1 - 16 Lamentation Over Pharaoh
1 In the twelfth year, in the twelfth [month], on the first of the month, the word of the LORD came to me saying,
2 “Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him,
‘You compared yourself to a young lion of the nations,
Yet you are like the monster in the seas;
And you burst forth in your rivers
And muddied the waters with your feet
And fouled their rivers.’”
3 Thus says the Lord GOD,
“Now I will spread My net over you
With a company of many peoples,
And they shall lift you up in My net.
4 “I will leave you on the land;
I will cast you on the open field.
And I will cause all the birds of the heavens to dwell on you,
And I will satisfy the beasts of the whole earth with you.
5 “I will lay your flesh on the mountains
And fill the valleys with your refuse.
6 “I will also make the land drink the discharge of your blood
As far as the mountains,
And the ravines will be full of you.
7 “And when [I] extinguish you,
I will cover the heavens and darken their stars;
I will cover the sun with a cloud
And the moon will not give its light.
8 “All the shining lights in the heavens
I will darken over you
And will set darkness on your land,”
Declares the Lord GOD.
9 “I will also trouble the hearts of many peoples when I bring your destruction among the nations, into lands which you have not known.
10 I will make many peoples appalled at you, and their kings will be horribly afraid of you when I brandish My sword before them; and they will tremble every moment, every man for his own life, on the day of your fall.”
11 For thus says the Lord GOD, “The sword of the king of Babylon will come upon you.
12 By the swords of the mighty ones I will cause your hordes to fall; all of them are tyrants of the nations,
And they will devastate the pride of Egypt,
And all its hordes will be destroyed.
13 “I will also destroy all its cattle from beside many waters;
And the foot of man will not muddy them anymore
And the hoofs of beasts will not muddy them.
14 “Then I will make their waters settle
And will cause their rivers to run like oil,”
Declares the Lord GOD.
15 “When I make the land of Egypt a desolation,
And the land is destitute of that which filled it,
When I smite all those who live in it,
Then they shall know that I am the LORD.
16 This is a lamentation and they shall chant it. The daughters of the nations shall chant it. Over Egypt and over all her hordes they shall chant it,” declares the Lord GOD.
The word of the LORD comes to Ezekiel (verse 1). It is again a word with a calendar designation: year, month and day are mentioned. Ezekiel is commanded to take up a lamentation over Pharaoh (verse 2; cf. Eze 2:10; 19:1; 26:17; 28:12). Judgment on God’s enemies, however deserved that judgment may be, deeply saddens a true prophet.
Ezekiel is to say to Pharaoh that he resembles a young lion and monster in the seas. The imagery of the lion (Eze 19:2,3,5,6; cf. Pro 19:12; 20:2) is not elaborated, that of the sea monster (Eze 29:3) is. His ferocious actions in the seas and rivers refer to the turmoil Pharaoh has brought among the nations. He is a cruel ruler and an unreliable ally.
The Lord GOD will judge him (verse 3). He will do so by catching him in His net. That net consists of a multitude of nations, namely Babylon and the nations that are with him. They are the tools in God’s hand to overwhelm Pharaoh and take him captive.
Once Pharaoh has lost his power and been robbed of everything valuable, he will be left destitute (verse 4). He will then be a prey to the vultures and the scavengers who will take from him what is left of edible food. The corpses lying on the mountains and valleys will be robbed of what they still possess (verse 5). The slaughter will be so great that the whole land, up to the mountains and riverbeds, will be filled with blood (verse 6).
Pharaoh, who has been acting like a sun god, will be extinguished, so that nothing of his brilliance will be seen (verse 7). He, who has seen himself as the radiant center of heaven, will be shrouded in blackness (verse 8). Clouds of God’s wrath will cover him. He will no longer receive and pass on any (errant) light. Other princes, too, who have allied themselves with him and seen themselves as lights, will be shrouded in black for his sake. The LORD will lay a thick blanket of darkness over the whole land (cf. Rev 8:12; Isa 13:10; Amos 8:9; Joel 2:31; 3:15; Mt 24:29).
When the nations see the downfall of the mighty Egyptian empire, the LORD will trouble the hearts of those nations (verse 9). They will turn away from Egypt full of disappointment, appalled at its fall. With Egypt failing, their hope of successfully resisting the king of Babylon is dashed. Instead of hope, there is now despair (verse 10). The sword that defeated Egypt now brandishes menacingly before their eyes. The sword in Nebuchadnezzar’s hand is controlled by the far more powerful hand of God. When Egypt has fallen, it will cause trembling and fear for their own lives.
That Egypt will fall by the sword of the king of Babylon is certain (verse 11). The soldiers of the king of Babylon are all tyrants who will, without mercy, reign in Egypt in a violent manner unprecedented among the nations (verse 12). The pride of Egypt will be destroyed and all its hordes will be destroyed. All life will be annihilated. The waters will remain ripple-free, because there will be no one, neither man nor beast, left to stir them up (verse 13).
The water will be clear and transparent, without a ripple like that of an oil stream (verse 14). Egypt is fertile because of the supply of silt brought by a turbid Nile. But there is no more silt, so there will be barrenness and withering instead of fertility. The result of the judgments of the LORD will be that they will know that He is the LORD (verse 15).
The lamentation just sung by Ezekiel will be sung by the daughters of the nations (verse 16). They will sing about Egypt and all of its multitude when Egypt is desolate and the multitude is gone from the land. That will be after the Babylonians have executed His judgment on Pharaoh and his people as the avenging sword of the LORD.
17 - 32 Wailing for Egypt
17 In the twelfth year, on the fifteenth of the month, the word of the LORD came to me saying,
18 “Son of man, wail for the hordes of Egypt and bring it down, her and the daughters of the powerful nations, to the nether world, with those who go down to the pit;
19 ‘Whom do you surpass in beauty?
Go down and make your bed with the uncircumcised.’
20 They shall fall in the midst of those who are slain by the sword. She is given over to the sword; they have drawn her and all her hordes away.
21 The strong among the mighty ones shall speak of him [and] his helpers from the midst of Sheol, ‘They have gone down, they lie still, the uncircumcised, slain by the sword.’
22 “Assyria is there and all her company; her graves are round about her. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword,
23 whose graves are set in the remotest parts of the pit and her company is round about her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword, who spread terror in the land of the living.
24 “Elam is there and all her hordes around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who went down uncircumcised to the lower parts of the earth, who instilled their terror in the land of the living and bore their disgrace with those who went down to the pit.
25 They have made a bed for her among the slain with all her hordes. Her graves are around it, they are all uncircumcised, slain by the sword (although their terror was instilled in the land of the living), and they bore their disgrace with those who go down to the pit; they were put in the midst of the slain.
26 “Meshech, Tubal and all their hordes are there; their graves surround them. All of them were slain by the sword uncircumcised, though they instilled their terror in the land of the living.
27 Nor do they lie beside the fallen heroes of the uncircumcised, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war and whose swords were laid under their heads; but the punishment for their iniquity rested on their bones, though the terror of [these] heroes [was once] in the land of the living.
28 But in the midst of the uncircumcised you will be broken and lie with those slain by the sword.
29 “There also is Edom, its kings and all its princes, who for [all] their might are laid with those slain by the sword; they will lie with the uncircumcised and with those who go down to the pit.
30 “There also are the chiefs of the north, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who in spite of the terror resulting from their might, in shame went down with the slain. So they lay down uncircumcised with those slain by the sword and bore their disgrace with those who go down to the pit.
31 “These Pharaoh will see, and he will be comforted for all his hordes slain by the sword, [even] Pharaoh and all his army,” declares the Lord GOD.
32 “Though I instilled a terror of him in the land of the living, yet he will be made to lie down among [the] uncircumcised [along] with those slain by the sword, [even] Pharaoh and all his hordes,” declares the Lord GOD.
Two weeks after lamenting over Pharaoh (verse 1), the word of the LORD comes to Ezekiel again (verse 17). He is now to wail “for the hordes of Egypt”, which is Pharaoh’s people (verse 18). This wailing has also been called a “death song”. It speaks of deep melancholy and sadness. The LORD tells Ezekiel to use his complaint to bring down the hordes of Egypt to the pit, to the realm of the dead. The words he utters mean death for the Egyptians. This is so because his words are in fact those of the LORD. And what the LORD speaks, happens. He will use Nebuchadnezzar to fulfill His words.
The lament begins by asking Egypt whom he does surpass in beauty (verse 19). The answer is that no one does. They may hold that opinion, but it will only make their fall all the greater. They are told to come down and be resigned to the uncircumcised. This is not a request, but a command that will be carried out.
They will share in the fate of others who have also fallen by the sword (verse 20). They will be handed over to the sword and drawn away like garbage. This is a great shock to the Egyptians. They are used to decorating, mummifying and preserving their dead. They are used to building pyramids and making showpieces of the tombs. Now they are told that their dead bodies will be treated with the greatest defamation. The mighty heroes who preceded them in death will address them with contempt when they descend into Sheol, the realm of death (verse 21). Nothing will remain of the respect they enjoyed on earth.
Five examples are given of nations that have fallen and with whom Egypt is now aligned by its demise. The first nation is Assyria (verses 22-23). How they boasted of their power and how cruelly they ranted against peoples subjugated by them. They, who have caused terror in the land of the living, lie defeated by the sword in the depths of the pit, while there is also a company of unburied bodies around his grave.
The second people are Elam (verses 24-25). Elam is the first people mentioned in the Bible to go out to war (Gen 14:1-9). This once warlike people, who like the Assyrians brought terror in the land of the living, suffer the same fate as the Assyrians (cf. Isa 21:2; 22:6; Jer 49:34-39). They are now among those slain by the sword, but in that place they find nothing of the respect they commanded on earth. They are now despised.
The third is Meshech and Tubal, two Asia Minor nations (verse 26; cf. Gen 10:2; Eze 38:2,3). Like Assyria and Elam, Meshech and Tubal have been a terror in the land of the living. When they lay down mortally wounded, not a shadow remained of the heroes they once were. The tribute that heroes usually receive at their burial by burying their weapons of war with them is not there for them (verse 27). Instead of the honor of weapons of war, iniquity lies upon them. That will also be the fate of Egypt (verse 28).
The fourth people is Edom (verse 29). For him too, as for the peoples mentioned above, there is no honorable place in the realm of the dead. Nothing remains of his former power.
The last people cited in the complaint about Egypt are a collection of nations who have all been mighty in the land of the living, but have now descended with disgrace into the realm of the dead (verse 30). Their place is with the other nations who have descended into the realm of the dead in disgrace.
Pharaoh will see all the named peoples in the realm of the dead and take comfort in the fact that he is not the only one who must suffer this fate (verse 31). It is, of course, a particularly meager, cold comfort. Nor is it true comfort, for any sympathy that might ease or help bear pain is absent. It is more gloating that others are also in the realm of the dead. Pharaoh will not feel the judgment any less severe because of it.
The prophecies about the nations end with the observation that Pharaoh will know that he is in the realm of the dead because the LORD has imposed His terror on him in the land of the living (verse 32). Therefore, he is now in a place of contempt. He has ended up there because he has fallen by the sword of God’s judgment. That is what the Lord GOD declares and that is why it is so.
As we read this chapter, we are impressed by God’s monotonous, constantly repeated judgment of one people after another. There is nothing beautiful about sin, for sin ends in death. It is cause and effect. What ends in death remains there forever and ever. That eternal condition awaits every soul who dies without Christ.