1. In the tenth year. This would be 587 B.C.E., roughly half a year before the conquest of Jerusalem.

2. Pharaoh king of Egypt. Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel saw a proposed alliance with Egypt against Babylonia as a self-destructive illusion, but Pharaoh, like the king of Tyre, is also excoriated for his overweening idea that he is a god.

3. the great crocodile. Although this same Hebrew word in Genesis and Psalms refers to a mythological sea beast, here it is the crocodile, whose habitat is the Nile, and who also is an emblem for Pharaoh. The “scales” or armor plates of the beast belong to the crocodile.

its rivers. The Hebrew is the plural of yeʾor, an Egyptian loanword designating the Nile. In biblical poetry it often has the general sense of “rivers,” although here the probable reference is to the seven tributaries of the Nile. “Rivers” in the following lines is again the plural of yeʾor.

4. make the fish of your rivers cling to your scales. This is a double disaster: the crocodile (Pharaoh) will be hauled out of the Nile after being caught with hooks, and the fish of the Nile—a vital source of sustenance for the Egyptians—will be hauled out with the crocodile, to die on dry land.

5. And I will abandon you in the desert. This is, of course, a place without water where neither the crocodile nor the fish can survive.

you shall not be gathered nor taken up. The probable reference is to being collected for burial. Not only will the crocodile-Pharaoh perish in the desert, but it will suffer the ignominy of denied burial and becoming food for scavengers.

6. a reed staff. The slender reed will of course break when a person tries to lean on it.

7. When they grasp you. The “you” is the reed, made clear in the Hebrew because it is masculine singular, like the word for “reed.”

you crack every shoulder. When the reed breaks, the shoulder of the person leaning on it as though it were a solid staff is wrenched. This is an image of the illusory trust in any alliance with Egypt.

you wrench all loins. Though the Hebrew haʿamadta looks as though it meant “made stand,” there is a reversal of consonants here (something Rashi already understood), and the meaning is the same as hamʿadta—literally, “cause to stumble.”

10. your Nile and its offshoots. While this is the same plural form for the word for “Nile” that is translated above as “rivers,” the pointed reference to “The Nile is mine” at the end of the previous verse is crucial, so the word “Nile” needs to be repeated. A very literal rendering would be “your Niles,” but of course there is only one Nile.

desolate parched ground. Egypt, watered by the Nile and its tributaries, was famous in the region for its lushness. Now it will become a desert.

from Migdol . . . to the border of Nubia. Migdol is on the northern border of Egypt, Nubia (Cush in the Hebrew) to its south.

11. unsettled for forty years. The formulaic number forty is invoked.

14. And I will restore the fortunes of Egypt. This amounts to an ironic use of this familiar phrase. When the fortunes of Israel are restored, it is returned in splendid triumph to its land. Egypt will be returned to its land, but only in a pitifully reduced state.

17. in the twenty-seventh year. This would be 571 B.C.E., making this the latest of all the precisely noted dates in Ezekiel.

18. Nebuchadrezzar . . . has made his forces labor mightily. Much earlier, Ezekiel had predicted the fall of Tyre. The siege had been very protracted (according to Josephus, thirteen years, but perhaps even longer), hence the laboring mightily of the troops.

Every head is bald. Although elsewhere this is translated as “shaven,” here it is not a sign of mourning but an indication that the soldiers are worn (or perhaps simply aged) through the long siege.

19. she shall be gain for his forces. The conquest of Egypt becomes a kind of consolation prize for the Babylonians. Unable to take Tyre, they are compensated—at least they have “gain” for their labors—by the opportunity to plunder Egypt.

20. for what they did to Me. The phrase is cryptic. It could mean “for what the Egyptians did in offending Me”; it could also mean “for what the Babylonians did in acting on My behalf.”

21. make a horn sprout. As throughout biblical literature, the horn—whether bull’s or ram’s horn—is an idiom for “strength.”

to you I will give freedom to speak. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “opening of the mouth.” The idea is that in the restored Israel the prophet will be able to speak without inhibition, and everyone will listen to him.