29:1–2 The oracle against Tyre is also dated, to the “first day of the [eleventh?] month” of the “eleventh year” (Ezek. 26:1)—thus after the fall of Jerusalem.211 This first oracle against Egypt came earlier, on the twelfth day of the tenth month of the tenth year (since the exile of Jehoiachin). That dates it to 587 BC, about a year after the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem. The prophet is now told to set his face and prophesy against Egypt and her Pharaoh, just as he earlier set his face and prophesied against Jerusalem (cf. 4:3; 21:2).

29:3 Just as there was a fittingness to depicting Tyre as a ship in full sail, so is there a fitting aspect to depicting Pharaoh with the image of a Nile crocodile. The ESV’s “dragon” follows the LXX, which captures the mythological aspect of the great sea monster (Hb. tannin) in the ancient Near East. Isaiah uses the imagery of the sea monster to represent Egypt in her defeat at the exodus (Isa. 51:9), while in Genesis 1:21 the tanninim are depicted simply as part of the Lord’s creation. Here the mythical figure is blended with the real-world threat of a crocodile resting securely amid the waters of the Nile. Indeed, some pharaohs had described themselves in precisely such crocodilian terms.212 But, dangerous though they were, crocodiles were regularly hunted and killed in Egypt, and that same fate awaits the current pharaoh. He might claim to have made the Nile for himself (Ezek. 29:3), and therefore to be lord of all Egypt’s prosperity, but his claim to divinity is empty, and his watery defense will be no more effective than Tyre’s proved to be.

29:4–6a Far from being a god, or even a mythical creature, Pharaoh will be captured like an ordinary crocodile, hauled in by hooks caught in his jaws (v. 4). The fish of his streams (the citizens of Egypt, or perhaps the Egyptian military) will be made to stick to his scales, so that the whole assembly can be drawn onto land in a single action. Pharaoh and his forces will be brought out into the wilderness, the place of judgment (cf. 20:35), where they will be slain and left unburied as food for wild animals and birds (29:5). The denial of a proper burial was much feared in the ancient world and was often invoked in curse formulae. The result of this destruction will be that the Egyptians will once again “know that I am the Lord,” as occurred at the time of the exodus, when the Lord had earlier also demonstrated his power over Pharaoh and the Nile (cf. Ex. 7:5, 17).

29:6b–9a As is so often the case in the oracles against the nations, the issue is the interrelationship of the nation to God’s own people, not its actions in the abstract. In this case, Egypt had offered itself as a support to Judah, promising to help her rebel against the Babylonians, but, when the time came for action, Egypt proved to be utterly unreliable (cf. comments on Ezekiel 17). It was a “staff of reed” (29:6)—that is, a crutch manufactured from the flimsiest of materials, worse than useless. When the staff broke, as it inevitably would, the person leaning on it would not only fall but injure himself on the staff (v. 7). Judah should have known better than to trust in Egypt, whose reputation as an unreliable ally was longstanding (cf. the Rabshakeh’s use of the same image concerning Egypt when speaking to Hezekiah; 2 Kings 18:21). However, Egypt was also guilty of feeding Judah’s false hopes, inciting her to rebellion when Egypt had no real intention of costly foreign intervention. The Lord would remove that temptation from Judah in the future by cutting off Egypt completely, man and beast (Ezek. 29:8). As a result, “they will know that I am the Lord”—the referent here could once again be Egypt, as in verse 6a, but the indeterminate pronoun could also include the house of Israel, especially since the pronoun changes from “you” to “they.”

29:9b–16 The ultimate disproof of Pharaoh’s claims to have created and to control the Nile will come when he is unable to protect his land from the Babylonians. The whole land will be laid waste, from Migdol in the northeast to Syene (Aswan) and the border with Cush in the south. It will remain uninhabited for forty years, a round number for a generation and the same length of time the Judean exile is anticipated to last in 4:6. Like Judah, Egypt will be made a desolation (cf. 6:14; 12:20), and her people will be scattered among the nations (cf. 12:15; 22:15). Like Judah, at the end of their forty years of exile the Egyptians will be gathered by the Lord and brought home, their fortunes restored (cf. 16:53). But, instead of being fully restored to her former glory, as Israel will be, from now on Egypt will always be a “lowly kingdom” (29:14). This is so that Egypt will never again pose the kind of temptation she formerly provided for Israel—to trust in her rather than in the Lord. Her restoration, therefore, is more so that she can provide a permanent object lesson for God’s people of the folly in trusting in any human resource rather than the Lord. At this point it becomes clear that the ones who “will know that I am the Lord God” (v. 16) are ultimately the house of Israel, not simply Egypt.

29:17–21 The second oracle in this chapter is not addressed to Egypt but is about Egypt. It is dated to the beginning of the twenty-seventh year after Jehoichin’s exile in 597 BC, some sixteen years after the first oracle in this chapter. It is thus the latest of all Ezekiel’s dated oracles. The oracle is directed to Nebuchadnezzar, who has recently completed a long campaign against Tyre. The circumstances at the end of his thirteen-year siege are not entirely clear, so some commentators argue that Ezekiel’s earlier prophecy against Tyre failed (chs. 26–28). However, the premise behind this oracle is that Nebuchadnezzar has achieved the Lord’s goals against Tyre of breaking its power, even if the complete fulfillment of Tyre’s destruction will wait until the time of Alexander the Great. The king of Tyre has become a vassal of Nebuchadnezzar.213 But, although Nebuchadnezzar has faithfully carried out his campaign against Tyre, his booty was relatively small in comparison to the labor expended. In compensation the Lord promises here to give the vast wealth of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar (29:19). Just as Nebuchadnezzar succeeded in his mission against Tyre, so too will he succeed against Egypt—and this time the rewards will be commensurate with the effort.

The destruction of Egypt would be cold comfort to Judeans who have trusted in Egypt and been disappointed. As noted earlier, in Ezekiel the negative oracles against the surrounding nations serve the positive purpose of encouraging the Israelites to trust that they still have a future with their God. When they see the fulfillment of this prophecy against Egypt, they may anticipate the fulfillment of a promised renewal for the house of Israel as well. The promise of a horn’s springing up (v. 21) could simply anticipate a return to strength for Israel, but, given the resonance with Psalm 132:17, where the Lord promises to “make a horn sprout for David,” this already hints at a future messianic figure, who will be described in more explicit terms in the chapters to follow (e.g., Ezek. 34:24; 37:24).

Once again the goal of this restoration is not simply for Israel’s sake; it will also result in a vindication of the Lord and his prophet. Then the people will acknowledge the Lord’s existence and power, a repeated theme in these oracular chapters (29:21; cf. 25:11, 17; 26:6; 28:23, 24, 26; 29:9, 16). In addition the prophet too will be acknowledged: “I will open your lips among them” is more literalistically “I will give you opening of mouth among them.” This seems to refer to the “opening of mouth” ritual, whereby sacred images were consecrated in the ancient Near East.214 Here it means that the prophet will be recognized as the authorized spokesman of his God, who speaks with the full authority of the one he represents.

30:1–9 The prophet is now instructed to lift his voice in a lament over Egypt (v. 2), just as he earlier lamented over the princes of Israel (21:12). A lament is typically sung concerning people who have already died, so this is a potent way of declaring the certainty of Egypt’s downfall: they are dead men walking. The “day of the Lord” is a day of judgment for the nations or for the Lord’s own people, a dark day of anguish and suffering (cf. Jer. 46:10; Joel 1:15). This will be a time of devastation not only for Egypt but also for her allies (Ezek. 30:4–5): Cush, Egypt’s southern neighbor; Put (part of Libya); Lud (Lydia), Arabia; and Libya—all those in covenant with Egypt will fall by the sword. “From Migdol to Syene” is a way of describing the whole land of Egypt, from the northeast (the entry point of Egypt for invaders from Asia) to the far south (cf. 29:10).

The entire land will be laid waste, burned by fire, with the effect once again that the Egyptians will “know that I am the Lord,” a frequent refrain in these oracles against the nations (30:8). On that day of judgment the Lord’s agents of destruction will travel up the Nile in ships to bring devastation to the land of Cush, who will share in Egypt’s doom (v. 9). The formula of judgment (“Behold, it comes”; v. 9) echoes the Lord’s earlier warning to Judah in Ezekiel 7. Just as the Lord judged Judah and Jerusalem, so too will he judge Egypt and Cush.

30:10–19 The theme of Egypt’s wealth emerges once more, now as Nebuchadnezzar’s promised reward for his campaign against Tyre (v. 10; cf. 29:17–20). As is also threatened in Isaiah 19, the Lord will dry up the Nile (Ezek. 30:12)—a catastrophic prospect for Egypt, whose entire crop base depends on the Nile for water. The land will be invaded by ruthless foreigners, and Egypt’s idols and images will be unable to save her (v. 13). From Memphis in the north to Thebes in the south, her cities will be left desolate. Pathros is also in the south, in the area known as Upper Egypt, while Zoan (Tanis) is in the eastern Nile delta, in the northeast of the country, as are Pelusium, On, Pi-beseth, and Tehaphnehes (vv. 15–18). The entire country will thus be devastated by the Babylonian invasion, with young men falling by the sword and “women”215 being dragged off into captivity (v. 17), just as befell the residents of Jerusalem and Judah (9:6). The result will once again be that Egypt will recognize that “I am the Lord” (cf. 30:8, 12). Why would God’s people ever want to place their trust in such a doomed country?

30:20–26 The fourth oracle is dated in the eleventh year of Jehoiachin’s captivity, shortly before the fall of Jerusalem. By this point it should be evident to all that there is no hope to be found in an Egyptian military intervention. Pharaoh Hophra has already been defeated by Nebuchadnezzar while attempting to lift the siege of Jerusalem (Jer. 37:5–11). In terms of the image in Ezekiel, the Lord has broken Hophra’s arm, and it will never heal nor even be temporarily strapped up to enable him to return to the fray (Ezek. 30:21). What is more, the Babylonians will be returning to wreak more devastation on Egypt, rebreaking Pharaoh’s fractured arm and breaking the other one for good measure (v. 22). This will leave him disarmed (literally!) and utterly defenseless, waiting only for the final death blow to fall. Meanwhile, the Lord will strengthen Nebuchadnezzar’s already powerful arm, further unbalancing the nature of the contest (v. 24). Like the residents of Judah, the Egyptians will be scattered among the nations, where they will recognize and acknowledge the Lord’s power in judgment toward them (v. 26; cf. 12:15).