Ezekielchapter 30
26 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
This is what the Lord GOD says: I will destroy the idols and put an end to the images in Memphis. There will no longer be a prince in Egypt, and I will instill fear in that land.
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
This chapter holds two oracles against Egypt, one undated and one given a few months before Jerusalem fell. Ezekiel spoke to exiles who thought of Egypt as the one power able to stand against Babylon. The first oracle announces a day of judgment on Egypt and her allies. The second pictures God breaking the arm of Pharaoh. Listen for the list of Egyptian cities from one end of the land to the other, each named as it falls. Listen also for the sword that God places in the hand of the king of Babylon, since it shows who truly directs the nations.
Context
- Who
- Exiles who knew Egypt mainly as a rumour of power and a place refugees fled to
- What
- A lament for the day of the LORD on Egypt and her allies, and an oracle in which God breaks Pharaoh's arms and strengthens the king of Babylon.
- Where
- Spoken at Tel Abib in Babylonia against Egypt, naming her cities from the Delta to Syene on the southern frontier.
- When
- The second oracle is dated to the eleventh year, first month, seventh day, about 29 April 587 BC.
- Why
- To take apart the exiles' hope in Egypt by showing every part of the land falling and Babylon's sword held by God.
Historical context
The city list is a tour of Egypt, and each name carries something. Migdol was a fortress on the north-eastern frontier; Syene, modern Aswan, was the southern border where the granite quarries were. From Migdol to Syene meant the whole country, end to end.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
Memphis, called Noph, was the ancient capital at the head of the Delta with its great temple of Ptah. Thebes, called No, was the religious capital far to the south, home of the enormous temple complexes of Amun. Pathros was Upper Egypt, the long southern valley. Zoan was Tanis in the Delta. Sin was Pelusium, the fortress guarding the eastern approach, the door any invader from Asia had to come through, which is why the text calls it the stronghold of Egypt.
On is Heliopolis, the city of the sun temple, and Pi-beseth is Bubastis, centre of the cat goddess Bastet whose festival Herodotus describes as the largest in Egypt. Tehaphnehes is Tahpanhes in the eastern Delta, and it had a Judean connection: after Gedaliah's murder, refugees from Judah fled there, taking Jeremiah with them against his will.
The oracle's controlling image is an arm. Egyptian art shows the pharaoh with arm raised, gripping a mace or a fistful of enemies, in the same smiting pose for three thousand years. Ezekiel says God has already broken one of Pharaoh's arms and it was never bound up to heal, a reference to Egypt's military failures of the previous years, and now He will break both, so that the sword falls out of his hand.
The phrase the day of the LORD, a day of clouds and a time of doom for the nations, opens the chapter. In the prophets it is the general term for God's decisive intervention, near and far at once.
Significance
For hearers who thought of Egypt as the counterweight to Babylon, this chapter takes the map apart city by city. The fortresses, the temple capitals, the frontier posts, all named, all listed as falling.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The point driven home at the end is that the strength of Egypt will be broken by God putting a sword in the hand of the king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar is not the world's master in this book. He is a tool with a handle, and someone else is holding it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this lane, printed no weekly portion and no Haftarah from this chapter, and no festival reading for the book. That table carries the Haftarah of each of the fifty-four weekly portions and the books read whole at the feasts, and it carries nothing for the special Sabbaths or the fast days. This card therefore names no public reading of the chapter and leaves that question to a source that holds those readings.
The corpus joins the chapter to the weeks of the Torah portions through the works arranged by portion. Under the tenth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Tetzaveh 1:4. Under the eighteenth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 17:3.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation of it is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern.
Rashi reads the day of the nations as "The time of the destruction of the nations" (Rashi on Ezekiel 30:3:1). The quaking in Cush follows Egypt's fall. "When they hear of Egypt’s downfall, they will fear for their lives: perhaps the king of Babylon will rise up against them" (Rashi on Ezekiel 30:4:1). The messengers sent in ships are "Troops of armies going on My mission in many caravans to frighten Cush, which is dwelling securely" (Rashi on Ezekiel 30:9:1). The fire set in Egypt is "My fury, which is like fire" (Rashi on Ezekiel 30:8:1).
His other notes name the places. The rivers are "the land of the rivers; that is, Egypt" (Rashi on Ezekiel 30:12:1). No he identifies as Alexandria (Rashi on Ezekiel 30:14:1). The captives are the people of Aven and Pi-beseth, "both of them" (Rashi on Ezekiel 30:17:1).
The broken arm of Pharaoh Rashi reads as history already past. It was broken "already another time", when Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pharaoh-neco at Carchemish in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and he cites Jeremiah 46:2 for it (Rashi on Ezekiel 30:21:1). The breaking of both arms that follows is the rest of the kingdom: "the king of Babylon took from one side; I shall yet give him the entire kingdom" (Rashi on Ezekiel 30:22:1).
The corpus carries ten further notes on this chapter without an English text, each of them marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Radak on Ezekiel 30:1:1, 30:6:1, 30:7:1, 30:10:1, 30:11:1, 30:13:1, 30:15:1, 30:20:1 and 30:23:1 and at Metzudat David on Ezekiel 30:19:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-six rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the second verse it holds Esther Rabbah 1:10. On the fifth verse it holds Bereshit Rabbah 37:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 61:15. On the sixth verse it holds Vayikra Rabbah 5:7. On the eighth verse it holds Ein Yaakov, Taanit 1:2.
On the tenth verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Tetzaveh 1:4. On the twelfth verse it holds Esther Rabbah 1:13, Midrash Tehillim 24:2 and Otzar Midrashim, Maaseh Beraishit & Maaseh Merkavah, Baraita of Maaseh Beraishit 3. On the thirteenth verse it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 6:15. On the sixteenth verse it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 12:29.
On the eighteenth verse it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 15:5, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 5:2 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:5:2. It also holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 17:3, Pesikta DeRav Kahana 7:5 and Pesikta Rabbati 17:1 there. It also holds Seder Olam Rabbah 28:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 246:6 there. On the twentieth verse it holds Seder Olam Rabbah 26:1. On the twenty-first verse it holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 22:3:2, Pesikta Rabbati 19:1 and Pesikta Rabbati 33:1. On the twenty-fourth verse it holds Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 32 and Shemot Rabbah 1:34.
On the thirty-second verse it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Ketubot 12:4. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ezekiel 30:2:1 to 30:24:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 30:1:1, 30:6:1, 30:7:1, 30:10:1, 30:11:1, 30:13:1, 30:15:1, 30:20:1 and 30:23:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Ezekiel 30:19:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/30.json, the 26 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this chapter and printing no weekly portion, no Haftarah and no festival reading.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Howl, for the day of the LORD is near Egypt
Ezekiel 30:1-4
Again the word of the LORD came to me: The oracle opens with the day of the Lord formula, Woe worth the day!, the day is near, applied to Egypt's own hour of judgment. Keil notes the phrase works on two levels throughout the prophets, a specific historical catastrophe and the pattern every such catastrophe previews.
The cry echoes Joel 1:15, where alarm over the day and the nearness of the Day of the LORD announce the locust judgment on Judah. This oracle stands as the only undated one against Egypt in chapters 29 to 32. Mourners are summoned before the dead fall.
Ezekiel 30:2
“Howl ye, Wo worth the day! - My Old MS. Bible, - Soule gee, woo woo to the day! הילילו הה ליום heylilu, hah laiyom! “Howl ye, Alas for the day!” The reading in our present text is taken from Coverdale’s Bible, 1536. The expressions signify that a most dreadful calamity was about to fall on Egypt and the neighboring countries, called here the “time of the heathen,” or of the nations; the day of calamity to them.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
a time of doom for the nations: Joel 2:2 and Zephaniah 1:15 also describe the Day of the LORD as a day of clouds and thick darkness. The cloud returns over Tahpanhes in verse 18. Egypt's hour opens a season of judgment on many nations.
Ezekiel 30:3
“The time of the pagan - The time when the pagan (Egyptians) shall be judged.”
there will be anguish in Cush: Cush lay up the Nile south of Egypt, in what is now Sudan. Its kings had ruled Egypt as pharaohs for most of a century, and one of them, Tirhakah, marched against Sennacherib in 2 Kings 19:9. The two lands shared one fate.
Ezekiel 30:5-6
Cush, Put, and Lud: The allies fall with Egypt by name, Ethiopia, Libya, Lydia, and Chub. Gill and Barnes both note the difficulty of identifying every name, but the pattern is plain, everyone leaning on Egypt's power goes down with it. The pride of her power shall come down closes the list.
Ezekiel 30:5
“Coba or Chobat, a city of Mauritania [MAURER]. men of the land that is in league--too definite an expression to mean merely, "men in league" with Egypt; rather, "sons of the land of the covenant," that is, the Jews who migrated to Egypt and carried Jeremiah with them (Jer 42:1-44:30).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 30:5
“Libya, and Lydia - Or, as in Eze 27:10, Phut and Lud. The mingled people - Foreigners, who settled in Egypt. The Saite dynasty of Egyptian kings were especially favorable to foreign immigrants. Hophra employed many of them in his armies, and in this way, according to Herodotus, lost the affections of his Egyptian subjects. See Jer 25:20 note. Chub - The word occurs here only.”
her proud strength will collapse: Migdol was a fortress on Egypt's northeast border toward Sinai, and Syene is modern Aswan at the first cataract of the Nile. From Migdol to Syene spans Egypt from north to south. The allies of Egypt fall by the sword across the whole land.
Ezekiel 30:6
“The power of the king of Egypt was his pride; but that shall be broken, and humbled. Is the multitude of her people her support? These shall fall by the sword, even from the tower of Syene, which is in the utmost corner of the land, from that side of it by which the enemy shall enter.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 30:7-9
desolate among desolate lands: Egypt joins a roster already familiar to Ezekiel's hearers, the same fate announced for Tyre and her neighbors. The recognition formula lands again, they shall know that I am the Lord. Messengers carry the alarm, and the careless Ethiopians learn that no distance keeps a nation safe from the news.
Ezekiel 30:8
“And they shall know that I am the Lord,.... The Egyptians shall know the Lord to be the true God, and acknowledge him to be omniscient and omnipotent, that should so exactly foretell their destruction, and accomplish it: when I have set a fire in Egypt: a war there; the heat of battle, very devouring and consuming, as well as very grievous and terrible, as fire is.”
messengers will go out from Me: Isaiah 18:2 pictures Cush sending envoys by sea in papyrus boats. Here the traffic runs the other way, with messengers from the LORD going out in ships to carry the news of Egypt's doom south. Complacent Cush learns anguish.
Ezekiel 30:9
“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. as in the day of Egypt--The day of Ethiopia's "pain" shall come shortly, as Egypt's day came.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 30:9
“In that day shall messengers go forth from me in ships,.... Either by the river Nile, or by the Red sea, to Arabia Felix, which some think is meant by Ethiopia.”
Ezekiel 30:9
Messengers go forth from me in ships - Ships can ascend the Nile up to Syene or Essuan, by the cataracts; and when Nebuchadnezzar’s vessels went up, they struck terror into the Ethiopians. They are represented here as the “messengers of God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The cities of Egypt broken one after another
Ezekiel 30:10-12
put an end to the hordes of Egypt: Nebuchadnezzar is named outright as the Lord's chosen instrument, brought to destroy the land. The rivers dried reverse Pharaoh's own boast from chapter 29, my river is mine own. I the Lord have spoken it closes the unit with the formula the book uses to mark a sentence as settled.
Ezekiel 30:10
“Thus saith the Lord God, I will make the multitude of Egypt to cease,.... The vast numbers of people that inhabited Egypt; some of its cities were very populous, especially the city No, after mentioned; but now the numbers should be greatly lessened, and the whole land sadly depopulated: or the "noise" (r), "tumult", and hurry of it; which is very great where there are large numbers of people, and which ceases when they are cut off. The Syriac version renders it, the riches of Egypt.”
the most ruthless of the nations: Habakkuk 1:6 describes the same Chaldeans as a ruthless and impetuous nation seizing dwellings that belong to others. Habakkuk 2 then pronounces woe on that same Babylon. The LORD used its swords against Egypt and still judged its cruelty.
I will make the streams dry up: Isaiah 19:5 to 8 had already foretold the Nile drying up and Egypt's fishermen mourning. To sell the land pictures the LORD as its owner, handing it over like property. Egypt belongs to Him.
Ezekiel 30:12
“I will make the rivers dry - As the overflowing of the Nile was the grand cause of fertility to Egypt, the drying it up, or preventing that annual inundation, must be the cause of dearth, famine, etc. By rivers, we may understand the various canals cut from the Nile to carry water into the different parts of the land. When the Nile did not rise to its usual height these canals were quite dry.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 30:13-16
destroy the idols: The judgment reaches Egypt's religion, I will also destroy the idols, and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt. Pathros, Zoan, and No, upper Egypt, the delta capital, and Thebes, name Egypt's cities. Barnes reads the specificity as the method the book used against Tyre.
Ezekiel 30:13
“Their images to cease out of Noph - Afterwards Memphis, and now Cairo or Kahira. This was the seat of Egyptian idolatry; the place where Apis was particularly worshipped. No more a prince of the land of Egypt - Not one, from that time to the present day. See the note on Eze 29:14.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
set fire to Zoan: Psalm 78:12 and 43 place the wonders of the exodus in the fields of Zoan. The city where God once judged Pharaoh is named again for fire. The old judgment returns to its old ground.
Ezekiel 30:14
“And I will make Pathros desolate,.... A country in Egypt; See Gill on Eze 29:14, perhaps it was the first place that Nebuchadnezzar entered, and so went from place to place in the order hereafter mentioned: and I will set fire in Zoan; or Tunis, a famous city in Egypt in the times of Moses, Num 13:22. The Targum and Septuagint version call it Tanis here; and from hence a nome in Egypt was called the Tanitic nome.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 30:14
“I will make Pathros desolate - See Eze 29:14. Zoan - Tanis, the ancient capital of Egypt. No - Diospolis, or Thebes, the city of Jupiter.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Pelusium, the stronghold of Egypt: Pelusium, Hebrew Sin, guarded the eastern edge of the delta, where armies from Asia entered Egypt. The Persian king Cambyses won the battle that gave him Egypt near Pelusium in 525 BC. The stronghold of Egypt falls first.
Ezekiel 30:15
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Thebes will be split open: Assyria under Ashurbanipal had already sacked Thebes in 663 BC, and Nahum 3:8 to 10 held up that fall as a warning to Nineveh. Behind daily distress the Hebrew reads enemies by day, an open attack in daylight. Thebes had fallen once before.
Ezekiel 30:17-19
The young men of On: Two more cities are named, Aven and Pi-beseth, their young men falling by the sword. Tehaphnehes, a delta fortress city where Jewish refugees would later flee, is singled out for the day to be darkened there. Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt closes the roster with the recognition formula.
Ezekiel 30:17
“The young men of Aven and of Phibeseth shall fall by the sword,.... Aven is the same with On, of which Potipherah was priest in Joseph's time and whose daughter he married, Gen 41:45, the same with Heliopolis, or Bethshemesh, the city of the sun, see Jer 43:13; see Gill on Jer 43:13; where was the temple of the sun, and where it was worshipped; and so it is rendered by the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions. It is called here "Aven", or "vanity", because of the vain and idolatrous worship here performed.”
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 30:17
“Aven - The same as “On” Gen 41:45, or “Heliopolis.” The word “Aven” means also “transgression” (compare Hos 10:8). Some have thought that here too Ezekiel substituted the word “Aven” for “On” to mark the “sin” of idolatry there in full vogue. Pi-beseth - The Bubastis of Herodotus. The hieroglyphic name is “Pe-bast,” the house of Bast (the Egyptian Artemis, the cat-headed goddess). Bubastis was situated on the easternmost, the Pelusian, branch of the Delta. The road from Pelusium to Memphis lay through Bubastis and On.”
Ezekiel 30:17
“Young men - 'Tis probable these might be a body of valiant youths, collected out of these ten cities. Aven - Bethshemesh, or Heliopolis, an idolatrous city, in which was a stately temple of the sun: an hundred and fifty furlongs, that is six miles and three quarters in compass.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The day will be darkened in Tahpanhes: Jeremiah 43:8 to 10 records Jeremiah burying stones at the entrance of Pharaoh's building in Tahpanhes and foretelling Nebuchadnezzar would set his throne over them. The yoke is Egypt's rule over others. Her daughters are her towns and villages.
Ezekiel 30:18
“The same as Daphne, near Pelusium, a royal residence of the Pharaohs (Jer 43:7, 9). Called Hanes (Isa 30:4). break . . . the yokes of Egypt--that is, the tyrannical supremacy which she exercised over other nations. Compare "bands of their yoke" (Eze 34:7). a cloud--namely, of calamity.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 30:18
“Tehaphnehes - Called also Tahapanes, Jer 2:16. This is the Pelusian Daphne. Break there the yokes - The sceptres. Nebuchadnezzar broke the scepter of Egypt when he confirmed the kingdom to Amasis, who had rebelled against Apries.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
So I will execute judgment on Egypt: Exodus 12:12 uses the same language for the Passover night, when the LORD executed judgment on all the gods of Egypt. Ezekiel's oracle brings the exodus back against the same land. Egypt learns the LORD's name twice.
Ezekiel 30:19
“Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt,.... In the several provinces, and in the several cities of it before mentioned, and in all other places; even the judgments of fire, famine, sword, and captivity: and they shall know that I am the Lord; God omniscient and omnipotent, by the, judgments executed; and own the same: this more especially they did, when the Gospel was preached among them, and many were converted by it in the times of the apostles.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 30:19
“The destruction of Egypt is the executing of judgments, which intimates not only that it is done justly, for its sins, but that it is done regularly and legally, by a judicial sentence. All the executions God does are according to his judgments.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Pharaoh's arm broken, Babylon's arm strengthened
Ezekiel 30:20-22
In the eleventh year: A new date opens a fresh oracle, and the image shifts to a single body. The arm already broken is declared beyond healing, while the sound arm is broken too. Gill reads the double image as Egypt's military failure stated as a diagnosis before it is stated as a sentence.
Ezekiel 30:20
“In the eleventh year, in the first month, in the seventh day - This was the eleventh year of the captivity of Jeconiah, and the date here answers to April 26, A.M. 3416; a prophecy anterior by several years to that already delivered. In collecting the writings of Ezekiel, more care was taken to put all that related to one subject together, than to attend to chronological arrangement.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 30:20
“The eleventh year - Of Jeconiah's captivity, three months and two days before Jerusalem was taken, about the time that the Egyptians attempted to raise the siege of Jerusalem.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 30:21
I have broken the arm of Pharaoh: The arm is the Hebrew picture of strength in battle. At the exodus the LORD redeemed Israel with an outstretched arm and mighty acts of judgment in Exodus 6:6. Pharaoh's broken arm stands against that arm.
Ezekiel 30:21
“It was soon after the king of Egypt slew good king Josiah, and in the same reign, that its arm was thus broken, and it received that fatal blow which it never recovered. Before Egypt's heart and neck were broken its arm was. God's judgments come upon a people by steps, that they may meet him repenting.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 30:21
“I have broken the arm of Pharaoh - Perhaps this may refer to his defeat by Nebuchadnezzar, when he was coming with the Egyptian army to succor Jerusalem.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 30:22
“I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand - When the arm is broken, the sword will naturally fall. But these expressions show that the Egyptians would be rendered wholly useless to Zedekiah, and should never more recover their political strength. This was the case from the time of the rebellion of Amasis.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 30:23-26
disperse the Egyptians among the nations: The chapter ends where the arm image was heading, Pharaoh's arms falling down while I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon. The recognition formula closes the chapter twice in three verses. Keil notes the near-identical wording that opens and closes verses 25 and 26, deliberate repetition.
Ezekiel 30:23
“And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations,.... Among the several provinces of Babylon, and other places, where the Chaldeans should carry or send them: and will disperse them through the countries: the same thing repeated in different words for the confirmation of it.”
place My sword in his hand: Chapter 21 gave the same sword to Babylon's king against Jerusalem, and Isaiah 10:5 calls Assyria the rod of the LORD's anger. The weapon belongs to God. Pharaoh's groan is the sound of a man dying of his wounds.
Ezekiel 30:24
“Put strength into the king of Babylon's arms, that he may be able to go through the service he is designed for. That he will put a sword, his sword, into the king of Babylon's hand, which signified his giving him a commission and furnishing him with arms for carrying on a war, particularly against Egypt.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
he wields it against the land: The Hebrew verb behind wields means to stretch out, used when Moses stretched his hand and staff over Egypt in Exodus 7 to 14. Babylon's king repeats the gesture with a sword. The plagues return as war.
I will disperse the Egyptians among: The sentence of scattering is spoken three times in these chapters, at 29:12, 30:23 and here. The promise of 29:13 to 14 has already set its limit, a gathering after forty years. The scattering has an end.
Ezekiel 30:26
“And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries,.... Of which they might assure themselves, since the Lord had before spoken it, and here again repeats it: and they shall know that I am the Lord; whose name alone is Jehovah, and does whatsoever he pleases; sets up kings, and puts them down; strengthens and weakens kingdoms just as seems good in his sight; none having any power but what is given by him, and which he can take away when he thinks fit.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 30:26
“I will scatter the Egyptians - Several fled with Apries to Upper Egypt; and when Nebuchadnezzar wasted the country, he carried many of them to Babylon. See on Eze 29:12 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Patrick Fairbairn, Ezekiel and the Book of His Prophecy and Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible.