PREVIOUS CHAPTER - NEXT CHAPTER - HELP - GR VIDEOS - GR YOUTUBE - TWITTER - SD1 YOUTUBE CHAPTER 30 Eze 30:1-26. CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECIES AGAINST EGYPT. Two distinct messages: (1) At Eze 30:1-19, a repetition of Eze 29:1-16, with fuller details of lifelike distinctness. The date is probably not long after that mentioned in Eze 29:17, on the eve of Nebuchadnezzar's march against Egypt after subjugating Tyre. (2) A vision relating directly to Pharaoh and the overthrow of his kingdom; communicated at an earlier date, the seventh of the first month of the eleventh year. Not a year after the date in Eze 29:1, and three months before the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. 2. Woe worth the day!--that is, Alas for the day! 3. the time of the heathen--namely, for taking vengeance on them. The judgment on Egypt is the beginning of a world-wide judgment on all the heathen enemies of God (Joe 1:15; 2:1, 2; 3:1-21; Ob 15). 4. pain--literally, "pangs with trembling as of a woman in childbirth."
5. the mingled people--the mercenary troops of Egypt from various
lands, mostly from the interior of Africa (compare
Eze 27:10;
Jer 25:20, 24; 46:9, 21).
6. from the tower of Syene--(see on Eze 29:10). 7. in the midst of . . . countries . . . desolate--Egypt shall fare no better than they (Eze 29:10).
9. messengers . . . in ships to . . . Ethiopians--
(Isa 18:1, 2).
The cataracts interposing between them and Egypt should not save them.
Egyptians "fleeing from before Me" in My execution of judgment, as
"messengers" in "skiffs" ("vessels of bulrushes,"
Isa 18:2)
shall go up the Nile as far as navigable, to announce the advance of
the Chaldeans.
10. the multitude--the large population. 12. rivers--the artificial canals made from the Nile for irrigation. The drying up of these would cause scarcity of grain, and so prepare the way for the invaders (Isa 19:5-10).
13. Noph--Memphis, the capital of Middle Egypt, and the stronghold of
"idols." Though no record exists of Nebuchadnezzar's "destroying" these,
we know from HERODOTUS and others, that Cambyses took Pelusium, the key
of Egypt, by placing before his army dogs, cats, &c., all held sacred
in Egypt, so that no Egyptian would use any weapon against them. He slew
Apis, the sacred ox, and burnt other idols of Egypt.
14. Pathros--Upper Egypt, with "No" or Thebes its capital (famed for its stupendous buildings, of which grand ruins remain), in antithesis to Zoan or Tanis, a chief city in Lower Egypt, within the Delta. 15. Sin--that is, Pelusium, the frontier fortress on the northeast, therefore called "the strength (that is, the key) of Egypt." It stands in antithesis to No or Thebes at the opposite end of Egypt; that is, I will afflict Egypt from one end to the other. 16. distresses daily--MAURER translates, "enemies during the day," that is, open enemies who do not wait for the covert of night to make their attacks (compare Jer 6:4; 15:8). However, the Hebrew, though rarely, is sometimes rendered (see Ps 13:2) as in English Version.
17. Aven--meaning "vanity" or "iniquity": applied, by a slight change
of the Hebrew name, to On or Heliopolis, in allusion to its idolatry.
Here stood the temple of the sun, whence it was called in Hebrew, Beth-shemesh
(Jer 43:13).
The Egyptian hieroglyphics call it, Re Athom, the sun, the
father of the gods, being impersonate in Athom or Adam,
the father of mankind.
18. Tehaphnehes--called from the queen of Egypt mentioned in
1Ki 11:19.
The same as Daphne, near Pelusium, a royal residence of the Pharaohs
(Jer 43:7, 9).
Called Hanes
(Isa 30:4).
20. Here begins the earlier vision, not long after that in the twenty-ninth chapter, about three months before the taking of Jerusalem, as to Pharaoh and his kingdom. 21. broken . . . arm of Pharaoh-- (Ps 37:17; Jer 48:25). Referring to the defeat which Pharaoh-hophra sustained from the Chaldeans, when trying to raise the siege of Jerusalem (Jer 37:5, 7); and previous to the deprivation of Pharaoh-necho of all his conquests from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates (2Ki 24:7; Jer 46:2); also to the Egyptian disaster in Cyrene.
22. arms--Not only the "one arm" broken already
(Eze 30:21)
was not to be healed, but the other two should be broken. Not a
corporal wound, but a breaking of the power of Pharaoh is
intended.
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