Ezekiel 30

The word of the LORD came to me again. He said:

1The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

NoteLORD printed in capitals is not a translation but a stand-in for the personal name of Israel's God, written in Hebrew with four letters usually given as YHWH. Ancient Jewish readers did not pronounce it aloud, saying instead the ordinary word for "lord," and English Bibles preserve that substitution by printing LORD. Where the text has that name together with the Hebrew word for "lord" or "master," English versions print "Lord GOD", the sense is something like "Sovereign LORD."

2"Son of man, speak for me. Say this: This is what the Lord GOD says. Wail out loud! Cry, 'Alas for that day!'

2Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Howl ye, Woe worth the day!

Note"Son of man" is simply Hebrew for "human being" or "mortal"; it is how God addresses Ezekiel more than ninety times in this book, and carries no special title or rank. "Wail" is not a general expression of sadness but the loud, formal, public keening raised over a corpse at a funeral. Ezekiel is told to hold Egypt's funeral before Egypt has fallen.

3The day is near. The day of the LORD is near. It will be a day of dark clouds, a time of doom for the nations.

3For the day is near, even the day of the LORD is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the heathen.

Note"The day of the LORD" was already a fixed phrase among Israel's prophets, meaning an occasion when God steps in openly to settle accounts. Popular expectation was that it would fall on Israel's enemies; prophets like Amos and Ezekiel apply it more broadly.

4A sword will come against Egypt, and there will be deep pain in Ethiopia when people fall dead in Egypt. Her crowds of people will be carried off, and her foundations will be torn down.

4And the sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away her multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down.

Note"Ethiopia" here is the Hebrew Cush, the kingdom on the Nile south of Egypt, in what is now southern Egypt and Sudan, not the modern country of Ethiopia. Its rulers had governed Egypt itself in the century before Ezekiel. The Hebrew word behind "her crowds of people" can mean either a throng or the wealth and abundance a throng represents, which is why translations differ between "multitude" and "riches."

5Ethiopia, Libya, and Lydia, and all the mixed foreign peoples, and Chub, and the men from the land of the covenant, will fall by the sword along with them.

5Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the men of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword.

NoteThese are the peoples supplying Egypt's foreign troops. "Libya" translates Put and "Lydia" translates Lud (both are African regions whose exact location is uncertain, and Lud is probably not the Lydia of Asia Minor. "The mixed foreign peoples" renders a word for a mingled population of resident foreigners, often used of hired soldiers. "Chub" occurs nowhere else in the Bible and its identity is unknown; some ancient copies read it as Lub, Libya. "The men from the land that made a treaty" is literally "the sons of the land of the covenant") some ancient interpreters took it as Jewish settlers in Egypt, others as unnamed allied states.

6This is what the LORD says: Those who hold Egypt up will fall, and her proud strength will collapse. From Migdol to Syene, her people will fall by the sword inside her, says the Lord GOD.

6Thus saith the LORD; They also that uphold Egypt shall fall; and the pride of her power shall come down: from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord GOD.

NoteThe King James "tower of Syene" reads the Hebrew word migdol as the common noun "tower." Migdol is in fact a fortress town at Egypt's north-eastern edge, near the frontier with Palestine, and Syene is Aswan at the southern cataract. "From Migdol to Syene" is a way of saying "the whole length of the country," as an English speaker might say "from coast to coast."

7They will be an empty ruin among lands that are already ruined, and her cities will stand among cities that have been wrecked.

7And 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.

8Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I set fire to Egypt and all who helped her are broken.

8And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have set a fire in Egypt, and when all her helpers shall be destroyed.

9On that day messengers will go out from me in ships to frighten the Ethiopians, who feel safe and think nothing can touch them. Deep pain will come on them on the day Egypt falls. It is surely coming.

9In that day shall messengers go forth from me in ships to make the careless Ethiopians afraid, and great pain shall come upon them, as in the day of Egypt: for, lo, it cometh.

NoteMessengers traveling "in ships" would sail up the Nile, the highway between Egypt and Cush to its south. The King James "careless" does not mean sloppy; in 1611 it meant free of care, unworried, feeling safe.

10This is what the Lord GOD says: I will put an end to the crowds of Egypt by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon.

10Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also make the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon.

NoteNebuchadrezzar is a more exact spelling of the Babylonian name Nabu-kudurri-usur; he is the same king more often called Nebuchadnezzar. He ruled Babylon 605–562 BC and had already deported Ezekiel and taken Jerusalem.

11He and his people with him, the most ruthless of the nations, will be brought in to destroy the land. They will draw their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the dead.

11He and his people with him, the terrible of the nations, shall be brought to destroy the land: and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with the slain.

12I will dry up the river channels and sell the land to wicked men. By the hands of foreigners I will turn the land and everything in it into a wasteland. I, the LORD, have spoken.

12And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I the LORD have spoken it.

Note"The river channels" are the Nile and the network of branches and irrigation canals through the Delta. Egypt had almost no rainfall, so these channels were the entire basis of its farming and wealth; drying them up is a way of saying the country's life-support is cut. "Sell the land" uses the ordinary commercial word: the owner hands over goods and loses all further claim on them.

13This is what the Lord GOD says: I will destroy the idols and put an end to the images in Noph. There will no longer be a ruler in the land of Egypt, and I will put fear all through the land.

13Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt.

NoteNoph is Memphis, the ancient capital at the head of the Delta, just south of modern Cairo, and a major temple city. The word translated "idols" is a deliberately contemptuous Hebrew term used throughout Ezekiel for images of gods.

14I will leave Pathros an empty ruin, set fire to Zoan, and carry out my sentence on No.

14And I will make Pathros desolate, and will set fire in Zoan, and will execute judgments in No.

NotePathros is Upper Egypt, the narrow southern Nile valley, from roughly Memphis to Aswan. Zoan is Tanis, a capital city in the north-eastern Delta. No is Thebes, the great southern city, center of the worship of the god Amun and site of the temple complexes now called Karnak and Luxor. Naming north, south and Delta together covers the whole country.

15I will pour out my anger on Sin, the fortress city of Egypt, and I will wipe out the crowds of people in No.

15And I will pour my fury upon Sin, the strength of Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of No.

NoteSin is Pelusium, the fortress on the north-eastern coast that guarded the only practical land route into Egypt from Palestine. It is called "the fortress of Egypt" because whoever took it held the door to the country.

16I will set fire to Egypt. Sin will twist in pain, No will be broken wide open, and Noph will face trouble every day.

16And I will set fire in Egypt: Sin shall have great pain, and No shall be rent asunder, and Noph shall have distresses daily.

17The young men of Aven and of Pibeseth will fall by the sword, and those cities themselves will be taken away as captives.

17The young men of Aven and of Pibeseth shall fall by the sword: and these cities shall go into captivity.

NoteAven is the city of On, called Heliopolis by the Greeks, the great center of sun worship, at the southern tip of the Delta. The Hebrew vowels here spell it as though it were the word for "trouble" or "wickedness," a scornful pun. Pibeseth is Bubastis, further into the Delta, the city of the cat goddess Bastet.

18At Tehaphnehes the daylight will turn dark, when I break the yokes of Egypt there, and her proud strength comes to an end. A cloud will cover her, and her daughters will be taken away as captives.

18At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity.

NoteTehaphnehes is Tahpanhes, a frontier garrison town in the eastern Delta, known to the Greeks as Daphnae; Judean refugees settled there after Jerusalem's fall. A "yoke" is the wooden bar strapped across the necks of draft animals to harness them to a load, and is the standard image for one nation's domination of another; the Hebrew here can be read either as the yoke Egypt imposed on others or as the yoke of Egypt's own power being snapped. "Her daughters" is an ordinary Hebrew idiom for the smaller settlements dependent on a city, though it can also be read as the women of the city.

19This is how I will carry out my sentence on Egypt, and they will know that I am the LORD."

19Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the LORD.

20In the eleventh year, on the seventh day of the first month, the word of the LORD came to me. He said:

20And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first month, in the seventh day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

NoteEzekiel dates his oracles from the deportation of King Jehoiachin of Judah to Babylon, the exile Ezekiel himself was taken in. The eleventh year, first month, seventh day works out to around April 587 BC, a few months before Jerusalem finally fell to the Babylonians.

21"Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Look, it has not been wrapped up to heal, or held in a splint, so it could grow strong enough to hold a sword.

21Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and, lo, it shall not be bound up to be healed, to put a roller to bind it, to make it strong to hold the sword.

NoteThe arm is the standard Hebrew image for military power, as the limb that holds the weapon; to break a ruler's arm is to destroy his ability to fight, not to injure his body. The break already inflicted is generally taken to refer to Pharaoh Hophra's failed march to relieve besieged Jerusalem, after which the Egyptian army withdrew home.

22So this is what the Lord GOD says: I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt. I will break both his arms, the strong one and the one already broken, and I will make the sword drop out of his hand.

22Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will break his arms, the strong, and that which was broken; and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand.

23I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and spread them through the lands.

23And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.

24I will make the arms of the king of Babylon strong and put my sword in his hand. But I will break Pharaoh's arms, and he will groan in front of him like a man with a deadly wound.

24And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword in his hand: but I will break Pharaoh’s arms, and he shall groan before him with the groanings of a deadly wounded man.

25I will make the arms of the king of Babylon strong, and Pharaoh's arms will hang limp. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I put my sword in the hand of the king of Babylon and he swings it against the land of Egypt.

25But I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and the arms of Pharaoh shall fall down; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall stretch it out upon the land of Egypt.

26I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and spread them through the lands. Then they will know that I am the LORD."

26And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the LORD.