18 If the family of Egypt doesn't go up, and doesn't come, neither will it rain on them. This will be the plague with which Yahweh will strike the nations that don't go up to keep the feast of tents.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain - Rather, "and there shall not be." It may be that the prophet chose this elliptical form, as well knowing that the symbol did not hold as to Egypt, which, however it ultimately depended on the equatorial rains which overfilled the lakes which supply the Nile, did not need that fine arrangement of the rains of Autumn and Spring which were essential to the fruitfulness of Palestine. The omission leaves room for the somewhat prosaic supply of Jonathan, "The Nile shall not ascend to them." More probably the words are left undefined with a purposed abruptness, "there shall not be upon them," namely, whatever they need: the omission of the symbol in these two verses might the more suggest, that it is a symbol only. Egypt, the ancient oppressor of Israel, is united with Judah as one, in the same worship of God, as Isaiah had said, "In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria" Isaiah 19:24; and since it is united in the duty, so also in the punishment for despising it.
Osorius: "Let not Egypt be proud, that it is watered by the Nile, as if it needed no rain: that is, let no one be secure in this life. For though we stand by faith, yet may we fall. For although bedewed by the efflux of divine grace, and filled with its richness, yet if we give not thanks continually for such great gifts, God will count us as the rest, to whom such copious goodness never came. The safety of all then lies in this, that while we are in these tabernacles, we cherish the divine benefits, and unceasingly praise the Lord, who hath heaped such benefits upon us."
Cyril: "Under the one nation of the Egyptians, he understands those who are greatly deceived, and chose idolatry most unreasonably, to whom it will be a grave inevitable judgment, the pledge of destruction, that they despise the acceptable grace of salvation through Christ. For they are murderers of their own souls, if, when they could lay hold of eternal life and the divine gentleness, open to all who will choose it and put off the burden of sin, they die in their errors; the stain and pollution from transgression and error uncleansed, although the Divine Light illumined all around and called those in darkness to receive sight. Of each of these I would say, 'Better is an untimely birth than he; for he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness" Ecclesiastes 6:3-4. "Good had it been for them, if they had never been born" Matthew 26:24, is the Saviour's word. That this is not said of the Egyptians only, but shall come true of all nations, who shall altogether be punished, if they are reckless of the salvation through Christ and honor not His festival, he will establish in these words;
If the family of Egypt - This may allude to those Jews who, flying from the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, settled in Egypt, and built a temple at Heliopolis, under the direction of Onias, son of the high priest. Josephus Antiq. lib. xiii., c. 6, and War, lib. vii., c. 36. If these do not rejoin their brethren, they shall have no rain, no interest in the favor of God.
And if the family of (q) Egypt shall not go up, and shall not come, that [have] no [rain]; there shall be the plague, with which the LORD will smite the nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
(q) By the Egyptians, who were the greatest enemies to true religion, he means all the Gentiles.
And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not,.... To Jerusalem, the church of God; do not go thither to worship the Lord, attend his ordinances, and keep them in their purity; nor walk as becomes the people of God: by "the family of Egypt" are meant the Papists, so called for their tyranny, cruelty, and idolatry, Revelation 11:8,
that have no rain; have not the pure word of God, and the ordinances thereof, only the traditions of men; yea, the doctrines of devils, and lies in hypocrisy: the allusion is to the land of Egypt, which was watered, not so much by rain as by the overflowing of the river Nile: or it may be rendered, "and upon them there shall be no rain" (w); or that which is equivalent to it. So the Targum paraphrases it,
"the Nile shall not ascend unto them.''
The sense is, as they are without the pure Gospel of Christ, they shall continue so, and be punished with, that sore judgment of a famine of hearing the word of the Lord.
There shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles; they shall have the same plague of want of water, a famine; for it is a vulgar mistake that there is no rain in Egypt; it rains indeed but seldom, and only in some places, but it does rain. Monsieur Thevenot (x) says,
"it rains much at Alexandria, and Rosetta also; but at Cairo, which stands higher, it rains less; and yet (says he) I have seen it rain very hard every year, for two days together in the month of December.''
And Mr. Fuller (y) says that Sir William Paston, a patron of his, and a well accomplished traveller, was
"an eye witness of much and violent rain at Grand Cairo, but such as presaged a great mortality, which ensued, not long after.''
But it should be observed that this is only true of the lower part of Egypt, for in the upper parts it rains not, at least not very commonly: for Herodotus (z) reports that
"in the times of Psammenitus, the son of Amasis, king of Egypt, a very wonderful thing happened to the Egyptians; it rained at Thebes in Egypt, which it never had before, nor has ever since, as the Thebans say; for it never rains in the upper part of Egypt; but then it rained at Thebes in drops.''
Yet Mr. Norden (a), a late traveller in those parts, says he
"experienced at Meschie (a city in his travels to upper Egypt) a very violent rain, accompanied with thunder, for the space of a whole hour;''
though in the same place he says, at Feschna, and beyond, in the upper Egypt, the sky is always serene and clear. And in his travels from Cairo to Girge, capital of the upper Egypt, he relates, that at a certain place, as he went thither, they had little wind, and a great deal of rain (b). And in another place (c) he observes, at Menie (a place in upper Egypt) there was so thick a fog that we could perceive nothing at thirty paces distant: wherefore, since it does rain at times in some places, the same plague as before may be here meant; or want of provisions, as others, through a defect of rain; or the Nile not overflowing and watering the land, as Jarchi interprets it: but Kimchi gives another sense, and so Aben Ezra, which is, that instead of having no rain, which they need not and do not desire, they shall be smitten with the plague that the Lord will smite all the nations with that fight against Jerusalem, namely, their flesh shall consume away, &c. Zac 14:12.
(w) "super quos non est imber", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius; "et non super illos, scil. erit imber", Burkius. (x) Travels, part 1. c. 72. p. 247. (y) Pisgah-Sight, B. 4. c. 5. p. 80. (z) Thalia, sive l. 3. c. 10. (a) Travels in Egypt and Nubia, vol. 1. p. 140. (b) Ib. vol. 2. p. 20. (c) Ib. p. 209.
if . . . Egypt go not up--specified as Israel's ancient foe. If Egypt go not up, and so there be no rain on them (a judgment which Egypt would condemn, as depending on the Nile's overflow, not on rain), there shall be the plague . . . . Because the guilty are not affected by one judgment, let them not think to escape, for God has other judgments which shall plague them. MAURER translates, "If Egypt go not up, upon them also there shall be none" (no rain). Psalm 105:32 mentions "rain" in Egypt. But it is not their main source of fertility.
*More commentary available at chapter level.