will I make their waters deep, causing the muddiness to sink to the bottom and the water to be clarified, and cause their rivers to run like oil, or "with oil," a strong figure to express the blessing of the Lord upon a nation, saith the Lord God. While Pharaoh had muddied and spoiled the waters of Egypt, the Lord, after the overthrow of the king, intended to clarify its waters once more and to impart to the land the riches of His blessings. The reference is undoubtedly to the living power of God’s Word and Spirit, which could be given to Egypt only after its natural power was destroyed, after its boastful pride had been taken away.
v. 15. When I shall make the land of Egypt desolate, by the destruction now threatened upon it, and the country shall be destitute of that whereof it was full, literally, "is wasted away from its fullness," when I s hall smite all them that dwell therein, then shall they know that I am the Lord, thus gaining the knowledge which may be the beginning of a new life.
v. 16. This is the lamentation wherewith they shall lament her, the daughters of the nations, who were usually the professional or principal mourners, shall lament her; they shall lament for her, even for Egypt, and for all her multitude, saith the Lord God. The punishments of the Lord, also in our days, have one chief purpose, namely, that of bringing men to the realization of His holiness and righteousness and of their own sin, for with this much done by way of preparing the heart in true repentance, the path is opened for the understanding of the grace and mercy of God in Christ Jesus, the Savior.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 31 Then it happened
Then it happened
This phrase is used here to mark the beginning of a new part of the story. If your language has a way for doing this, you could consider using it here.
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in the twelfth month ... on the first of the month
This is the twelfth and final month of the Hebrew calendar. The first day is near the end of February. (See: Hebrew Months and Ordinal Numbers)
of the twelfth year
This refers to the twelfth year of the reign of King Jehoiachin. AT: "of the twelfth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin" (See: Ordinal Numbers and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
the word of Yahweh came
This is an idiom that is used to introduce something that God told his prophets or his people. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 3:16. AT: "Yahweh spoke this message" or "Yahweh spoke these words" (See: Idiom)
Son of man
"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity." God calls Ezekiel this to emphasize that Ezekiel is only a human being. God is eternal and powerful, but humans are not. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 2:1. AT: "Mortal person" or "Human"
lift up
"sing"
You are like a young lion ... like a monster in the seas
Possible meanings are 1) he thought he was like a lion, but he was really only a monster, or 2) he was like a lion and a monster.
like a young lion among the nations
Egypt was stronger than other nations, like lions are stronger than other animals. (See: Simile)
like a monster in the seas
Pharaoh was powerful, but he only caused trouble for others, like this monster in the water. (See: Simile)
monster
A monster is an animal that is big and dangerous. This one might be a crocodile. See how you translated this word in Ezekiel 29:3.
translationWords
year
word of God
Son of Man
lament
Pharaoh
king
Egypt
lions
nation
water
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 31 32:1 On March 3: This event occurred two months…
32:1 On March 3: This event occurred two months after the exiles in Babylon received word of Jerusalem’s fall (see 33:21).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.