Ezekiel 29

Chap. XXIX. Ver. 1—16. The judgment of Pharaoh and of Pemee. ee chapter foretels the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, which took place B. C. 573, seventeen years after the prediction, which was evidently delivered before several of the preceding chapters. The same event we have seen foretold by Jeremiah, (ch. xlvi. 13.) The chapter opens by charging Pharaoh Hophra (commonly called Apries, see note ver. 2,) with the same pride and profaneness as was in the chapter preceding alleged against the Prince of Tyre. He was so confident of the strength of his kingdom, that, according to Herodotus, he impiously boasted, that neither God nor man was able to dispossess him. Wherefore, the Prophet, addressing him under the image of a crocodile, the “great dragon”

of Egypt, tells him that with as much ease as a fisher drags the fish he has hooked, God would drag him and his people into captivity, where their carcasses would fall. The figure is then dropped, and God denounces woe against him and his people, by subjecting them to the Babylonian yoke till that empire should fall: and after that period, it is declared, that Egypt should always remain the basest of kingdoms; a prophecy which has been hitherto most remarkably fulfilled. It became first subject to the Babylonians, and then successively to the Persians, Macedonians, Romans, and Saracens; then to the Mamelukes (or slave-usurpers,) and after them to the Ottoman empire, of which it now forms a province, governed by a Turkish Bashaw and 24 Begs, Beys, or chiefs, advanced from among the slaves to the administration of public affairs; the Egyptians being possessed with a superstitious notion that fate has decreed that slaves must always rule, and the natives be in subjection.—“ Surely,”

says the late Editor of Calmet, ‘the country be-lorded by slaves, may be justly considered as ‘the basest of kingdoms:’” Frag. No. Ixxxix. And though it was well known, as ‘Townsend “has remarked, to have been a favourite project with the late Emperor Napoleon to raise Egypt again to consequence; and though at first Heaven seemed to favour his design, and his success for a time appeared certain, Providence remarkably interfered to disappoint him, and to protect the credit of the sacred prophecies. (See Towns. O. T. Arr. vol. ii. p. 579.) Ver. 17—21. A farther prophecy respecting Egypt.— By the date of this prophecy, (which we have no ground to question,) it appears to have been the last which Ezekiel delivered, and delivered only just before its accomplishment, which took place, according to Prideaux, 573 years before Christ.

For the prophetic writings are evidently arranged, not according to chronological order, but rather with a regard to the connexion of the subjects; those relative to Egypt, for instance, being here placed together. It appears that Nebuchadnezzar was greatly disappointed in the capture of Tyre, in finding that the principal inhabitants had retired by sea to an adjacent island, and taken with them all their valuable property, which was the founding, or rather the re-establishment of New Tyre. God therefore promises to Nebuchadnezzar, who had been the instrument of his just judgment on the Tyrians, that Egypt should be given to the king of Babylon as a compensation. Thus the Most High ruleth among the children of men. It is remarkable that most of God’s judgments against the heathen conclude with a promise of mercy to his people Israel: and such is the case with the short portion of prophecy now before us, though commentators are not agreed whether the budding of Israel’s horn referred to the promotion of Daniel and his brethren in Babylon, or to the appointment of Zerubbabel.

Perhaps both may be included.

Notes on the verses

Chap. XXIX. Ver. 1. In the tenth year—That is, of Jehoiachin’s captivity, from which epoch all Ezekiel’s dates appear to be reckoned, though, at this distance of time, there is much difficulty in reconciling them with each other. Ver. 2. Pharaoh.—[(This was Pharaoh Apries, or Apries, who, Herodotus informs us, agreeably to the character given him by the prophet, “proudly and wickedly boasted of having established his kingdom so surely, that it was not in the power of any God to dispossess him of it.”—See on (Jeremiah 44:30).)]—B. Ver. 3. The great dragon.—See note on (Isaiah 27:1).—My river—That is, the Nile. Ver. 4. Hooks.—See (Isaiah 37:29).—Stick unto thy scales.—Pharaoh is the crocodile, and all the fish adhering to his scales, the inferior powers, dependant on him.

Ver. 5. Into the wilderness—Or, ‘‘in the desert.” Newcome thinks this may allude to the heavy loss which this Pharaoh (Apries) sustained in his expedition against the Cyrenians, toward whom he must have marched through the desert. He was taken prisoner ‘‘on the face of the field,” (so Heb.) and afterwards strangled by his own subjects. Ver. 6. A staff of reed.—See (Isaiah 37:6). Ver. 7. Madest all their loins, &c.—Newcome, ‘‘Didst strain all their loins.” Ver. 10. From the tower of Syene.—Margin, ‘‘From Migdol to Syene;” i.e. from the north to the south of Egypt. So Preb., Lowth, Newcome, &c.—[Syene, Heb. Seveneh, now Essuan, is situated at the southern extremity of] Egypt, (as Migdol was at the northern,) on the confines of Ethiopia, near the tropic of Cancer, and about lat.

24° N. long. 32° E.]—Bagster. Ver. 12. Scatter the Egyptians.—[We learn from Berosus, (apud Josephus,) that Nebuchadnezzar sent several captive Egyptians to Babylon; and from Mesasthenes, (apud Euseb.) that he transplanted others to Pontus; and it is probable, that at the dissolution of the Babylonian empire, about 40 years after, Cyrus permitted them to return to their native country.]—Bagster. Ver. 13. At the end of forty years—From the defeat of Apries, just men- —, probably at the settlement of the kingdom by Cyrus. Compare Isaiah xlvi. 26. Ver. 14. Pathros—According to Bochart, Thebais; or Upper Egypt. See Jer. Ver. 15. Basest of the kingdoms.—[For upwards of 2000 years Egypt has been a base or a kingdom; being successively under the dominion of the Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Saracens, Mameluke slaves, and Turks, to whom it remains in most abject servitude to this day.

See Bishop Newton.]—Bagster. (See exposition above.) Ver. 18. Great service, &c.—Nebuchadnezzar was thirteen years employed in the siege. (See Josephus.) During this long siege, the soldiers must have endured great hardships: their heads would become bald by constantly wearing their helmets; and their shoulders be peeled by carrying materials to form the works.—Bagster.—Yet he had no wages.—[St. Jerome asserts, on the authority of the Assyrian histories, that when the Tyrians saw their city must fall, they put their most valuable effects on board their ships, and with them to the islands, and their colonies, “so that the city being taken, Nebuchadnezzar found nothing worthy of his labour.”]—Bagster.

Ver. 21. The opening of the mouth—That is, an opportunity to open thy mouth in the midst of them.