13 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the images to cease from Memphis; and there shall be no more a prince from the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt.
The burden of Egypt. Behold, Yahweh rides on a swift cloud, and comes to Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall tremble at his presence; and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it. I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight everyone against his brother, and everyone against his neighbor; city against city, [and] kingdom against kingdom. The spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst of it; and I will destroy the counsel of it: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to those who have familiar spirits, and to the wizards. I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, says the Lord, Yahweh of Hosts. The waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and become dry. The rivers shall become foul; the streams of Egypt shall be diminished and dried up; the reeds and flags shall wither away. The meadows by the Nile, by the brink of the Nile, and all the sown fields of the Nile, shall become dry, be driven away, and be no more. The fishermen shall lament, and all those who cast angle into the Nile shall mourn, and those who spread nets on the waters shall languish. Moreover those who work in combed flax, and those who weave white cloth, shall be confounded. The pillars [of Egypt] shall be broken in pieces; all those who work for hire [shall be] grieved in soul. The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish; the counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how do you say to Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings? Where then are your wise men? and let them tell you now; and let them know what Yahweh of Hosts has purposed concerning Egypt. The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Memphis are deceived; they have caused Egypt to go astray, who are the corner-stone of her tribes. Yahweh has mixed a spirit of perverseness in the midst of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in every work of it, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit. Neither shall there be for Egypt any work, which head or tail, palm-branch or rush, may do. In that day shall the Egyptians be like women; and they shall tremble and fear because of the shaking of the hand of Yahweh of Hosts, which he shakes over them.
and I will bring back the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their birth; and they shall be there a base kingdom. It shall be the base of the kingdoms; neither shall it any more lift itself up above the nations: and I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Ezekiel 30
Commentary on Ezekiel 30 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 30
Eze 30:1-26. Continuation of the Prophecies against Egypt.
Two distinct messages: (1) At Eze 30:1-19, a repetition of Eze 29:1-16, with fuller details of lifelike distinctness. The date is probably not long after that mentioned in Eze 29:17, on the eve of Nebuchadnezzar's march against Egypt after subjugating Tyre. (2) A vision relating directly to Pharaoh and the overthrow of his kingdom; communicated at an earlier date, the seventh of the first month of the eleventh year. Not a year after the date in Eze 29:1, and three months before the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.
2. Woe worth the day!—that is, Alas for the day!
3. the time of the heathen—namely, for taking vengeance on them. The judgment on Egypt is the beginning of a world-wide judgment on all the heathen enemies of God (Joe 1:15; 2:1, 2; 3:1-21; Ob 15).
4. pain—literally, "pangs with trembling as of a woman in childbirth."
5. the mingled people—the mercenary troops of Egypt from various lands, mostly from the interior of Africa (compare Eze 27:10; Jer 25:20, 24; 46:9, 21).
Chub—the people named Kufa on the monuments [Havernick], a people considerably north of Palestine [Wilkinson]; Coba or Chobat, a city of Mauritania [Maurer].
men of the land that is in league—too definite an expression to mean merely, "men in league" with Egypt; rather, "sons of the land of the covenant," that is, the Jews who migrated to Egypt and carried Jeremiah with them (Jer 42:1-44:30). Even they shall not escape (Jer 42:22; 44:14).
6. from the tower of Syene—(see on Eze 29:10).
7. in the midst of … countries … desolate—Egypt shall fare no better than they (Eze 29:10).
9. messengers … in ships to … Ethiopians—(Isa 18:1, 2). The cataracts interposing between them and Egypt should not save them. Egyptians "fleeing from before Me" in My execution of judgment, as "messengers" in "skiffs" ("vessels of bulrushes," Isa 18:2) shall go up the Nile as far as navigable, to announce the advance of the Chaldeans.
as in the day of Egypt—The day of Ethiopia's "pain" shall come shortly, as Egypt's day came.
10. the multitude—the large population.
12. rivers—the artificial canals made from the Nile for irrigation. The drying up of these would cause scarcity of grain, and so prepare the way for the invaders (Isa 19:5-10).
13. Noph—Memphis, the capital of Middle Egypt, and the stronghold of "idols." Though no record exists of Nebuchadnezzar's "destroying" these, we know from Herodotus and others, that Cambyses took Pelusium, the key of Egypt, by placing before his army dogs, cats, &c., all held sacred in Egypt, so that no Egyptian would use any weapon against them. He slew Apis, the sacred ox, and burnt other idols of Egypt.
no more a prince—referring to the anarchy that prevailed in the civil wars between Apries and Amasis at the time of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion. There shall no more be a prince of the land of Egypt, ruling the whole country; or, no independent prince.
14. Pathros—Upper Egypt, with "No" or Thebes its capital (famed for its stupendous buildings, of which grand ruins remain), in antithesis to Zoan or Tanis, a chief city in Lower Egypt, within the Delta.
15. Sin—that is, Pelusium, the frontier fortress on the northeast, therefore called "the strength (that is, the key) of Egypt." It stands in antithesis to No or Thebes at the opposite end of Egypt; that is, I will afflict Egypt from one end to the other.
16. distresses daily—Maurer translates, "enemies during the day," that is, open enemies who do not wait for the covert of night to make their attacks (compare Jer 6:4; 15:8). However, the Hebrew, though rarely, is sometimes rendered (see Ps 13:2) as in English Version.
17. Aven—meaning "vanity" or "iniquity": applied, by a slight change of the Hebrew name, to On or Heliopolis, in allusion to its idolatry. Here stood the temple of the sun, whence it was called in Hebrew, Beth-shemesh (Jer 43:13). The Egyptian hieroglyphics call it, Re Athom, the sun, the father of the gods, being impersonate in Athom or Adam, the father of mankind.
Pi-beseth—that is, Bubastis, in Lower Egypt, near the Pelusiac branch of the Nile: notorious for the worship of the goddess of the same name (Coptic, Pasht), the granite stones of whose temple still attest its former magnificence.
these cities—rather, as the Septuagint, "the women," namely, of Aven and Pi-beseth, in antithesis to "the young men." So in Eze 30:18, "daughters shall go into captivity" [Maurer].
18. Tehaphnehes—called from the queen of Egypt mentioned in 1Ki 11:19. The same as Daphne, near Pelusium, a royal residence of the Pharaohs (Jer 43:7, 9). Called Hanes (Isa 30:4).
break … the yokes of Egypt—that is, the tyrannical supremacy which she exercised over other nations. Compare "bands of their yoke" (Eze 34:7).
a cloud—namely, of calamity.
20. Here begins the earlier vision, not long after that in the twenty-ninth chapter, about three months before the taking of Jerusalem, as to Pharaoh and his kingdom.
21. broken … arm of Pharaoh—(Ps 37:17; Jer 48:25). Referring to the defeat which Pharaoh-hophra sustained from the Chaldeans, when trying to raise the siege of Jerusalem (Jer 37:5, 7); and previous to the deprivation of Pharaoh-necho of all his conquests from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates (2Ki 24:7; Jer 46:2); also to the Egyptian disaster in Cyrene.
22. arms—Not only the "one arm" broken already (Eze 30:21) was not to be healed, but the other two should be broken. Not a corporal wound, but a breaking of the power of Pharaoh is intended.
cause … sword to fall out of … hand—deprive him of the resources of making war.