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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Ezekiel 30:1 - 30:9
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Announcing the Doom upon Egypt and its Allies
v. 1. The word of the Lord came again unto me, the time, in this instance, not being indicated, saying,
v. 2. Son of man, prophesy and say, in another message directed against Egypt, Thus saith the Lord God, Howl ye! Woe worth the day! or, "Alas for the day!" V 3. For the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near; the day of doom decided upon by Him, a cloudy day, the clouds well representative of the storm of His wrath which would break upon the entire country; it shall be the time of the heathen, when they would experience His judgment as his vengeance went forth upon them.
v. 4. And the sword shall come upon Egypt, in bloody uproar and slaughter, and great pain, the most severe anguish, shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away her multitude, the wealth amassed within her borders, and her foundations shall be broken down, her very existence as state being undermined.
v. 5. Ethiopia, the country bounding upon Egypt on the south, and Libya, a nation toward the west, and Lydia, another African desert state, and all the mingled people, literally, "the strange people," those allied with the Egyptians and serving together with their soldiers, and Chub, probably Nubia, and the men of the land that is in league, literally, the sons of the land of the covenant," an expression taken by some commentators to refer to the Jews who migrated to Egypt, carrying Jeremiah with them, Jeremiah 42-44, shall fall with them by the sword, sharing the fate of the entire country.
v. 6. Thus saith the Lord, They also that uphold Egypt, chiefly the rulers and the idols upon whom the Egyptians depended, shall fall, and the pride of her power, her proud might, shall come down; from the tower of Syene, rather, "from Migdol to Syene," 29:10, shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord God.
v. 7. And they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted. Cf.Ezekiel 29:12.
v. 8. And they shall know that I am the Lord when I have set a fire in Egypt, the fire of bitter warfare, carried on by a fierce people and with relentless cruelty, and when all her helpers, allies and all others upon whom Egypt depended, shall be destroyed.
v. 9. In that day shall messengers go forth from Me in ships, namely, Egyptians fleeing before the calamity threatening their country and now acting as messengers of the Lord in the sense that they could now speak from their own experience concerning the Lord's judgments, to make the careless Ethiopians afraid, to fill them with a wholesome dread of the punishment threatening them, and great pain shall come upon them, a severe anguish, as in the day of Egypt, when the doom struck the mightier nation; for, lo, it cometh, it was inevitable, because announced by the Lord, whose word is ever fulfilled just as He has planned His punishments upon all disobedient people, to come at the time determined upon by Him.