Bible Commentaries
Ezekiel 32

Verses 1-32

CHAPTER 32.

THIS chapter is composed of two closely related parts, though the visions contained in them were given at two different periods the one on the first, the other on the fifteenth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year. They are both elegies, or songs of lamentation over the coming fall of Pharaoh and his kingdom; not entirely, however, in the same strain, but with certain marked differences in the one as compared with the other, which will appear as we proceed. They afford striking examples of that feature in the prophet’s mental constitution, which delighted in amplifying his subject, and following it out to all, even the most minute and varied particulars. He would leave nothing to be supplied by the reader’s own fancy, but would place every circumstance and result distinctly before his view.

The first vision reaches to the close of Ezekiel 32:16, and is as follows:

Ezekiel 32:1 . And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of Jehovah came to me, saying,

Ezekiel 32:2 . Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, A lion of the nations thou art like, and thou art the crocodile in the waters, and dost break forth in thy rivers, and dost trouble the waters with thy feet, and makest foul their rivers. (There is a crowding of thought here, and in connection with that a mixture also of images. Pharaoh is like a lion on dry land among the nations, and a monster, a crocodile, in the rivers. The idea, however, is still the same: Pharaoh was an object of terror, by reason of his great power and dominion. And his breaking forth for such is undoubtedly the usual, and here quite appropriate, meaning of גּיחַ ; and there is no need for repairing, with Hävernick and Hitzig, to the cognate languages for some other his breaking forth in the waters, like an impetuous and self-willed monster of the deep, and disturbing them with the commotion he raised, is merely added to strengthen the idea of his formidable character.)

Ezekiel 32:3 . Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, And I will spread upon thee my net, in the assembly of many peoples (that is, with such for spectators, Ezekiel 32:9-10 ), and they make thee to come up with my drag.

Ezekiel 32:4 . And I leave thee on the land, on the face of the field I cast thee, and I make to nestle on thee all the fowl of the heavens, and I will satiate with thee the beasts of the whole earth.

Ezekiel 32:5 . And I lay thy flesh upon the hills, and fill the valleys with thy hugeness. (With thy hugeness, רָמוּתֶךָ . The verb רוּם commonly signifying, to be high, lifted up, greatened; and the participle, lofty, great of stature; it is a very natural meaning for the noun to bear here, hugeness, such an elevation or magnitude as to fill up the valleys of the land. It might be put more literally: thy prominences, thy projecting heights (referring, perhaps, to the scaly protuberances of the crocodile) these filling up the valleys, as the flesh was to be spread over the hills. Hävernick’s corrupting corpse, and Hitzig’s blood, are quite fanciful, and are without the least shadow of support in Hebrew.)

Ezekiel 32:6 . And I water the earth with what flows from thee, from thy blood (reaching) to the hills, and the valleys are full of thee. (The first part of Ezekiel 32:6: And I water the earth with, or make the earth to drink, what flows from thee, is evidently the correct rendering, and is now generally adopted; though De Wette still has, “where thou swimmest.” But, as Hävernick remarks, the verb צוּף , from which צָפָה comes, never signifies exactly to swim, but rather to flow, or stream out; hence the word here, which is properly a participle, the discharging or streaming of blood that flowed out from the slain creature.)

Ezekiel 32:7 . And I cover the heavens when I extinguish thee (literally, with thy extinguishing), and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with clouds, and the moon shall not shine in brightness.

Ezekiel 32:8 . All the shining lights of heaven I will bedim for thee, and I give darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord Jehovah. (Pharaoh is represented in these two verses as himself a great light of heaven, a star of the first magnitude, at the fall of which the whole heavenly host are put into disorder, and veiled in darkness. A poetical representation, of course; to show the terrible sensation that would naturally be caused in the political heavens by the fall of so great a monarchy: trouble and confusion would seize many a heart.)

Ezekiel 32:9 . And I will grieve the heart of many peoples, when I bring thy ruins among the nations, (“Thy ruins,” שִׁבְרְךָ , literally, thy breakage or fracture, a strong expression for the broken and ruined people themselves. Shattered and dispersed, they would appear among the nations as one great fracture the ruins of what they had been.) to lands which thou hast not known.

Ezekiel 32:10 . And I make many peoples astonied at thee, and their kings shall be filled with horror because of thee, when I brandish my sword in their faces; and they tremble every moment each for his life in the clay of thy fall.

Ezekiel 32:11 . For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, The sword of the king of Babylon shall come on thee.

Ezekiel 32:12 . By the swords of the mighty I will cause thy multitude to fall, the terrible of the nations, all of them; and they shall spoil the pride of Egypt, and all her multitude shall perish.

Ezekiel 32:13 . And I will destroy all her cattle from beside the great waters, and the foot of man shall not trouble them any more, nor shall the hoofs of beasts trouble them.

Ezekiel 32:14 . Then will I cause their waters to subside, and will make their rivers flow like oil, saith tho Lord Jehovah; (Our translators give the first part of this verse: Then I will make their waters deep. The verb is, properly, to sink; but this, as applied to a river, may be variously understood, according to the circumstances. When the discourse here is of a diminishing of the resources of Egypt, the most natural sense is, certainly, the subsiding of her waters make them sink or decrease, so that they should not overflow, but keep easily in their proper channel. To deepen, in the sense of increasing, or to make them clear, are both unsuitable.)

15. When I make the land of Egypt desolate, and the land is destitute of that of which it was full; when I smite all the inhabitants in it; then they shall know that I am Jehovah. 16. This is a lamentation, and they lament her; the daughters of the nations shall lament her; upon Egypt and upon all her multitude they shall lament her, saith the Lord Jehovah.

In this first song of lamentation there is a gradual transition from the strictly figurative to the more literal. It begins with parabolical representations of the coming destruction of Pharaoh’s greatness: the huge monster, that had moved at will and troubled all around him, becomes himself a helpless prey in the hands of the mighty; and his mortal remains are spread forth over hill and dale, so that they everywhere meet the eyes of men, and cover with the monuments of his fall the whole extent of his kingdom. This is the main idea intended to be conveyed by the details of this part of the description. It was not to be as if the proud monarch, after being slain, were buried out of sight, and no more seen or thought of among men. The circumstances connected with his overthrow should be ordered so as to keep fully before them his fallen greatness, that they might neither forget him nor the sad change that had taken place in his condition. And the idea is still further expanded by the introduction of a new image the extinguishing of the light of that portion of the world, so as to make it, instead of a bright and illuminated region, a land of darkness, striking horror into the minds of those who should behold it. Then becoming more literal in his delineations, the prophet exhibits the kingdom of Egypt as a general wreck; its people scattered in fragments among the nations; its riches given up as a spoil to the hands of enemies; its waters no more frequented by man or beast, and themselves shrivelled into smaller dimensions, and running smooth and calm in their channels, as if they were no longer able to overflow their banks and saturate the fields with the means of fruitfulness and plenty.

We see thus a gradual change from the more to the less figurative, from the ideal to the real. And yet, to the very last, the representation is of an ideal character; and like many other portions of this book, is utterly at variance with that bald and meagre species of interpretation which insists upon reading prophecy as literally as it does history. To apply such a principle here, would manifestly be to take this passage out of the category alike of prophecy and history. For there certainly never has been, and, so long as the general course of nature stands as it is, there never will be, a period in the history of Egypt when the settled drought upon its waters and the still quiet and desolation throughout its borders, spoken of by the prophet, may be found according to the letter of the description. And this very circumstance, that when Egypt is viewed in a merely natural light its fertility and abundance must ever continue, because the waters of its river will still overflow and supply the land with productive moisture, this might alone satisfy us that the prophet could not intend under such language to speak of any merely natural revolutions, but that through the image of the natural he sought to shadow forth the moral. It is of what Egypt was to be as an empire, as the seat of a monarchy that had once extensively ruled, and still wished to rule in the affairs of men, that the description must be understood. And in this respect he tells us that the result would be as if the land were to be enveloped in darkness and desolation, the springs of its fertility dried up, and its people scattered to the winds. So it happened. The political ascendancy of Egypt began with the Chaldean conquest finally to decline; the arm of its power was for ever broken; its monarch could no more move about as he pleased, and trouble the nations; he was henceforth to reside in comparatively still and peaceful waters, himself on every hand restrained and hemmed in by superior force, and all his pride and glory, as the head of the empire, reduced to perpetual desolation. It is in this higher point of view that the whole prophecy contemplates Egypt and its monarch this alone; and so the entire forsaking of its waters, here mentioned, by man and beast, and other symptoms of outward destruction, are perfectly compatible with what was said in a previous chapter, of its always continuing to be a kingdom, though in a depressed condition. In truth, when rightly understood, the one means no more than the other; for it is Egypt’s doom as a kingdom, not the mere condition of its soil and surface, that the prophet throughout has in view. And if we keep our eve distinctly upon that, we shall easily find our way both to the import of the prediction and the reality of its fulfilment.

That the representation is to be understood in the manner now described as having respect chiefly to the position of Egypt in its political power and relations, to Egypt as a kingdom, and not simply as a natural region of the earth is still further evident from the next vision, which fills up the remainder of the chapter, and closes the whole of this series of Divine judgments. There the prophet utters another lamentation over the fallen power, and sings, as it were, its funeral song, accompanying the departed into the world of spirits, and surrounding him there with other prostrate monuments of human greatness. Manifestly the inditing of such a funeral song proceeds on the supposition that it is a great worldly power that is meant, personified in its political head, and ideally represented as undergoing the changes to which humanity itself is subject. The introduction of Egypt, in the person of its destroyed head and people, into the shadowy mansions of the nether world, is easily understood if viewed simply as a mode of presenting distinctly before our view the irrecoverable prostration of the great monarchy; for it shows us its natural representative as now become a tenant of that region, where the temporary distinctions of this life are unknown, and where, as regards power and influence among men, the small and the great are reduced to one sad level. To represent Egypt with her king and her mighty forces as transferred thither, was all one with saying that their sway on earth was finished; it was numbered for ever with the things that are past and gone. But let this be kept steadily in view as the one grand object of the representation, in the other parts of the prophecy as well as here. We cannot otherwise give a consistent interpretation to what is written, but must find our path checked by inextricable difficulties. Read from the right point of view, the vision is plain in its meaning, and in all its forebodings is again re-echoed by the facts of history; but if placed in a wrong position, and contemplated in a false light, it ceases to give the sure and unerring instruction we expect to find in a word of God.

Ezekiel 32:17 . And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, (The number of the month is here omitted, and only the year and the day announced. But there can be no doubt that the twelfth month is to be supplied from the preceding vision, so that this is separated from the former by an interval of fourteen days.) that the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

Ezekiel 32:18 . Son of man, wail over the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down her and the daughters of glorious nations to the nether world, with those that go down to the pit. (There is a certain degree of abruptness in the manner in which the lamentation commences: all at once Egypt is coupled with others, in company with whom she is sent down to the pit, while it is only afterwards we are told who these others are; and both between her and them, and in the use of the person, rapid interchanges are made. The daughters of glorious nations, coupled with Egypt, are undoubtedly those afterwards mentioned by name; not the tributaries of Egypt, but those who, like her, had risen to eminence in the world, and grasped at dominion. Their destiny was bound up with hers. And the prophet is commanded to bring them down; because his word was the expression of God’s will, and carried with it the execution of his pleasure.)

Ezekiel 32:19 . Than whom art thou more dear? Go down and dwell with the uncircumcised. (Egypt was uncircumcised, that is, polluted and corrupt; hence it must share the fate of all such; they are all doomed to perdition, and Egypt can have no exemption from the common lot: she has no ground of endearment above the rest.)

Ezekiel 32:20 . In the midst of the pierced-through with the sword they fall; to the sword she is surrendered; draw her and all her multitude. (This 20th verse describes the common lot of Egypt, and the other nations similarly circumstanced. They are alike destined to fall by the sword; but she, as the more immediate object of the Divine word, has a place of pre-eminence assigned her; she is given up to the sword; and as such, the command is issued to draw her forth as peculiarly devoted to destruction.)

Ezekiel 32:21 . The princes of the mighty speak to him with his helpers from the midst of Sheol (that is, they give him welcome there as now one with themselves); they go down, they lie there, the uncircumcised, pierced through with the sword.

Ezekiel 32:22 . There is Asshur and all her company, his graves round about him, all of them pierced through, fallen by the sword.

Ezekiel 32:23 . Whose graves are appointed in the extremities of the pit, and her company is round about her grave, all pierced through, fallen by the sword, who did spread terror in the land of the living. (In these two verses, 22 and 23, which relate to Assyria (and the same is partly found in some of the other cases), there is a singular rapidity of alter nations in the gender of the pronouns: her company, his graves, then again her graves and her company. It can only be explained by the circumstance of the party named being, in the prophet’s eye, partly as a kingdom, partly as a monarch with his people; so that sometimes the one, sometimes the other, seemed fittest to be specially thought, of. The general character of the representation is clear: Assyria and her people not only have gone down to the pit, but as deepest in guilt, they have their graves appointed in its farthest extremities, they occupy its lowest depths, and their graves stand open around them; like profane wretches, they have been denied the rites of burial; the .horror they had inspired in others now rests on themselves.)

Ezekiel 32:24 . There is Elam and all her multitude round about her grave, all pierced through, fallen by the sword, who are gone down uncircumcised into the nether world, who did spread their terror in the land of the living; and they bear their shame with such as go down to the pit. (Elam is joined immediately with Assyria, probably as having been connected with it in the way of conquest. The territory of Elam lay in Persia, though the boundaries of it are not distinctly known. Originally it was an independent kingdom, and existed as early as the time of Abraham (Genesis 14:0.). Its people were much addicted to war, and were famous for the use of the bow. At the time of Ezekiel they had become amalgamated with the Chaldean empire, as they afterwards were with the Median. The shame they were to bear with others among the dead, is the punishment of their pride and lawless doings among men.)

Ezekiel 32:25 . They have set a couch for her in the midst of the pierced-through with all her multitude; her graves are round about him; all uncircumcised, pierced through with the sword; for they did spread their terror in the land of the living, (The כּי here, and in the other passages that follow, is to be taken in the usual meaning of for, and not though, as in our version. It assigns the reason of the doom to the pit: the power given by God for good had been abused to spread terror through its violent proceedings in the world.) and they bear their shame with such as go down to the pit; in the midst of the pierced-through he is set.

Ezekiel 32:26 . There is Mesech, Tubal, and all her multitude; her graves are round about him; all of them uncircumcised, pierced through with the sword, for they did spread their terror in the land of the living. (The Mesech and Tubal here mentioned as one people were also named together in chap, 27:13. Some, and among these Ewald, have been disposed to identify them with the Scythians. They were certainly very closely connected with the Scythian tribes, but were themselves properly the Moschi and Tibareni, whose territory lay between the Black and Caspian Seas, and among the Caucasian Mountains. They appear here as a subdued people, and they are known to have paid tribute to Darius Hyst. (Herod, iii. 94.))

Ezekiel 32:27 . And shall they not lie with the fallen heroes of the uncircumcised, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war; and have their swords laid under their heads, and their iniquities are upon their bones; for they were the terror of heroes in the land of the living? (I read this verse with Häv. as an interrogative. I see no other way of understanding the existing text, so as to make sense. It is expressly said of the people in question that they were to dwell with the uncircumcised and slain, and the negative, therefore, at the beginning must be understood interrogatively. Shalt thou not do so? thou who hast been among the most violent a terror even to heroes, thou must dwell in the midst of them. The going down with weapons of war refers to the ancient practice of burning, or burying the bodies of warriors with their armour. It seems also to be these, the instruments of their iniquitous courses, which are meant by their “iniquity on their bones;” the instrument of iniquity being put, by metonymy, for the iniquity itself. It is certainly, however, a peculiar expression; and one cannot speak with confidence of its meaning.)

28. And thou shalt be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shalt dwell with the pierced-through by the sword.

Ezekiel 32:29 . There is Edom, her kings and all her princes, who in their might are put with them that are pierced through by the sword; they shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with such as go down to the pit.

Ezekiel 32:30 . There are the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, who are gone down with the pierced-through; because of their terror from their might they are ashamed; and they lie uncircumcised with the pierced-through by the sword; and they bear their shame with such as go down to the pit.

Ezekiel 32:31 . Pharaoh shall see them, and be comforted upon all her multitude of the pierced-through with the sword Pharaoh and all his force, saith the Lord Jehovah.

Ezekiel 32:32 . For I have put his terror on the land of the living; and he shall be laid with the uncircumcised, with the pierced-through by the sword Pharaoh and all her multitude, saith the Lord Jehovah. (In these two last verses, Pharaoh’s case again comes up as the conclusion of the whole matter the beginning and the ending of the lamentation. The his and her here also exchange with each other, in what appears to us extraordinary confusion and disorder. Some of the MSS., to avoid this, retain only the masculine suffix, his. But there can be no doubt that the more difficult text is the correct one, and that the variation was made in order to remove the apparent anomaly. I have rendered it as it stands, believing that the alternations arise from the double reference to Egypt as a kingly power, and as a kingdom. The comfort to be got by Pharaoh is spoken ironically; as much as to say, This is the only comfort he is to have, that he is not without companions in his ruin.)

Thus closes the Divine word against Pharaoh and his kingdom; they go down to the land of forgetfulness, in common with all the surrounding heathen who stood in a position of rivalry or antagonism to Israel. Throughout the whole series of the predictions we find the one grand point of difference between the two parties kept steadily in view; the judgment that lights on Israel is only partial and temporary, the power and dominion again return to him and settle in everlasting possession; while the neighbouring kingdoms, that in turn aspired to the supremacy, fall to rise no more. View r ed in respect to its substance, the series is merely an expansion, with a fuller application to particular cases, of what was uttered at the commencement of the national history of Israel by Balaam; “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh; there comes forth a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre rises out of Israel, and shatters the territory of Moab, and destroys all the children of tumult. And Edom is possessed, and Seir, his enemy, is possessed; and Israel gains strength. And out of Jacob comes the ruler, and he destroys what is left from the city” (Numbers 24:17-19). Thus early was the issue of the contest indicated; it was announced that the supremacy must belong to Israel, because with him was the covenant of blessing, and out of him was to be the one in whom, as the messenger and head of the covenant, all power, blessing, and glory were to reside. The question virtually discussed in all such predictions is this: Who shall give law to the world? Israel, or the rival nations of heathendom? And the answer returned, though with manifold variety of form, is perpetually the same: All other dominions are destined to pass away; that alone of Israel becomes permanent and universal.

We see both sides of the representation attaining to a certain measure of realization, even before the old relations altogether ceased to exist. The antipathies of the surrounding nations failed to extirpate Israel; and their struggles for dominion in every case issued in natural decay or ruin. Not one of them succeeded in making good its ambitious designs, or could even preserve its own natural independence and authority; and before Israel was finally dispersed among the nations, all his ancient rivals had fallen from their former greatness and lost their national personality: Israel stood his ground much better than any of them. But that relative prosperity was rather the earnest of the great distinction pointed to in the prophecies, than its ultimate and proper development. This is to be sought only in Christ, in whom all that peculiarly belonged to Israel concentrates itself and rises to its proper perfection. In him, therefore, it is that the pre-eminence destined for Israel has its accomplishment; and all the external victories gained over the surrounding heathen, or the advantages granted to Israel in preference to them, were but the sign and prelude of that glorious ascendancy over the whole earth, which in right is already Christ s, and in due time shall also be his in actual possession. Such is the unrivalled honour of Israel among the nations; hers alone is the glory that abides; and from her must spring all that the world is to have, that is permanently great and good! It is she who in Christ has become the new life of humanity; she also who has acquired the right to reign over all the tribes of men and all the regions of the earth; and however long may be the struggle, however severe the conflict, the result is certain, that the kingdoms of this world must one and all become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ.