1 In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, 2 "Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. 3 Speak and say, 'Thus says the Lord Yahweh: "Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lies in the midst of his rivers, that has said, 'My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.' 4 I will put hooks in your jaws, and I will make the fish of your rivers stick to your scales; and I will bring you up out of the midst of your rivers, with all the fish of your rivers which stick to your scales. 5 I'll cast you forth into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers. You'll fall on the open field. You won't be brought together, nor gathered. I have given you for food to the animals of the earth and to the birds of the sky. 6 All the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am Yahweh, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. 7 When they took hold of you by your hand, you broke, and tore all their shoulders; and when they leaned on you, you broke, and paralyzed all of their thighs." 8 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: "Behold, I will bring a sword on you, and will cut off man and animal from you. 9 The land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste; and they shall know that I am Yahweh. Because he has said, 'The river is mine, and I have made it;' 10 therefore, behold, I am against you, and against your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from the tower of Seveneh even to the border of Ethiopia. 11 No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of animal shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years. 12 I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be a desolation forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries." 13 For thus says the Lord Yahweh: "At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the peoples where they were scattered; 14 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. 15 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. 16 It shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing iniquity to memory, when they turn to look after them: and they shall know that I am the Lord Yahweh."'" 17 It came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first (month), in the first (day) of the month, the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, 18 Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was worn; yet had he no wages, nor his army, from Tyre, for the service that he had served against it. 19 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and he shall carry off her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. 20 I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which he served, because they worked for me, says the Lord Yahweh. 21 In that day will I cause a horn to bud forth to the house of Israel, and I will give you the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.
In Ezek. 29-32 we read prophecies against Egypt which, uttered (with the exception of Ezekiel 29:17 to the end) in regular succession, predict the downfall of Pharaoh Hophra and the desolation of Egypt.
Ezekiel. 29:1-16: the first prophecy against Egypt delivered some months before the preceding prophecies against Tyre (see Ezekiel 26:1), the prophecies against the nations being given, not in their chronological, but in their geographical order, according to their nearness to Jerusalem.
This and the three following chapters foretell the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, which he accomplished in the twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin's captivity. The same event is foretold by Jeremiah, Jeremiah 46:13, etc. The prophecy opens with God's charging the king of Egypt (Pharaoh-hophra) with the same extravagant pride and profanity which were in the preceding chapter laid to the charge of the prince of Tyre. He appears, like him, to have affected Divine honors; and boasted so much of the strength of his kingdom, that, as an ancient historian (Herodotus) tells us, he impiously declared that God himself could not dispossess him. Wherefore the prophet, with great majesty, addresses him under the image of one of those crocodiles or monsters which inhabited that river, of whose riches and revenue he vaunted; and assures him that, with as much ease as a fisherman drags the fish he has hooked, God would drag him and his people into captivity, and that their carcasses should fall a prey to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of heaven, Ezekiel 29:1-7. The figure is then dropped; and God is introduced denouncing, in plain terns, the most awful judgments against him and his nation, and declaring that the Egyptians should be subjected to the Babylonians till the fall of the Chaldean empire, Ezekiel 29:8-12. The prophet then foretells that Egypt, which was about to be devastated by the Babylonians, and many of the people carried into captivity, should again become a kingdom; but that it should never regain its ancient political importance; for, in the lapse of time, it should be even the Basest of the kingdoms, a circumstance in the prophecy most literally fulfilled, especially under the Christian dispensation, in its government by the Mameluke slaves, Ezekiel 29:13-16. The prophecy, beginning at the seventeenth verse, is connected with the foregoing, as it relates to the same subject, though delivered about seventeen years later. Nebuchadnezzar and his army, after the long siege of Tyre, which made every head bald by constantly wearing their helmets, and wore the skin of off every shoulder by carrying burdens to raise the fortifications, were disappointed of the spoil which they expected, by the retiring of the inhabitants to Carthage. God, therefore, promises him Egypt for his reward, Ezekiel 29:17-20. The chapter concludes with a prediction of the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, Ezekiel 29:21.
INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 29
This chapter contains a prophecy against Pharaoh king of Egypt; and of the destruction of the land of Egypt; and of the restoration of it after a certain time. The time of prophecy is noted, Ezekiel 29:1, the order to prophesy against Pharaoh, who is described as a large fish, lying in his rivers, and boasting of them, Ezekiel 29:2, his destruction and the manner of it, Ezekiel 29:4, the reason of it, his treachery to the Jews, Ezekiel 29:6, hence the whole land of Egypt is threatened with desolation, from one end to the other, so as to be uninhabited by man or beast for the space of forty years, Ezekiel 29:8, but shall not arrive to their former glory as a kingdom, nor be any more the confidence of the house of Israel, Ezekiel 29:15, then follows a prophecy seventeen years after this, showing the reason why Egypt was given to the king of Babylon, Ezekiel 29:17, and the chapter is closed with a promise of happiness to Israel, Ezekiel 29:21.
(v. 1-16) The desolation of Egypt.
(Ezekiel 29:17-21) Also a promise of mercy to Israel.
Against Egypt - Ezekiel 29-32
The announcement of the judgment upon Egypt is proclaimed in seven "words of God." The first five are threats. The first (Ezekiel 29:1-16) contains a threat of the judgment upon Pharaoh and his people and land, expressed in grand and general traits. The second (Ezekiel 29:17-21) gives a special prediction of the conquest and plundering of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar. The third (Ezekiel 30:1-19) depicts the day of judgment which will break upon Egypt and its allies. The fourth (Ezekiel 30:20-26) foretells the annihilation of the might of Pharaoh by the king of Babylon; and the fifth (Ezekiel 31) holds up as a warning to the king and people of Egypt the glory and the overthrow of Assyria. The last two words of God in Ezekiel 32 contain lamentations over the destruction of Pharaoh and his might, viz., Ezekiel 32:1-16, a lamentation over the king of Egypt; and Ezekiel 32:17-32, a second lamentation over the destruction of his imperial power. - Ezekiel's prophecy concerning Egypt assumes this elaborate form, because he regards the power of Pharaoh and Egypt as the embodiment of that phase of the imperial power which imagines in its ungodly self-deification that it is able to uphold the kingdom of God, and thus seduces the people of God to rely with false confidence upon the imperial power of this world.
*More commentary available by clicking individual verses.