Commentary on Ezekiel 29.1–30.20

“In the tenth year, in the twelfth month, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, set your face against the king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt; speak.” Having put an end to the prophecies about Tyre, he turns his discourse to Egypt.

“And say: Thus says Adonai the Lord: Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the dragon that sits in the midst of the rivers, saying, ‘The rivers are mine, and I made them.’” Some of the interpreters said “river” in the singular, but the Seventy in the plural; and both are true. For the Nile is one, but its canals are very many, and each canal is called a river by the inhabitants. He refutes, then, Pharaoh's boasting, and shows him priding himself on the rivers as though they had been made by him. He calls him a dragon because of his tyranny and his opposition to God. For so too divine Scripture names the devil: “For on that day,” it says, “God will bring the holy and great and strong sword upon the dragon, the serpent,” and so on. “And I will put a bridle in your jaws, and I will make the fish of the river stick to your fins, and I will bring you up out of the midst of your river, and all the fish of your river, and they will stick to your scales. And I will cast you into the wilderness, and all the fish of the river, and I will cast you down quickly, and all the fish of your river; you will fall on the face of the plain, and you will not be gathered up nor laid out for burial; to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of heaven I have given you as food. And all who dwell in Egypt will know that I am the Lord.” The threats are fearful and full of horror; for he threatened to hand over to slaughter not only him but also his subjects; for by the fish sticking … Just as in the case of Tyre he took the occasions of the allegory from the sea (for the city is on the coast), so here he has used the figure of the river. His scales and fins he called his rule and authority, through which his subjects necessarily shared in the king's punishment. By the bridle he hinted clearly enough at the frisking that went before the bridle. He threatened to send some away as captives into a desert land, and to hand others over to slaughter and leave them as food for the beasts. And he adds the cause: “… Israel. When they took hold of you with their hand, you were broken; and when every hand clapped over them, and when they rested upon you, you were crushed, and you broke all their loins.” Upon Tyre and the foreigners, of whom we spoke above, he threatened to bring the calamities because they rejoiced at what had befallen Israel; but Egypt he blames not for this but for the very opposite: that by leading the people to trust in its help it stripped them of the divine providence, and yet did them no good by its own aid. For this is what he means by the … weak and broken. So too Sennacherib, in Isaiah, named the help of the Egyptians: “For he trusts,” he says, “on the staff of reed, the broken one, on Egypt; if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand; so is the king of Egypt, and all who trust in him.” This he said here too: “They took hold of you with their hand, you were broken, and every hand clapped over them.” They became ridiculous, he says, and a cause of glee to their enemies, … you like a reed. “Therefore thus says Adonai the Lord: Behold, I am bringing a sword upon you, and I will destroy men and cattle from you. And Egypt will be for destruction and desolation, and they will know that I am the Lord.” Since you think great things of yourself, he says, and promise to help others, you will learn by experience that you will not be able to defend even your own land when I bring the punishment upon you; and my people will recognise my sovereignty. Then, recalling once more the words of their boasting — “For you said,” he says, “‘The rivers are mine, and I made them’” — he threatens Egypt with desolation: not the whole of it, but from Magdol and Syene to the borders of the Ethiopians; and not even for these cities a perpetual desolation, but for a certain time.

“Therefore behold, I am against you and against all your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt a desert, and a sword, and destruction, from …” “No foot of man,” he says, “will pass through it, and no foot of beast will pass over it, and it will not be inhabited … years. And I will give its land to destruction in the midst of a desolate land, and its cities in the midst of desolate cities will be destroyed forty years; and I will scatter Egypt among the nations and winnow them into the countries.” Unspeakable is God's love for humankind: it brings punishments with a certain measure and weight, and then heals what has been struck. For his is the voice: “I will kill and I will make alive; I will strike, and I will heal.” Here too, then, he threatens the Egyptians with captivity and scattering and desolation, but limits the desolation to a short time. For forty years, he says, it will be untrodden, and not all Egypt, but from Magdol and Syene to the borders of the Ethiopians; and at once he promises the recall.

“For after forty years,” he says, “I will gather the Egyptians from the nations where they were scattered, and I will turn back the captivity of the Egyptians, and settle them in the land of Pathoures, in the land from which they were taken.” Having thus promised release from captivity, he also foretells the smallness that kingdom will have: “For there will be a lowly kingdom there,” he says, “beyond all kingdoms, and it will be the lowliest, so that it may no longer be exalted over the nations; and I will make them few, so that they may not be numerous among the nations.” The facts bear witness to the truth of the prophecy. For the kingdom of the Egyptians, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, flourished again under Cyrus the Persian, but did not recover its former power. For not much time had passed when Cambyses, son of Cyrus, destroyed it again, made it subject and compelled it to pay tribute; and later it also received Macedonian kings, the Egyptians having entirely ceased …

“And they will no longer be for the house of Israel a hope that recalls lawlessness, when they followed after them; and they will know that I am the Lord.” For I will so reduce the kingdom of the Egyptians, he says, that my people will no longer trust in their help and take occasions of impiety from them, but will seek my providence; for they will learn my lordship. “And it came to pass in the twenty-seventh year, on the first of the first month, the word of the Lord came to me, … made his army labour with great labour against Tyre. Every head was bald and every shoulder bare, and there was no wage for him and for his army for Tyre, nor for the labour with which he laboured against it.” Those earlier things he foretold in the tenth year of Jechoniah's captivity, or the twelfth (for so the Hebrew says, and the Syriac); but these in the twenty-seventh, after the capture of Tyre and the long siege, because of which he says that every head became bald and every shoulder bare. For living in the open air usually does this, the scorching heat often flaying the bare parts of the body's limbs that are exposed to it. He promises to give Nebuchadnezzar Egypt as his wage for the labours spent on the siege of Tyre; not because he did this by intention, serving the divine will (for he campaigned against all these nations by his own impulse), but through these words he indicates that nothing will happen unless God wills it. “For two sparrows,” he says, “are sold for a penny, and not one of them will fall without your Father in heaven.” For nothing that happens escapes him; some things he himself directs, others he permits to happen, now giving way to men's free will, now permitting the deserving to be punished by others. Wishing, then, to show that it was by his permission that Nebuchadnezzar received this power, he promises to give him, as his wage for the siege of the Tyrians, the enslavement of the Egyptians.

“Thus says Adonai the Lord: Behold, I … the land of Egypt, and he will take its multitude, and plunder its spoils, and seize its booty, and it will be the wage … of his, with which he laboured against Tyre, I have given him the land of Egypt, in return for all that he did.” He has said the same things again, by the repetition and doubling … “Thus says Adonai the Lord: On that day a horn will spring up for all the house, and to you I will give an open mouth in their midst, and they will know that I am the Lord.” Divine Scripture sometimes calls a horn piety, sometimes power, sometimes kingship; and “A horn will spring up” it put by a metaphor taken from calves, which are weak …, but with the growth of these they take on much strength. When Egypt is overthrown, then, he says, my people will flourish and acquire piety, no longer having wickedness for a teacher; and they will lend their ears to the prophetic words, having learned my lordship. This is what he made known by saying: “And to you I will give an open mouth in their midst”; for through Ezekiel he signified the whole choir of the prophets.

“And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, prophesy and say: … Alas, alas, the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and a day of cloud draws near, and it will be the time of the nations.” By all that has been said he frightens them, bidding them lament and mourn. He calls the time of punishment a day; a cloud, the darkness that comes upon souls from calamity; and the time of the nations he called the punishment brought upon the nations. For not only my people, he says, will fall into these evils; the nations too will pay the penalty. “And a sword will come upon the Egyptians, and there will be confusion in Ethiopia, and their multitude will fall, and its foundations will fall together. And Persians and Cretans and Libyans and Ethiopians and Lydians and all Arabia and all the mixed peoples will be seized, and of the sons of my covenant in it they will fall by the sword with it.” What will befall Egypt, he says, will cause turmoil in Ethiopia too; for being its neighbour it will be in anguish lest it suffer the same. Then he lists the allies of the Egyptians. … histories teach the alliance of the Lydians and the Egyptians. By Persians he does not mean men who came from Persis to help them; for how could it have been that, while Assyrians and Chaldeans were at war with them, they had Persians as allies? He means those who had once long ago emigrated from there and settled in Egypt. They say that the Egyptian Babylon was given the same name as the Persian one for this reason, because Persians lived in it. And he calls the Jews the sons of the covenant: those who after the siege of Jerusalem went down into Egypt, taking the prophet Jeremiah with them. These too he likewise threatens with punishment, since they left Judea against his purpose and came into Egypt. This was said also through the prophet Jeremiah: “For all the remnant of Judah,” he says, “who sojourn in the land of Egypt will know whose word will stand, mine or theirs. And this will be the sign to you, says the Lord: Behold, I give … into the hands of those who seek his life, as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hands of …nezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, who sought his life.” The predictions of the divine prophets, then, agree with one another; for they are the words of one Spirit. Having thus foretold again the desolation of Egypt with its limits, and having called the Assyrian fire, … “On that day messengers will go forth from my presence in Seim, hastening to destroy Ethiopia, the hope; and there will be confusion among them on the day of Egypt, for behold, it comes.” He called Ethiopia the hope because the Egyptians trusted in their help; and Seim in the Greek tongue means “in strength”. While the Egyptians endure these things, he says, the Ethiopians, their allies, [will be confounded], not only because of the evils that came upon these, but also because of the calamities that will overtake themselves through certain messengers sent by me and hastening to fulfil … “Thus says Adonai the Lord: And I will destroy the multitude of the Egyptians by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he and his people with him, plagues from the nations, sent to destroy the land; and they will draw all their swords against Egypt, and the land will be filled with the slain. And I will make their rivers desert, and I will sell the land into the hands of the wicked, and I will destroy the land and its fullness by the hands of foreigners; I the Lord have spoken.” To the … of the nations, he says, … Egypt, so that all their land is filled with slaughter and the rivers become empty of those who live beside them. And “I will sell the land into the hands of the wicked” he has put for “I will hand over”. This too agrees with what was said before; for he said he would give Nebuchadnezzar as his wage the enslavement of Egypt, for the labours he had spent on the siege of Tyre. Then he foretells that their abominations, that is, the idols full of abomination, will be destroyed by the enemies.

“And the governors of Memphis will cease.” Then those entrusted with the reins of Egypt … enduring utter destruction; and the most powerful Sais … and, in a word, as the enemies like fire overran all Egypt, so that even Syene, which lies furthest inland, received the uproar from them. He also indicated well the sudden attack, saying: “There will be wars in Memphis on the same day”; for together with the news the fighting will come. And by “In Diospolis there will be a breach, and waters will be poured out” he hinted at the destruction of the walls and the entry of the enemies, like waters flowing in and spreading through all its streets and houses. To these he has added:

“For the young men of Heliopolis and Boubastos will fall by the sword.” It is clear that they took great pride in these too, as champions and mighty men; but also “the women,” he says, “will go into captivity.” Then he adds: “For at Taphnas the day will be darkened”, signifying the darkness that comes from calamities. He signified this same thing again by saying: “And a cloud will cover it.” For those who fall into evils do not see the light in the same way, but as darkness … Then he made known the purpose of what was happening.

“And I will execute judgments in Egypt, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” These things I do, he says, so that the Egyptians may learn not to think great things of themselves but to recognise my lordship.

“And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh of the month, … of the Lord came to me, saying.” This pattern is found also in the prophet Jeremiah; for he too sets down the dates here and there, and after placing first what happened under Zedekiah, who reigned last, he narrates again the events of the time of Jehoiakim, who held the kingdom before him. The reason for this is that they were not simply writing history, but prophecies given at certain times. He has mentioned this date now necessarily and very fittingly. For since he had threatened Egypt with so great a cloud of calamities in the twenty-seventh year, he teaches us the justice of the punishment. “For in the eleventh year,” he says, “the Lord said to me: Son of man, I have broken the arms of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and behold, it was not bound up so as to give it healing, to put a plaster on it, to be bound and to grow strong and to take hold of a sword.” I brought a moderate punishment upon him, he says, and he would not use the medicines of repentance so as to take hold again of his former power. “Therefore thus says Adonai the Lord: Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and I will break his arms, the strong and the outstretched and the broken, and I will make his sword fall from his hand. And I will scatter Egypt among the nations and winnow them into the countries. And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon.” For since he did not …, I will subject him to the greatest punishments and strip him of all strength, so that he cannot even use the instruments of war; and I will fill the Babylonian with all strength and power. For by the arms, both of the Egyptian and of the Babylonian, he indicated power; for since warfare is naturally carried on by the arms … “And I will give,” he says, “my sword into his hand, and he will bring it upon Egypt, and seize its booty and plunder its spoils.” I will put into his hand, he says, the work of punishment, so that he does to Egypt all that was foretold. These words he has added again, confirming the earlier ones by repetition. Therefore, since they are clear and plain from what has already been interpreted, I have left them uninterpreted.