XXX. This chapter is made up of two distinct prophecies: Ezekiel 30:1, and Ezekiel 30:20. The latter is distinctly dated, and comes in regular chronological order between Ezekiel 29:1 and Ezekiel 31; but whether the former belongs to this series, or is connected with Ezekiel 29:17, has been question... [ Continue Reading ]
THE TIME OF THE HEATHEN. — The judgment upon Egypt is but an individual instance, and is symbolic of general judgment upon all merely worldly power. Her fall is one step in the general overthrow of whatever exalts and opposes itself to God. Very similar to Ezekiel 30:2 are the prophecies in Isaiah 1... [ Continue Reading ]
ETHIOPIA, AND LIBYA, AND LYDIA. — Ethiopia and Egypt were closely connected, and during much of their history were often under one government. Ethiopian soldiers served in great numbers in the Egyptian armies. Libya and Lydia are an unfortunate substitution for the original terms, Phut and Lud, whic... [ Continue Reading ]
FROM THE TOWER OF SYENE. — From Migdol to Syene. (See Note on Ezekiel 29:10.)... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL BE DESOLATE. — This verse is almost an exact repetition of Ezekiel 29:12.... [ Continue Reading ]
MESSENGERS GO FORTH FROM ME IN SHIPS. — Comp. Isaiah 18:1. This does not mean the army of Nebuchadnezzar, which did not penetrate into Ethiopia, but the flying Egyptians, who ascend the Nile to seek safety in Ethiopia, and alarm it with the tidings of Egypt’s fall. The “careless” are the secure Ethi... [ Continue Reading ]
MAKE THE RIVERS DRY — _i.e.,_ the canals of Egypt, by which the land was irrigated, and on which its fertility depended. It may also include the comparative drying, the lessening of the inundation of the Nile, which occurred from time to time, and was the cause of the various famines in Egypt mentio... [ Continue Reading ]
NOPH. — A contraction of Menoph, Memphis, the capital of Lower Egypt, situated in the region of the Pyramids, the seat of several dynasties, one of the chief centres of Egyptian idolatry, and celebrated for its Temple of Ptah. THERE SHALL BE NO MORE A PRINCE IS TO BE understood, in accordance with... [ Continue Reading ]
PATHROS... ZOAN... NO. — For Pathros, see Note on Ezekiel 29:14. Zoan (see Numbers 13:22; Isaiah 19:11) is Tanis, a city of Lower Egypt, on the Tanitic branch of the Nile. No, mentioned again in the next Verse, more fully written No-Amon (Nahum 3:8), is the celebrated Thebes of Upper Egypt, still fa... [ Continue Reading ]
SIN is Pelusium, so called from the marshes around it, on the easternmost branch of the Nile, only two-and-a-half miles from the sea. It was the frontier city, strongly fortified, and considered rightly as the key of Egypt, and hence called in the text its “strength.” It is mentioned again in Ezekie... [ Continue Reading ]
OF AVEN AND OF PI-BESETH. — Aven is the same as On of Genesis 41:45; Genesis 41:50, and as Bethshemesh (House of the Sun) of Jeremiah 43:13, the Heliopolis of the Greeks, so called because from the remotest times a chief seat of the worship of the sun. The vowel points are slightly changed from On t... [ Continue Reading ]
TEHAPHNEHES. — (Jeremiah 2:16; Jeremiah 43:7; Jeremiah 44:1; Jeremiah 46:14.) Otherwise called Tahpanhes; the city Daphne, also a frontier town near Pelusium, strongly fortified. It may be especially mentioned, because the Jews who fled from Palestine through fear of Nebuchadnezzar had taken refuge... [ Continue Reading ]
THE ELEVENTH YEAR. — This was the year of the fall of Jerusalem, and the present prophecy (Ezekiel 30:20) was uttered a little more than three months and a half before its destruction. Very likely this prophecy had its occasion in the temporary raising of the siege of Jerusalem by Pharaoh-Hophra, an... [ Continue Reading ]
I HAVE BROKEN. — This is in the perfect tense, and refers to the breaking of the power of Egypt by the former conquests of Assyria, and perhaps especially to the great battle of Carchemish (about twenty years before), in which Egypt received a blow from which she never recovered. The word “roller” w... [ Continue Reading ]
THE STRONG, AND THAT WHICH WAS BROKEN — _i.e.,_ the whole power of Egypt, both in so far as already crippled, and in so far as it still retained strength.... [ Continue Reading ]
WILL SCATTER THE EGYPTIANS. — Repeated verbally in Ezekiel 30:26. (See Note on Ezekiel 29:12.)... [ Continue Reading ]