This document provides commentary on Ezekiel 29 from multiple scholars. It summarizes the key points of the prophecy against Egypt in Ezekiel 29. The prophecy predicts the destruction of Pharaoh and Egypt's might by God. Pharaoh is compared to a great dragon lying in the rivers of Egypt, thinking he created the land and its power. God will remove Pharaoh from Egypt and cast him in the desert to be food for beasts. Egypt will be made desolate for 40 years as punishment for relying on their own strength rather than God. The commentary provides historical context and analyzes the symbolism and imagery used in the prophecy.

1. EZEKIEL 29 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
A Prophecy Against Egypt
Judgment on Pharaoh
1 In the tenth year, in the tenth month on the
twelfth day, the word of the Lord came to me:
BARNES, "The tenth year - Jerusalem had been besieged, but not taken. Jeremiah
delivered his prophecy against Egypt, about the time when the approach of Pharaoh
Hophra’s army caused the Chaldaeans for the time to raise the siege Jer_37:5. This was
the solitary instance of Egypt meddling with the affairs of Palestine or Syria after the
battle of Carchemish (compare 2Ki_24:7); it met with speedy punishment.
CLARKE, "In the tenth year - Of Zedekiah; and tenth of the captivity of Jeconiah.
The ten month, in the twelfth day of the month - Answering to Monday, the
first of February, A.M. 3415.
GILL, "In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the
month,.... In the tenth year Jeconiah's captivity, and Zedekiah's reign. The Septuagint
version has it, the twelfth year; and the Arabic version, the twelfth month; and the
Septuagint version again, the first day of the month; and the Vulgate Latin, the eleventh
day of it. This month was the month Tebet, and answers to part of December, and part of
January. This prophecy was delivered before that concerning Tyre, though placed after
it, because fulfilled after it, which gave Nebuchadnezzar Egypt as a reward for besieging
and taking Tyre:
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2. the word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows.
HENRY, "Here is, I. The date of this prophecy against Egypt. It was in the tenth year
of the captivity, and yet it is placed after the prophecy against Tyre, which was delivered
in the eleventh year, because, in the accomplishment of the prophecies, the destruction
of Tyre happened before the destruction of Egypt, and Nebuchadnezzar's gaining Egypt
was the reward of his service against Tyre; and therefore the prophecy against Tyre is
put first, that we may the better observe that. But particular notice must be taken of this,
that the first prophecy against Egypt was just at the time when the king of Egypt was
coming to relieve Jerusalem and raise the siege (Jer_37:5), but did not answer the
expectations of the Jews from them. Note, It is good to foresee the failing of all our
creature-confidences, then when we are most in temptation to depend upon them, that
we may cease from man.
JAMISON, "Eze_29:1-21. The judgment on Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar; though
about to be restored after forty years, it was still to be in a state of degradation.
This is the last of the world kingdoms against which Ezekiel’s prophecies are directed,
and occupies the largest space in them, namely, the next four chapters. Though farther
off than Tyre, it exercised a more powerful influence on Israel.
K&D 1-5, "The Judgment upon Pharaoh and His People and Land
Because Pharaoh looks upon himself as the creator of his kingdom and of his might,
he is to be destroyed with his men of war (Eze_29:2-5). In order that Israel may no
longer put its trust in the fragile power of Egypt, the sword shall cut off from Egypt both
man and beast, the land shall be turned into a barren wilderness, and the people shall be
scattered over the lands (Eze_29:5-12). But after the expiration of the time appointed for
its punishment, both people and land shall be restored, though only to remain an
insignificant kingdom (Eze_29:13-16). - According to Eze_29:1, this prophecy belongs to
the tenth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin; and as we may see by comparing it with the
other oracles against Egypt of which the dates are given, it was the first word of God
uttered by Ezekiel concerning this imperial kingdom. The contents also harmonize with
this, inasmuch as the threat which it contains merely announces in general terms the
overthrow of the might of Egypt and its king, without naming the instrument employed
to execute the judgment, and at the same time the future condition of Egypt is also
disclosed.
Eze_29:1-12
Destruction of the might of Pharaoh, and devastation of Egypt
Eze_29:1. In the tenth year, in the tenth (month), on the twelfth of the month, the
word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze_29:2. Son of man, direct thy face against
Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Eze_29:3.
Speak and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will deal with thee, Pharaoh,
king of Egypt, thou great dragon which lieth in its rivers, which saith, “Mine is the
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3. river, and I have made it for myself.” Eze_29:4. I will put a ring into thy jaws, and
cause the fishes of thy rivers to hang upon thy scales, and draw thee out of thy rivers,
and all the fishes of thy rivers which hang upon thy scales; Eze_29:5. And will cast thee
into the desert, thee and all the fishes of thy rivers; upon the surface of the field wilt
thou fall, thou wilt not be lifted up nor gathered together; I give thee for food to the
beasts of the earth and the birds of the heaven. Eze_29:6. And all the inhabitants of
Egypt shall learn that I am Jehovah. Because it is a reed-staff to the house of Israel, -
Eze_29:7. When they grasp thee by thy branches, thou crackest and tearest open all
their shoulder; and when they lean upon thee, thou breakest and causest all their loins
to shake, - Eze_29:8. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I bring upon thee
the sword, and will cut off from thee man and beast; Eze_29:9. And the land of Egypt
will become a waste and desolation, and they shall learn that I am Jehovah. Because he
saith: “The river is mine, and I have made it,” Eze_29:10. Therefore, behold, I will deal
with thee and thy rivers, and will make the land of Egypt into barren waste desolations
from Migdol to Syene, even to the border of Cush. Eze_29:11. The foot of man will not
pass through it, and the foot of beast will not pass through it, and it will not be
inhabited for forty years. Eze_29:12. I make the land of Egypt a waste in the midst of
devastated lands, and its cities shall be waste among desolate cities forty years; and I
scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them in the lands. - The date
given, viz., “in the tenth year,” is defended even by Hitzig as more correct than the
reading of the lxx, ἐν τῷ ἔτει τῷ δωδεκάτω; and he supposes the Alexandrian reading to
have originated in the fact that the last date mentioned in Eze_26:1 had already brought
down the account to the eleventh year. - Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, against whom the
threat is first directed, is called “the great dragon” in Eze_29:3. ‫ים‬ִ‫נּ‬ ַ‫תּ‬ (here and Eze_
32:2) is equivalent to ‫ין‬ִ‫נּ‬ ַ‫,תּ‬ literally, the lengthened animal, the snake; here, the water-
snake, the crocodile, the standing symbol of Egypt in the prophets (cf. Isa_51:9; Isa_
27:1; Psa_74:13), which is here transferred to Pharaoh, as the ruler of Egypt and
representative of its power. By ‫ים‬ ִ‫ֹר‬‫א‬ְ‫י‬ we are to understand the arms and canals of the
Nile (vid., Isa_7:18). The predicate, “lying in the midst of his rivers,” points at once to
the proud security in his own power to which Pharaoh gave himself up. As the crocodile
lies quietly in the waters of the Nile, as though he were lord of the river; so did Pharaoh
regard himself as the omnipotent lord of Egypt. His words affirm this: “the river is mine,
I have made it for myself.” The suffix attached to ‫י‬ִ‫נ‬ ִ‫ית‬ ִ‫ֲשׂ‬‫ע‬ stands in the place of ‫י‬ ְ‫,ל‬ as
Eze_29:9, where the suffix is wanting, clearly shows. There is an incorrectness in this
use of the suffix, which evidently passed into the language of literature from the popular
phraseology (cf. Ewald, §315b). The rendering of the Vulgate, ego feci memetipsum, is
false. ‫י‬ ִ‫ֹר‬‫א‬ְ‫י‬ is the expression used by him as a king who regards the land and its rivers as
his own property; in connection with which we must bear in mind that Egypt is indebted
to the Nile not only for its greatness, but for its actual existence. In this respect Pharaoh
says emphatically ‫י‬ ְ‫,ל‬ it is mine, it belongs to me, because he regards himself as the
creator. The words, “I have made it for myself,” simply explain the reason for the
expression ‫י‬ ְ‫,ל‬ and affirm more than “I have put myself in possession of this through my
own power, or have acquired its blessings for myself” (Hävernick); or, “I have put it into
its present condition by constructing canals, dams, sluices, and buildings by the river-
side” (Hitzig). Pharaoh calls himself the creator of the Nile, because he regards himself
as the creator of the greatness of Egypt. This pride, in which he forgets God and
attributes divine power to himself, is the cause of his sin, for which he will be
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4. overthrown by God. God will draw the crocodile Pharaoh out of his Nile with hooks, and
cast him upon the dry land, where he and the fishes that have been drawn out along with
him upon his scales will not be gathered up, but devoured by the wild beasts and birds of
prey. The figure is derived from the manner in which even in ancient times the crocodile
was caught with large hooks of a peculiar construction (compare Herod. ii. 70, and the
testimonies of travellers in Oedmann's Vermischten Sammlungen, III pp. 6ff., and
Jomard in the Déscription de l'Egypte, I p. 27). The form ‫חחיים‬ with a double Yod is a
copyist's error, probably occasioned by the double Yod occurring after ‫ח‬ in ‫ֶי‬‫י‬ ָ‫ח‬ ְ‫ל‬ ִ‫,בּ‬
which follows. A dual form for ‫ים‬ ִ‫ח‬ ַ‫ח‬ is unsuitable, and is not used anywhere else even by
Ezekiel (cf. Eze_19:4, Eze_19:9, and more especially Eze_38:4).
The fishes which hang upon the scales of the monster, and are drawn along with it out
of the Nile, are the inhabitants of Egypt, for the Nile represents the land. The casting of
the beast into the wilderness, where it putrefies and is devoured by the beasts and birds
of prey, must not be interpreted in the insipid manner proposed by Hitzig, namely, that
Pharaoh would advance with his army into the desert of Arabia and be defeated there.
The wilderness is the dry and barren land, in which animals that inhabit the water must
perish; and the thought is simply that the monster will be cast upon the desert land,
where it will finally become the food of the beasts of prey.
COFFMAN, "FIRST OF FOUR CHAPTERS DIRECTED AGAINST EGYPT
"The first sixteen verses here are an introduction to the entire four chapters against
Egypt. They describe the fate of Egypt, cite the sins of which she was guilty and
indicate the nature of her judgment, and her future place among the nations of the
world."[1]
Ezekiel has seven oracles against Egypt, the first two of which are in this chapter:
(1) Ezekiel 29:1-16; (2) Ezekiel 29:17-21; (3) Ezekiel 30:1-19; (4) Ezekiel 30:20-26;
(5) Ezekiel 31; (6) Ezekiel 32:1-16; and (7) Ezekiel 32:17-32.
The date of this prophecy is specific. "It was a year and two days after
Nebuchadnezzar began the siege of Jerusalem, and seven months before its
destruction."[2] This was in January, 587 B.C.[3] "This was about the time when
Pharaoh Hophra's approach toward Jerusalem with an army caused
Nebuchadnezzar temporarily to lift the siege, as recorded in Jeremiah 37:5.[4]
4

5. The chapter naturally falls into these divisions: (1) the crocodile captured and
destroyed (Ezekiel 29:1-7); (2) the allegory applied (Ezekiel 29:8-12); (3) the
restoration of Egypt after forty years (Ezekiel 29:13-16); (4) Egypt awarded to
Nebuchadnezzar as `wages' for his ruin of Tyre (Ezekiel 29:17-20); and (5) a
glimpse of a New Age for Israel (Ezekiel 29:21).
THE CROCODILE CAPTURED AND DESTROYED
Ezekiel 29:1-7
"In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of
Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of
Egypt; speak, and say, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee,
Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lieth in the midst of his rivers, that
hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. And 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, with all the fish of thy rivers which stick
unto thy scales. And I will cast thee forth into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of
thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open field; thou shalt not be brought together,
nor gathered; I have given thee for food to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of
the heavens. And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am Jehovah, because
they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. When they took hold of thee by
the hand, thou didst break, and didst rend all their shoulders; and when they leaned
upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand."
"The twelfth day of the month ..." (Ezekiel 29:1). F. F. Bruce gave this day as the
7th of January, 587 B.C.[5]
"The great monster that lieth in the midst of his rivers ..." (Ezekiel 29:3). The word
here means crocodile, an appropriate symbol indeed for Pharaoh and his nation. He
was a terrible looking monster, not nearly as dangerous as he looked, lethargic and
inactive most of the time. Of course, some of our radical commentators
automatically find all kinds of mythological connections with a reference of this
5

6. kind; but as Cooke stated, "Mythological associations are foreign to this
context."[6] Furthermore, Pearson, writing in 1962, makes the same affirmation.[7]
Despite this, May, quoting some various readings, thought he found here some
reflections of Sumerian mythology."[8]
Historically, there is no excuse whatever for seeking sources here in ancient
mythology. The crocodile was a well-known symbol of Egypt, found on Roman coins
of that vintage, and being universally understood as a symbol of Egypt and its
Pharaohs.[9]
"The fish ... which stick to thy scales ..." (Ezekiel 29:4). This represents the subjects,
dependents, and allies of Pharaoh who would inevitably share in his ruin and
downfall.
"I have given thee for food to the beasts, etc ..." (Ezekiel 29:5). The death
prophesied here for Pharaoh was especially repulsive to the Egyptian, due to the
care they usually bestowed upon their dead bodies, especially those of the Pharaohs.
Two reasons are here assigned as the prior causes of the terrible punishment God
was bringing upon them. (1) Pharaoh had arrogated unto himself divine
prerogatives, in the same manner as the prince of Tyre, even claiming to have
created the Nile River! (Ezekiel 29:3). (2) Egypt had bitterly deceived and betrayed
Israel upon those occasions when, contrary to God's warning, that had formed
military alliances with Egypt. They had proved to be a "broken reed" indeed upon
which Israel had vainly depended for help. Still another reason is cited later in
Ezekiel 29:9b-16. (3) "Egypt possessed an exaggerated sense of self-sufficiency."[10]
COKE, "The judgment of Pharaoh for his treachery to Israel. The desolation of
Egypt. The restoration thereof after forty years. Egypt the reward of
Nebuchadrezzar. Israel shall be restored.
6

7. Before Christ 588.
Verse 1
Ezekiel 29:1. In the tenth year, &c.— The tenth year is that from the taking of
Jerusalem: according to Usher, about the year of the world 3415. The prophesies in
this and the three following chapters respect Egypt; though they were not all
delivered at the same time. See on chap. Ezekiel 31:3.
ELLICOTT, "The series of prophecies against Egypt, occupying the four following
chapters, and containing seven separate prophecies, were all delivered in regular
order, except the short one at the close of this chapter (Ezekiel 29:17-21), which was
much later. The prophecy of Ezekiel 30:1-19 is indeed undated, but there is no
reason to suppose it is out of its chronological place. Ezekiel 29-31, with the
exception just mentioned, were uttered before the fall of Jerusalem, and
consequently before the series of prophecies against other foreign nations just
considered, the principle of arrangement here being geographical rather than
chronological, and the immediate neighbours of Israel being taken up before the
more distant Egypt. In the detail this series is arranged substantially on the same
plan as that against Tyre: first, a prophecy against Egypt (Ezekiel 29, 30); then a
picture of her greatness and fall (Ezekiel 31); and finally a dirge over her (Ezekiel
32).
At the time when the first of these prophecies was uttered the Jews still looked upon
Egypt as the great power opposed to the Chaldæans, and still hoped for aid from
this source. Hence the teaching of this prophecy was very necessary for them. And
even afterwards it was important for them to understand that they were not to rely
on any earthly aid, and especially that Egypt, to which they had been disposed to
look during so many generations, could never help them.
The monarch now upon the throne of Egypt was Pharaoh-Hophra, the Apries of the
Greeks. On the question of his death and the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar,
see Excursus at the end of this book. It is certain that the period was one of a
temporary revival of Egyptian power amid its general course of decadence. Egypt
had been conquered by Assyria, and again and again subdued after its revolts. On
7

8. the fall of Assyria it had thrown off all foreign yoke, and Hophra himself had made
a successful attack upon the Phœnicians, and had attempted to raise the siege of
Jerusalem, in which he momentarily succeeded, but was driven off by
Nebuchadnezzar. Not many years afterwards Egypt was finally subdued by the
Medo-Persian power, which succeeded the Chaldæan at Babylon, and never
regained its independence for any length of time. It continued a Persian satrapy
until it fell successively under the Greek, the Roman, and the Mameluke sway.
Verse 1
(1) In the tenth year, in the tenth month.—This was exactly a year and two days
after the investment of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (Ezekiel 24:1-2; 2 Kings
25:1), and about six months before its fall, or seven before its destruction (2 Kings
25:3-8). It must have been, therefore, after the time when the siege was temporarily
raised by the approach of the Egyptians under Pharaoh-Hophra (Jeremiah 37:5;
Jeremiah 37:11), and when Jeremiah prophesied the failure of that attempt
(Jeremiah 37:6-10); and probably was just when the news of that relief reached
Chaldæa, and gave fresh hope to the exiles of the deliverance of Jerusalem.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 29:1 In the tenth year, in the tenth [month], in the twelfth [day] of
the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. In the tenth year.] The year before Jerusalem was taken. [Ezekiel 24:1]
In the tenth month.] Called "Tebeth," [Esther 2:16] and it answereth to our
January, saith Bede. Chronology is the eye of prophecy, as well as of history.
PETT, "Verse 1-2
‘In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the word of
Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh, king of
Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt.” ’
8

9. This prophesy took place in January 587 BC almost a year after the siege of
Jerusalem had begun. It was Egypt that had been partly responsible for Zedekiah’s
rebellion, contrary to Yahweh’s specific command (e.g. Jeremaih Ezekiel 27:6-11),
and who therefore had to bear part responsibility for it.
The Great Crocodile and The Broken Reed.
PETT, "Verses 1-16
The First Oracle Against Egypt (Ezekiel 29:1-16).
In this oracle Egypt is likened to a monster crocodile which Yahweh will hunt and
dispose of (2-5), because of Pharaoh’s pretensions (Ezekiel 29:3), and then to a staff
on which those who lean will falter (6-7). And then He prophesies the future
destruction and weakness of Egypt.
PETT, "Verses 1-32
The Oracles Against Egypt (Ezekiel 29:1 to Ezekiel 32:32).
This section of the book is composed of seven oracles issued against Egypt. The fact
that there are seven is probably deliberate in order to emphasise the divine
completeness of the condemnation, for throughout the Near East seven was the
number of divine perfection.
Egypt was the great power to the south, as Assyria, Babylon and Persia were
successively to the north. Except in very weak times, she had always seen the land of
Canaan as hers and under her administration, and had only reluctantly ceded
ground when forced to do so for a time by those great powers from the north. Her
influence had never been good and she was responsible for much of the idolatry in
Israel. This was necessarily so because Pharaoh saw himself as the manifestation of
the god Horus, becoming the great Osiris on his death. Thus the destruction of
9

10. Egypt’s power was necessary if ever Israel was to be free.
This denunciation of Egypt is looking at more than the current situation, although
having that in mind. For centuries Egypt had dominated Israel. Again and again she
had crushed her and exacted tribute. Now she was to receiver retribution.
Furthermore at this time Egypt was seeking to rally the peoples in and around
Canaan, encouraging them to rebel against Babylon with promises of aid. But
because of her own comparative weakness this could only lead them into deep
trouble. She was not strong enough to lean on. So if His people were to know peace
Egypt had to be dealt with, and dealt with thoroughly.
From this time on Egypt would never again rise to be the great power that she had
been. And Ezekiel reveals this as being due to the activity of Yahweh.
PULPIT, "In the tenth year, etc. The precision with which the dates of the several
portions of the prophecy against Egypt are given, here and in Ezekiel 29:17; Ezekiel
30:20; Ezekiel 31:1; Ezekiel 32:1, Ezekiel 32:7, shows that each was called forth by
the political events of the time, and has to be studied in connection with them. It will
be well, therefore, to begin with a Brief survey of the relations which existed at this
period between Judah, Egypt, and Babylon. After the great defeat of Pharaoh-
Necho by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish, on which Jeremiah (46.) dwells fully, he
was succeeded in B.C. 594 by his son Psammetik II. the Psammis of Herodotus
2.160, who invaded Ethiopia, and died in B.C. 588, leaving the throne to his son
Uah-prahet, the Pharaoh Hophra of Jeremiah 44:30, the Apries of Herod; 2.161.
The Greek historian tells us that he attacked Tyre and Zidon, failed in an enterprise
against Cyrene, and was deposed by Amasis. Zedekiah and his counselors, following
in the steps of Hezekiah (Isaiah 30:1-33.) and Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 46:1-28.), had
courted his alliance against the Chaldeans. As Ezekiel had prophesied (Ezekiel
17:11-18), they found that they were once more leaning on a broken reed. We have
now come to B.C. 589, when Jerusalem was actually besieged, but was still dreaming
of being relieved by an Egyptian army.
10

11. POOLE, "The judgment upon Pharaoh for his treachery to Israel, Ezekiel 29:1-7.
The desolation of Egypt, and restoration of it after forty years, Ezekiel 29:8-16.
Egypt the reward of Nebuchadrezzar’s service against Tyre, Ezekiel 29:17-20. Israel
shall flourish again, Ezekiel 29:21.
The tenth year of Jeconiah’s captivity. The tenth month, which answers to part of
our December and part of January.
2 “Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh
king of Egypt and prophesy against him and
against all Egypt.
CLARKE, "Set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt - This was Pharaoh-
hophra or Pharaoh-apries, whom we have so frequently met with in the prophecies of
Jeremiah, and much of whose history has been given in the notes.
GILL, "Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt,.... Pharaoh was
a name common to all the kings of Egypt; the name of this king was Pharaohhophra,
Jer_44:30, and who, by Herodotus (x), is called Apries:
and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt; prophesy of his destruction,
and of the destruction of the whole land that is under his dominion.
HENRY, " The scope of this prophecy. It is directed against Pharaoh king of Egypt,
and against all Egypt, Eze_29:2. The prophecy against Tyre began with the people, and
then proceeded against the prince. But this begins with the prince, because it began to
have its accomplishment in the insurrections and rebellions of the people against the
prince, not long after this.
11

12. JAMISON, "Pharaoh — a common name of all the kings of Egypt, meaning “the
sun”; or, as others say, a “crocodile,” which was worshipped in parts of Egypt (compare
Eze_29:3). Hophra or Apries was on the throne at this time. His reign began
prosperously. He took Gaza (Jer_47:1) and Zidon and made himself master of Phoenicia
and Palestine, recovering much that was lost to Egypt by the victory of Nebuchadnezzar
at Carchemish (2Ki_24:7; Jer_46:2), in the fourth year of Jehoiakim [Wilkinson,
Ancient Egypt, 1.169]. So proudly secure because of his successes for twenty-five years
did he feel, that he said not even a god could deprive him of his kingdom [Herodotus,
2.169]. Hence the appropriateness of the description of him in Eze_29:3. No mere
human sagacity could have enabled Ezekiel to foresee Egypt’s downfall in the height of
its prosperity. There are four divisions of these prophecies; the first in the tenth year of
Ezekiel’s captivity; the last in the twelfth. Between the first and second comes one of
much later date, not having been given till the twenty-seventh year (Eze_29:17; Eze_
30:19), but placed there as appropriate to the subject matter. Pharaoh-hophra, or
Apries, was dethroned and strangled, and Amasis substituted as king, by
Nebuchadnezzar (compare Jer_44:30). The Egyptian priests, from national vanity,
made no mention to Herodotus of the Egyptian loss of territory in Syria through
Nebuchadnezzar, of which Josephus tells us, but attributed the change in the succession
from Apries to Amasis solely to the Egyptian soldiery. The civil war between the two
rivals no doubt lasted several years, affording an opportunity to Nebuchadnezzar of
interfering and of elevating the usurper Amasis, on condition of his becoming tributary
to Babylon [Wilkinson]. Compare Jer_43:10-12, and see on Jer_43:13, for another view
of the grounds of interference of Nebuchadnezzar.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 29:2 Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and
prophesy against him, and against all Egypt:
Ver. 2. Set thy face against Pharaoh.] This was Pharaohhophra, whom Herodotus
(a) calleth Apries, and saith that he gave out that no god, how great soever, could
deprive him of his kingdom. Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, also was wont to say that
his kingdom was tied unto him with chains of adamant; but it proved otherwise.
Noli gloriari. Do not brag!
And against all Egypt.] Which held itself able to hold out against all the world, and
is therefore here threatened at large in this and the three next chapters.
POOLE, " Set thy face: see Ezekiel 20:46 21:2.
12

13. Pharaoh; Hophra, as the Scripture styles him, Jeremiah 44:30; the Greek authors
call him Apries, and Vaphres: most like he was grandson to Necho, who slew Josiah
in fight, 2 Chronicles 35:23,24.
Prophesy against him; in prophetic style and authority declare what shall be done to
him in his person.
All Egypt; the whole multitude of Egyptians; for it is the place for the people
dwelling in it.
3 Speak to him and say: ‘This is what the
Sovereign Lord says:
“‘I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,
you great monster lying among your streams.
You say, “The Nile belongs to me;
I made it for myself.”
BARNES, "The king is addressed as the embodiment of the state.
13

14. Dragon - Here the crocodile, the great monster of the Nile, which was regarded very
differently in different parts of Egypt. By some it was worshipped and embalmed after
death, and cities were named after it (e. g., in the Arsinoite nome). Others viewed it with
the utmost abhorrence. An animal so terrible, so venerated, or so abhorred, was an apt
image of the proud Egyptian monarch - the more so, perhaps, because it was in truth
less formidable than it appeared, and often became an easy prey to such as assailed it
with skill and courage.
Lieth in the midst of his rivers - Sais, the royal city, during the twenty-sixth
dynasty was in the Delta, in the very midst of the various branches and canals of the
Nile.
My river is mine own ... - It was the common boast of Hophra (Apries), that “not
even a god could dispossess him of power.” The river was at all times the source of
fertility and wealth to Egypt, but especially so to the Saite kings, who had their royal
residence on the river, and encouraged contact with foreigners, by whose commerce the
kingdom was greatly enriched.
CLARKE, "The great dragon - ‫התנים‬ hattannim should here be translated crocodile,
as that is a real animal, and numerous in the Nile; whereas the dragon is wholly
fabulous. The original signifies any large animal.
The midst of his rivers - This refers to the several branches of the Nile, by which
this river empties itself into the Mediterranean. The ancients termed them septem ostia
Nili, “the seven mouths of the Nile.” The crocodile was the emblem of Egypt.
GILL, "Speak, and say, thus saith the Lord God,.... The one only, living, and true
God, the almighty, eternal, and unchangeable Jehovah, which the gods of Egypt were
not:
behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt; who, though so great a king,
was not a match for God, yea, nothing in his hands; nor could he stand before him, or
contend with him; or,
I am above thee (y); though the king of Egypt was so high above others, and thought
so highly of himself, as if he was a god; yet the Lord was higher than he:
the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers; the chief river of Egypt was
the Nile, which opened in seven mouths or gates into the sea, and out of which canals
were made to water the whole land; and which abounding with rivers and watery places,
hence the king of it is compared to a great fish, a dragon or whale, or rather a crocodile,
which was a fish very common, and almost peculiar to Egypt; and with which the
description here agrees, as Bochart observes; and who also remarks that Pharaoh in the
Arabic language signifies a crocodile; and to which he may be compared for his cruel,
voracious, and mischievous nature; and is here represented as lying at ease, and rolling
himself in the enjoyment of his power, riches, and pleasures:
14

15. which hath said, my river is mine own, and I have made it for myself; alluding
to the river Nile, which his predecessors had by their wisdom cut out into canals, for the
better watering of the land; and which he might have improved, so that it stood in no
need of rain, nor of the supplies of other countries, having a sufficiency from its own
product; though he chiefly designs his kingdom, which was his own, and he had
established it, and made himself great in it; for the last clause may be rendered, either, "I
have made it", as the Syriac version, the river Nile, ascribing that to himself which
belonged to God; or, "I have made them", the rivers among whom he lay, as the
Septuagint and Arabic versions; or, "I have made myself", as the Vulgate Latin version;
that is, a great king. So the Targum,
"the kingdom is mine, and I have subdued it.''
Herodotus says of this king, that he was so lifted up with pride, and so secure of his
happy state, that he said there was no God could deprive him of his kingdom (z). This
proud tyrannical monarch was an emblem of that beast that received his power from the
dragon, and who himself spake like one; of the whore of Babylon that sits upon many
waters, and boasts of her sovereignty and power, of her wealth and riches, of her ease,
peace, pleasure, prosperity, and settled estate, Rev_13:2.
HENRY, "The prophecy itself. Pharaoh Hophrah (for so was the reigning Pharaoh
surnamed) is here represented by a great dragon, or crocodile, that lies in the midst of
his rivers, as Leviathan in the waters, to play therein, Eze_29:3. Nilus, the river of
Egypt, was famed for crocodiles. And what is the king of Egypt, in God's account, but a
great dragon, venomous and mischievous? Therefore says God, I am against thee. I am
above thee; so it may be read. How high soever the princes and potentates of the earth
are, there is a higher than they (Ecc_5:8), a God above them, that can control them,
and, if they be tyrannical and oppressive, a God against them, that will be free to reckon
with them. Observe here,
1. The pride and security of Pharaoh. He lies in the midst of his rivers, rolls himself
with a great deal of satisfaction in his wealth and pleasures; and he says, My river is my
own. He boasts that he is an absolute prince (his subjects are his vassals; Joseph bought
them long ago, Gen_47:23), - that he is a sole prince, and has neither partner in the
government nor competitor for it, - that he is out of debt (what he has is his own, and
none of his neighbours have any demands upon him), - that he is independent, neither
tributary nor accountable to any. Note, Worldly carnal minds please themselves with,
and pride themselves in, their property, forgetting that whatever we have we have only
the use of it, the property is in God. We ourselves are not our own, but his. Our tongues
are not our own, Psa_12:4. Our river is not our own, for its springs are in God. The most
potent prince cannot call what he has his own, for, though it be so against all the world,
it is not so against God. But Pharaoh's reason for his pretensions is yet more absurd: My
river is my own, for I have made it for myself. Here he usurps two of the divine
prerogatives, to be the author and the end of his own being and felicity. He only that is
the great Creator can say of this world, and of every thing in it, I have made it for myself.
He calls his river his own because he looks not unto the Maker thereof, nor has respect
unto him that fashioned it long ago, Isa_22:11. What we have we have received from
God and must use for God, so that we cannot say, We made it, much less, We made it for
ourselves; and why then do we boast? Note, Self is the great idol that all the world
15

16. worships, in contempt of God and his sovereignty.
JAMISON, "dragon — Hebrew, tanim, any large aquatic animal, here the crocodile,
which on Roman coins is the emblem of Egypt.
lieth — restest proudly secure.
his rivers — the mouths, branches, and canals of the Nile, to which Egypt owed its
fertility.
COKE, "Ezekiel 29:3. I am against thee, &c,— This king of Egypt was Pharaoh
Hophra, of whom Jeremiah speaks, chap. Ezekiel 44:30 and who is called Apries by
Herodotus; who informs us, agreeably to this description of our prophet, that
Apries proudly and wickedly boasted of having established his kingdom so securely,
that it was not in the power of God himself to dispossess him. Instead of, the great
dragon, we should read, the great crocodile. The next verse alludes to the manner of
taking the crocodile. See Job 41:1. It is commonly supposed, that Amasis is alluded
to in Ezekiel 29:4 who dethroned Apries. See Bishop Newton, vol. 1: and chap.
Ezekiel 32:2. Among the ancients, the crocodile was a symbol of Egypt; and appears
so on Roman coins. Michaelis. Milton has this sublime passage in view:
Thus with ten wounds The river-dragon tam'd at length submits. PAR. LOST, xii.
190.
See Addison's Spect. n. 369, D'Herbelot cites an eastern poet, who, celebrating the
prowess of a most valiant Persian prince, said, he was dreadful as a lion in the field,
and not less terrible in the water than a crocodile. Harmer, ii. 529. See chap. Ezekiel
32:2 where both these comparisons are used.
Rivers— The Nile has seven mouths. Rivers also emptied themselves into it, and
channels were cut from it.
ELLICOTT, "Verse 3
16

17. (3) The great dragon.—This word is usually translated dragon in the English
version, but sometimes whale (Ezekiel 32:2), and (in a slightly modified form)
serpent (Exodus 7:9-10; Exodus 7:12). It unquestionably means crocodile, the
characteristic animal of Egypt, in some parts hated and destroyed, in some
worshipped as a deity, but in all alike feared, and regarded as the most powerful
and destructive creature of their country.
Lieth in the midst of his rivers.—Egypt, a creation of the Nile, and dependent
entirely upon it for its productiveness, is personified by the crocodile, its
characteristic animal, basking upon the sand-banks of its waters. The expression
“his rivers,” used of the branches of the Nile near its mouth, is peculiarly
appropriate to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, to which Pharaoh-Hophra belonged,
whose capital was Sais, in the midst of the Delta.
My river is mine own.—This is characteristic of the pride of Hophra, who,
according to Herodotus, was accustomed to say that “not even a god could
dispossess him of power.” The whole dynasty to which he belonged, beginning with
Psammeticus, improved the river and encouraged commerce with foreign nations,
thereby acquiring great wealth.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 29:3 Speak, 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.
Ver. 3. The great dragon.] Or, Whale, or crocodile, the figure of Pharaoh; whose
princes also and people are fitly compared to lesser fishes, and Egypt to waters,
wherewith it aboundeth. These shall all suffer together, saith the prophet: Principis
enim calamitas, populi clades est. (a) Compare Psalms 74:13-14.
That lieth in the midst of his rivers.] That lieth at ease in the swollen waters of his
Nile, and battleth.
17

18. Which hath said, My river is mine own.] The river Nile watereth Egypt, and maketh
it fruitful beyond credulity. They do but cast in the seed, and have four rich
harvests in less than four months, say travellers. Hence the Egyptians were
generally proud, riotous, and superstitious above measure:
“ Nequitias tellus scit dare nulla magis. ”
- Plin., Paneg.
The most poisonous flies are bred in the sweetest fruit trees. See on 1 Timothy 6:17.
And I have made it for myself,] i.e., Useful and serviceable to my country with much
pains and expense, by ditches, channels, water courses, &c. These were cleansed and
repaired by the command of Augustus Caesar, when he had subdued Egypt, and
reduced it into a province. (b) Some render it, Ego feci me ipsum, I have made
myself; a most arrogant speech!
“ Sum felix; quis enim neget hoc? felixque manebo;
Hoc quoque quis dubitet? tutum me copia fecit.
Maior sum quam cui possit fortuna nocere. ” - Ovid.
WHEDON, " 3. Great dragon — In the Chinese Book of Changes the dragon is the
symbol of the sage and the king (Edkins, Ancient Symbolism, p. 9). The dragon of
the rivers (or, Nile canals, Exodus 7:17-24) must be the crocodile, which, even to this
day is called Pharaoh by the fellaheen. (Compare Job 41:13; Isaiah 27:1.)
18

19. My river is mine own, and I have made it — The canals of Egypt are still called
“rivers” by the Egyptians. A great canal between the Mediterranean and the Red
Sea had been projected from ancient times and had been almost completed a
generation earlier than this. (See author’s Ancient Egypt, p. 86.) This verse may
refer to some such great enterprise of Hophra’s, or it may refer to the whole
network of irrigating streams considered as a unit. Herodotus, writing of this same
king, says (ii, 169) that he “believed there was not a god who could cast him down
from his eminence,” so firmly was he established in his kingdom.
PETT, "Verse 3
“Speak and say, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh. Behold I am against you Pharaoh,
king of Egypt, the great monster (tannin) who lies in the midst of his rivers, who has
said, “My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.” ’ ”
To Yahweh Pharaoh (Hophra - Jeremiah 45:30) is but the king of Egypt, but in his
own eyes Pharaoh is much more than that. He is the creator of Egypt and of the
River Nile which is itself a god and the life blood of Egypt. And he bestrides it and
its tributaries like a monstrous crocodile, challenging all who dare to approach, as
the self-begotten sun god of Egypt.
There is here a deliberate play on two views, one that Pharaoh is but earthly, a
created creature (compare Genesis 1:21), like the crocodile, while in Egypt’s view
being godlike and associated with the mythical monsters of the world of the gods
and thus undefeatable (compare Job 9:13; Job 26:11-13; Psalms 74:13-14; Psalms
89:10; Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 51:9; Amos 9:3 and note that they cannot stand against
Yahweh. But the monsters are often but synonyms for their countries e.g. Rahab
can be seen as representing Egypt). Ezekiel under Yahweh’s instruction is bringing
him down to earth.
It should be noted that while commentators rightly draw attention to this
multiplicity of gods, Scripture is regularly silent about them. It does not tend to
speak in terms of battles against the gods (compare the Exodus account where
19

20. mention of them is rare although commentarywise they appear everywhere). It
degrades them by not mentioning them, generally leaving them as background
knowledge in men’s minds. Yahweh is all, and His opponents but earthly and not
worthy of mention.
PULPIT, "Ezekiel 29:3
The great dragon. The word is cognate with that used in Genesis 1:21 for the great
"whales," monsters of the deep. The "dragon," probably the crocodile of the Nile
(compare the description of "leviathan" in Job 41:1-34.) had come to be the received
prophetic symbol of Egypt (Psalms 74:13; Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 51:9). The rivers are
the Nile-branches of the Delta. My river is mine own. The words probably imply
that Hophra, like his grandfather Necho, in his plan of a canal from the Nile to the
Red Sea, had given much time and labor to irrigation works in Lower Egypt. The
boast which rose to his lips reminds us of that of Nebuchadnezzar as he looked on
Babylon (Daniel 4:30). He, like the kings of Tyre and Babylon, was tempted to a
self-apotheosis, and thought of himself as the Creator of his own power. The words
of Herodotus, in which he says that Apries believed himself so firmly established in
his kingdom that there was no god that could cast him out of it, present a suggestive
parallel.
POOLE, " Thus saith the Lord God; that God that drowned one of thy predecessors
with his army, horsemen, and horses in the Red Sea, at whose name thou shouldst
tremble, who ever fulfilled his word, and is the same, it is he foretells thee by my
mouth what is to be. I am against thee: see Ezekiel 28:22. Pharaoh: see Ezekiel 29:2.
Great; it may refer either to the grandeur of this king, as if he had been Pharaoh the
Great, or to the largeness of this creature, to which he is by this hieroglyphic
compared.
Dragon: some would have it the whale, but that lies not in rivers, as in his own
place: it is surely the crocodile, of which Nilus hath many; and Ezekiel 32:2, our
prophet doth, and so Isaiah 51:9, compare the Egyptian king to that devouring
20

21. serpent, or dragon.
That lieth; not only at rest, but waiting for a prey, which never escapes, if this
devourer lay any considerable hold of it.
In the midst of his rivers: Nilus was the chief river of Egypt; but either there were
some less rivers that run into Nilus, or some divisions of it, where it made some
islands, or the seven mouths of it, where it falls into the sea, which may give the
name of rivers to it, or those channels that were cut large and deep, to convey water
into the country; in all which these crocodiles bred, and rested, and waited for their
prey.
Which hath said; which hath thought, accounted, and boasted; by which it appears
the prophet speaks of a dragon in a figurative sense.
My river; kingdom, power, riches, and forces, signified here by a river. All the
strength and glory of Egypt are mine, saith this proud king.
Is mine own; at my dispose and will. It is probable that this king of Egypt was an
aspiring king, who aimed at absolute power, and thought he had secured it to
himself; for the river, the emblem of the kingdom, is mine, saith he. I have made it:
this seems to give some credit to the conjecture, that this king had raised the
prerogative royal, and done what others before him would, but could not, and
therefore assumes it to himself, as his own work, forgetting God, who gives
kingdoms, and whose they are.
I have made it for myself; somewhat like the proud boast,
I have built for the glory of my name, Daniel 4:30, and like to meet as sad an end.
21

22. 4
But I will put hooks in your jaws
and make the fish of your streams stick to your
scales.
I will pull you out from among your streams,
with all the fish sticking to your scales.
BARNES, "Hooks in thy jaws - Compare Job_41:2. The crocodile is thus rendered
an easy prey.
Fish of thy rivers - i. e., the allies of Egypt shall be involved in her ruin.
CLARKE, "I will put hooks in thy jaws - Amasis, one of this king’s generals,
being proclaimed king by an insurrection of the people, dethroned Apries, and seized
upon the kingdom; and Apries was obliged to flee to Upper Egypt for safety.
I will cause the fish - to stick unto thy scales - Most fish are sorely troubled with
a species of insect which bury their heads in their flesh, under their scales, and suck out
the vital juices. The allusion seems to be to this. Pharaoh was the crocodile; the fish, the
common people; and the sticking to his scales, the insurrection by which he was wasted
and despoiled of his kingdom.
GILL, "But I will put hooks in thy jaws,.... The allusion is to fishhooks, which are
taken by fishes with the bait into their mouths, and stick in their jaws, by which they are
drawn out of the river, and taken. The king of Egypt being before compared to a fish,
22

23. these hooks design some powerful princes and armies, which should be the ruin of
Pharaoh; one of them, according to Junius and Grotius, was Amasis, at the head of the
Cyreneans and Greeks; and another was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; see Job_41:1,
and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales; the people of his
kingdom, especially his soldiers, generals, princes, and great men, to cleave to him,
follow him, and go out with him in his expedition against Amasis. The Targum is,
"I will kill the princes of thy strength with thy mighty ones:''
and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers: alluding to the crocodile,
to which he is compared, which sometimes comes out of the river, and goes on dry land.
The king of Egypt was brought out of his kingdom by the following means: Amasis, with
the Cyreneans and Greeks, having seized upon Lybia, and drove the king of it from
thence, he applied to Pharaoh for help, who gathered a large army of Egyptians, and led
them out into the fields of Cyrene, where they were defeated by Amasis, and almost all
perished, and the king saved himself by flight; upon which the Egyptians mutinied and
rebelled against him, and Amasis became their king:
and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales; the common people of
Egypt; for the above numerous army consisted only of Egyptians, whom he gathered
from all parts, drained his rivers of them, and almost exhausted his country hereby; he
had indeed in an army, after this battle with Amasis, thirty thousand auxiliaries, Carians
and Ionians; but these were not the fish of his rivers. The Targum is,
"I will make thy kingdom to cease from thee, and all the princes of thy strength with thy
mighty ones shall be killed;''
with which the history agrees. The allusion to the crocodile is here very just and
pertinent, which is a fish full of scales. Monsieur Thevenot (a), who saw many of them,
says, that
"the body of this fish is large, and all of a size; the back is covered with high scales, like
the heads of nails in a court gate, of a greenish colour, and so hard that they are proof
against a halberd; and it has a long tail covered with scales like the body;''
and another traveller says (b) they have scales on their back musket proof, and therefore
must be wounded in the belly; but another traveller (c) says, this is a vulgar report that a
musket shot will not pierce the skins of the crocodiles, for upon trial it is found false; yet
all writers, ancient and modern, allow it to have very firm scales on its back, which
render it capable of bearing the heaviest strokes, and to be in a measure impenetrable
and invincible; so Herodotus (d) says, it has a skin full of scales, on the back infrangible;
or, as Pliny (e) expresses it, invincible against all blows and strokes it may be stricken
with; and so says Aristotle (f), with which Aelian (g) agrees, who says that the crocodile
has by nature a back and tail impenetrable; for it is covered with scales, as if it was
armed as one might say, not unlike to hard shells.
23

24. HENRY, " The course God will take with this proud man, to humble him. He is a
great dragon in the waters, and God will accordingly deal with him, Eze_29:4, Eze_29:5.
(1.) He will draw him out of his rivers, for he has a hook and a cord for this leviathan,
with which he can manage him, though none on earth can (Job_41:1): “I will bring thee
up out of the midst of thy rivers, will cast thee out of thy palace, out of thy kingdom, out
of all those things in which thou takest such a complacency and placest such a
confidence.” Herodotus related of this Pharaoh, who was now king of Egypt, that he had
reigned in great prosperity for twenty-five years, and was so elevated with his successes
that he said that God himself would not cast him out of his kingdom; but he shall soon
be convinced of his mistake, and what he depended on shall be no defence. God can
force men out of that in which they are most secure and easy. (2.) All his fish shall be
drawn out with him, his servants, his soldiers, and all that had a dependence on him, as
he thought, but really such as he had dependence upon. These shall stick to his scales,
adhere to their king, resolving to live and die with him. But, (3.) The king and his army,
the dragon and all the fish that stick to his scales, shall perish together, as fish cast upon
dry ground, and shall be meat to the beasts and fowls, Eze_29:5. Now this is supposed
to have had its accomplishment soon after, when this Pharaoh, in defence of Aricius king
of Libya, who had been expelled his kingdom by the Cyrenians, levied a great army, and
went out against the Cyrenians, to re-establish his friend, but was defeated in battle, and
all his forces were put to flight, which gave such disgust to his kingdom that they rose in
rebellion against him. Thus was he left thrown into the wilderness, he and all the fish of
the river with him. Thus issue men's pride, and presumption, and carnal security. Thus
men justly lose what they might call their own, under God, when they call it their own
against him.
JAMISON, "hooks in thy jaws — (Isa_37:29; compare Job_41:1, Job_41:2).
Amasis was the “hook.” In the Assyrian sculptures prisoners are represented with a hook
in the underlip, and a cord from it held by the king.
cause ... fish ... stick unto ... scales — Pharaoh, presuming on his power as if he
were God (Eze_29:3, “I have made it”), wished to stand in the stead of God as defender
of the covenant-people, his motive being, not love to them, but rivalry with Babylon. He
raised the siege of Jerusalem, but it was only for a time (compare Eze_29:6; Jer_37:5,
Jer_37:7-10); ruin overtook not only them, but himself. As the fish that clung to the
horny scales of the crocodile, the lord of the Nile, when he was caught, shared his fate, so
the adherents of Pharaoh, lord of Egypt, when he was overthrown by Amasis, should
share his fate.
ELLICOTT, " (4) Hooks in thy jaws.—An allusion to the ancient way of taking and
destroying the crocodile, otherwise invulnerable to their arms.
Fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.—As the crocodile, the lord of the Nile,
represents the royal power of Egypt, so the fish represent the people dependent
upon him. Pharaoh is not to fall alone, but shall drag his people with him into a
24

25. common ruin.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 29:4 But 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.
Ver. 4. But I will put hooks in thy jaws.] Speaking to Tyre, a sea town, sea
metaphors were made use of. Now he fetcheth them from waters and fishes, that he
may frame himself to his hearers. A good precedent for preachers.
To stick unto thy scales.] Thy subjects shall all follow thee into the field, that there
you may all fall together. Had they kept themselves in Egypt, they might have been
far safer; for that country could hardly be come at by an enemy. But they went
forth to meet their bane, as if they had been ambitions of destruction. God had a
holy hand in it.
WHEDON, "4. I will put hooks in thy jaws — So the crocodile was sometimes
caught (Herodotus, 2:70). The fish which stick to his scales represent the Egyptian
population and dependencies — such as Gaza and Jerusalem and other towns which
had foolishly trusted to the Pharaoh for help against the Assyrians.
PETT, "Verse 4
“And I will put hooks in your jaws, and I will cause the fish of your rivers, to stick
to your scales, and I will bring you up out of the midst of the rivers, with all the fish
of your rivers which stick to your scales.”
The picture is of a crocodile hunt, in which hooks were put in the crocodile’s mouth
so that he could be pulled ashore, and killed, or left high and dry to die. The fish
that stick to his scales may be foreign mercenaries, or allies, or the aristocracy and
armies of Egypt. So the great invincible Pharaoh can die like any other, along with
25

26. all his helpers.
PULPIT, "Ezekiel 29:4, Ezekiel 29:5
I will put hooks in thy jaws. So Herodotus (2. 70) describes the way in which the
Egyptians caught the crocodile by baiting a large hook with swine's flesh. Jomard
('Description de l'Egypt,' 1.27) gives a similar account (comp. also Job 41:1, Job
41:2, though there the capture seems represented as an almost impossible
achievement; probably the process had become more familiar since the date of that
book). The fish that stick to the scales of the crocodile are, of course, in the
interpretation of the parable, either the Egyptian army itself or the nations that had
thrown themselves into alliance with Egypt, and the destruction of the two together
in the wilderness points to some great overthrow of the Egyptian army and its
auxiliaries, probably to that of the expedition against Cyrene (Herod; 2.161) which
led to the revolt of Amasis, and which would take the wilderness west of the Nile on
its line of march. The beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven (we note the
recurrence of the old Homeric phrase, as in 'Iliad,' 1.4, 5) should devour the
carcasses of the slain, the corpses of the fallen and prostrate nation.
POOLE, " Thou art secure against all, but God will draw thee out of thy river to thy
ruin.
Hooks; the allegory is continued; fish are drawn out with hooks and lines, and God
hath hooks for this proud dragon, first Areasis, and next the Babylonian king. The
expedition of Areasis at the head of the Cyreneans and Grecians, and the event of it,
is exactly represented in this hieroglyphic in the text. Amasis with those forces
mastered Libya, the king thereof applies for help to this Pharaoh, he gathers all the
power of Egypt out of Egypt with him into Cyrene, where he was defeated, lost all
but a few that fled with him, and on this occasion the Egyptians rebelled against
him: now this short history opens the parable. The first hook you see in the jaws of
this dragon, this drew him out of his river, i.e. his kingdom.
The fish; these are the people of Egypt, the subjects of this kingdom.
26

27. To stick unto thy scales; to adhere to their king in this war.
I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers; both the king and his subjects,
which made up his army, go out of the rivers, leave Egypt, and march into Cyrene
(which was part of that kingdom now called Bares) with their king, as if they had
been little fishes on the back of a mighty one. Thus far the emblem; the rest follows.
5
I will leave you in the desert,
you and all the fish of your streams.
You will fall on the open field
and not be gathered or picked up.
I will give you as food
to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the
sky.
CLARKE, "I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness - Referring to his
being obliged to take refuge in Upper Egypt. But he was afterwards taken prisoner, and
strangled by Amasis. Herod. lib. 2 s. 169.
GILL, "And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee, and all the
27

28. fish of thy rivers,.... Where fish in common cannot live, but die as soon almost as out
of the water, and on dry land, excepting those that are of the amphibious kind. This
wilderness designs the deserts of Lybia and Cyrene, where the battle was fought between
Hophra and Amasis; and where the Egyptian army perished, only their king, before
compared to a crocodile, which lives on land, as well as in water, escaped. The Targum
is,
"I will cast thee into a wilderness, and all the princes of thy strength:''
thou shalt fall upon the open fields thou shalt not be brought together, nor
gathered, this is to he understood of his army; for what is proper to an army is
sometimes ascribed to the head or general of it; which fell by the sword in the fields of
Lybia and Cyrene and was so discomfited, that the remains of it could not be brought
and gathered together again: or the sense is, that those that were slain were left in the
open fields, and had no burial; they were not gathered to the grave, as Kimchi interprets
it; and so the Targum,
"upon the face of the field thy carcass shall be cast; it shall not be gathered, nor shall it
be buried:''
this was only true of the carcasses of the soldiers slain in battle, not of the king, who fled,
and afterwards in another battle was taken by Amasis, and strangled in the city of Sais,
where he was buried among his ancestors, as Herodotus (h) relates:
I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the
heaven; that is, his army; as the armies of the kings, beast, and false prophet, will be at
the battle of Armageddon, when the two latter will be taken and cast alive into the
burning lake, of which this monarch was an emblem, Rev_19:17.
JAMISON, "wilderness — captivity beyond thy kingdom. The expression is used
perhaps to imply retribution in kind. As Egypt pursued after Israel, saying, “The
wilderness hath shut them in” (Exo_14:3), so she herself shall be brought into a
wilderness state.
open fields — literally, “face of the field.”
not be brought together — As the crocodile is not, when caught, restored to the
river, so no remnant of thy routed army shall be brought together, and rallied, after its
defeat in the wilderness. Pharaoh led an army against Cyrene in Africa, in support of
Aricranes, who had been stripped of his kingdom by the Cyrenians. The army perished
and Egypt rebelled against him [Junius]. But the reference is mainly to the defeat by
Nebuchadnezzar.
beasts ... fowls — hostile and savage men.
ELLICOTT, "(5) Open fields is synonymous with “wilderness” in the previous
clause. The crocodile and the fish together, drawn from the river, are to be thrown
upon the sands of the neighbouring desert, to be devoured by the birds and beasts of
prey: thus representing that Pharaoh and his people, uprooted from their power,
28

29. are to be given over for a spoil to various nations.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 29:5 And 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.
Ver. 5. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness.] As fish when they are
caught are cast upon the dry land, and there they die: for how should a fish live out
of his own element? It may be the Chaldees fought Pharaoh and his forces in the
wilderness, killed him and cast him out unburied, which the heathens held a great
unhappiness: for they thought their ghosts could not pass the river Styx, but must
wander through hell’s waste wildernesses, unless their dead bodies were buried.
I have given thee for meat.] Whale’s flesh is no better worth.
PETT, "Verse 5
“And I will leave you stranded in the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers.
You will fall on the face of the field. You will not be brought together or gathered. I
have given you for meat to the beast of the earth and to the birds of heaven.”
The great crocodile and the fish will be left stranded out of their own environment,
in the waterless wilderness. Thus they will collapse and die, unable to rally
themselves against the enemy, and the scavengers, both beast and bird, will arrive to
tear them apart and eat them. Pharaoh and all his allies will be desolated and the
Nile god and the other gods of Egypt will not be able to help them.
A further interesting fact is that ‘the crocodile’ Hophra (588-569 B.C.) probably did
not receive a royal burial, which was considered extremely important for the
Pharaohs and all Egyptians, for history records that Ahmose II (Gr. Amasis),
29

30. another Egyptian leader, strangled Hophra and took his place.
POOLE, " When thus brought out, as a fish out of the water, I will leave thee. God
left this king.
The wilderness; the deserts of Libya and Cyrene.
All the fish; the whole army of Egyptians. Thou shalt fall upon the open fields; there
was this king and his army ruined.
Thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered, as usually the slain are to be
buried; these were not buried, but left in the wilderness, where they fell to be a prey
to wild beasts, and birds of prey which haunted the wilderness, and would soon
gather to their prey.
6 Then all who live in Egypt will know that I am
the Lord.
“‘You have been a staff of reed for the people of
Israel.
BARNES, "Staff of reed - The “reed” was especially appropriate to Egypt as the
natural product of its river.
30

31. CLARKE, "They have been a staff of reed - An inefficient and faithless ally. The
Israelites expected assistance from them when Nebuchadnezzar came against
Jerusalem; and they made a feint to help them, but retired when Nebuchadnezzar went
against them. Thus were the Jews deceived and ultimately ruined, see Eze_29:7.
GILL, "And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord,.... Who
could eject their king from his kingdom, and deliver him into the hands of his enemy;
though he thought no God could, as he boastingly said, before observed:
because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel; alluding to the
country of Egypt, which abounded with reeds that grew upon the banks of the river Nile,
and other rivers. This signifies that either the Egyptians were weak, and could not help
the people of Israel when they applied to them; or rather that they were treacherous and
deceitful, and would not assist them, according to agreement; and were even pernicious
and hurtful to them, as a broken reed; see Isa_36:6. The Targum renders it,
"the staff of a reed broken.''
HENRY 6-7, "The ground of the controversy God has with the Egyptians; it is
because they have cheated his people. They encouraged them to expect relief and
assistance from them when they were in distress, but failed them (Eze_29:6, Eze_29:7):
Because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. They pretended to be a staff
for them to lean upon, but, when any stress was laid upon them, they were either weak
and could not or treacherous and would not do that for them which was expected. They
broke under them, to their great disappointment and amazement, so that they rent their
shoulder and made all their loins to be at a stand. The king of Egypt, it is probable, had
encouraged Zedekiah to break his league with the king of Babylon, with a promise that
he would stand by him, which, when he failed to do, to any purpose, it could not but put
them into a great consternation. God had told them, long since, that the Egyptians were
broken reeds, Isa_30:6, Isa_30:7. Rabshakeh had told them so, Isa_36:6. And now they
found it so. It was indeed the folly of Israel to trust them, and they were well enough
served when they were deceived in them. God was righteous in suffering them to be so.
But that is no excuse at all for the Egyptians' falsehood and treachery, nor shall it secure
them from the judgments of that God who is and will be the avenger of all such wrongs.
It is a great sin, and very provoking to God, as well as unjust, ungrateful, and very
dishonourable and unkind, to put a cheat upon those that put a confidence in us.
JAMISON, "staff of reed to ... Israel — alluding to the reeds on the banks of the
Nile, which broke if one leaned upon them (see on Eze_29:4; Isa_36:6). All Israel’s
dependence on Egypt proved hurtful instead of beneficial (Isa_30:1-5).
31

32. K&D 6-8, "In Eze_29:6 the construction is a subject of dispute, inasmuch as many of
the commentators follow the Hebrew division of the verse, taking the second hemistich
'‫ן‬ַ‫ַע‬‫י‬ ‫ם‬ ָ‫ת‬ ‫י‬ֱ‫ה‬ ‫וגו‬ as dependent upon the first half of the verse, for which it assigns the
reason, and then interpreting Eze_29:7 as a further development of Eze_29:6, and
commencing a new period with Eze_29:8 (Hitzig, Kliefoth, and others). But it is
decidedly wrong to connect together the two halves of the sixth verse, if only for the
simple reason that the formula ‫עוּ‬ ְ‫ָד‬‫י‬ ְ‫ו‬ ‫י‬ ִ‫כּ‬ ‫י‬ִ‫ֲנ‬‫א‬ ‫ָה‬ ‫ה‬ְ‫,י‬ which occurs so frequently elsewhere in
Ezekiel, invariably closes a train of thought, and is never followed by the addition of a
further reason. Moreover, a sentence commencing with ‫ן‬ַ‫ַע‬‫י‬ is just as invariably followed
by an apodosis introduced by ‫ן‬ֵ‫כ‬ָ‫,ל‬ of which we have an example just below in Eze_29:9
and Eze_29:10. For both these reasons it is absolutely necessary that we should regard
'ֱ‫ה‬ ‫ן‬ַ‫ַע‬‫י‬ as the beginning of a protasis, the apodosis to which commences with ‫ן‬ֵ‫כ‬ָ‫ל‬ in Eze_
29:8. The correctness of this construction is established beyond all doubt by the fact that
from Eze_29:6 onwards it is no longer Pharaoh who is spoken of, as in Eze_29:3-5, but
Egypt; so that ‫ן‬ַ‫ַע‬‫י‬ introduces a new train of thought. But Eze_29:7 is clearly shown, both
by the contents and the form, to be an explanatory intermediate clause inserted as a
parenthesis. And inasmuch as the protasis is removed in consequence to some distance
from its apodosis, Ezekiel has introduced the formula “thus saith the Lord Jehovah” at
the commencement of the apodosis, for the purpose of giving additional emphasis to the
announcement of the punishment. Eze_29:7 cannot in any case be regarded as the
protasis, the apodosis to which commences with the ‫ן‬ֵ‫כ‬ָ‫ל‬ in Eze_29:8, and Hävernick
maintains. The suffix attached to ‫ם‬ ָ‫ת‬ ‫י‬ֱ‫ה‬, to which Hitzig takes exception, because he has
misunderstood the construction, and which he would conjecture away, refers to ‫ם‬ִ‫י‬ ַ‫ר‬ ְ‫צ‬ ִ‫מ‬
as a land or kingdom. Because the kingdom of Egypt was a reed-staff to the house of
Israel (a figure drawn from the physical character of the banks of the Nile, with its thick
growth of tall, thick rushes, and recalling to mind Isa_36:6), the Lord would bring the
sword upon it and cut off from it both man and beast. But before this apodosis the figure
of the reed-staff is more clearly defined: “when they (the Israelites) take thee by thy
branches, thou breakest,” etc. This explanation is not to be taken as referring to any
particular facts either of the past or future, but indicates the deceptive nature of Egypt as
the standing characteristic of that kingdom. At the same time, to give greater vivacity to
the description, the words concerning Egypt are changed into a direct address to the
Egyptians, i.e., not to Pharaoh, but to the Egyptian people regarded as a single
individual. The expression ‫בכפך‬ causes some difficulty, since the ordinary meaning of
‫ף‬ַ‫כּ‬ (hand) is apparently unsuitable, inasmuch as the verb ‫ץ‬ ‫ר‬ ֵ‫,תּ‬ from ‫ץ‬ַ‫צ‬ ָ‫,ר‬ to break or
crack (not to break in pieces, i.e., to break quite through), clearly shows that the figure if
the reed is still continued. The Keri ‫ף‬ַ‫כּ‬ ַ‫בּ‬ is a bad emendation, based upon the rendering
“to grasp with the hand,” which is grammatically inadmissible. ‫שׂ‬ַ‫פ‬ ָ‫תּ‬ with ‫ב‬ does not
mean to grasp with something, but to seize upon something, to take hold of a person
(Isa_3:6; Deu_9:17), so that ‫בכפך‬ can only be an explanatory apposition to ְ‫.בּ‬ The
meaning grip, or grasp of the hand, is also unsuitable and cannot be sustained, as the
plural ‫ת‬ ‫פּ‬ַ‫כּ‬ alone is used in this sense in Son_5:5. The only meaning appropriate to the
figure is that of branches, which is sustained, so far as the language is concerned, by the
use of the plural ‫ת‬ ‫פּ‬ַ‫כּ‬ for palm-branches in Lev_23:40, and of the singular ‫ה‬ָ‫פּ‬ ִ‫כּ‬ for the
collection of branches in Job_15:32, and Isa_9:13; Isa_19:15; and this is apparently in
32

33. perfect harmony with natural facts, since the tall reed of the Nile, more especially the
papyrus, is furnished with hollow, sword-shaped leaves at the lower part of the talk.
When it cracks, the reed-staff pierces the shoulder of the man who has grasped it, and
tears it; and if a man lean upon it, it breaks in pieces and causes all the loins to tremble.
‫יד‬ ִ‫ֱמ‬‫ע‬ ֶ‫ה‬ cannot mean to cause to stand, or to set upright, still less render stiff and rigid.
The latter meaning cannot be established from the usage of the language, and would be
unsuitable here. For if a stick on which a man leans should break and penetrate his loins,
it would inflict such injury upon them as to cause him to fall, and not to remain stiff and
rigid. ‫העמד‬ cannot have any other meaning than that of ‫ד‬ ִ‫ע‬ ְ‫מ‬ ִ‫,ה‬ to cause to tremble or
relax, as in Psa_69:24, to shake the firmness of the loins, so that the power to stand is
impaired.
ELLICOTT, "Verse 6
(6) A staff of reed.—In Isaiah 36:6 the dependence of Judah upon Egypt is
described as trust “in the staff of this broken reed;” but notwithstanding all
warnings, they still trusted, especially at the time of this prophecy, and proved in
their experience the truth of the Divine word. The figure is taken from the reeds,
which grew abundantly on the banks of the Nile, and the statement is historically
amplified in the following verse, where the reference is to be understood not of any
single fact so much as of a continual, often repeated result. There should be a period
in the middle of Ezekiel 29:6, the first half forming the conclusion of the previous
denunciation, and the second half being closely connected with Ezekiel 29:7-9.
Ezekiel 29:7 is parenthetical.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 29:6 And 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.
Ver. 6. And all the inhabitants, &c.] Shall feel my power in their just destruction,
though they think themselves insuperable.
Because they have been a staff of reed.] See this fully expounded in the next words;
see also on Isaiah 36:6, Jeremiah 37:7-8. Egypt was a reedy country; as Pliny (a)
telleth us, Arando autem ipsa per se fluctuat, et in necessitate eludit.
33

34. PETT, "Verse 6-7
“And the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am Yahweh, because they have been
a staff of reed to the house of Israel. When they took hold of you by the hand, you
broke and badly tore their shoulders, and when they leaned on you, you broke, and
made all their loins quiver.”
This is the final act which brought down Yahweh’s wrath on them, that Egypt had
promised to be a strong staff on which Israel could lean, but had turned out to be a
mere reed which broke when it was leant on, bringing great harm to Israel. Egypt
was in fact a land of reeds, which grew along the Nile and its tributaries, and God
says that they were symbolic of what Egypt really was. Thus they must be taught the
lesson that they have let down Yahweh’s people, and are therefore accountable to
Yahweh. God takes constant account of what is done to His people.
PULPIT, "A staff of reed unto the house of Israel. Ezekiel reproduces the familiar
image of 2 Kings 18:21; Isaiah 36:6. The proverb had not ceased to be true, though
the rulers were different. Here, again, the imagery is strictly local. The reeds were as
characteristic of the Nile as the crocodiles (Exodus 1:3; Job 40:21). The image of the
reed is continued in Isaiah 36:7, and the effect of trusting to its support is described
in detail.
POOLE, " This mighty overthrow shall be known through all Egypt, and as it shall
fill them with fears and troubles, so it should be a convincing argument to them that
God had done this, and punished them, and their proud king, who used to say, as
Herodotus reports, that God could not turn him out of his kingdom. Because they,
both king, princes, counsellors, and people of Egypt,
have been a staff of reed; treacherously, as next verse, dealt with the Jews, whom
they seduced to trust and depend on them, and then perfidiously broke promise
with them. It was the sin of the Jews to trust Egypt; it was Egypt’s great sin to
34

35. falsify promise with the Jews, and for this God now punisheth Egypt.
7 When they grasped you with their hands, you
splintered and you tore open their shoulders;
when they leaned on you, you broke and their
backs were wrenched.[a]
BARNES, "(Eze 29:7) When 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.
GILL, "When they took hold of thee by thy hand,.... When the Israelites entered
into an alliance and confederacy with the Egyptians, called for their assistance according
to treaty, and put their confidence in them:
thou didst break and rend all their shoulder; as a reed which a man puts under
his armhole, and leans upon, and it breaks under him, the splinters run into the flesh up
to the very shoulder, and tear the flesh to pieces; so, through Zedekiah's trusting to the
king of Egypt, he rebelled against the king of Babylon, which brought on his ruin, and
the destruction of his kingdom:
and when they leaned upon thee thou brakest, and madest all their loins to
be at a stand; when they put their confidence in the king of Egypt, and sent to him for
help when besieged by the king of Babylon, and he failed them, they were obliged to raise
up themselves, as a man is forced to do when his staff breaks under him, whose loins
before were bowed, but now erects himself, and stands and walks as well as he can
without it; so the Jews were forced to stand upon their own legs, and exert all the force
they had, and make all the efforts they could against the king of Babylon, being left in the
lurch by the king of Egypt; in which, though they were rightly served for their vain
35

36. confidence and not trusting in the Lord, yet the treachery of the Egyptians was resented
by him, as follows:
JAMISON, "hand — or handle of the reed.
rend ... shoulder — by the splinters on which the shoulder or arm would fall, on the
support failing the hand.
madest ... loins ... at a stand — that is, made them to be disabled. Maurer
somewhat similarly (referring to a kindred Arabic form), “Thou hast stricken both their
loins.” Fairbairn, not so well, “Thou lettest all their loins stand,” that is, by themselves,
bereft of the support which they looked for from thee.
K&D 7-12, "In the apodosis the thought of the land gives place to that of the people;
hence the use of the feminine suffixes ִ‫י‬ַ‫ל‬ָ‫ע‬ and ֵ‫מּ‬ ִ‫מ‬ in the place of the masculine
suffixes ְ‫בּ‬ and ‫י‬ֶ‫ל‬ָ‫ע‬ in Eze_29:7. Man and beast shall be cut off, and the land made
into a desert waste by the sword, i.e., by war. This is carried out still further in Eze_
29:9-12; and once again in the protasis 9b (cf. Eze_29:3) the inordinate pride of the king
is placed in the foreground as the reason for the devastation of his land and kingdom.
The Lord will make of Egypt the most desolate wilderness. ‫ת‬ ‫ב‬ ְ‫ר‬ ָ‫ח‬ is intensified into a
superlative by the double genitive ‫ב‬ ֶ‫ר‬ֹ‫ח‬ ‫ה‬ ָ‫מ‬ ָ‫מ‬ ְ‫,שׁ‬ desolation of the wilderness. Throughout
its whole extent from Migdol, i.e., Magdolo, according to the Itiner. Anton. p. 171 (ed.
Wessel), twelve Roman miles from Pelusium; in the Coptic Meshtol, Egyptian Màktr
(Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr. I pp. 261f.), the most northerly place in Egypt. ‫ֶה‬‫נ‬ֵ‫ו‬ ְ‫,ס‬ to Syene
(for the construction see Eze_30:6 and Eze_21:3), Συήνη, Sun in the inscriptions,
according to Brugsch (Geogr. Inschr. I. p. 155), probably the profane designation of the
place (Coptic Souan), the most southerly border town of Egypt in the direction of Cush,
i.e., Ethiopia, on the eastern bank of the Nile, some ruins of which are still to be seen in
the modern Assvan (Assuan, Arab. aswa=n), which is situated to the north-east of them
(vid., Brugsch, Reiseber. aus. Aegypten, p. 247, and Leyrer in Herzog's Encyclopaedia).
The additional clause, “and to the border of Cush,” does not give a fresh terminal point,
still further advanced, but simply defines with still greater clearness the boundary
toward the south, viz., to Syene, where Egypt terminates and Ethiopia beings. In Eze_
29:11 the desolation is more fully depicted. ‫ֹא‬‫ל‬ ‫ב‬ֵ‫שׁ‬ ֵ‫,ת‬ it will not dwell, poetical for “be
inhabited,” as in Joel 4 (3):20, Isa_13:20, etc. This devastation shall last for forty years,
and so long shall the people of Egypt be scattered among the nations. But after the
expiration of that time they shall be gathered together again (Eze_29:13). The number
forty is neither a round number (Hitzig) nor a very long time (Ewald), but is a symbolical
term denoting a period appointed by God for punishment and penitence (see the comm.
on Eze_4:6), which is not to be understood in a chronological sense, or capable of being
calculated.
COKE, "Ezekiel 29:7. When they took hold of thee, &c.— For when they took hold
of thee, thou wast broken in their hand, and didst rend the hand of each of them.
36

37. When they leaned upon thee thou breakest, and didst loose or put out of joint all
their shoulders. Houbigant. Instead of, By thy hand, some read, With their hands;
and instead of, All their loins to be at a stand;—All their loins shake, or to be
pierced.
ELLICOTT, " (7) All their loins to be at a stand.—The expression is a difficult one,
but the more probable sense is, all their loins to shake. The reed breaks under the
weight of the man who leans upon it, and pierces his shoulder as he falls, while in his
consternation his loins tremble.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 29:7 When 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.
Ver. 7. When they took hold of thee by thy hand,] i.e., Made a covenant with thee,
and hoped for help from thee. See Job 8:20. The Holy Scripture is its own best
interpreter.
Thou didst break.] So unfaithful are many friends, so uncertain are all human
helps.
And madest all their loins to be at a stand.] Thou leftest them in the lurch, as we say,
to shift for themselves as they could.
WHEDON, " 7. Took, etc. — All verbs in present tense.
By thy — Rather, with thee.
Shoulder — LXX., hand (Isaiah 26:6).
37

38. To be at a stand — Rather, R.V., margin, “to shake.” (Compare Ezekiel 21:6.) The
thing which they grasp for help, tears the hand which clasps it, and when they try to
lean upon it it breaks and makes their hips to totter (Kautzsch).
POOLE, " When they, the Jews, unable to stand on their own legs, as men ready to
fall, took hold of thee by thy hand; caught thine hand to lean on, as when besieged
by the Chaldeans.
Thou didst break: it includes a designed and voluntary failure; Egypt would not
support.
And rend all their shoulder; didst tear, and pierce, and wound arm and shoulder,
didst them much mischief instead of benefiting them, as thou hadst promised,
Jeremiah 37:7 42:17.
When they leaned, & c.; the same thing in words little different.
The loins are the strength of a man: thou hast put them to use all their strength to
repel the enemy, thou hast been chief occasion of their engaging against.
8 “‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord
says: I will bring a sword against you and kill
both man and beast.
38

39. GILL, "Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Because of the pride of the king of
Egypt, asserting the river to be his own, and made by him for himself; and because of his
perfidy to the house of Israel:
behold, I will bring a sword upon thee; or those that kill with the sword, as the
Targum; first a cival war, occasioned by the murmurs of the people, on account of the
defeat of their army at Cyrene; which issued in the dethroning and strangling of this
king, as before observed and setting up another; which cival commotions
Nebuchadnezzar took the advantage of, and came against Egypt with a large army:
and cut off man and beast out of thee; for what with the civil wars among
themselves, and what with the devastations of the king of Babylon's army, putting men
to the sword, and seizing upon the beasts for their food, to support such an army in a
foreign land, it was pretty well stripped of both.
JAMISON, "a sword — Nebuchadnezzar’s army (Eze_29:19). Also Amasis and the
Egyptian revolters who after Pharaoh-hophra’s discomfiture in Cyrene dethroned and
strangled him, having defeated him in a battle fought at Memphis [Junius].
COFFMAN, "Verse 8
"Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: behold, I will bring a sword upon thee,
and will cut off from thee man and beast. And the land of Egypt shall be a
desolation and a waste; and they shall know that I am Jehovah. Because he hath
said the river is mine, and I have made it; therefore, behold, I am against thee, and
against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation,
from the tower of Seveneh, even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall
pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited
forty years. And 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 for forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations,
and will disperse them through the countries."
THE ALLEGORY APPLIED
39

40. "I will bring a sword upon thee ..." (Ezekiel 29:8). This was the sword of
Nebuchadnezzar, identified in Ezekiel 29:17, below.
"A desolation for forty years ..." (Ezekiel 29:11,12). This is the big problem in this
prophecy, because nearly all of the scholars seem very sure that there was never
such a long period of desolation in the whole history of Egypt. However, there is too
much that men do not know about the history of those times to allow very much
dependence to be put in such opinions. Nebuchadnezzar did indeed capture Egypt,
following the fall of Tyre; and if what that ruthless ruler did to Jerusalem is any
gauge of what he probably did to Egypt, we may be very sure that Ezekiel's
prophecy was no exaggeration. Our inability to prove just exactly what all that
desolation was cannot in any manner detract from the most circumstantial and
accurate fulfillment of that later promise in this same prophecy regarding the
perpetual place of Egypt throughout following history, in which the perpetual
mediocrity of the nation was foretold. Our argument is that this portion of the
prophecy alone proves the divine inspiration of the whole prophecy, and the believer
should have no problem with trusting God for the fulfillment of the rest of it,
whether or not, modern commentators know all about it.
TRAPP. "Ezekiel 29:8 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD Behold, I will bring a
sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee.
Ver. 8. And cut off man and beast.] With both which thou aboundest exceedingly, as
being a very fruitful country; populosa et pecorosa.
PETT, "Verse 8-9
“Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, Behold I will bring a sword on you, and will
cut off from you man and beast. And the land of Egypt will be a desolation and a
waste, and they will know that I am Yahweh, because he has said, ‘The River (Nile)
is mine, and I have made it’.”
40

41. We come back here to the major reason for Egypt’s judgment, because of its
overweening pride (compare Tyre - chapter 28) and its claim not to owe anything to
the hand of Yahweh. It proclaims its own divine self-sufficiency. So Yahweh will
bring against it His sword of judgment (Ezekiel 21:3-17) which at this time is the
sword of Nebuchadnezzar (Ezekiel 21:20; see Jeremiah 46:13-26), but is not limited
to that. Nebuchadnezzar did later invade Egypt in 568/7 BC, which would certainly
result in devastation and is referred to in a damaged Babylonian tablet, (see also
Ezekiel 29:19), but full details are not known and they eventually came to a
compromise and became allies. This was later followed by Persian subjugation.
God’s Future Judgment on Egypt.
PULPIT, "Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee. The words are probably
addressed to the nation personified rather than to the king. The sentence of doom is
now pronounced, no longer figuratively. And the special guilt for which it was
inflicted, a guilt which the nation shared with its ruler, is emphatically repeated in
Ezekiel 29:9.
POOLE, " Therefore, for thy atheistical pride, and thy perfidious mischief to the
house of Israel, and other thy sins,
I will bring a sword upon thee; war, and the effects of it. First, a civil war arose
against this king Hophra, who, weak and contemned, and fallen under the jealousies
and disgusts of his subjects after his overthrow in the deserts of Libya and Cyrene,
was again overthrown by his rebel subjects in a bloody battle at Memphis, was
taken in his flight towards Sain, his royal seat, and some time after strangled by the
enraged rout. The next sword, brought on Hophra’s successor, and on the land of
Egypt, was the sword of Nebuchadnezzar, in the same year after the overthrow of
Tyre; the civil war of Egypt inviting him to take the occasion, and some few
requests, it is likely, from the rebellious to assist them.
Cut off man, by the sword in battle and sieges, and by famine.
And beast; eaten up by a numerous army invading and prevailing, and which will
41

42. drive away what they eat not. The same phrase you have Ezekiel 14:13,17.
9 Egypt will become a desolate wasteland. Then
they will know that I am the Lord.
“‘Because you said, “The Nile is mine; I made it,”
GILL, "And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste,.... Men few or none
being left in it, to till it, nor cattle found upon it:
and they shall know that I am the Lord; by these judgments executed upon them,
now foretold; and which when come to pass, they will be obliged to acknowledge the
omniscience and omnipotence of Jehovah:
because thou hast said, the river is mine, and I have made it; See Gill on Eze_
29:3; this insolent expression was highly resented by the Lord, as appears by the
repetition of it. The Targum is here, as before,
"the kingdom is mine, and I have subdued it;''
but, notwithstanding this vaunt, he could not keep it.
HENRY, "This explains the foregoing prediction, which was figurative, and looks
something further. Here is a prophecy,
I. Of the ruin of Egypt. The threatening of this is very full and particular; and the sin
for which this ruin shall be brought upon them is their pride, Eze_29:9. They said, The
river is mine and I have made it; therefore their land shall spue them out. 1. God is
against them, both against the king and against the people, against thee and against thy
rivers. Waters signify people and multitudes, Rev_17:15. 2. Multitudes of them shall be
cut off by the sword of war, a sword which God will bring upon them to destroy both
man and beast, the sword of civil war. 3. The country shall be depopulated. The land of
Egypt shall be desolate and waste (Eze_29:9), the country not cultivated, the cities not
inhabited. The wealth of both was their pride, and that God will take away. It shall be
utterly waste (wastes of waste, so the margin reads it), and desolate (Eze_29:10);
42

43. neither men nor beasts shall pass through it, nor shall it be inhabited (Eze_29:11); it
shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are so, Eze_29:12. This was the effect
not so much of those wars spoken of before, which were made by them, but of the war
which the king of Babylon made upon them. It shall be desolate from one end of the land
to the other, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. The sin of pride
is enough to ruin a whole nation. 4. The people shall be dispersed and scattered among
the nations (Eze_29:12), so that those who thought the balance of power was in their
hand should now become a contemptible people. Such a fall does a haughty spirit go
before.
JAMISON, "I am the Lord — in antithesis to the blasphemous boast repeated here
from Eze_29:3, “The river is mine, and I have made it.”
ELLICOTT, " (9) Because he hath said.—Again, as in Ezekiel 29:6, the division of
the verses is very unfortunate. The expression “shall know that I am the Lord,” so
common in Ezekiel, always closes a train of thought. The new sentence begins with
the reason for the judgment upon Egypt—because of its pride.
TRAPP, "Verse 9
Ezekiel 29:9 And 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].
Ver. 9. Because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it.] With this proud
speech he is twice twitted. {see Ezekiel 29:3} The Egyptians so trusted in their river
Nile, as if they needed no help from heaven.
“ Aegyptus sine nube ferax, ”
saith Claudian. (a) And Lucan to like purpose:
43

44. “ Terra suis contenta bonis, non indiga mercis
Aut Iovis; in solo tanta est fiducia Nile. ”
How much better might God have said to these Egyptians, than Vespasian did,
Haurite a me tanquam a Nile, Come ye to me, "the fountain of living waters," and
"hew not out thus to yourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water!" But they
used in mockery to tell the Grecians, that if God should forget to rain, they might
chance to starve for it; they thought the rain was of God, but not the river:
“ Te propter nullos tellus tua postulat imbres:
Arida nee pluvio supplicat herba Iovi. ”
- Tibul. de Nilo.
God therefore threateneth here to dry it up, and so he did; ingratitude forfeiteth all.
In the reign of Cleopatra, Nile overflowed not the banks for two years together,
saith Seneca. He brings in Callimachus, telling of a time wherein it had not done so
for nine years’ time. Hence Ovid: (b)
“ Creditur Aegyptus caruisse iuvantibus arva
Imbribus, atque annis sicca fuisse novem. ”
Thus their gold flowing {c} and fruit giving (d) river failed them, because they
attributed too much to it. In Joseph’s time they had seven years’ famine.
44

45. POOLE, "Verse 9
The land of Egypt; that part here intended, say some, and in the 10th verse,
bounded from Syene to the borders of Ethiopia; nor is this inconsistent with that
Ezekiel 29:2, against all Egypt, for all Egypt suffered much, though all were not
equally wasted, and turned into a desolation, as these parts shall be. Desolate; a
desolation, i.e. most desolate, and wasteness by the sword of the enemy, and by
drought, as the word imports both: and this latter part of the judgment was
executed by the folly of the twelve Egyptian roitelets, who made a mighty lake,
Morris, to fill which they much drained and weakened Nilus, that it could not, as
before it did, water and fertilize the land; suitable to Isaiah 19:5.
He hath said, & c.: see Ezekiel 29:3.
10 therefore I am against you and against your
streams, and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin
and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far
as the border of Cush.[b]
BARNES 10-12, "From the tower of Syene - Or, as in the margin, “Migdol”
(“tower”) was about two miles from Suez. “Syene” was the most southern town in Egypt,
on the borders of Ethiopia, in the Thebaid, on the eastern bank of the Nile. The modern
Assvan lies a little to the northeast of the ancient Syene.
We have no record of the circumstances of the Chaldsaean invasion of Egypt, but it is
possible that it did not take place until after the fall of Tyre. We gather of what nature it
45

46. must have been by comparing the description of the results of Assyrian conquest (Isa_
37:25 ff). Minute fulfillment of every detail of prophecy is not to be insisted upon, but
only the general fact that Egypt would for a time, described as 40 years, be in a state of
collapse. No great stress is to be laid on the exact number of years. The number of years
passed in the wilderness became to the Hebrews a significant period of chastisement.
Nebuchadnezzars occupation of Egypt was of no long duration, and his ravages,
though severe, must have been partial. Peace with Babylon was favorable to the
development of home-works, but since the peace was in truth subjugation, it was hollow
and in fact ruinous. Further, it is to be remembered that God fulfils His decree by a
gradual rather than an immediate process. The ravages of Nebuchadnezzar were the
beginning of the end, and all the desolation which followed may be looked upon as a
continuous fulfillment of God’s decree. The savage fury with which Cambyses swept over
Egypt amply realized all that Ezekiel foretold. Many places recovered some wealth and
prosperity, but from the time of Herodotus the kingdom never again became really
independent. Egyptian rulers gave place to Persian, Persian to the successors of
Alexander the Great, who gave place in turn to Rome. So thoroughly was the prophecy of
Ezekiel fulfilled Eze_29:14-15.
CLARKE, "From the tower of Syene - ‫מונה‬ ‫ממגדל‬ mimmigdol seveneh, “from
Migdol to Syene.” Syene, now called Essuan, was the last city in Egypt, going towards
Ethiopia. It was famous for a well into which the rays of the sun fell perpendicularly at
midday.
GILL, "Behold, therefore, I am against thee, and against thy rivers,.... Against
the king of Egypt, and against his subjects, the many people he ruled over; as the Lord is
against spiritual Egypt, and the head of it, and the antichristian states, signified by many
waters, rivers, and fountains; see Rev_11:8,
and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate; partly by a civil
war, and partly by a foreign enemy; especially those parts of it which were the seat of
war:
from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia; or the tower of
Seveneh; according to Herodotus (i), Syene was a city of Thebais, where he was told were
two mountains, which gave rise to the Nile. Pliny (k) says it was six hundred twenty five
miles from Alexandria; and it is by him, as well as Strabo (l), placed under the tropic of
Cancer; who both say, in the summer solstice, at noon, no shadow is cast there; to which
the poet Lucan (m) refers, It is now called Essuaen; which city, as Mr. Norden (n) says,
who lately travelled in those parts, is situated on the eastern shore of the Nile; and he
relates that there remain still some marks of the place where the ancient city stood; as to
the rest, it is so covered with earth, that there is nothing but rubbish, from which, in
some places, one would judge that there were formerly magnificent buildings here. The
utter destruction of which, with the rest of Egypt prophesied of, appears to have been
fulfilled. This place is famous for being the place of the banishment of Juvenal the poet,
46

47. where he died, being eighty years of age. The tower of Syene, Jerom says, remained to
his days, and was subject to the Roman government, where are the cataracts of the Nile;
and to which place, from our sea, he says, the Nile is navigable: but, according to Pliny.
(o), Syene itself was on the border of Ethiopia; and so say Pausanias (p) and Solinus (q):
and, according to Seneca (r), it was the extreme part of Egypt. So Josephus (s) says the
south border of Egypt is Syene, which separates it from Ethiopia; and that between
Pelusium (the entrance of Egypt) and Syene are two hundred and fifty miles. It lay
between Egypt and Ethiopia, so that it might seem doubtful to which it belonged. It
seems better therefore to take "Migdol", rendered a "tower", for the proper name of a
place, as the Septuagint do; and such a place there was in Egypt, Jer_44:1, a town on the
Red sea, Exo_14:2, so that the one was on the border of Egypt on one side, and the other
on the other: and the words may be rendered (t), "from Migdol to Syene, even to the
border of Ethiopia"; from one end of it to the other: it denotes the utter desolation of the
country, from one end to the other. Unless by Cush, rendered "Ethiopia", is meant
Arabia, as it often is, and is thought by some to be intended here; which was on the
northern border of Egypt, as Syene was, a city in Thebais, near to Ethiopia, on the
southern border of it; so that this describes Egypt from south to north; but the former
account seems best.
JAMISON, "from the tower of Syene — Grotius translates, “from Migdol (a
fortress near Pelusium on the north of Suez) to Syene (in the farthest south)”; that is,
from one end of Egypt to the other. So “from Migdol to Syene,” Eze_30:6, Margin.
However, English Version rightly refers Syene to Seveneh, that is, Sebennytus, in the
eastern delta of the Nile, the capital of the Lower Egyptian kings. The Sebennyte
Pharaohs, with the help of the Canaanites, who, as shepherds or merchants, ranged the
desert of Suez, extended their borders beyond the narrow province east of the delta, to
which they had been confined by the Pharaohs of Upper Egypt. The defeated party, in
derision, named the Sebennyte or Lower Egyptians foreigners and shepherd-kings (a
shepherd being an abomination in Egypt, Gen_46:34). They were really a native
dynasty. Thus, in English Version, “Ethiopia” in the extreme south is rightly contrasted
with Sebennytus or Syene in the north.
ELLICOTT, "(10) From the tower of Syene.—The word here translated “tower” is
a proper name, Migdol, a town, mentioned in Exodus 14:2, near Suez. Syene has in
the original the affix denoting towards, and the translation should therefore be,
from Migdol to Syene, even unto the border of Ethiopia; in other words, “the whole
length of the land.” Syene was a town on the extreme southern border of Egypt,
represented by the modern Assouan, which is situated near its ruins. There is a like
error of translation in Ezekiel 30:6.
TRAPP, "Verse 10
47

48. Ezekiel 29:10 Behold, 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.
Ver. 10. And against thy rivers.] The jealous God will down with the earthly idol,
whatever it be. See on Ezekiel 29:9.
And I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste.] Heb., Waste of wastes.
From the tower of Syene,] i.e., From south to north.
WHEDON, "10. From the tower of Syene — Rather, as margin of A.V., “from
Migdol to Syene” (Sunnu). Migdol (Ezekiel 30:6; Exodus 45:2; Numbers 33:7;
Jeremiah 44:1; Jeremiah 46:14) was near to the ancient Pelusium (Tel Farama), and
was the great frontier city and recognized north boundary of Egypt in the time of
Ezekiel and Herodotus. This fort (Magdolon) guarded the point where the great
Syrian highways crossed the canal of Sesostris — the shortest route to Syria. (See F.
Ll. Griffith, Qantarah, pp. 100-103.) Syene (Assouan) was the southernmost town of
Upper Egypt, lying on the border of Nubia. The expression took in all Egypt, just as
“from Dan to Beer-sheba” meant all Palestine. (See Maspero, Recueil de Travaux en
Philippians et Arch., 1892.)
PETT, "Verses 10-12
“Therefore behold, I am against you and against your rivers, and I will make the
land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation from Migdol to Seveneh (Syene) even to
the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall
pass through it, neither will it be inhabited for forty years. And 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 will be a desolation forty years, and I will scatter
48

49. the Egyptians among the nations and will disperse them through the countries.”
A parallel fate to that of Judah is prophesied for Egypt. It is to be desolated,
although the means is not stated, so that it is desolate from north to south. Migdol
(meaning watchtower) would be in the Delta on the Egyptian border (compare
Exodus 14:2), while Seveneh (probably Syene) meaning ‘marketplace’ (Egyptian
swn) was on the border with Ethiopia on the first cataract of the Nile (unless we
read as ‘from tower to marketplace’). Syene was a fortress and base for expeditions
into Nubia (Cush), a terminus for river traffic and a source of red granite for
monumental buildings (syenite).
The desolation would go on for ‘forty years’. ‘Forty years’ was a standard period
for trial and testing meaning a fixed and fairly long period, and parallels the period
for bearing iniquity endured by Judah (Ezekiel 4:6). Thus Egypt would suffer a
fairly long period of desolation and weakness, probably at the hand of their
enemies.
The description of a land where no one will tread is probably intended as an
exaggerated picture to give the impression of the awfulness of the situation rather
than as literal (just as descriptions of the devastations of Judah and Israel gave a
similar impression; compare also Isaiah 34:10 with Malachi 1:3-4 of Edom). In its
devastation it will be like a land totally deserted.
The dispersal among the countries, which may have occurred towards the end of the
forty years, also parallels Judah and Israel. As with them the description is not to be
taken literally. It is the cream of the country that is in mind, and it is so described to
bring out the parallel. The real point is that Egypt will be made to suffer as Israel (2
Kings 17:18; 2 Kings 17:23) and Judah (2 Kings 25:11; 2 Kings 25:26) have done.
There will be a period when their chief men will be forcibly absent from the land,
and when many will flee for refuge into many countries.
We have no record of such an event, as literally described, happening in Egypt
although we must remember that there is much of their detailed history hidden to
49

50. us, and kings did not tend to record their own bad periods. It was clearly to happen
at the same time as the devastation of surrounding countries, beginning with
invasion by Nebuchadnezzar (Ezekiel 30:23-24), but like much prophecy probably
also having a far view.
It may be that Pharaoh and his forces and the cream of the aristocracy did have to
retreat from their cities beyond their borders at some stage before the fierce
invasion of Nebuchadnezzar and later before the Medo-Persians, possibly affected
by internal rebellion, later to return, and that many refugees fled to neighbouring
countries, remaining there for years, or it may possibly partly point forward to even
later invasions and their effects.
PULPIT, "Ezekiel 29:10
From the tower of Syene, etc. The Authorized Version is misleading, as Syene was
itself on the border of Ethiopia. Better, with the Revised Version margin, from
Migdol to Syene, even to the border of Ethiopia. The Migdol (equivalent to "tower")
so named is mentioned in the 'Itinerarium' of Antoninus, and was about twelve
miles from Pelusium, and thus represented the northern extremity of Egypt; as
Syene, identified with the modern Assouan, represented the southern, being the last
fortified town in Egypt proper. The expedition of Psammis against Ethiopia, as
above, had probably given prominence to the latter fortress. So taken, the phrase
corresponded to the familiar "from Dan to Beersheba" of 20:1, etc.
POOLE, " I am against thee: see Ezekiel 28:22.
Thy rivers: see Ezekiel 29:4.
Waste: see Ezekiel 29:9.
The tower; thus, as a common name, we, and the French, and others read it; but
50

51. some account it a proper name of a town or city, called Magdalum, for aught I know
the old Migdol, Exodus 14:2 Numbers 33:7,8; it was on the Red Sea side, north-east
of Egypt: from this part unto Syene.
Syene; a city on the east of Nilus over against Arabia, saith one; a city that is just
below the great cataract or fall of Nilus toward Ethiopia, and such a boundary
between Ethiopia and Egypt as admits dispute to which it belongs. Ethiopia: now, to
dispute nothing of this geography, it seems likely to me, that what we render
Ethiopia is not so well and plainly rendered; for Syene being so near to Ethiopia, we
must look some place of Egypt at some greater distance from Syene than this
Ethiopia is; if then it were translated, the border of Cush, to whom Moses assigns
Arabia, Genesis 10:7. Let us suppose then Magdalum, instead of
the tower, as one term; Syene on the edge of Ethiopia, as another; and the opposite
point on the Red Sea towards Arabia; and then almost all Egypt is comprised
herein, from north-east to south-east, down the Red Sea, thence to the westward as
far as Ethiopia, and thence up the Nile as high northward as Magdalum.
11 The foot of neither man nor beast will pass
through it; no one will live there for forty years.
GILL, "No foot of man shall pass through it,.... This must be understood not
strictly, but with some limitation; it cannot be thought that Egypt was so depopulated as
that there should not be a single passenger in it; but that there should be few inhabitants
in it, or that there should be scarce any that should come into it for traffic; it should not
be frequented as it had been at least there should be very few that travelled in it, in
comparison of what had:
no foot of beast shall pass through it: no droves of sheep and oxen, and such like
useful cattle, only beasts of prey should dwell in it:
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52. neither shall it be inhabited forty years: afterwards, Eze_29:17, a prophecy is
given out concerning the destruction of it by Nebuchadnezzar, which was in the twenty
seventh year, that is, of Jeconiah's captivity; now allowing three years for the fulfilment
of that prophecy, or forty years, a round number put for forty three years, they will end
about the time that Cyrus conquered Babylon, at which time the seventy years' captivity
of the Jews ended; and very likely the captivity of the Egyptians also. The Jews pretend
to give a reason why Egypt lay waste just forty years, because the famine, signified in
Pharaoh's dream, was to have lasted, as they make it out, forty two years; whereas,
according to them, it continued only two years; and, instead of the other forty years of
famine, Egypt must be forty years uninhabited: this is mentioned both by Jarchi and
Kimchi.
JAMISON, "forty years — answering to the forty years in which the Israelites, their
former bondsmen, wandered in “the wilderness” (compare Note, see on Eze_29:5).
Jerome remarks the number forty is one often connected with affliction and judgment.
The rains of the flood in forty days brought destruction on the world. Moses, Elias, and
the Savior fasted forty days. The interval between Egypt’s overthrow by Nebuchadnezzar
and the deliverance by Cyrus, was about forty years. The ideal forty years’ wilderness
state of social and political degradation, rather than a literal non-passing of man or
beast for that term, is mainly intended (so Eze_4:6; Isa_19:2, Isa_19:11).
COKE, "Ezekiel 29:11. Forty years— After the total defeat of Apries by the
Cyreneans, in which so many Egyptians fell that the whole nation was enraged
against their king, a civil war with Amasis followed, a conquest of Egypt by
Nebuchadnezzar, and another conquest of it by Cyrus. We learn from this passage
during what period of years Egypt was desolated, and in a manner deserted.
ELLICOTT, "(11) Neither shall it be inhabited forty years.—In Ezekiel 29:9-12 a
state of desolation is predicted for Egypt, which, if understood in the literal sense of
the words, has certainly never been fulfilled. In Ezekiel 29:9 it is said that it “shall
be desolate and waste,” and this is repeated with emphasis in Ezekiel 29:10; while in
Ezekiel 29:11 it is declared that neither foot of man nor foot of beast shall pass
through it. There is also a difficulty in regard to the time of “forty years,”
mentioned in Ezekiel 29:11-13. No such definite period can be made out from
history. The two difficulties go together, and the former is explained by the latter. It
has already been seen in Ezekiel 4:6 that the prophet represents the calamity of
Judah in the historic terms of their former suffering in the wilderness, without
thereby intending either any specific time or any precise repetition of the same
troubles they had then experienced. He does the same thing here in regard to Egypt.
The people are to pass into a condition like that of the Israelites in the wilderness, in
52

53. which they were to endure the judgment of God upon their sins. This is expressed,
after the manner of Ezekiel, in strong concrete terms, the literal fulfilment of which
was neither intended nor expected.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 29:11 No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall
pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.
Ver. 11. No foot of man or beast shall pass through it.] This was solitudo solitudinis
indeed, a dreadful desolation. When it happened no history mentioneth, but that it
was so is most sure. Oh the dismal effects of sin in all ages, as now in various parts
of Turkey, utterly unpeopled, though once flourishing!
WHEDON, "11. Neither shall it be inhabited forty years — This prophecy was
never literally fulfilled. It is a poetic description of the results of a campaign which
laid waste the country and interrupted the traffic. (Compare Ezekiel 4:6; Ezekiel
32:13.) The forty years is a symbolic number. (See introduction to chapter 40, and
general Introduction, VIII.) No one doubts that Egypt was in trouble at this very
time. The brave General Nes-Hor tells us on his funeral statue how the “Aamu
[Asiatics] and all the wretched Northerners from the land of Sati [Mesopotamia]
wasted and plundered” the country as far as Nubia, ravaging the temple at
Elephantine, etc. The fact that Nes-Hor claims to have driven back the invaders
before they plundered Nubia proves that they had at least reached Syene. (See note
Ezekiel 29:10.) It is more probable that the Aamu, being satisfied with their booty,
or being overcome with the heat, returned of their own accord. The Egyptians
claimed victories under such circumstances (Wiedemann, Zeits. fur Aeg. Sprach,
1878; Maspero and Brugsch, Zeits., 1884; Expositor, x; Tiele, Geschichte; Kuenen,
Onderzoek).
PULPIT, "Ezekiel 29:11
Neither shall it be inhabited forty years. It need hardly be said that history reveals
no such period of devastation. Nor, indeed, would anything but the most prosaic
literalism justify us in looking for it. We are dealing with the language of a poet-
53

54. prophet, which is naturally that of hyperbole, and so the "forty years" stand, as,
perhaps, elsewhere ( 3:11; 5:31, etc.), for a period of undefined duration, and the
picture of a land on which no man or beast sets foot for that of a time of desolation,
and consequent cessation of all the customary traffic along the Nile. Such a period,
there is reason to believe, did follow on the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar. It is
implied in Ezekiel 29:17-21, which carry us to a date seventeen years later than that
of the verse with which we are now dealing; and also in Jeremiah 43:10-12.
Josephus ('Contra Apion,' 1.20) speaks of Nebuchadnezzar as having invaded
Libya. The reign of Amasis, which followed on the deposition of Hophra, was one of
general prosperity as regards commerce and culture, but Egypt ceased to be one of
the great world-powers after the time of Nebuchadnezzar and fell easily into the
hands of the Persians under Cambyses. It is noticeable that Ezekiel does not, like
Isaiah (Isaiah 19:18-25), connect the future of Egypt with any Messianic
expectations.
POOLE, " No foot of man; not strictly to be taken, but in an accommodated sense,
or comparatively to what once was, or so little traffic and passing to and fro, that no
footsteps or tracks of men were found. It is a Scripture hyperbole, as Luke 19:44
Isaiah 14:31 Ezekiel 26:14,21.
Nor foot of beast; of profitable, useful, and tractable, as sheep, oxen, and horses; but
of wild beasts too many are in the desolate places of that part of the world.
Neither shall it be inhabited forty years: accounting these years from the first
wastings of Egypt by their civil dissensions and wars, some nine or ten years before
Nebuchadnezzar subdued and wasted it, which he did in the thirty-fifth, thirty-
sixth, and thirty-seventh years of his reign, or thereabout. So that these forty years
will fall in about the thirtieth year of Jeconiah’s captivity, and end with the
seventieth year of the captivity, which was the first of Cyrus.
12 I will make the land of Egypt desolate among
54

55. devastated lands, and her cities will lie desolate
forty years among ruined cities. And I will
disperse the Egyptians among the nations and
scatter them through the countries.
CLARKE, "Shall be desolate forty years - The country from Migdol or
Magdolan, which was on the isthmus between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, was
so completely ruined, that it might well be called desert; and it is probable that this
desolation continued during the whole of the reign of Amasis, which was just forty years.
See Herod. lib. 3 c. 10; and see Calmet.
GILL, "And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the
countries that are desolate,.... As Judea and others, made desolate by the king of
Babylon:
and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty
years; such as Thebes, Sais, Memphis, and others; which should share the same fate as
Jerusalem and other principal cities in other countries, which fell into the hands of
Nebuchadnezzar:
and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them
through the countries; such as were not carried captive into Babylon fled into other
countries, as Arabia, Ethiopia, and other places, Berosus (u) makes mention of this
captivity of the Egyptians under Nebuchadnezzar the son, which no other writer does.
HENRY 12-16, "Of the restoration of Egypt after awhile, Eze_29:13. Egypt shall lie
desolate forty years (Eze_29:12) and then I will bring again the captivity of Egypt,
Eze_29:14. Some date the forty years from Nebuchadnezzar's destroying Egypt, others
from the desolation of Egypt some time before; however, they end about the first year of
Cyrus, when the seventy years' captivity of Judah ended, or soon after. Then this
prediction was accomplished, 1. That God will gather the Egyptians out of all the
countries into which they were dispersed, and make them to return to the land of their
habitation, and give them a settlement there again, Eze_29:14. Note, Though God will
find out a way to humble the proud, yet he will not contend for ever, no, not with them in
this world. 2. That yet they shall not make a figure again as they have done. Egypt shall
be a kingdom again, but it shall be the basest of the kingdoms (Eze_29:15); it shall have
55

56. but little wealth and power, and shall not extend its conquests as formerly; it shall be the
tail of the nations, and not the head. It is a mercy that it shall become a kingdom again,
but, to humble it, it shall be a despicable kingdom; it shall be a long time before it
recover any thing like its ancient lustre. For two reasons it shall be thus mortified: - (1.)
That it may not domineer over its neighbours, that it may not exalt itself above the
nations, nor rule over the nations, as it has done, but that it may know what it is to be
low and despised. Note, Those who abuse their power will justly be stripped of it; and
God, as King of nations, will find out a way to maintain the injured rights and liberties,
not only of his own, but of other nations. (2.) That it may not deceive the people of God
(Eze_29:16): It shall no more be the confidence of the house of Israel; they shall no
more be in temptation to trust in it as they have done, which is a sin that brings their
iniquity to remembrance, that is, provokes God to punish them not for that only, but for
all their other sins. Or it puts them in mind of their idolatries to return to them, when
they look to the idolaters, to repose a confidence in them. Note, The creatures we confide
in are often therefore ruined, because there is no other way effectually to cure us of our
confidence in them. Rather than Israel shall be ensnared again, the whole land of Egypt
shall be laid waste. He that once gave Egypt for their ransom (Isa_43:3) will now give
Egypt for their cure; and it shall be destroyed rather than Israel shall not in this
particular be reformed. God, not only in justice, but in wisdom and goodness to us,
breaks those creature-stays which we lean too much upon, and makes them to be no
more, that they may be no more our confidence.
JAMISON, "As Israel passed through a term of wilderness discipline (compare Eze_
20:35, etc.), which was in its essential features to be repeated again, so it was to be with
Egypt [Fairbairn]. Some Egyptians were to be carried to Babylon, also many “scattered”
in Arabia and Ethiopia through fear; but mainly the “scattering” was to be the
dissipation of their power, even though the people still remained in their own land.
COKE, "Ezekiel 29:12. Her cities—shall be desolate, &c.— We cannot prove
indeed, from heathen authors, that this desolation of the country continued exactly
forty years, though it is likely enough that this, as well as the other conquered
countries, did not shake off the Babylonish yoke till the time of Cyrus; but we are
assured by Berosus, that Nebuchadnezzar took several captives in Egypt, and
carried them to Babylon; and from Megasthenes we learn, that he transplanted and
settled others in Pontus. So true it is, that they were scattered among the nations,
and dispersed through the countries, and might, upon the dissolution of the
Babylonish empire, return to their native country. Newton, p. 362.
ELLICOTT, "(12) Scatter the Egyptians among the nations.—Megasthenes and
Berosus state that Nebuchadnezzar on his conquest of Egypt, sent great numbers of
the people captive to Babylon; others doubtless, as in similar cases, took refuge in
56

57. Ethiopia, Libya, and other neighbouring lands. The kind of desolation foretold for
Egypt is the same as that for “desolate” cities and countries that fell under the
power of the conqueror: they were to be plundered and reduced to subjection.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 29:12 And 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.
Ver. 12. In the midst of the countries.] Palestine, Moab, Edom, Judea, &c. See
Jeremiah 46:18-20
And her cities.] Which are said to have been twenty thousand in the reign of Amasis,
the chief whereof were Alexandria, Thebes, Babylon, Memphis, &c.
WHEDON, "12. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations — Every oriental
conqueror took back with him strings of captives and gave them as slaves to his
soldiers and allies; but certainly there was no wholesale deportation of the people, as
in the case of Israel and Judah. (Compare Ezekiel 12:15.)
PULPIT, "Ezekiel 29:12
I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations. As before, records are silent as to
any such dispersion. All that we can say is that such a deportation was uniformly
the sequel of the conquests of an Oriental king, as in the ease of the captivities of
Samaria (2 Kings 17:6) and Jerusalem, and of the nations that were settled in
Samaria (2 Kings 17:6), and of the Persians by Darius; that if we find reason to
believe that Egypt was invaded by Nebuchadnezzar after the destruction of
Jerusalem, we may assume, with little risk of doubt, that it was followed by what
Ezekiel describes.
57

58. POOLE, " This verse is a further repeated confirmation of what was said before,
and needs no new explication, every thing in it being already spoken to in the
former verses.
Among the nations; some into captivity, others by a timely retirement dispersed
themselves, and got among their neighbours, who escaped, and where they kept, till
the forty years expired.
13 “‘Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says: At
the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians
from the nations where they were scattered.
BARNES, "A similar respite was promised to Moab Jer_48:47, to Ammon Jer_49:6,
and to Tyre Isa_23:15.
CLARKE, "Will I gather the Egyptians - It is probable that Cyrus gave
permission to the Egyptians brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, to return to their
own country. And if we reckon from the commencement of the war against Pharaoh-
hophra by Nebuchadnezzar, to the third or fourth year of Cyrus, the term will be about
forty years.
GILL, "Yet thus saith the Lord God, at the end of forty years,.... Reckoning
from its devastation by Nebuchadnezzar to the taking of Babylon by Cyrus:
will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered;
from Babylon, and other places; Cyrus very probably being stirred up by the Lord to
proclaim liberty to the Egyptians, as he did to the Jews, to return to their own land; and
58

59. at the same time restored Amasis to the quiet possession of his kingdom, who must be
still alive; since, according to Diodorus Siculus (w), he reigned fifty five years; though,
according to Herodotus (x), he reigned but forty four years.
K&D, "Eze_29:13-16
Restoration of Egypt
Eze_29:13. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, At the end of forty years I will gather the
Egyptians out of the nations, whither they were scattered. Eze_29:14. And I will turn
the captivity of Egypt, and will bring them back into the land of Pathros, into the land
of their origin, and they shall be a lowly kingdom there. Eze_29:15. Lowlier than the
kingdoms shall it be, and exalt itself no more over the nations; and I will make them
small, so that they shall rule no more over the nations. Eze_29:16. And it shall be no
more the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing iniquity to remembrance when they
incline towards it; and they shall learn that I am the Lord Jehovah. - The turning of the
period of Egypt's punishment is connected by ‫י‬ ִ‫,כּ‬ which refers to the time indicated, viz.,
“forty years.” For forty years shall Egypt be utterly laid waste; for after the expiration of
that period the Lord will gather the Egyptians again from their dispersion among the
nations, turn their captivity, i.e., put an end to their suffering (see the comm. on Eze_
16:53), and lead them back into the land of their birth, i.e., of their origin (for ‫ה‬ ָ‫כוּר‬ ִ‫,מ‬ see
Eze_16:3), namely, to Pathros. ‫ס‬ ‫ר‬ ְ‫ת‬ַ‫,פ‬ the Egyptian Petorēs (Παθούρης, lxx Jer_44:1), or
south land, i.e., Upper Egypt, the Thebais of the Greeks and Romans. The designation of
Upper Egypt as the mother country of the Egyptians, or the land of their nativity, is
confirmed not only by the accounts given by Herodotus (ii. 4 and 15) and Diodorus Sic.
(i. 50), but also by the Egyptian mythology, according to which the first king who
reigned after the gods, viz., Menes or Mena, sprang from the city of Thinis (Thynis),
Egypt. Tenj, in the neighbourhood of Abydos in Upper Egypt, and founded the city of
Memphis in Lower Egypt, which became so celebrated in later times (vid., Brugsch,
Histoire d'Egypte, I p. 16). But Egypt shall not attain to its former power any more. It
will be and continue a lowly kingdom, that it may not again become a ground of
confidence to Israel, a power upon which Israel can rely, so as to fall into guilt and
punishment. The subject to ‫ֹא‬‫ל‬ ְ‫ו‬ ‫ֶה‬‫י‬ ְ‫ה‬ִ‫י‬ is Egypt as a nation, notwithstanding the fact that
it has previously been construed in the feminine as a land or kingdom, and in ‫ם‬ ֶ‫יה‬ ֵ‫חֲר‬ ַ‫א‬
the Egyptians are spoken of in the plural number. For it is out of the question to take
‫יר‬ ִ‫כּ‬ְ‫ז‬ ַ‫מ‬ ‫ון‬ָֹ‫ע‬ as the subject to ‫ֹא‬‫ל‬ ‫ֶה‬‫י‬ ְ‫ה‬ִ‫י‬ in the sense of “no more shall one who calls guilt to
remembrance inspire the house of Israel with confidence,” as Kliefoth proposes, not only
because of the arrangement of the words, but because the more precise definition of
‫יר‬ ִ‫כּ‬ְ‫ז‬ ַ‫מ‬ ‫ון‬ָֹ‫ע‬ as '‫ם‬ ָ‫ת‬ ‫נ‬ ְ‫פ‬ ִ‫בּ‬ ‫אח‬ clearly shows that Egypt is the subject of the sentence; whereas,
in order to connect this definition in any way, Kliefoth is compelled to resort to the
interpolation of the words, “which it committed.” ‫יר‬ ִ‫כּ‬ְ‫ז‬ ַ‫מ‬ ‫ון‬ָֹ‫ע‬ is in apposition to ‫ח‬ ָ‫ט‬ ְ‫ב‬ ִ‫;מ‬
making Egypt the ground of confidence, brings into remembrance before God the guilt
of Israel, which consists in the fact that the Israelites turn to the Egyptians and seek
salvation from them, so that He is obliged to punish them (vid., Eze_21:28-29). - The
truth of the prediction in Eze_29:13-16 has been confirmed by history, inasmuch as
Egypt never recovered its former power after the Chaldean period. - Moreover, if we
compare the Messianic promise for Egypt in Isa_19:18-25 with the prediction in Eze_
59

60. 29:13-15, we are struck at once with the peculiarity of Ezekiel, already referred to in the
introductory remarks on Ezekiel 25-32, namely, that he leaves entirely out of sight the
Messianic future of the heathen nations.
COFFMAN, "Verse 13
"Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: at the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians
from the peoples whither they were scattered; and I will bring back the captivity of
Egypt, and I will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their
birth; and they shall be there a base kingdom. It shall be the basest 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. And it shall be no more the confidence
of the house of Israel, bringing iniquity to remembrance, when they turn to look
after them: and they shall know that I am the Lord Jehovah."
RESTORATION OF EGYPT AFTER FORTY YEARS
There is not a more remarkable prophecy in all the Word of God than this one.
"It (Egypt) shall be the basest of the kingdoms ..." (Ezekiel 29:15). Egypt
throughout all subsequent history has continued to remain a nation of secondary
strength and importance. Babylon dominated her; then Persia dominated her; then
the Greeks under Alexander the Great were her masters; after them came the
Seleucids, and still later the Romans! What a remarkable fulfillment of the words of
this prophecy. Even modern times have revealed no change whatever in the
continued secondary status of Egypt, that once-great nation which preceded
Assyria, Babylon, and other great world powers as the monolithic terror of the
whole world, and for a long period rivaled her successors as a world power.
PETT, "Verses 13-15
“For thus says the Lord Yahweh, At the end of forty years I will gather the
60

61. Egyptians from the peoples where they have been scattered, and I will bring again
the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return to the land of Pathros, to the
land of their origin, and they will be there a base kingdom. It will be the basest of
the kingdoms, neither will it any more lift itself above the nations. And I will
diminish them that they will no more rule over the nations.”
Many of the Egyptians who left would again be restored to their land, but never
again to lord it over their world. They would be restored to the southern part of the
kingdom, Pathros, and forever be a lowly kingdom. That this latter has been so is
undoubted, for once they had been humbled by the Medo-Persians they were never
really strong again. Yahweh had ‘diminished’ them.
PULPIT, "At the end of forty years. The restoration described may probably be
connected with the policy of the Persian kings. There may have been a parallel, as
regards Egypt, to the return of the Jewish exiles under Cyrus and his successors,
though it has not left its mark on history.
POOLE, " Forty years: see Ezekiel 29:11.
Gather, by some eminent acts of Providence toward them, perhaps inclining the
generous mind of Cyrus to favour them, and proclaim liberty to them, and under
the government of old Areasis, that reigned fifty-five years, saith Diodorus, some ten
or twelve of which might be under Cyrus, who had a kindness for the old man; and
he, to repair the wastes, obtained and published great privileges for the new
replanters.
The people; Babylon, Ethiopia, Libya, and other countries, that can be but
conjectured to have been receptacles for them.
14 I will bring them back from captivity and
61

62. return them to Upper Egypt, the land of their
ancestry. There they will be a lowly kingdom.
BARNES, "Pathros - The Thebaid or Upper Egypt, the original seat of the kingdom.
The land of their habitation - Rather, as margin, i. e., the home of the restored
exiles.
CLARKE, "Into the land of Pathros - Supposed to mean the Delta, a country
included between the branches of the Nile, called Δ delta, from its being in the form of
the Greek letter of that name. It may mean the Pathrusim, in Upper Egypt, near to the
Thebaid. This is most likely.
Shall be there a base kingdom - That is, it shall continue to be tributary. It is
upwards of two thousand years since this prophecy was delivered, and it has been
uninterruptedly fulfilling to the present hour.
1. Egypt became tributary to the Babylonians under Amasis.
2. After the ruin of the Babylonish empire, it became subject to the Persians.
3. After the Persians, it came into the hands of the Macedonians.
4. After the Macedonians it fell into the hands of the Romans.
5. After the division of the Roman empire it was subdued by the Saracens.
6. About a.d. 1250, it came into the hands of the Mameluke slaves.
7. Selim, the ninth emperor of the Turks, conquered the Mamelukes, a.d. 1517, and
annexed Egypt to the Ottoman empire, of which it still continues to be a province,
governed by a pacha and twenty-four beys, who are always advanced from
servitude to the administration of public affairs. So true is it that Egypt, once so
glorious, is the basest of kingdoms. See Newton on the prophecies.
GILL, "And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt,.... For what is done by men,
under the direction and influence of divine Providence, is said to be done by the Lord, as
this was, though by the means of Cyrus:
and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros; which was a part of the
land of Egypt; perhaps so called from Pathrusim, the son of Mizraim, from whom Egypt
62

63. had its name, Gen_10:14. Bochart takes it to be Thebais, a principal country in Egypt:
into the land of their habitation; or nativity, where they were born, and where they
before dwelt:
and they shall be there a base kingdom; as it is at this day more especially, to
which it has been gradually reduced, having passed into various hands, and come under
the power and dominion of different states: whatever might be the case and
circumstances of it under Cyrus, Cambyses his son entered into it, made sad devastation
in it, and an entire conquest of it; and though it revolted under Darius Hystaspes, it was
subdued again, and brought into a worse state than before by Xerxes: it revolted again in
the reign of Darius Nothus, and was at last by Ochus totally subdued; and from that time
the Egyptians never had a king of their own nation to reign over them. Along with the
Persian empire it came into the hands of Alexander without any opposition; and, after
his death, fell to the share of Ptolemy, one of his captains; and, though some of the first
kings of that name were of considerable note and power, yet Egypt made a poor figure
under the reigns of several of them. When the Roman empire obtained, it became a
province of that, and continued so for six or seven hundred years; and then it fell into
the hands of the Saracens, when it sunk into ignorance and superstition, the Mahometan
religion being established in it, with whom it continued until about the year of Christ
1250; when the Mamalucks, or Turkish and Carcassian slaves, rose up against their
sovereigns, the sultans of Egypt, and usurped the government, in whose hands it was
until the year 1517; when Selim the ninth, emperor of the Turks, conquered the
Mamalucks, and put an end to their government, and annexed it to the Ottoman empire;
of which it is a province to this day (x), being governed by a Turkish basha, with twenty
four begs or princes under him, who are raised, from being servants, to the
administration of public affairs; and so it is become a base kingdom indeed, if to be
called one (y).
JAMISON, "Pathros — the Thebaid, or Upper Egypt, which had been especially
harassed by Nebuchadnezzar (Nah_3:8, Nah_3:10). The oldest part of Egypt as to
civilization and art. The Thebaid was anciently called “Egypt” [Aristotle]. Therefore it is
called the “land of the Egyptians’ birth” (Margin, for “habitation”).
base kingdom — Under Amasis it was made dependent on Babylon; humbled still
more under Cambyses; and though somewhat raised under the Ptolemies, never has it
regained its ancient pre-eminence.
ELLICOTT, " (14) The land of Pathros.—Comp. Isaiah 11:11. Pathros is Upper
Egypt, the Thebaid. In the following clause this is described as “the land of their
birth” (Marg.). According to ancient testimony and the opinion of many moderns,
this was the original seat of Egyptian power. It may, however, be put only as the
part for the whole—Pathros for Egypt.
Shall be there a base kingdom.—Egypt should be restored, but not to its former
63

64. power. Historically this has been eminently true. For a little while Egypt struggled
against its oppressors, but its power was already broken, and from the time of its
conquest by Cambyses it has never been for any length of time independent. There
are few stronger contrasts in any inhabited country than between the ancient glory,
dignity, power, and wealth of Egypt, and its later insignificance.
WHEDON, "Verse 14
14. I will bring again the captivity — That is, after the necessary and complete
period of chastisement symbolically represented by forty years has passed, the
captives shall be brought back again to their own land. It is a curious thing that a
cylinder of Cyrus, now in the British Museum, declares that he permitted his
captives of “all lands” to return from Babylon to their own homes.
Pathros — The Pharaohs from earliest times wore a double crown, as rulers of “two
lands.” Pathros (Assyrian, Paturissu), the “land of the south” (Isaiah 11:11), was
Upper Egypt.
Habitation — R.V., “birth.”
PULPIT, "Into the land of Pathros. (For the land of their habitation, read, with the
Revised Version, the land of their birth.) (For Pathres, see Genesis 10:13, Genesis
10:14; 1 Chronicles 1:12; Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 44:1.) Its position is somewhat
doubtful, but the balance of evidence is in favor of placing it in the Thebaid of
Upper Egypt, which Herodotus (2. 4, 15) describes as the original seat of the
Egyptian monarchy. Its name may be connected with the Pathyrite name in which
Thebes was situated (Pliny, 'Hist. Nat.,' Ezekiel 5:9). The LXX. gives the form
Pathures, and is followed by the Vulgate, with a slight change, Phathures.
POOLE, " The captivity; which Nebuchadnezzar led away into Babylon.
The land of Pathros; one province or country of Egypt; it was a southern part of
64

65. Egypt. in which was the famous city Thebae or Thebais, known for its hundred
gates.
The land of their habitation; the ancient habitation of the fathers of the most of
those that did return, forty years having eaten up almost all that had lived there
before.
A base kingdom; a low, tributary, dependent kingdom, subject to the Persian
kingdom as Areasis was to Cyrus; and though it did at length grow great, yet was it
always dependent on Greeks or Romans.
BI, "I Will bring again the Captivity of Egypt.
God’s dealings with heathen nations
1. The goodness and mercy of God extend to heathens. He hath a care of them in
their captivity, and after they have suffered His appointed time He will show
kindness to them.
2. The afflictions of nations and persons may be long, yet not without end; they may
suffer seven and seven years, yea, twenty, thirty, forty years together, which is a long
time, and then see an end of their sufferings.
3. God sometimes deals more favourably with heathens than with His own people.
“At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians,” but it was the end of seventy
years before He gathered the Jews out of Babylon: His own people were thirty years,
or near upon, longer under the Babylonish yoke than the Egyptians. There was just
cause for this; God’s people had sinned worse than the heathens, and so provoked
Him above them.
4. Nothing is too hard for God, or can hinder the fulfilling of His will. The Egyptians
were scattered among the nations, here a family and there a family, and that forty
years together; so mingled with the people of other countries that they had well nigh
forgotten Egypt, and had so drunk in the manners and customs of the places where
they lived that they were neutralised thereunto; they were so rooted among the
nations that it seemed impossible to pluck them up, and plant them in their own
countries; yet notwithstanding these things, saith God, “I will gather the Egyptians
from the people whither they were scattered.” The Jews had lain longer n Babylon,
and were like dry bones in the grave, without hope (Eze_37:11); but God made good
His word; He brought them out with a strong hand, breaking in pieces gates of brass,
and cutting in sunder bars of iron.
5. It is the same hand, the same God, that drives men out of their countries and
comforts, into deep and long afflictions abroad, and brings them back out of the
same, to enjoy their countries and comforts. (W. Greenhill, M. A.)
65

66. 15 It will be the lowliest of kingdoms and will
never again exalt itself above the other nations. I
will make it so weak that it will never again rule
over the nations.
GILL, "And it shall be the basest of the kingdoms,.... That belonged to the
Persian monarchy, or to the Macedonian empire, being more kept under than the rest,
lest it should regain its former strength and glory; though it became more famous in the
times of some of the Ptolemies, yet never recovered its former greatness; and is now
exceeding base indeed, as appears from the preceding note:
neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations; so as to conquer them,
and make them tributary to it, as it had done:
for I will demolish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations; for
though they made war upon other nations in the time of the Lagidae, yet they did not
subdue them, and annex them to their kingdom, being much weakened both as to men
and money.
COKE, "Ezekiel 29:15. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms— By base kingdoms is
meant, that it should be tributary and subject to strangers, for the much greater
part of the time. This is the purport and meaning of the prophesy; and the truth will
appear by a short deduction of the history of Egypt from that time to this. It was
first of all tributary to the Babylonians, under Amasis; upon the ruin of the
Babylonish empire, it was subject to the Persians; upon the failure of the Persian
empire, it came into the hands of the Macedonians; after the Macedonians, it fell
under the dominion of the Romans; after the division of the Roman empire, it was
subdued by the Saracens, in the reign of Omar, their third emperor; about the year
of Christ 1250, it was in the possession of the Mamelucs, a word which signifies "a
66

67. slave bought with money," but is appropriated to those Turkish or Circassian
slaves, whom the sultans of Egypt bought young, and taught military exercises.
These slaves usurped the royal authority, and by that means Egypt became their
prey. But in the year of Christ 1517, Selim, the ninth emperor of the Turks,
conquered the Mamelucs, and annexed Egypt to the Ottoman empire, of which it
has continued to be a province to this day; except during the very short interval
when it was lately in the hands of the French. It has been governed under the
Turkish emperor by a Turkish basha, with 24 beys or princes under him, who were
advanced from servitude to the administration of public affairs; a superstitious
nation possessing the Egyptians, that it is decreed by fate that captives shall reign,
and the natives be subject to them; a notion which, in all probability, was at first
derived from some mistaken tradition of these prophesies, that Egypt should be a
base kingdom; that there should be no more a prince of the land of Egypt; and that
Ham, in his posterity, should be a servant of servants unto his brethren. By this
deduction it appears, that the truth of Ezekiel's prediction is fulfilled by the whole
series of the history of Egypt, from that time to the present. And who could pretend
to say, upon human conjecture, that so great a kingdom, so rich and fertile a
country, should ever afterwards become tributary and subject to strangers. It is now
much more than 2000 years since this prophesy was first delivered; and what
likelihood or appearance was there, that the Egyptians should, for so many ages,
bow under a foreign yoke, and never in all that time be able to recover their
liberties, and have a prince of their own to reign over them? See Bishop Newton.
WHEDON, "15. The basest of the kingdoms — Compare Ezekiel 17:14. Egypt never
recovered from the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar. She was easily conquered by the
Persians, fell a prey to the Greeks, was tossed about by the Romans, and has never,
even to this day, had an independent native ruler on the throne. Never again should
Egypt be “the confidence of the house of Israel” (Ezekiel 29:16; compare Isaiah
30:2-3; Isaiah 36:4; Isaiah 36:6; 2 Kings 23:35; 2 Kings 17:4).
PULPIT, "Ezekiel 29:15
It shall be the basest of the kingdoms. The words describe vividly the condition of
Egypt under the Persian monarchy, after its conquest by Cambyses. With the
Ptolemies it rose again to something like eminence, but that, it must be remembered,
was an alien dynasty. The nationality of Egypt was suppressed, and Alexandria,
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68. practically a Greek city, took the place of Memphis, Sais, and Thebes.
POOLE, " The basest; the most abject, debased, and most underling. It is likely the
kings to whom Egypt was tributary kept them lowest, as knowing how dangerous
that kingdom might be, as it recovered its ancient greatness; and the word seems to
intimate this, for it is more than the kingdoms it shall be depressed.
Neither shall it exalt itself; its masters would so watch and check it. I will diminish
them; beside the hard and cruel usages of the Persian kings, which might be unjust
enough, God’s most just judgment should follow them to lessen their numbers,
power, wealth, and honour.
They shall no more rule over the nations; though once they had subdued and ruled,
yet should they not any more. In the times of the Ptolemies, though it was
considerable, yet then it was not a kingdom that ruled the nations about her, though
she made war upon them.
16 Egypt will no longer be a source of confidence
for the people of Israel but will be a reminder of
their sin in turning to her for help. Then they will
know that I am the Sovereign Lord.’”
BARNES, "The false confidence of the Israelites “brought to remembrance,” i. e.,
discovered in the sight of God and man their “iniquity,” i. e., their treachery and perjury
to the Chaldaeans; their falsehood being made evident when they “look after” (turn to)
68

69. the Egyptians and seek their aid in rebellion. The ruin of Egypt shall put an end to all
this.
GILL, "And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel,.... It
having been treacherous to them, and moreover subdued by the Chaldeans, the Jews,
even after their return from captivity, put no more confidence in them; it being now
become as it is here prophesied it would, the basest of the kingdoms, more weak, and in
a more abject state, than the rest, and so despised by its neighbours, as it was by the
Jews:
which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after
them; as they had done in time past, when they looked after them for help, and
expected it from them, and trusted in them, and served their idols; which brought to the
Lord's remembrance former iniquities and idolatries, for which he punished them; but
now they should do so no more:
but they shall know that I am the Lord God; not the Egyptians, but the Israelites;
who being returned from captivity, shall acknowledge and serve the only true God, and
no more worship the idols of the nations.
JAMISON, "Egypt, when restored, shall be so circumscribed in power that it shall be
no longer an object of confidence to Israel, as formerly; for example, as when, relying on
it, Israel broke faith with Nebuchadnezzar (Eze_17:13, Eze_17:15, Eze_17:16).
which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after
them — rather, “while they (the Israelites) look to (or, turn after) them” [Henderson].
Israel’s looking to Egypt, rather than to God, causes their iniquity (unfaithfulness to the
covenant) to be remembered by God.
ELLICOTT, " (16) The confidence of the house of Israel.—Here the result of this
judgment in God’s providence concerning His people is brought out: they had
hitherto continually transgressed by looking to Egypt for aid; now this temptation
should be entirely removed. This trust of Israel in Egypt had continually brought
“their iniquity to remembrance when they looked” to them for help, both by its
being against the express command of God, and also by its involving treachery and
rebellion against Chaldæa.
WHEDON, "16. Bringeth their iniquity to remembrance — When Israel looked to
Pharaoh instead of to Jehovah for help, it made the national wickedness more
conspicuous than the national danger, and instead of helping, as he otherwise would
have done, Jehovah chastised. (Compare Ezekiel 21:23-24.)
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70. PETT, "Verse 16
“And it shall no more be the one in whom the house of Israel put their trust,
bringing their iniquity into remembrance when they turn to look after them. And
they will know that I am the Lord Yahweh.
Thus never again would Israel turn to Egypt for assistance and rely on them. Rather
they will look on Egypt with the result that their dire condition will remind them of
their folly. And the sight will also bring home to them Who and What Yahweh is.
PULPIT, "It shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel. Throughout the
history of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, as in the ease of Hoshea (2 Kings
17:4), Hezekiah (Isaiah 30:2, Isaiah 30:3; Isaiah 36:4, Isaiah 36:6), and Jehoiakim (2
Kings 23:35), their temptation had been to place its "confidence" in the "chariots
and horses" of Egypt as an ally. That temptation should not recur again. Egypt
should not in that way bring the iniquity of Israel to the remembrance of the Judge,
acting, as it were, as a Satan, first tempting and then accusing. There should be no
more looking after Egypt instead of Jehovah, as their succor and defense.
POOLE, " The confidence: on every occasion the Jews were wont, against express
prohibition, to renew friendship with Egypt, and make leagues for defence by them,
and here they sinfully rested, as Isaiah 30:2 31:1 36:6,9: see Ezekiel 29:7.
Which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance; which sinful reliance on the arm of
flesh provoked God to call to mind other their iniquities which accompanied this,
viz. their idolatry, and going a whoring with these their confederates. God never
forgets, but when he visits, punisheth, and judgeth a nation for their sin, then their
sin is come up into remembrance.
When they shall look after them; or, in their, i.e. the house of Israel’s, looking after,
70

71. i.e. with a desire that the Egyptians would, with hope they will, and with confidence
that they can, relieve, rescue, and save them; when they forgot God, and respected
Egypt.
They shall know; the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord, and whoso
knows him will put their trust in him, Psalms 9:10.
Nebuchadnezzar’s Reward
17 In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month
on the first day, the word of the Lord came to me:
BARNES, "The prophet places this prediction out of chronological order, that he may
point out what had not been stated in the foregoing prophecy, namely, that the agent
who should strike the first blow on Egypt should be the Chaldaean king,
Nebuchadnezzar.
CLARKE, "The seven and twentieth year - That is, of the captivity of Jeconiah,
fifteen years after the taking of Jerusalem; about April 20, 3432. The preceding
prophecy was delivered one year before the taking of Jerusalem; this, sixteen years after;
and it is supposed to be the last which this prophet wrote.
GILL, "And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year,.... Of Jeconiah's
captivity; or of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, as Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abendana, from
Seder Olam Rabba (z), observe; though it was in the thirty fifth year of his reign that
71

72. Tyre was taken by him; and after that Egypt was given him:
in the first month, in the first day of the month: the month Nisan, which answers
to part of March, and part of April. According to Bishop Usher (a), it was on the
twentieth of April, on the third day of the week (Tuesday), in 3432 A.M.or before Christ
572. Mr. Whiston (b) makes it to be a year sooner. This prophecy is not put in its proper
place, as to order of time, since it was sixteen or seventeen years after the preceding, and
the last of Ezekiel's prophecies; but is here placed, because it relates to the same subject
as the former, the destruction of Egypt.
The word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows:
HENRY 17-20, "The date of this prophecy is observable; it was in the twenty-seventh
year of Ezekiel's captivity, sixteen years after the prophecy in the former part of the
chapter, and almost as long after those which follow in the next chapters; but it comes in
here for the explication of all that was said against Egypt. After the destruction of
Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar spent two or three campaigns in the conquest of the
Ammonites and Moabites and making himself master of their countries. Then he spent
thirteen years in the siege of Tyre. During all that time the Egyptians were embroiled in
war with the Cyrenians and one with another, by which they were very much weakened
and impoverished; and just at the end of the siege of Tyre God delivers this prophecy to
Ezekiel, to signify to him that that utter destruction of Egypt which he had foretold
fifteen or sixteen years before, which had been but in part accomplished hitherto, should
now be completed by Nebuchadnezzar. The prophecy which begins here, it should seem,
is continued to the twentieth verse of the next chapter. And Dr. Lightfoot observes that it
is the last prophecy we have of this prophet, and should have been last in the book, but is
laid here, that all the prophecies against Egypt might come together. The particular
destruction of Pharaoh-Hophrah, foretold in the former part of this chapter, was
likewise foretold Jer_44:30. This general devastation of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar was
foretold Jer_43:10. Observe,
I. What success God would give to Nebuchadnezzar and his forces against Egypt. God
gave him that land, that he might take the spoil and prey of it, Eze_29:19, Eze_29:20. It
was a cheap and easy prey. He subdued it with very little difficulty; the blood and
treasure expended upon the conquest of it were inconsiderable. But it was a rich prey,
and he carried off a great deal from it that was of value. Their having been divided
among themselves, no doubt, gave a common enemy great advantage against them, who,
when they had been so long preying upon one another, soon made a prey of them all. En!
quo discordia cives perduxit miseros - What wretchedness does civil discord bring!
Jeremiah foretold that Nebuchadnezzar should array himself with the land of Egypt as
a shepherd puts on his coat, which intimates what a rich and cheap prey it should be.
JAMISON, "The departure from the chronological order occurs here only, among the
prophecies as to foreign nations, in order to secure greater unity of subject.
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73. COFFMAN, "Verse 17
"And it came to pass in the seveThe departure from the chronological order occurs
here only, among the prophecies as to foreign nations, in order to secure greater unity of
subject.
n and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the word of
Jehovah came unto me, saying, 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. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah:
Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto 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. I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for
which he served, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord Jehovah."
EGYPT GIVEN TO NEBUCHADNEZZAR AS "WAGES"
The date in Ezekiel 29:17, according to Bruce, is April 26,571 B.C.[11] This was
about a year after the end of the 13-year siege of Tyre. This, of course, is the last of
Ezekiel's prophecies chronologically; but it is included here because of the subject
matter. "The date given here is two years later than the vision of chapter 40."[12]
Despite the fall of Tyre and its subsequent domination under a high commissioner
from Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar received no significant spoil from its capture. Many
have suggested that perhaps Tyre had had sufficient time to ship all of their
treasures elsewhere. Egypt may well have been a cooperating partner with Tyre in
such a project, giving credence to Bruce's suggestion that such actions on Egypt's
part would have been a sufficient "casus belli" to result in Nebuchadnezzar's
immediate declaration of war against Egypt.[13]
Nebuchadnezzar appears here as "the servant of God" in his siege of Tyre, and his
eventual spoil of Egypt is seen as a God-given reward for him as compensation for
the failure of Tyre to yield any loot to her conquerors. "In all of Nebuchadnezzar's
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74. campaigns, he was unconsciously carrying out the purposes of the Divine will (See
Jeremiah 25:9).[14]
McFadyen commented that "The appearance in this chapter of prophecies which
men have labeled as `untilled' may fairly be regarded as proof that in the mind of
Ezekiel they had been or indeed would be essentially fulfilled."[15]
There is no admission here that Nebuchadnezzar's mission against Tyre failed.
Jamieson tells us that Jerome, quoting Assyrian historians, expressly states that
Nebuchadnezzar succeeded.[16] Afterward from the long siege, "The power of Tyre
was broken, and she never regained her former greatness."[17]
ELLICOTT, " (17) In the seven and twentieth year.—This is the latest date among
all Ezekiel’s prophecies, and is more than sixteen years after the prophecy of the
former part of the chapter. This date corresponds with the thirty-fifth year of
Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (see 2 Kings 25:2; 2 Kings 25:8), and, from Ezekiel 29:18,
was evidently uttered after the close of the siege of Tyre. As that siege lasted thirteen
years, it must have been begun at least as early as Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-second
year, or within three years after the destruction of Jerusalem. Josephus, however,
states (Antt. x. 9, § 7) that in the twenty-third year of his reign Nebuchadnezzar
made a successful expedition against Cælosyria, after which he brought the
Ammonites and Moabites into subjection, and then conquered Egypt. The two
former campaigns are consistent enough with the still progressing siege of Tyre; but
hardly the latter. We must, therefore, suppose a considerable interval between these
conquests, of which Josephus takes no notice.
The present utterance may have been either simultaneous with or only just before
the conquest of Egypt. Its most probable time is during the early part of the
campaign against Egypt.
This passage is placed with the other prophecies against Egypt in order to bring
them all together, and is assigned to this particular place, after the analogy of
Ezekiel 26:7, in order to bring the mention of the agent by whom the conquest is to
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75. be effected immediately after the general prophecy of judgment.
WHEDON, "Verses 17-20
17-20. This is the latest of Ezekiel’s prophecies (572-570 B.C.), and must have been
inserted here in order to be in close connection with the original prophecy
concerning Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Tyre and invasion of Egypt. The revelation
from Jehovah comes on New Year’s Day, when the Babylonians were celebrating
the glory of Bel. (See New Year’s Hymns, Hibbert Lectures, Sayce, p. 81.) If this is
an acknowledgment, without a word of protest or explanation, that the prophecy
had failed in fulfillment, as many critics claim, then indeed we might say with truth
of Ezekiel, “a greater than Jonas is here.” (See Jonah 4.) The fact of both passages
being published “proves that in Ezekiel’s thought there was no inconsistency
between the prophecy and the result” (Gautier). But it is now proved by a little
fragment of Nebuchadnezzar’s annals, the only one so far discovered, that in the
thirty-seventh year of his reign, which is the date required, he did invade Egypt and
carry off rich booty, and by an Egyptian monument it is also proved that very near
this same time, 568 B.C., certain Asiatics did fight against Egypt and plundered the
country, even to Syene and Elephantine. (See note Ezekiel 29:11 and our
Introduction, “V. Alleged Historical Mistakes.”) That he did not get the “wages” he
expected from the capture of Tyre may be due either to the fact that the royal
treasures were shipped away before the capture of the city (Jerome), or that for
some reason he did not pillage the city, if indeed the city did not capitulate in order
to be spared the very destruction which had been prophesied. (See Ezekiel 29:10-11;
Ezekiel 26; Ezekiel 28:17-19.) It must indeed be remembered that the prophet saw in
a vision not only the immediate but the remote future, and that even in the
predictions of that prophet who was greater than Moses or Ezekiel these are
sometimes fused into one picture. The prophets dealt with principles, and saw the
real and necessary outcome of small sins and seemingly slight defects as their
contemporaries could not and as we do not. Ezekiel saw that this was the beginning
of the end with both Tyre and Egypt; thereafter they were servants of Babylon. (See
Matthew 24.) Even Toy acknowledges that “the prophetic picture of its future is
substantially correct.”
Every shoulder was peeled — Rubbed bare. Ancient authors state that
Nebuchadnezzar attempted to reach the island city by filling up the strait between it
75

76. and the mainland. Alexander the Great did the same thing in his siege of Tyre. Even
to this day it is almost impossible to get orientals to use wheelbarrows, and if they
are forced to use them they will carry them on their heads. The “peeled shoulders”
and “heads made bald” must be a graphic detail alluding to the navvy work of
carrying loads of stones and earth for the above enterprise (Skinner), or else to the
rasping of the soldiers’ armor during the long siege. Arabic poets refer to the
baldness of soldiers caused by their headpieces (Davidson).
For his labor wherewith he served against it — R.V., “as his recompense for which
he served.”
They wrought for me — Compare Jeremiah 25:9. All unknowingly these
Babylonian soldiers had been doing Jehovah’s will.
PETT, "Verse 17-18
‘And so it was in the twenty seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the
month, the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar, king
of Babylon, caused his army to do a great service against Tyre. Every head was
made bald, and every shoulder was peeled. Yet he had no wages, nor did his army,
from Tyre, because of the service that he had served against it.” ’
In this oracle attention is turned on Tyre, but only so as to stress what is to happen
to Egypt. By now the thirteen year siege of Tyre was over, and although
Nebuchadnezzar had technically won, the island city had never been taken by storm
and what remained in it was insufficient to compensate for the costs of the long
siege, although tribute would be exacted. We may reasonably assume that the
Tyrians had ensured that all their treasures had long before been removed by ship,
possibly with Egypt’s connivance.
‘Every head was made bald, and every shoulder was rubbed bare.’ The continual
wearing of helmets, and the continual demands of the heavy siege had had their
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77. effect. The soldiers felt totally ill-used and exhausted.
‘Yet he had no wages, nor did his army, from Tyre, because of the service that he
had served against it.’ Nebuchadnezzar’s activity at Tyre was to be seen as service to
Yahweh. He had unknowingly been carrying out Yahweh’s judgment on Tyre. But
he had received no proper reward for it. Neither had his army, who depended on
spoils to supplement their poor wages. By such spoils many became prosperous.
PETT, "Verses 17-21
The Second Oracle Against Egypt (Ezekiel 29:17-21).
This is a late oracle introduced here, because it also refers to Tyre, so that it would
not be too far from the Tyre oracles, and because it gives information about who
would cause desolation to Egypt as described in the first oracle. It is dated on new
year’s day 571/0 BC some time after the raising of the siege of Tyre, some sixteen
years after the previous oracle.
PULPIT, "In the seven and twentieth, etc. The section that follows has the interest
of being, as far as the dates recorded enable us to determine, the latest of Ezekiel's
prophecies, and brings us to B.C. 572. It was manifestly inserted at a later date,
seventeen years after those which precede and follow it, either by the prophet, as he
collected and revised his writings, or by some later editor, as a proof that his earlier
predictions had already received, or were on the point of receiving, their fulfillment.
The fact that the special word of the Lord came on the first day of the year is not
without significance. Then, as now, the beginning of a new year was a time for men
generally to look before and after, for a prophet to ask himself what new stage in the
order of the Divine government the year was likely to produce.
POOLE, " The seven and twentieth year of Jeconiah’s captivity, the year after the
conquest of Tyre, and the thirty-fifth of Nebuchadnezzar.
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78. The first month; part of our March and April.
18 “Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon drove his army in a hard campaign
against Tyre; every head was rubbed bare and
every shoulder made raw. Yet he and his army got
no reward from the campaign he led against Tyre.
BARNES, "Eze_29:18
Yet had he no wages - It is not improbable that the Tyrians before they surrendered
their island-citadel managed to remove much of their treasure; but others exlplain the
verse; that the siege and capture of Tyre is to be regarded as the “work” appointed, and
the possession of Egypt as the “reward or wages” for the work.
CLARKE, "Caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus - He was
thirteen years employed in the siege. See Joseph. Antiq. lib. 10 c. 11. In this siege his
soldiers endured great hardships. Being continually on duty, their heads became bald by
wearing their helmets; and their shoulders bruised and peeled by carrying baskets of
earth to the fortifications, and wood, etc., to build towers, etc.
Yet had he no wages, nor his army - The Tyrians, finding it at last impossible to
defend their city, put all their wealth aboard their vessels, sailed out of the port, and
escaped for Carthage; and thus Nebuchadnezzar lost all the spoil of one of the richest
cities in the world.
GILL, "Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon,.... The same with
Nebuchadnezzar; he goes by both names in Scripture, nor is the difference very great:
78

79. caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus; in besieging it thirteen
years (c) before he was able to take it; during which time his army suffered much
hardship, was greatly fatigued and wearied, by the various military works they were
engaged in, to carry on the siege so long a time:
every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: the heads of the
soldiers became bald with wearing their helmets so long, or carrying baskets of earth and
timber upon them, to make mounts with; and the skin of their shoulders was peeled off,
either with their armour, or by carrying burdens on them for the above purpose; or, as
Jerom says, from the Assyrian annals, to make a causeway to join the island to the
continent, that so they might come at it with their battering rams, and demolish it:
yet hath he no wages; nor his army, for Tyrus; for besieging it; for, as the same
Jerom observes when the Tyrians found that the city was like to be taken by him, their
gold and silver, and whatsoever was valuable that was with them, they put on and sent it
to other islands; or, as others say, that when Tyre on the continent, which was what
Nebuchadnezzar besieged, was about to be taken, the inhabitants transplanted their
riches to the island at some distance, where new Tyre was afterwards built; however,
what with the consumption of their riches during this thirteen years' siege, and the
removing their effects to other places before the taking of the city there was scarce
anything left for the plunder of king of Babylon's army, so that he and that had nothing
to requite them:
for the service that he had served against it: it must have cost him a great deal of
money to support such a numerous army for so long a time, as well as the siege was very
toilsome and laborious; and yet, when the city was taken, there was nothing found in it
to answer this expense and labour.
HENRY 18-20, " Upon what considerations God would give Nebuchadnezzar this
success against Egypt; it was to be a recompence to him for the hard service with which
he had caused his army to serve against Tyre, Eze_29:18, Eze_29:20. 1. The taking of
Tyre was a tedious piece of work; it cost Nebuchadnezzar abundance of blood and
treasure. It held out thirteen years; all that time the Chaldean army was hard at it, to
make themselves masters of it. A large current of the sea, between Tyre and the
continent, was filled up with earth, and many other difficulties which were thought
insuperable they had to struggle with; but so great a prince, having begun such an
undertaking, thought himself bound in honour to push it on, whatever it cost him. How
many thousand lives have been sacrificed to such points of honour as this as! In
prosecuting this siege every head was made bald, and every shoulder peeled, with
carrying burdens and labouring in the water when they had a strong tide and a strong
town to contend with. Egypt, a large kingdom, being divided within itself, is easily
conquered; Tyre, a single city, being unanimous, is with difficulty subdued. Those that
have much to do in the world find some affairs go on a great deal more readily and easily
than others. But, 2. In this service God own that they wrought for him, Eze_29:20. He
set them at work, for the humbling of a proud city and its king, though they meant not
so, neither did their heart think so, who were employed in it. Note, Even great men and
bad men are tools that God makes use of, and are working for him even when they are
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80. pursuing their own covetous and ambitious designs; so wonderfully does God overrule
all to his own glory. Yet, 3. For this service he had no wages nor his army. He was at a
vast expense to take Tyre; and when he had it, though it was a very rich city, and he
promised himself good plunder for his army from it, he was disappointed; the Tyrians
sent away by ship their best effects, and threw the rest into the sea, so that they had
nothing but bare walls. Thus are the children of this world ordinarily frustrated in their
highest expectations from it. Therefore, 4. He shall have the spoil of Egypt to
recompense him for his service against Tyre. Note, God will be behind-hand with none
for any service they do for him, but, one way or other, will recompense them for it; none
shall kindle a fire on his altar for nought. The service done for him by worldly men, with
worldly designs, shall be recompensed with a mere worldly reward, which his faithful
servants, that have a sincere regard to his will and glory, would not be put off with. This
accounts for the prosperity of wicked men in this world; God is in it paying them for
some service or other, in which he has made use of them. Verily they have their reward.
Let none envy it them. The conquest of Egypt is spoken of as Nebuchadnezzar's full
reward, for that completed his dominion over the then known world in a manner; that
was the last of the kingdoms he subdued; when he was master of that he became the
head of gold.
JAMISON, "every head ... bald, ... shoulder ... peeled — with carrying baskets
of earth and stones for the siege works.
no wages ... for the service — that is, in proportion to it and the time and labor
which he expended on the siege of Tyre. Not that he actually failed in the siege (Jerome
expressly states, from Assyrian histories, that Nebuchadnezzar succeeded); but, so much
of the Tyrian resources had been exhausted, or transported to her colonies in ships, that
little was left to compensate Nebuchadnezzar for his thirteen year’s siege.
COKE, "Ezekiel 29:18-19. Son of man, &c.— Menander the Greek historian,
Philostratus, and Josephus, all assert, that Nebuchadrezzar besieged Tyre thirteen
years, when Ithobal was king there. The siege continuing so long, the soldiers must
needs endure many hardships. Their heads were made bald by continually wearing
helmets, and their skin was worn off their shoulders with carrying earth in baskets
to raise fortifications; whence we understand better the force of Ezekiel's
expression, that Nebuchadrezzar caused his army to serve a great service against
Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled. It farther
appears from the Phoenician annals, that the Tyrians received their kings
afterwards from Babylon; which plainly evinces, that some of the blood royal must
have been carried captives thither. The Phoenician annals too agree with Ezekiel's
account of the year wherein the city was taken; Tyre therefore, according to the
prophesies, was subdued and taken by Nebuchadrezzar and the Chaldeans; and
after this we hear little more of that part of the city which stood upon the continent.
It is some satisfaction, that we are able to produce such authorities out of heathen
historians for transactions of so remote antiquity. The Scripture asserts, that
80

81. Nebuchadrezzar and his army had no wages for Tyrus, for the service which he had
served against it; and this was literally true; for when the Tyrians saw no hope of
escaping the besiegers, they went on board ships, and fled to Carthage, carrying all
their furniture, clothes, and wealth with them. So that when the city was taken, the
conqueror found nothing worthy of his labour. It must have been grievous to
Nebuchadrezzar, after so long a siege, to have been disappointed of the spoil of so
rich a city; and therefore Ezekiel was commissioned to promise him the conquest of
Egypt for his reward; Ezekiel 29:19. See Bishop Newton, vol. 1: and Calmet.
ELLICOTT, "(18) Yet had he no wages.—The siege of Tyre is here represented as a
service to God, for which Nebuchadnezzar had not yet received his reward. This is
quite in accordance with the whole Scriptural representation of that monarch, as a
man raised up to execute God’s judgments. He was himself unconscious of this, and
yet did that which had been foretold—a striking instance that “there is a God in
history.” It has been argued from this verse, and from the fact that there is no
especial mention in history of the result of the siege of Tyre, that Nebuchadnezzar
failed in its capture; but all that is meant is that he failed to obtain any considerable
booty thereby, the Tyrians having abundant warning and opportunity to convey
away their valuables by sea. This St. Jerome expressly asserts to have been done by
them, and he further describes the method of the capture of the city by the same
means afterwards used by Alexander, that of building a mole from the mainland to
the island; thus explaining how in the besieging army “every head was made bald,
and every shoulder was peeled” by the bearing of burdens for the structure. Berosus
expressly testifies that Nebuchadnezzar “conquered all Syria and Phœnicia” (Jos. c.
Ap., i. 21); and Josephus also cites Philostratus, Megasthenes, and Diocles as
mentioning Nebuchadnezzar’s exploits and the siege of Tyre in a way which, while
they do not directly mention, yet certainly imply the capture of the city (ibid., and
Antt. x. 11, § 1). Besides, it is inconceivable that Ezekiel, who long survived that
siege, should have left that prophecy on record if the event was otherwise than as he
predicted.
PULPIT, "Nebuchadnezzar, etc. The words carry us to the close of the thirteen
years' siege of Tyro referred to in the notes on Ezekiel 28:1-26; and enable us to
refer the commencement of that siege to the fourteenth year of Jehoiachin's
captivity, circ. B.C. 586, two years after the destruction of Jerusalem. This agrees
with the report of the Tyrian Annals given by Josephus ('Contra Apion,' Ezekiel
1:21), who gives the names of the kings of Tyro from Ithobal to Hirom, in the
81

82. fourteenth year of whose reign Cyrus became King of Persia. Josephus, however,
gives the seventh, in. stead of the seventeenth, year of Nebuchadnezzar as the date of
the beginning of the siege. Here the point dwelt on is not the success of the siege, but
its comparative failure. The labors and sufferings of the besiegers had been
immense. Jerome (in loc.) states (not, however, giving his authority) that these
labors consisted mainly in the attempt to fill up the strait between the island-city
and the mainland with masses of stone and rubbish. These were carried on the
heads and shoulders of the troops, and the natural result was that the former lost
their hair and the latter their skin, and the whole army was in a miserable plight.
And after all, the king had no wages for his labors. The city indeed, was taken, but
the inhabitants made their escape by sea, with their chief possessions, and the hopes
of spoil were disappointed.
POOLE, " His army: the army, the inferior officers, and principal commanders, it is
like, were weary of the siege, and might advise the raising it; but the authority,
presence, and immovable resolution of the king kept them on still, and made them
hold out.
A great service; it was service to the justice of God in punishing the Tyrians by the
ambition of Nebuchadnezzar, who would not endure any thing to stand against him.
It was great service, both for hardness of work, heaviness of burdens, and
unreasonable length of the siege, thirteen years together.
Every head was made bald; either age, or sicknesses, (which often make men bald,)
or continued wearing of the helmets, spoiled the best heads of hair amongst them; or
perhaps it noteth the weeping bargain they had, though they mastered Tyre, where
they got no booty; and both Nebuchadnezzar and his army might shave their heads,
in token of mourning for their loss, rather than crown their heads with garlands of
joy for gaining of the city.
Every shoulder was peeled; either clothes wore out, they had scarce any to their
backs in so long a siege, or galled and blistered with carrying burdens, stones,
timber, iron, and earth for fortifications, and to make a passage from the continent
to Tyre; which sores, when healed, left scabs or dead skin that peeled off.
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83. He had no wages; for though Tyre was very rich when first besieged, no doubt very
much wealth was carried away by shipping at the beginning and during the siege,
which none could prevent, very much spent and wasted in the siege, and what was
left preserved by articles of surrender; for most conclude that it was delivered on
composition, and the conqueror had only victory for his pains and charge.
19 Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord
says: I am going to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar
king of Babylon, and he will carry off its wealth.
He will loot and plunder the land as pay for his
army.
GILL, "Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Since this was the case, that the king
of Babylon had been working for nothing, and had spent much blood and treasure, as
well as time, to little purpose and advantage to himself;
behold, I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon;
which will make him a sufficient recompence for his loss of time, men, and money,
before Tyre; and though the conquest of Egypt was made easy to him, by the internal
divisions and wars which were among the Egyptians; yet these were suffered, and
ordered by the providence of God, to bring about this his will, by way of righteous
punishment of the Egyptians, for their treachery to his people, and other sins:
and he shall take her multitude, of soldiers, and of inhabitants, and carry them
captive:
and take her spoil, and take her prey; that which the Egyptians had spoiled other
nations of and made a prey of that should now become the spoil and prey of the
83

84. Chaldeans:
and it shall be the wages for his army; with this the king of Babylon would be able
to pay off the arrears of his army; which had lain so long against Tyre; or this would be a
recompence to them for all the hardships they there sustained.
JAMISON, "multitude — not as Fairbairn, “store”; but, he shall take away a
multitude of captives out of Egypt. The success of Nebuchadnezzar is implied in Tyre’s
receiving a king from Babylon, probably one of her captives there, Merbal.
take her spoil ... prey — literally, “spoil her spoil, prey her prey,” that is, as she
spoiled other nations, so shall she herself be a spoil to Babylon.
ELLICOTT, "Verse 19
(19) I will give.—In the original this is in the form of a participle; literally, I am
giving. This form is often used of the future, but with especial appropriateness of the
immediate future. The other tenses, according to the Hebrew usage, take the
temporal meaning of the principal verb. This seems probably to have been spoken at
the very time of Nebuchadnezzar’s campaign and conquest. On the evidence that he
did actually conquer Egypt, see Excursus at the end of the book. He must have there
found abundant booty, as the kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty were commercial,
and greatly given to the accumulation of wealth.
EXCURSUS E: ON CHAPTER .—ON NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S CONQUEST OF
EGYPT.
The fact of this conquest having been called in question, it may be well to state very
briefly the points of evidence in its favour. It is admitted by all that Pharaoh-
Hophra was dethroned, and died a violent death, and was succeeded by Amasis,
who was at first little regarded by the people, though he afterwards won their
confidence. The account given of this revolution by the Egyptian priests to
Herodotus makes no mention of any foreign interference, but represents it as wholly
an internal affair, caused by a revolt of the troops of Hophra, He sent Amasis to
them to bring them back to their allegiance, but they saluted him as king. This
authority is suspicious, since the priests were prone to cover up whatever they
considered against the honour of their country; and the two facts of the popularity
84

85. of Amasis with the troops and his unpopularity with the people are scarcely
consistent, since it is said that he spared Hophra for a time, but afterwards, yielding
to the wishes of the people, strangled him. Now against this suspicious and
interested story stands the much more probable supposition that Hophra was
dethroned and Amasis put into his place by the power of Nebuchadnezzar.
Megasthenes and Berosus, according to Josephus, expressly testify that
“Nebuchadnezzar conquered a great part of Africa, and having invaded Egypt, took
many captives, who were committed to the charge of persons appointed to conduct
them after him to Babylon.” This conquest, according to the dates already given,
must be placed just at the time of the fall of Hophra. Besides this, there is a very full
prophecy of the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 46),
uttered in the first year of his reign (comp. Jeremiah 46:1 with Jeremiah 25:1). But
Jeremiah was himself afterwards carried into Egypt, and while there uttered other
prophecies to the same effect (Jeremiah 43, 44). It is altogether probable that he was
still living there at the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s expedition; and, on the lowest
grounds, it is inconceivable that he should have allowed these various prophecies to
remain on record if they had been proved false by the event. The same thing
substantially may be said also of the present prophecy of Ezekiel, and of that in
Ezekiel 30:10, although the prophet was not, like Jeremiah, living where he could be
an eye-witness of the result of the attack. Other prophecies against Egypt (Isaiah 18,
19, 31; Joel 3:19) are more general, and may not have in view this particular
conquest.
Again, Ezekiel represents Egypt as spoiled by Nebuchadnezzar, while both ancient
history and the monuments describe the country as rich and prosperous under
Amasis. There is really no inconsistency, but entire harmony between these
accounts. The great drain upon the resources of Egypt for many generations had
been her foreign wars with the powers of Mesopotamia. Relieved of this, and at
peace with Nebuchadnezzar, under the government of his vassal, Egypt would soon
have recovered her prosperity in wealth and art, while still politically desolated and
no longer able to appear as a great power among the nations. From this time
through all subsequent history Egypt was a base kingdom, and never again able to
dispute, as in former days, the sovereignty of the world.
There is an apparent difficulty about the date of this conquest, alluded to under
Ezekiel 29:17. The prophecy of Ezekiel is in the future, and yet was spoken in the
thirty-fifth year of Nebuchadnezzar (the twenty-seventh from the accession of
85

86. Zedekiah). Now, Jerusalem was taken in his nineteenth year (2 Kings 25:8). and an
interval of sixteen years seems, at first sight, inconsistent with the statement of
Josephus. But if that statement be examined, it will be found to be entirely indefinite
(see under Ezekiel 29:17), and it is hardly to be supposed that Nebuchadnezzar
would have undertaken the conquest of Egypt while still engaged in the siege of
Tyre; in fact, Ezekiel 29:18-19 distinctly imply that the one was subsequent to the
other. Now, the siege of Tyre appears to have been begun about two years after the
capture of Jerusalem, and lasted thirteen years. It closed then fifteen years after the
destruction of Jerusalem, and supposing the campaign against Egypt to have
followed immediately, in the next year, we get the exact date of this prophecy. (For
the references to Josephus, see Antiqq., Bk. x., cap. ix., § 7; Cont. Ap., Bk. 1, § 19,
20.)
PETT, "Verse 19-20
“Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, Behold I will give the land of Egypt to
Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and he will carry off large numbers of her
people, and take her spoil and take her prey. And it will be wages for his army. I
have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which he served, because
they wrought for me, says the Lord Yahweh.”
So as a reward and recompense for Babylon’s efforts against Tyre on Yahweh’s
behalf they were to be given Egypt, where they would find an abundance of spoils
and slaves and livestock. Note the suggestion that Egypt was Yahweh’s to give. He is
Lord of all.
‘Because they wrought for me, says the Lord Yahweh.’ All Babylon had done they
had done for Him. We do know that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt although we
have no details of the consequences (the inscriptions have been damaged) except
that the new Pharaoh Ahmose II had finally to agree terms, and pay necessary
tribute. It must have been a crushing defeat. But meanwhile the Babylonian army
would have been taking spoils as described.
86

87. PULPIT, "Behold I give the land of Egypt, etc. For this disappointment, Ezekiel,
writing, so to speak, the postscript which he incorporates with his earlier oracles,
promises compensation. Egypt, as he had said seventeen years before, should be
conquered, and its cities plundered, and so there should be wages enough for the
whole thirteen years of fruitless labor in the siege of Tyre. In that labor, the prophet
adds (Verse 20), they, though they knew it not, had been working out the will of the
Supreme. They also had been servants of Jehovah, as Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25:9) had
described Nebuchadnezzar himself.
POOLE, " I will give the land of Egypt: yet it is certain that the discontents of Egypt
gave occasion, and the revolts of some of the subjects from Hophra, or Apries, and
their inviting Nebuchadnezzar, gave him Egypt; but these were the irregularities of
men, which God did wisely and justly manage to effect what he designed, and God
gave, and men gave too; as the ten tribes gave, so God gave, the kingdom to
Jeroboam; so the first cause and second causes produce the same effect. Her
multitude; common people, who shall be made captives by the power of the
conqueror, and servants or slaves next by the will of those that buy them of the
soldier.
Her spoil: much of the Egyptian riches were the spoil of other nations, or the spoils
of one another in the late civil wars between Pharaoh-hophra and Areasis; and now
their dishonest gains shall be a prey to Babylonians.
Her prey; that which was once another’s possession, whilst right prevailed; but
became a prey when Egypt’s power mastered the possessors.
The wages for his army: his army could not have plunder of Tyre, because it was
surrendered on terms, but now they shall, and this shall be their prey.
20 I have given him Egypt as a reward for his
87

88. efforts because he and his army did it for me,
declares the Sovereign Lord.
CLARKE, "I have given him the land of Egypt for his labor - Because he
fulfilled the designs of God against Tyre, God promises to reward him with the spoil of
Egypt.
GILL, "I have given him the land of Egypt for labour wherewith he served
against it, That is, against Tyre; meaning not Nebuchadnezzar merely or only, but his
army also, who did the main of the service and labour, and had the plunder of the
country for it; though the kingdom itself was given to their king, and annexed to his
monarchy:
because they wrought for me, saith the Lord God; not intentionally, but
eventually; they did not design to do any service for God; they only sought to serve
themselves with the riches and wealth of those they subdued; and yet while they
besieged Tyre, and when they took it, and while they were ravaging, plundering, and
subduing Egypt, they were doing the Lord's will and work, and executing his righteous
judgments on these enemies of his for their sins; wherefore he rewarded them
sufficiently: none ever are employed by him but he gives them their wages; even though
they are wicked and ungodly men, verily they have their reward.
JAMISON, "because they wrought for me — the Chaldeans, fulfilling My will as
to Tyre (compare Jer_25:9).
POOLE, " I have given him; it is as sure as in his possession; thought he must fight
for it, and it will cost blood, yet he shall surely have success.
Against it; Tyre.
88

89. They wrought for me; the proud, revengeful, covetous, and cruel Babylonians
designed themselves, and did work for themselves, but God had further, higher, and
more excellent ends, his work was doing by them who thought nothing less.
21 “On that day I will make a horn[c] grow for
the Israelites, and I will open your mouth among
them. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
BARNES, "Eze_29:21
Egypt being the antagonist of the people of God, her overthrow inaugurated the
triumph of good over evil.
The horn ... - Or, “an horn to bud forth to the house of Israel.”
I will give thee the opening of the mouth - When these things should begin to
come to pass the prophet’s mouth should be opened to declare their meaning, and to
make known the end to which all was tending.
CLARKE, "Will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud - This may
refer generally to the restoration; but particularly to Zerubbabel, who became one of the
leaders of the people from Babylon. Or it may respect Daniel, or Mordecai, or Jeconiah,
who, about this time, was brought out of prison by Evil-merodach, and afterwards kindly
treated.
GILL, "In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth,....
Not at the time of Egypt's destruction, unless it can be thought that this refers to the
advancement of Daniel in the court of Babylon; or to the taking of Jehoiachin out of
prison, and setting his throne above the rest of the kings; which events came to pass a
little after this: but rather this respects the time of Egypt's restoration forty years after,
when Cyrus came to the throne, and proclaimed liberty to the Jews to return to their
89

90. own land, and build their city and temple, under the government of Zerubbabel their
prince: besides, it may not be limited to either of these times, but may regard the famous
day, when the kingdom of Israel, in a spiritual sense, should flourish under the Messiah,
the Horn of salvation, and Branch of David, often promised to bud forth, and was
fulfilled in Jesus, Psa_132:17. The Targum is,
"in that day will I bring redemption to the house of Israel.''
And I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; in
prophecy among them, as the Targum; who after this, might deliver other prophecies,
though we have no account of them; or he should have boldness and courage when he
and they should see his prophecies fulfilled, by which it would appear that he was a true
prophet of the Lord:
and they shall know that I am the Lord; who sent the prophet, and from whom he
had these prophecies, and by whom they were fulfilled.
HENRY, "The mercy God had in store for the house of Israel soon after. When the
tide is at the highest it will turn, and so it will when it is at the lowest. Nebuchadnezzar
was in the zenith of his glory when he had conquered Egypt, but within a year after he
ran mad (Song 4), was so seven years, and within a year or two after he had recovered
his senses he resigned his life. When he was at the highest Israel was at the lowest; then
were they in the depth of their captivity, their bones dead and dry; but in that day the
horn of the house of Israel shall bud forth, Eze_29:21. The day of their deliverance shall
begin to dawn, and they shall have some little reviving in their bondage, in the honour
that shall be done, 1. To their princes; they are the horns of the house of Israel, the seat
of their glory and power. These began to bud forth when Daniel and his fellows were
highly preferred in Babylon; Daniel sat in the gate of the city; Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, were set over the affairs of the province (Dan_2:49); these were all of the
king's seed, and of the princes, Dan_1:3. And it was within a year after the conquest of
Egypt that they were thus preferred; and, soon after, three of them were made famous by
the honour God put upon them in bringing them alive out of the burning fiery furnace.
This might very well be called the budding forth of the horn of the house of Israel. And,
some years after, this promise had a further accomplishment in the enlargement and
elevation of Jehoiachin king of Judah, Jer_52:31, Jer_52:32. They were both tokens of
God's favour to Israel, and happy omens. 2. To their prophets. And I will give thee the
opening of the mouth. Though none of Ezekiel's prophecies, after this, are recorded, yet
we have reason to think he went on prophesying, and with more liberty and boldness,
when Daniel and his fellows were in power, and would be ready to protect him not only
from the Babylonians, but from the wicked ones of his own people. Note, It bodes well to
a people when God enlarges the liberties of his ministers and they are countenanced and
encouraged in their work.
JAMISON, "In the evil only, not in the good, was Egypt to be parallel to Israel. The
very downfall of Egypt will be the signal for the rise of Israel, because of God’s covenant
with the latter.
90

91. I cause the horn of ... Israel to bud — (Psa_132:17). I will cause its ancient glory
to revive: an earnest of Israel’s full glory under Messiah, the son of David (Luk_1:69).
Even in Babylon an earnest was given of this in Daniel (Dan_6:2) and Jeconiah (Jer_
52:31).
I will give thee ... opening of ... mouth — When thy predictions shall have come
to pass, thy words henceforth shall be more heeded (compare Eze_24:27).
COFFMAN, "Verse 21
"In that day will I cause a horn to bud forth unto the house of Israel, and I will give
thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am
Jehovah."
A GLIMPSE OF A NEW AGE FOR ISRAEL
The first statement here has the earmarks of a Messianic promise; but the last half
of the verse appears to limit it to those projected "better times" when Ezekiel will be
able to open his mouth freely unto God's people, who shall at that time truly learn
that the Lord is Jehovah.
We cannot explain exactly how these two declarations relate to each other, or how
they belong in the same verse. Nevertheless, we are unwilling to give up the
Messianic import of the initial clause.
"In that day" is usually a reference to the Messianic dispensation; and we believe it
is that in this verse. Furthermore "a horn" unto the house of David is a prophecy of
the revival of the Davidic dynasty; and that took place only in the elevation of Jesus
Christ to the right hand of God (Acts 2). Psalms 132:17, and Luke 1:69 demonstrate
this common usage of the term "horn."
Keil pointed out that "The horn in this passage is the Messianic salvation. The
words are unquestionably connected with God's promise to Ezekiel in Ezekiel
24:26-27, that after the fall of Jerusalem, the mouth of Ezekiel will be opened; but
they have a much more comprehensive meaning, namely, that with the dawn of
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92. salvation in Israel, in the church of the Lord, the word of prophecy would sound
forth in the richest measure."[18]
This characteristic of sweet promises of the ultimate victory of the people of God is a
hallmark of true prophecy. We should be disappointed if it were not here, just as it
is in countless other places throughout the Word of God.
COKE, "Verse 21
Ezekiel 29:21. In that day will I cause the horn, &c.— That is to say, after the
destruction of God's and his church's enemies, the kingdom and state of the Jews
shall flourish again, particularly under the Messiah, as is more clearly foretold,
chap. Ezekiel 34:23, &c. Ezekiel 37:21, &c. See also chap. Ezekiel 24:27.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The date of this prophesy is observable. It was just at the
time when the Egyptian army was advancing to raise the siege of Jerusalem, and
when the Jews confidently expected relief from their approach. The vain hopes that
sinners entertain are often most sanguine, when their ruin is nearest.
The prophesy is directed against Egypt and her king, represented by a great dragon,
or crocodile, lying in the river Nile. We have here,
1. His pride. He lieth in the midst of his rivers, secure, at ease, and rolling in wealth
and pleasures; and hath said, My river is mine own, I have made it for myself; as if
he reigned independent of God, and owed to himself alone the monarchy that he
possessed. Thus pride calls God's gifts our own, and, self-idolaters, we leave him far
above out of our sight.
2. The judgment executed on Pharaoh. I am against thee, or above thee, able and
determined to punish his arrogance. God will put hooks in his jaws, and with all the
fish which stick to his scales, his numerous forces, will drag him out of his rivers,
92

93. and in the wilderness give him, with all his army, for a prey to the beasts of the field,
and to the fowls of the heaven. Note; Pride is the prelude to destruction; and they
who are most secure are usually most exposed.
3. The provocation which most hastened the ruin of Egypt was her falsehood and
deceitfulness with regard to the Jewish people. Encouraged by the alliance with
Pharaoh, Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon, and now, when he looked
for support from Egypt, the staff on which he leaned broke under him, to his vast
disappointment and utter consternation, rent his shoulder, brought on him the
Chaldean sword, and made all his loins at a stand, compelled to stand alone, and in
the greatest amazement, conscious of his own inability to cope with
Nebuchadrezzar's army. It was folly indeed in Zedekiah to rely on such auxiliaries;
but their perfidy in deceiving him was not the less criminal, and God will revenge
such treachery.
2nd, We have,
1. The terrible overthrow of Egypt foretold. God will make them know by his
judgments that he is the Lord, and prove the vanity of their insolent vaunts. The
sword of the Chaldeans shall pass through the land, lay all waste before it, cut off
man and beast from one end of Egypt to the other, and leave it depopulated, without
trade, unfrequented, and like a desart during forty years: the inhabitants in general
being slain, or carried into captivity, Egypt was given to Nebuchadrezzar; and if we
allow three years for completing the conquest, the forty years will end with the
destruction of the Babylonian monarchy by Cyrus, when probably Egypt, as well as
the other nations, recovered in some measure her liberty.
2. The restoration of Egypt, when the forty years were expired; not to her former
grandeur and magnificence; but, though a kingdom, and flourishing under some of
her monarchs, particularly the Ptolemies, yet by repeated conquests at last reduced
to its present base and low estate under the Turks, no more the mistress of nations,
nor the stay of Israel, to bring their iniquity to remembrance, by their placing
dependance upon Egypt, and withdrawing their confidence from God. Note; (1.)
God still in wrath remembers mercy. (2.) It is gracious as just in the Lord to remove
93

94. those creature comforts and confidences which estranged our hearts from him.
3rdly, We have another of Ezekiel's prophesies in this chapter; but all the
prophesies concerning Egypt are laid together.
1. In consideration of the hard service that Nebuchadrezzar underwent before Tyre,
the spoil of which so little repaid him for his pains, great part of their effects being
removed, as history informs us, before the place was taken, Egypt is given him and
his army for their wages; being before weakened by intestine divisions, it fell an easy
prey to the conqueror. As the vengeance executed on Tyre was by divine command,
God will not suffer Nebuchadrezzar to work without a reward. Note; (1.) Even
wicked men, when employed in God's service, find their account in it; they are paid
in the good things of this life. (2.) Many who propose no other end than their own
advantage, and perhaps the gratification of their ambition and covetousness, are
made by the secret over-ruling providence of God subservient to his designs.
2. A gracious promise is made to Israel. In that day will I cause the horn of the
house of Israel to bud; either at the day of Egypt's destruction, about which time
Daniel and his fellows, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, were so distinguished of
God, and honoured by the king of Babylon, (see Daniel 1:3; Daniel 1:21; Daniel
2:49.) or shortly after, when Jehoiachim was enlarged from prison and honourably
treated, Jeremiah 52:31-32 or the time here spoken of may refer to the forty years,
when the captivity of Israel as well as Egypt should end; and under Zerubbabel and
others the nation should revive from its desolations; but, above all, the prophesy
refers to the times of the Messiah. And I will give thee the opening of the mouth in
the midst of them, when the fulfilment of the prophesies would give peculiar force to
his exhortations, and embolden him in the work of the Lord. For, though no more of
his prophesies are recorded, (these concerning Egypt being the last in order of time,)
no doubt he continued a faithful preacher to the people, which could not but prove a
singular blessing to them. For when God enlarges the hearts of his faithful servants,
and enables them with boldness to speak, it is a gracious symptom that they shall see
of the travail of their souls in the salvation of many to whom they minister.
ELLICOTT, "Verse 21
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95. (21) In that day.—The tenses here change to the future, indicating that if the
conquest of Egypt had already taken place, its consequences to Israel were to be
only gradually developed. These consequences were primarily the conviction of the
futility of trust in any earthly aid, and hence a turning to their neglected God, and,
as a result of this, the giving up of their long cherished idolatries. The prophet
speaks of this as only in germ, but looking on to its further development, under the
figure of making a horn to bud forth, that is, to sprout or grow. (Comp. Psalms
132:17.) Israel’s reviving prosperity should date from the destruction of its trust in
earthly aid.
The opening of the mouth.—This is elsewhere (Ezekiel 24:27) promised to the
prophet as a consequence of the fall of Jerusalem, of which he had heard (Ezekiel
33:21-22) more than fourteen years before. There is no recorded prophecy of
Ezekiel’s of later date; the expression must therefore be understood of those
encouraging and helpful instructions of the prophet, as the people improved under
the discipline of the captivity, which it was not seen fitting to put on permanent
record.
WHEDON, "21. The horn of the house of Israel to bud — R.V., “an horn to bud
forth unto the house of Israel.” The horn is the symbol of power (Psalms 132:17;
Lamentations 2:3). Israel’s power, which had seemed utterly broken, is to spring up
again, and when the people shall see this verification of prophecy they will be glad to
have Ezekiel again open his mouth and teach. (Compare Ezekiel 24:27.)
PETT, "Verse 21
“In that day I will cause a horn to bud forth to the house of Israel, and I will give
you the opening of your mouth among them, and they will know that I am Yahweh.”
A horn is the symbol of strength and power (1 Samuel 2:1; 1 Kings 22:11; Psalms
92:10; Jeremiah 48:25). It was the means by which animals exerted their
superiority. Thus in some way Israel were to be given strength at the time of the
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96. invasion and victory. Indeed Ezekiel himself may be that horn, for they would begin
to listen to his words and take heed to them, and learn Who Yahweh really is. And
in the end that was Ezekiel’s purpose.
Alternately it may refer to one of the leaders whom Yahweh would use in their
restoration. It does not matter which one. All were horns given by Yahweh, all
looking forward to the great Son of David yet to come (Ezekiel 34:23-24; Ezekiel
37:24).
PULPIT, "The horn of the house of Israel. The "horn" is, as always (1 Samuel 2:1;
Psalms 92:10; Psalms 112:9; Psalms 132:17), the symbol of power. Jeremiah's use of
it (Lamentations 2:3) may well have been present to Ezekiel's thoughts. That horn
had been cut off, but it should begin to sprout again, and the prophet himself should
resume his work as the teacher of his people, which had apparently been suspended
for many years after the closing vision of the restoration of the temple and of Israel.
The words justify the conclusion that Ezekiel resumed his labors after B.C. 572.
Was he watching the growth of Saiathiel or Zerubbabel?
POOLE, " In that day; about that time, when Egypt was spoiled, Nebuchadnezzar
returned to Babylon, his wars first, and soon after his life, ended, about four or five
years after his return out of Egypt into Babylon; for about the thirty-seventh or
thirty-eighth of his reign he finished his conquest of Egypt, and in the forty-third
year he died at Babylon.
The horn; Jehoiachin by Evil-merodach was advanced, Jeremiah 52:31-33; beside
dignities given to Daniel, the three children, and many others, under whose
authority and favour the affairs of the Jews began, as a root that hath life in it, to
spring and flourish; and whatever was the more immediate visible cause that
prevailed with Evil-merodach, we are sure the principal cause was this, God’s
mercy and veracity, who had promised he would do it, and foretold the time when
he would begin to do it.
The opening of the mouth; thou shalt with greater authority be heard speaking,
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97. when the sorrows thou foretoldest, and the joys thou promisedst, both come to pass;
and both Jews and Babylonians shall see and own it; or, thou shalt have liberty and
freedom, as well as will and cause to speak, to open thy mouth in comforting the
good among them, and to give praise to God, who revived their hopes, and made
them know him as the Lord their God.
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