Ezekiel 29

God speaks against Pharaoh and Egypt, who are proud of the Nile and proved a broken reed to Israel. Egypt will be judged, scattered, and then restored only as a lowly kingdom. A later word gives Babylon the land of Egypt as wages for its work against Tyre, and promises hope for Israel.

Ezekiel 29:1-2

Ezekiel, a captive in Babylon, receives a new word in the tenth year of exile. God tells him to turn toward Egypt and speak against its king and the whole land. The prophet is God’s messenger to the nations as well as to Israel.

BSA: face (“presence, being in front of someone”): Ezekiel is to stand squarely before Pharaoh, delivering God’s verdict openly.

See also: Jeremiah 46:13-14.

Ezekiel 29:3

God declares himself against Pharaoh, who is pictured as a great river monster lounging in the Nile. His boast, ‘The Nile is mine; I made it myself,’ claims the credit that belongs to the Creator alone. Pride that takes God’s gifts as its own is what he opposes.

BSA: monster (“dragon, sea-serpent”): Pharaoh is pictured as a mighty creature of the waters, proud of his own domain. made (“created, formed”): Pharaoh claims the power to create, which is God’s alone.

Hebrew: תַּנִּים (tannim, H8577) — “great sea or river creature, dragon.” The word names a huge water creature, often a crocodile-like beast or serpent. It fits Egypt’s crocodile-filled river and shows Pharaoh as dangerous but still only a creature.

See also: Isaiah 51:9.

Ezekiel 29:4-5

God will hook this beast like a fish and drag him from the river onto dry land. His people, the fish clinging to his scales, will go with him. He will lie unburied in the open field, food for wild animals and birds. Great pride ends in total helplessness.

BSA: hooks (“like a fishhook, a means of control”): God controls Pharaoh as easily as a fisherman pulls a catch from the water.

Ezekiel 29:6-7

The purpose of judgment is that Egypt will know that God is the LORD. Egypt had been a reed staff to Israel, looking strong but splintering when leaned on. Israel was wounded by trusting a human power instead of God.

BSA: leaned (“rested, trusted”): The wound came from resting Israel’s trust on Egypt instead of on God.

See also: Isaiah 36:6.

Ezekiel 29:8-9

The sword will come and cut off both people and animals, leaving Egypt a desolate waste. Again the reason is Pharaoh’s boast about the Nile. The result will be that they know the LORD, the one who truly rules.

BSA: sword (“weapon of war, instrument of judgment”): The sword is in God’s hand, an instrument of his judgment.

Ezekiel 29:10-12

The ruin will stretch from Migdol in the north to Syene in the south, as far as Cush’s border, so the whole land is meant. For forty years Egypt will be empty and its people scattered among the nations. Forty is a round number for a full period of judgment.

BSA: forty (“a significant period of time, as in years of testing”): Forty often marks a complete season of testing or judgment in Scripture.

Ezekiel 29:13-14

God’s judgment is not the last word. After the forty years he will gather the Egyptians and return them to Pathros, in southern Egypt, the region of their beginnings. Even the nations know God’s mercy, though what is restored is a humble kingdom.

BSA: gather (“collect or assemble, to bring together”): God himself brings scattered people home, as a shepherd gathers a flock.

See also: Isaiah 19:22-25.

Ezekiel 29:15-16

Egypt will be the lowest of kingdoms, never again ruling the nations. It will no longer tempt Israel to trust in it. Instead its weakness will remind Israel of the sin of looking to Egypt for help instead of to God.

BSA: iniquity (“moral evil, sin”): Seeking Egypt’s help was not only foolish but a moral failure against God.

See also: Isaiah 31:1.

Ezekiel 29:17-18

This word comes years later, in the twenty-seventh year of exile. Nebuchadnezzar had besieged Tyre long and hard. His soldiers’ heads were rubbed bald by helmets and their shoulders rubbed raw from carrying loads. Yet they got little payment for it.

BSA: bald (“to make bald, or shave the head, as a sign of mourning”): The soldiers’ heads were worn bare by the long, hard siege. wages (“payment for work or services, like the wages paid to laborers”): Nebuchadnezzar’s army worked like hired laborers but went unpaid by Tyre.

See also: Ezekiel 26:7-8.

Ezekiel 29:19-20

God will pay Nebuchadnezzar’s army with Egypt’s wealth. The text says his labor was done for God, even though the king did not know it. God directs even pagan rulers as instruments of his purposes, and nothing is outside his rule.

BSA: reward (“wages, recompense”): God treats the army’s service as work deserving payment.

See also: Jeremiah 25:9.

Ezekiel 29:21

On that day God will make a horn sprout for Israel, a sign of strength and hope for the people. He will also open Ezekiel’s mouth among them. The chapter ends with the same aim as before: that they will know that he is the LORD.

BSA: horn (“a horn; a hill or peak”): A horn pictures strength and power, here a new strength God grows for his people. sprout (“grow, bud forth”): The image is of new growth, a hope that comes from God rather than being built by men.

See also: Psalm 132:17; Luke 1:69.