Ezekiel 29

In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the LORD's message came to me. He said:

1In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

NoteEzekiel dates his messages from the deportation of King Jehoiachin of Judah to Babylon in 597 BC. The tenth year, tenth month, twelfth day is about January 587 BC, while Babylon was besieging Jerusalem.

2"Son of man, turn and face Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and speak against him and against all of Egypt.

2Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt:

Note"Son of man" is simply Hebrew for "human being" or "mortal"; it is how God addresses Ezekiel throughout the book. "Turn and face" is a formal prophetic gesture: the prophet physically orients himself toward the target of the message. "Pharaoh" is a title, not a personal name, the king at this time was Hophra (Apries).

3Speak to him and say: This is what the Lord GOD says. I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, you great river creature lying among your streams. You say, 'The Nile is mine. I made it for myself.'

3Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.

NoteWhere the King James prints "LORD" or "GOD" in capitals, it stands for the personal name of Israel's God, the four Hebrew letters YHWH; "Lord GOD" renders a double title, roughly "my Master YHWH." The "great dragon" (Hebrew *tannin*) is a large water beast, the Nile crocodile, and behind it the chaos-monster of older Near Eastern poetry. Crocodile imagery was tied to Egyptian kingship. Egypt's entire food supply depended on the Nile's annual flood, so a Pharaoh claiming to have made the river is claiming to be the source of the country's life.

4But I will put hooks in your jaws. I will make the fish of your streams stick to your scales. I will drag you up out of your streams, and every fish of your streams will be stuck to your scales.

4But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.

5I will leave you dumped in the desert, you and all the fish of your streams. You will fall in the open field. No one will pick you up or bury you. I have given you as food to the wild animals and the birds of the sky.

5And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.

NoteBeing left unburied, with the body eaten by scavengers, was the worst disgrace imaginable in this culture, a fate normally reserved for the defeated and the despised.

6Then everyone living in Egypt will know that I am the LORD. You were only a walking stick made of reed to the people of Israel.

6And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.

NoteReeds grew thick along the Nile, so a reed staff is a distinctly Egyptian image. It looks like a solid walking stick but splinters under weight. Judah's kings had repeatedly sought Egyptian military help against Assyria and Babylon, and the help had repeatedly failed to arrive or failed to hold.

7When Israel took hold of you with their hand, you splintered and tore open their whole shoulder. When they leaned on you, you snapped, and their backs gave way.

7When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.

NoteThe Hebrew of the last phrase is uncertain. The consonants can be read as "made their loins stand" (as the King James has it) or, with a small change, "made their hips give way" or "shake", the reading most modern translations follow.

8So this is what the Lord GOD says: I am bringing a sword against you, and I will cut off both people and animals from you.

8Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee.

9The land of Egypt will be left empty and ruined. Then they will know that I am the LORD. This is because Pharaoh said, 'The Nile is mine. I made it.'

9And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it.

10So I am against you and against your streams. I will turn the land of Egypt into a complete ruin, empty and waste, from Migdol to Syene, all the way to the border of Cush.

10Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.

NoteMigdol was a fortress in the north-eastern Nile delta; Syene is modern Aswan, at Egypt's southern limit. The phrase means "from one end of Egypt to the other." The King James "tower of Syene" comes from reading *migdol* as the ordinary Hebrew word for "tower" rather than as a place name. Cush (the King James "Ethiopia") is Nubia, roughly modern northern Sudan, not the modern country of Ethiopia.

11No human foot will walk through it, and no animal's foot will walk through it. No one will live there for forty years.

11No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.

NoteForty years is a standard round figure in Hebrew for a full generation, the same span Israel spent in the wilderness.

12I will make the land of Egypt the emptiest of all empty lands, and its cities will lie in ruins for forty years among other ruined cities. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and spread them out through many countries.

12And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.

13Yet this is what the Lord GOD says: At the end of the forty years I will gather the Egyptians back from the peoples where they were scattered.

13Yet thus saith the Lord GOD; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered:

14I will bring the Egyptians back from captivity and return them to the land of Pathros, the land they came from. There they will be a weak, unimportant kingdom.

14And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom.

NotePathros is Upper Egypt, the southern stretch of the Nile valley, which Egyptian tradition treated as the original homeland from which the nation spread north.

15It will be the lowest of the kingdoms. It will never again lift itself above the other nations. I will make Egypt small, so it will never again rule over the nations.

15It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.

16Egypt will never again be something Israel trusts in. Instead, Egypt will remind Israel of the wrong they did whenever they turned to Egypt for help. Then they will know that I am the Lord GOD."

16And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

NoteThe point is political: for over a century Judah's rulers had made alliances with Egypt instead of submitting to Assyria or Babylon, and each alliance ended badly. Egypt's future weakness removes the temptation.

17In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the LORD's message came to me. He said:

17And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

NoteThe twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin's exile is about April 571 BC, the latest dated message in the book, some sixteen years after the one that opens this chapter.

18"Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon made his army work very hard in the fight against Tyre. Every soldier's head was rubbed bald and every shoulder was rubbed raw. But neither he nor his army got any pay from Tyre for that hard work.

18Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it:

Note"Nebuchadrezzar" is a closer transcription of the Babylonian name Nabu-kudurri-usur than the more familiar "Nebuchadnezzar"; both spellings appear in the Bible for the same king. Tyre was a wealthy Phoenician trading city built largely on an island just off the coast. Babylon besieged it for about thirteen years; the city eventually submitted but was never sacked, so the army got no plunder. Bald heads and raw shoulders come from years of hauling baskets of earth and stone to build siege works.

19So this is what the Lord GOD says: I am going to give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon. He will carry off its crowds of people, its riches, and everything he takes. That will be the pay for his army.

19Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army.

NoteAncient armies were paid largely out of what they captured. The point is that Egypt is being handed over as the back pay Tyre never provided.

20I have given him the land of Egypt as his reward for the work he did, because his army was working for me, says the Lord GOD.

20I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord GOD.

21On that day I will make a horn grow for the people of Israel, and I will open your mouth to speak among them. Then they will know that I am the LORD."

21In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

NoteA horn is the standard Hebrew image for strength and power, taken from a bull or ram; "making a horn grow" means restoring a nation's strength. "I will open your mouth" refers back to the enforced silence laid on Ezekiel earlier in the book, which was lifted when news arrived that Jerusalem had fallen.