Eze_29:1. In the tenth year, in the tenth [month], on the twelfth of the month, came the word of Jehovah to me, saying, 2Son of man, Set thy face upon [against] 3Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy upon him, and upon all Egypt! Speak and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I [come] upon thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his streams, who saith, To 4me [belongs] my stream, and I, I have made myself. And I give rings in thy jaws, and hang the fish of thy streams, on thy scales, and draw thee out of the midst of thy streams, and every fish of thy streams [which] hangs on thy scales; 5And I set thee free [drive thee] into the wilderness, thee and every fish of thy streams; upon the plains of the field shalt thou fall, thou shalt not be picked up, and not gathered; to the beast [living creatures] of the earth and to the fowl of the heaven I have given thee for food. 6And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am Jehovah! Because they were a staff of reed to the house of Israel,—7When they take hold of thee by thy hand, thou art broken, and splittest to them every shoulder [the whole shoulder]; and when they lean upon thee, thou art shattered, and lamest for them all loins,—8Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I bring upon thee a sword, and root out of thee man and beast. 9And the land of Egypt is [shall be] for desolation and a waste, and they know that I am Jehovah! 10Because He said, The stream [belongs] to me, and I, I have made it, Therefore, behold, I am against thee, and against thy streams, and I give the land of Egypt for deserts of waste of desolation, from Migdol to Syene [seveneh], and even to 11the borders of Cush. Foot of man shall not pass through it, and foot of beast 12shall not pass through it, and it shall not be inhabited forty years. And I have given the land of Egypt [for] desolation in the midst of desolate lands, and its cities shall be desolate forty years in the midst of desolate cities, and I disperse 13Egypt among the heathen and scatter them in the lands. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, At the end of forty years will I gather Egypt out of the peoples 14whither they were dispersed: And I turn the misery of Egypt, and bring them back to the land of Pathros, to the land of their birth; and they are there a low 15kingdom. Lower than the kingdoms shall it be, and it shall not lift itself up any more above the heathen; and I diminish them, so that they do not rule among the heathen [have dominion over them]. 16And it shall no more be for confidence to the house of Israel, a remembrancer of iniquity, when they turn after them; and they know that I am the Lord Jehovah. 17And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first [month], on the first of the month, the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 18Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre: every head became bald, and every shoulder peeled; and there was not reward for him and his host out of Tyre for the work, which he has wrought against it [the city]. 19Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I give Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon the land of Egypt, and he takes away its tumult, and plunders its spoil, and seizes its prey; and it is a reward to his host. As his hire for which he has wrought against it [Tyre], 20I have given him the land of Egypt, because they did 21[it] for Me—sentence of the Lord Jehovah. In that day will I make a horn to bud forth to the house of Israel, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they know that I am Jehovah.
Eze_29:16 ...
åἰò ἐëôéäá á
ʹ
íáìéìíçó÷ïõóáí ἁìáñôéáí ἐã ôù
̣
áὐôïõò ἀ÷ïëïõèçóáé ὀôéóù ô
.
÷áñäéùí áὐôùí
—docentes iniquitatem. ut fugiant et sequantur eos;—
Eze_29:17. ...
ìéá ô
.
ìçíïò ô
.
ðñùôïõ
—
Eze_29:19. ...
ô
.
ðëçèïò áὐôçò
—
Eze_29:20.
Ἀíôé ô
.
ëåéôïõñãå
;
áò áὐôïõ ἡò ἐäïõëåõóåí
—19 … exercitui illius (20) et operi quo servivit—
Eze_29:21. ...
ἀãáôåëåé ÷åñáò ðáíôé ô
.
ïἰ÷ù
̣—pullulabit cornu.
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
In reference to the anti - Chaldean coalition, Egypt, as the mainstay of the undertaking, justly forms the conclusion of those prophecies toward such as were without. But even apart from this, the significance of Egypt, as well in its antagonistic position to the Chaldean monarchy as in its relation to the people of God, and therewith to the world in general, demanded an adequate treatment at the close.
Eze_29:1-16
. Outline of the Prophecy as a whole.
Eze_29:1-2. As to time (b. c. 588?), this first prophecy upon Egypt goes before Ezekiel 26 (two months, eighteen days, Schmieder). That notwithstanding it is placed later, shows the position of Egypt at the close is to be regarded as an intentional one; comp. also Eze_29:18-19. Hengst. remarks: “The prophecy, as appears from Eze_24:1, was delivered during the siege of Jerusalem. The occasion is the hope of recovery through Pharaoh.” (Schmieder: six months, except three days, before the taking of the city (Jer_39:2), one year and two days after the prophet’s mouth had been shut for his people.)
Eze_29:2.
ùׂéí ôðéê òì
, elsewhere with
àì
; for example, at Eze_6:2.—
ôøòä
, the title of all the native kings of Egypt down to the Persian times; according to Josephus and the Coptic, as much as king (comp.
ôֶּøַò
, prince); Jer_44:30, Hophra. The prophecy, in accordance with its general character, stretches over king and people, or more precisely, the land.
Eze_29:3-6 a. This portion has respect to the king of Egypt.—
úðéí
, only here, according to Gesen. a mere corruption for
úðéï
; according to Hengst. intentionally the plur. majestatis from
úðéï=úï
: “since this dragon blows himself up so much, sets himself forth as the ideal of all dragons.” What is meant by it is no great sea-fish or great serpent, but what was so distinctive of Egypt, as also suitable for the description in Eze_29:4, the crocodile; Job 40; Job_41:25-26. For a farther symbolical application of the idea, comp. Isaiah 27.; Psa_74:13-14; Revelation 12. (
úðä
–
úðï
—
ôåéíù
, to stretch, of the long-stretching body; also of the long-protracted sound, the jackal.)—The consciousness of power on the part of the Pharaohs, their pride of sway, is visibly expressed by
øáõ
(Eze_19:2), the secure rest, the undisturbed comfortable lair, after the manner of the crocodile, and by the nearer designation: in the midst of his streams.
éְàֹø
(
éàåø
) Gesen.: an Egyptian word, on the Rosetta inscription, jor—here of the (seven) arms of the Nile (Isa_7:18), elsewhere of its canals, when those are called
ðäøåú
The Nile is “the heart of Egypt”, on account of which divine honours were of old paid to it, in particular by the kings, with devout regard, “as the vivifying father of all that exists” (Champollion). As he already says my stream (Eze_28:2), the
ìé
may not merely import that it belongs to him, is his property, but: it belongs to me of right, or so that it cannot be taken from me—therefore lawfully and inalienably. It gives expression to the loud boast on the ground of natural might as from primeval time and for ever; in which lies the heathenish contrast to Jehovah, who alone is unchangeable, eternal, gives and takes according to His will.—
òùéúðé
, either (
åàðé
, nom. absol.), that he had made himself, which, apart from the fact that the Egyptians boasted of being the oldest men (Herod. Eze_2:2; Diodor. 1:10, 50; Plato in Tim.), accords well with the Egyptian deification of the kingdom. So upon the monuments the priests ever are represented as kneeling in the dust before the kings. The Pharaohs—and this is peculiarly Egyptian—were not merely sprung from the gods, but were themselves gods of the land (Duncker, Hist. of Antiquity, 1:150). Therefore, as the king of Tyre (Eze_28:2) with his gods’ seat asserts his divinity, so does the king of Egypt with his stream at least his independence of any other origin = what I am, that am I of myself. Or, we may take the suffix as equivalent to
ìé
, for which, however, Eze_29:9 cannot be adduced, and which cannot be understood with Häv. as meaning: “I have secured for myself its blessings,” or, as still more strongly put by Hitzig: “I have made it for me in a right condition,” with its canals, embankments, sluices, etc., as the Dutch also have been named the creators of their land. [Targum Jonathan: meum est regnum, et ego subjugavi illud.] Jerome: He trusts in the peculiar overflowings of the Nile, which belongs to him; the rain of heaven is of no moment for him. Thus also the old expositors of Homer understood the
äééðåôåïò
of the “Aigyptos,” i.e. the Nile, of the annual overflowings (Odys. iv. 477). In its application to Pharaoh Hophra (Apries), the notice of Herodotus is characteristic, that he thought neither the power of men nor of gods could destroy his kingdom (2:100:169).
Eze_29:4. The sin referred to is followed by a corresponding punishment, as the threatening is given forth, that from both king and people the ground of their pride and prosperity should be taken away.—The “behold I am against thee” of Eze_29:3 explicates itself.—
çְַçִéִּéí
, Qeri
çַçִéí
, from
çָç
, ring, such as is put into the nose of beasts, or about the most tender and susceptible parts of the head, for taming them. Hengst.: “a double ring,” in the Dual, like
ìçééí
, so that both halves join together in the mouth (comp. Eze_19:4). Rosenm. understands it of the hooks, by which, according to Herodotus, the crocodiles were taken (Job_41:2).—The fish, of the arms of the Nile signify the living and well-conditioned Egyptians in general, who had felt themselves like fish in the water, but were now to be placed upon dry ground. Hitzig: specially Pharaoh’s men of war; Jonathan: the princes and nobles.—
äãá÷úé
, Eze_3:26.—For
úãá÷
, supply
àְַùֶׁø
.—As to what historical signification is to be put upon the image, which is of a quite general kind, no indication whatever is given. But see the Doctrinal Reflections, No. 2.
Eze_29:5. The wilderness forms, as to the sense, the contrast to might and pomp and all sort of abundance; as to the figure, it is a contrast to the Nile, which formed an oasis in the midst of the wilderness, being secured by the heights on the west against the quicksands and storms of the great desert, and separated by the mountains on the east from the rocky cliffs, the desolate plains, and sand downs. The irrigation of the ground in consequence of the abundant waters of the Nile, especially at the season of the yearly overflowing, the cooling of the atmosphere precisely at the time when the heat is greatest, are the more important, since the blue and shining heaven is never troubled by rain-clouds, the heat is strong, and the south-west gales sometimes drive the sand and dust of the Sahara over the Libyan mountains as far as the Nile. (“Egypt is a land without rain, without springs, without refreshing winds, without alternating seasons. Instead of these, however, it possesses a fertile stream, which has not its like upon earth. In the far-reaching expanse one sees only the dead wilderness; but on approaching the Nile, all is life and prosperity. The camel of the desert scents the fresh Nile air at the distance of half a day’s journey. The Arabs call it Bachr, the sea; it is, however, one of the greatest and longest rivers of the earth, to be compared with the Amazon, Mississippi, and Yenisei.”—Sepp.) Hence, for the very reason that it reckons itself distinguished, as forming a green oasis of luxuriant fertility and coolness in the midst of a boundless waste, Jehovah brings it into that wilderness condition. A deeper parallel, however, also lies in this relegation to the wilderness, in respect to the divine guiding of Israel into the wilderness when Israel came out of Egypt.—“Upon the face of the field” means the same as “the wilderness;” according to Hengst.: “the open field as contrasted with the splendid mausoleums in which the Egyptian Pharaohs were buried in the times of their glory.” Not even an honourable burial would be given him (Targum). At all events, in the place where he falls, there he remains lying; and, indeed, what previously were separate from each other, thee and every fish, now come to be united in the representative person of the king. “Every one of his deceased subjects was, as it were, a part of Pharaoh, as in the retreat from Moscow Napoleon was seen in every dead Frenchman” (Hengst.). They are simply abandoned to the wilderness; hence there is found no gathering up and carrying away (
àñó
), no bringing together (
÷áõ
).—Comp. Mat_13:47 sq.
Eze_29:6 a. A knowledge which is the very reverse of what was distinctively Egyptian, according to which the Pharaohs were honoured, on the monuments, as “the dispensers of life,” the “ever-living,” and such like. (Comp. the Rosetta inscription.)
Eze_29:6 b–12. This section has respect to the land. The words: all the inhabitants of Egypt, mediate the transition from the king to the land.—The
éòïֹ
can scarcely be the reason for the fact of the Egyptians knowing God; but this sentence properly breaks off here, and a new sentence begins, to which Eze_29:8 forms the conclusion; so that Eze_29:7 comes in parenthetically (Kl.).—The image of the reed-staff is derived from Isa_36:6, the more suitably as it is there found in the mouth of the Assyrian king, whose heritage passed over to the Chaldeans; and to repeat with the fact the addition of broken, used there by him, was, as a judgment already openly pronounced upon Egypt, so much the more a ground of shame for Israel. What had discovered itself even in the Assyrian time should have needed no fresh proof.
Eze_29:7. It means that a reed-staff is not only no support, but a hurtful support; it carries with it a show and deceit of a dangerous kind. It is not, however, to be forgotten, that there is a characteristic allusion involved in the figure to the prolificness of Egypt in reeds and bulrushes (Isa_19:6).—Instead of
áְëַôְּêָ
, the Qeri has
áַëַּó
, as if the personified Egypt, or this as addressed in its king, could have no hand! In order to hold fast by the image of the reed, which is certainly continued by the
øöõ
(Isa_36:6), Kliefoth translates: “by thy twig” but who would lay hold thus of a reed if he means to support himself upon it?—That Israel promised himself support from Egypt is evident from the result of the breaking of this reed-staff; while the wounded, torn shoulder leant upon it, the splinters of the reed ran thereinto.—Klief.: “the staff of reed pierced through the hand and arm, up even to the shoulder.” The
ùׁòï
expressly says this, at the same time strengthening the “laying hold of” to a resting thereon with the whole body.—
åäòîãú×
, Gesen.: only the Hiphil, transposed for
åְäִîְòַãְúָ
(Psa_69:24 [23]), “and makest shake.” Hengst.: sarcastically, “a pretty staying, which was, in fact, a casting down.” If the root-meaning of
òîã
is to draw together, it might stand here as = laming: “and drawest together for them the whole loins” (Meier). “To make to totter,” or shake, certainly says very little, and “to make to stand,” so that they must use their own loins, without any stay, can hardly be the right explanation. Klief.: it pierced through their shoulders, and made these, by injuring their muscles, ligaments, and joints, stiff and rigid, so that they could but stand, and move no more. (“So fared it with the kingdom of the ten tribes under Hosea in connection with Egypt, and likewise with the kingdom of Judah under Zedekiah.”—J. D. Michaelis.)
Eze_29:8. Solemn conclusion, with feminine suffixes, on account of the reference to the land. The sword indicates war; Eze_14:17.
Eze_29:9. The consequence of this desolation of the land.—
éòï
, as in Eze_29:6.—Comp. at Eze_29:3. Because Pharaoh, regarding himself as all Egypt, in his lordly spirit asserts for himself the right and power of all,—
åàðé
points back to
ëé àðé
;
òùׁéúé
, not so properly the Nile as generally what is to be made (Isa_10:13), always, however, with reference to the arms of the Nile,—therefore, in Eze_29:10, Jehovah falls upon this pompous “I,” as well as its supports, the streams which it calls its own, and gives the land of Egypt, with which this “I” had identified itself, to a state of most complete desolation. The heaping together of the synonyms, and the double genitive, express a superlative. Here, as at Eze_29:5, the wilderness in contrast to the Nile. [Hitzig points
ìָçְָøָáåֹú
, “for deserts, desolation of the waste.” Schmieder remarks on it, that definite pre-intimations of inevitable chastisements are commonly milder, and draws attention to an unmistakeable softening in what follows (Eze_29:12-16), which might be still more lightened in the execution of the punishment.] From Migdol, a similar bounding to that in Eze_25:13 (Sept.:
ἀðὸ Ìáãäþëïõ
); placed over against Syene (Aswan), the most southerly boundary, on the cataracts of the Nile, and to be taken as the boundary on the north. It was, as the name imports, a “fortress,” perhaps the border-watch toward Syria; on account of which Jerome: a turre Syenes.
ñåðä
, according to Champollion, from ouen, to open, and sa, through which it acquires the sense of “the opener,” the key (of Egypt). Here rise the mighty terraces of reddish granite (Syenite), which formed the building material of the Egyptian kings. The determining expression
åòã×
does not go beyond, but fixes Syene as the boundary on the Ethiopian side.
Eze_29:11 paints the desolation (Eze_29:9-10), corresponding to Eze_29:8. Neither traffic nor travel.—
åìà úùá
, Hengst.: “and it shall not sit” (!); therefore it shall lie down. The forty years are (according to him) historical, to be branched off from the seventy of Jeremiah, Ezekiel 25, 29, which began in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, when, with the slaughter at Circesium on the Euphrates, the power of Egypt was for ever broken. Thirty years had it continued, till the war passed over to the proper head of the anti-Chaldean coalition, and Egypt was laid waste. Hitzig takes the number for a found one (1Sa_17:16; Exo_24:18, etc.), after the analogy of Eze_4:6 (but see there). The parallel already indicated at Eze_29:5, as well as the general character of the prophecy, Nebuchadnezzar not being named here, recommend the symbolical import of the number: Israel, when delivered from Egypt, forty years in the wilderness; Egypt, with respect to Israel, forty years a wilderness; there a proving, here a judgment, punishment. [Tholuck is of opinion that the number is indeed a round one, but still of an approximate nature as regards the probable reckoning, about 36 or 37.]—On
úùׁá
, comp. Eze_26:20.
éùׁá
signifies: “to be master of something,” to possess, therefore: to tarry somewhere, and so here: to occupy house, be at home. We are not to regard it as a poetical phrase for being inhabited (Klief.), but rather to consider it as spoken with reference to the scattering, etc., of the inhabitants in Eze_29:12.
Eze_29:12. As an absolute contrast to Israel in the wilderness, corresponds in a symbolical respect the repeated delineation of the like total desolation of Egypt (Eze_12:20; Eze_14:15). In reality, this can only be understood relatively, as compared with Egypt’s former flourishing condition as a land.—The twice repeated
áúåê
points to the neighbouring lands, with their cities, or to the provinces of Egypt, or to the members of the coalition against Babylon (Hengst.). Häv. regards it as purely ideal, since otherwise the article must have stood before
àøöåú
. According to Hengst.: “the desolation is not so precise a fact as the supremacy, which was decided by a single battle. It is sufficient if the beginning of the desolation took place within the fourth decennium from its end (?). The end of the forty years, at all events, coincides with that of the seventy years in Jeremiah, of which the first seventeen had elapsed at the time our prophecy was published—seven under Jehoiakim, ten under Zedekiah. Therefore there still were thirteen years to expire before the beginning of the forty years. In Eze_29:17 the prophet has himself expressly determined the beginning of the four decenniums.”—By the scattering of the Egyptians is meant the deportation of the young and the noble, as such was then associated with every hostile occupation, Nah_3:10 (Tholuck). Also those scattered through terror are not to be forgotten. Häv.: “Almost the same expressions here of Egypt, which elsewhere are used only of the dispersion and gathering again of Israel.” “Egypt the caricature of Israel.”
Eze_29:13-16. The end.
Eze_29:13. The
ëé
assigns a reason for the forty years, by pointing to what is to take place thereafter. But that by the end of this period respect is had to the end of the Chaldean supremacy, as in Jeremiah, is not indicated in the text, nor would it have been according to Ezekiel’s style (comp. Introd. to Ezekiel 25 sq.; comp. also Jer_46:26).—The promised gathering of Egypt, in Eze_29:14, is restitution (comp. at Eze_16:53), indeed, to their original condition, but not to the height which it had then reached.—Pathros is what belongs to the south; South or Upper Egypt, Thebes, which (as Ewald remarks) “was not, according to the Manethonian dynasties, precisely the oldest seat of royalty, yet still a Southern Egypt older than Memphis; but after the time of the Hyksos, all the power of Egypt departed from Thebes.”—Comp. Herod. 2:4, 15; Diodor. 1:50.—
îëåøúí
, see at Eze_16:3 (Eze 21:35 [Eze_21:30]).—On the expression: a low kingdom, comp. at Eze_17:14. Hengst.: “This is no mere prediction, but an indirect practical advice (Isa_41:28), to dissuade from a foolish confidence in Egypt.” The parallel, besides, with Israel has already been noticed.
Eze_29:15. Comparison with other kingdoms. Such it had often made, and therein gone to excess. Now God makes the comparison, and certainly with another result.
Eze_29:16.
ìîáèç
, compare therewith the repeated
ìáèç
, Eze_28:26.—
éäéä
, masc., while formerly
úäéä
, a kingdom being thought of, but here it is conceived of as a people, or as king.—That the Egyptian people (as the
àçøéäí
might indicate) could inspire Israel with confidence, so that the latter should lean upon them, support itself on them, especially as against Babylon—in that respect they were a remembrancer of iniquity (comp. on Eze_21:28 [23]). This is what is plainly expressed by
ôðä
with
àçøé
, namely, “to turn oneself to any one, in order to follow him”—on which comp. Eze_17:6-7; Psa_40:5 [4]. (Hengst.: “Whosoever beguiles into iniquity brings iniquity to remembrance, or to the knowledge of him under whose cognizance it falls. For the iniquity which is committed cannot remain unmarked by ‘the Judge of the whole earth,’ nor unpunished.” Häv.: “Now Egypt comes forth as an accuser of the covenant-people before God, as a witness in respect to their want of confidence in Him, their idolatrous admiration of worldly, external power, therefore of their falling away from God.” Ewald translates: “Still further the house of Israel had a Satan for their confidence.”) The knowledge of Jehovah as Lord and Ruler, as in judgment, so in compassion, is the perpetual refrain; it is for Israel and for the heathen the end of the ways of God.
Eze_29:17-21. The appended key for understanding the prophecies concerning Egypt.—Not merely the relation to what went before, but the relation also to what follows, calls for consideration. In the former respect, the section is an appendix; in the latter respect, and generally, it is a key for the understanding of the prophecies respecting Egypt. We have to regard it as a sort of parenthesis, since the announcement of time in Eze_29:17 expressly shows it was above 16 years later than Eze_29:1, later even than Ezekiel 40. [Schmieder: exactly 16 years, 2 months, 17 days after the preceding prophecy; not quite 17 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, two years after Ezekiel’s vision of the new temple. Hitzig: the new-moon day of April 572 b. c.] It consequently stands quite apart from the preceding prophecy, but so does it also from the one that follows, Eze_30:1-19, by its closing verse. Eze_30:1-19 stands related to Eze_29:1-16, as Eze_26:7-14 to Eze_26:2-6; so that the indication of time in Eze_29:1 holds good also for Eze_30:1. Hengst. denies the number seven for the prophecies upon Egypt, because the necessary chronological specification is wanting at Eze_30:1. This reason cannot avail against the consideration that the significant number, which rules the whole, in a way that perfectly accords with its symbolical import as well as with the relation of the close (of Egypt), reverts with this close to the whole, and thereby connects the whole together. The chronological specification has been omitted at Eze_30:1, because it would have been the same as that at Eze_29:1; and the verses 17–21 are interjected here precisely on this account, that Eze_30:1-19, being contemporaneous with Eze_29:1-16, might form a separate prediction, and so complete the seven number of prophecies upon Egypt.
Eze_29:18. The thirteen years’ siege of Tyre furnishes the key for the more immediate understanding of the prophecy upon Egypt; the breaking off of the siege in question rendered possible the approaching fulfilment of the anti-Egyptian predictions.—Eze_26:7.—The work against Tyre, consequently the siege of the city, is designated great, and this not without respect to the consequences which it involved for the host of the king of Babylon. Of the bearing upon the head and shoulder, with reference to helmet and burdens,
÷øç
and
îøè
are used, which presuppose long and heavy toil. According to Hengst. the works had to do with the erecting of besieging towers, and especially the casting up a rampart (Eze_26:8); but they suit decidedly better when viewed with respect to the mound running over to insular Tyre, as indicated by Ewald (Eze_26:10). Hitzig makes the ingenious remark, that the shallowness of the sea-strait in Alexander’s time, mentioned by Arrian, may have been occasioned by the efforts of Nebuchadnezzar to construct this mound. However, it is not in such respect, therefore, as to what concerns the greatness of the work, that
åùëø ìà×
is to be understood of a like great reward corresponding to it.
ùׂëø
, according to its root-meaning, is “a something made fast,”—either subjectively, what any one held fast by himself or had made fast with another, or objectively, what for material considerations must be held fast. It is in a general way denied that Nebuchadnezzar and his host had received from Tyre hire or reward for their work. As the siege was the work, the hire must mean the booty, especially with respect to the host. The separate mention of him and his host seems to point to a distinction between Nebuchadnezzar and his host in reference to the hire. Jerome affirms simply, though he does not say on what grounds, that the nobles and rich men of Tyre made away from it in ships, carrying with them their treasures over the sea, and Nebuchadnezzar’s host could find no spoil. Ewald accepts this; and Häv. cites in support of it Isa_23:6, and what happened at the siege of Tyre under Alexander (Diodor. xvii. 41; Curt. Eze_4:3). Probable, at all events more probable than the supposition of Hitzig that the money of the Tyrians was spent in the war, must be the consideration that the besiegers of Tyre also had an interest in sparing the city, and refraining from plundering it. Only the prophet does not say this, but makes the Chaldee host come to Egypt to its hurt. With the conquest of the city, however, whether it was or was not effected, our verse has nothing really to do, as Movers justly remarks. Eze_29:19 rather suggests another reference. For Nebuchadnezzar, at least, the consequence of the siege of Tyre, “his hire,” could only be Egypt, if the great work was not to remain without reward. First with the punishment of Egypt did the recompense become complete which must strike the anti-Chaldean coalition. Egypt also would otherwise have remained the spark which was ever ready to inflame a new Phœnicia and Syria. If the overthrow of Tyre was to yield profit to Nebuchadnezzar, not merely must Jerusalem be laid prostrate, but Egypt also, the pillar of all opposition, as against Assyria so against Babylon, be brought down. It is from such points of view in Babylonian policy that we are to understand what is meant by his hire not having been given him. But what naturally mediates the result, what forms the consequence of the evil, this is in truth, spiritually considered, the divine punishment; and hence the therefore, etc., in Eze_29:19. The policy of the divine recompense as against Egypt (the prop of Israel’s unfaithfulness and treachery to the covenant), so for Nebuchadnezzar’s work (“which they did for Me,” Eze_29:20), in the service of Jehovah, is primarily the key of the prophecies touching Egypt.—
äîåï
is noise, and from that “a noisy multitude;” here, on account of the connection, and because
ðùׂà
merely is used: the great mass of things, therefore: the riches. [Ewald: “its noisy pomp.”]—As Herodotus and Diodorus report, certainly after the quite untrustworthy tradition of Egyptian vanity, Hophra had besieged the Phœnicians and Cyprians by land and sea, and returned with rich booty to Egypt. There were assuredly no lasting results of such a thing; for after the defeat at Carchemish, and the miscarrying of the relief of Jerusalem, the position of Egypt was not adequate to that; although still, as also Duncker thinks, the Egyptians might have brought home spoil and trophies. There was a glimmering of Egypt’s early splendour in the Circumstance of its being given for a reward to Nebuchadnezzar.—Hitzig takes as the subject to
åäéúä
the land of Egypt (Eze_29:20).
Eze_29:20.
ôְּòֻìָּä
, as in Psa_109:20, that which is wrought for, the fruit of labour. Ewald: “as his pay.”—
áä
is perhaps, after the expression in Eze_29:18,
àùø òáã òìéä
, to he understood of the city of Tyre. It is commonly rendered: for which he wrought. Hitzig justly remarks: “that Nebuchadnezzar had besieged Tyre in the service of Jehovah could have been declared by the prophet only then, if the city had been conquered;” but since, according to Hitzig, this could not be, he applies
òùå
to the Egyptians (!), as was already done in the Targum of Jonathan, and necessarily imposes on
àùø
the signification: in regard to that which; that is, for that which.
Eze_29:21. This verse vividly represents the character of the whole section. It is a close which corresponds to the subsidiary character of the section, Eze_29:17-20, in relation to the general prophecy upon Egypt, by the generalness of the style in which it is given, as thereby also it accords with the design that this section should serve as a key to the Egyptian prophecies generally. Comp. the analogous Eze_28:25-26. In the latter respect it is indicated to us in Eze_29:21, that although the immediate fulfilment of that which concerned Egypt should be accomplished through Nebuchadnezzar, yet Egypt opens a farther prospect still, since it is to be regarded, in these prophecies of Ezekiel upon foreign peoples, as heathendom generally in its close coming into regard for Israel’s destruction. From this point of view, the
áéåí ääåà
certainly connects itself with the moment of the fulfilment through Nebuchadnezzar; but it at the same time conducts farther, expands this day to “an ideal day” (Hengst.)—the day of the Lord (Eze_30:3)—to the Messianic time, as Ewald has properly recognised. [Schmieder: “every annihilation of a national power, which bent itself against the Lord, is to the prophet a type of all human power which rises against God—a type of the world’s judgment. Therefore also the promises, which were given Israel for the last time, connect themselves therewith, and now revive again.”] According to Hitzig, the attack upon Egypt was to Ezekiel the pledge of the then also beginning salvation announced in Eze_20:40 sq., Eze_17:22, Eze_16:60.—
öîç
, used of gradual growth out of small beginnings and constant burstings forth again, new shoots, with reference to the
öֶîַç
in Jeremiah and Zechariah.—The horn, as very commonly derived from horned beasts, in particular the bull, a biblical expression for strength, and the courage resting thereon; not so properly with reference to pushing (Hengst.), for which the context affords no occasion; as in contrast to the impotence of Egypt (heathendom), the power and pomp of the flesh—therefore another sense of power, the consciousness of the victory which overcomes the world. Psa_75:5; Psa_132:17; Lam_2:3; Luk_1:69; comp. also 1Sa_2:1 with respect to the following
ôúçåïÎôä
.—The opening, of the mouth points expressly to Eze_24:26. (See there.) What was said in that place upon the symbolical import of the dumbness of the prophet determines also his speaking here in the midst of Israel as a prophetical one. Only, “the house of Israel” must not be resolved into the community of the Lord, and the mouth of Ezekiel into the word of prophecy, agreeably to Joel 3, as Theodoret already explained the matter; but we have to cleave to the second chief part of the predictions of our prophet, for which the opening of his mouth to Israel is, according to Eze_24:26 sq., the characteristic, in contradistinction to the first main portion of his book. But in so far will such opening of Ezekiel’s mouth have place as his prophecy of the compassions of God shall then have found their confirmation.
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
