Ezekielchapter 30
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Key verse
Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the men of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword.
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 9.
The chapter
Chapter summary
'Wail ye, Alas for the day! For the day is near, even the day of Jehovah is near', a day of clouds and a time of the nations. Egypt's allies fall with her: Ethiopia, Put, Lud, Arabia, Cub. The oracle then walks the map of Egyptian cities, each with its own doom (No and Sin and Noph, Tehaphnehes and On and Pi-beseth), idols destroyed, fire set, multitudes cut off. The controlling image is a broken arm: 'I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt,' unbound and unsplinted so it cannot hold a sword, then both arms broken, while the arms of the king of Babylon are strengthened and God's own sword is put into his hand.
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel · Ezekiel overview
Where the chapter sits
Ezekiel 30 falls in Oracles against the nations (chapters 25–32). Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia (25); Tyre (26–28); Sidon (28); Egypt (29–32). The King of Tyre lament (28:11–19) surfaces interpretive debate on Satan's fall.
Before it: Symbolic acts and judgment on Jerusalem, chapters 4–24. After it: Restoration promised, chapters 33–37.
The whole shape of Ezekiel→The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 30The history
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.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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.
What it meant to them
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.
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.
Sources cited
- Herodotus, The Histories
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
A. Howl, for the day of the LORD is near Egypt
1. (vv. 1-4)
a.The word of the Lord came again unto me: The oracle opens with the day of the Lord formula, howl ye, Woe worth the day!, the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near, a cloudy day, language that elsewhere names the final reckoning and is here applied to Egypt's own particular hour of judgment. Keil notes the phrase works on two levels throughout the prophets, a specific historical catastrophe and, by the same vocabulary, the pattern every such catastrophe previews. The sword, the slain, and broken foundations set the scene before a single ally is named, so the reader meets total collapse first and the list of the fallen second.
Ezekiel 30:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 30:1
“Third prophecy Ezek. 30:1-19 against Egypt, probably to be connected with the previous verses (compare Eze 30:10 with the Eze 29:17-21 note). Some consider it to belong to the earlier part of Ezek. 29 (compare Eze 29:10, Eze 29:12 with Eze 30:5-6).”
Ezekiel 30:1
“A repetition of a former prophecy against Egypt, just before the desolation of it begun by their own bad conduct, which gradually weakened them and prepared the way for the king of Babylon,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 30:2, 1 voice
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
Ezekiel 30:4, 1 voice
Ezekiel 30:4
“When the slain fall so thickly in Egypt great pain shall be in Ethiopia, both that in Africa, which is in the neighbourhood of Egypt on one side, and that in Asia, which is near to it on the other side. When their neighbour's house was on fire they could not but apprehend their own in danger; nor were their fears groundless, for they shall all fall with them by the sword,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 5-6)
a.Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia: The allies fall with Egypt by name, Ethiopia, Libya, Lydia, and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the men of the land that is in league, a roster of mercenary and treaty nations bound to Pharaoh's fortunes whether by hire or by covenant. Gill and Barnes both note the difficulty of identifying every name precisely at this distance, Chub in particular unattested elsewhere, but the pattern is plain without full identification, everyone leaning on Egypt's power goes down with it. The pride of her power shall come down closes the list, naming pride as the specific thing judgment answers, the same charge already laid on Tyre two chapters earlier.
Ezekiel 30:5, 3 voices
Ezekiel 30:5
“Ethiopia, Lybia, and Lydia,.... Or, "Cush, Phut, and Lud". Cush and Phut were both sons of Ham, from whom Egypt is sometimes called the land of Ham; and Lud or Ludim was the son of Mizraim, the son of Ham, the common name of Egypt in Scripture, Gen 10:6. Cush is by us rendered Ethiopia; and is thought by some to be a part of Arabia, which lay near to Egypt. Phut and Lud are properly enough rendered Lybia and Lydia; and both these, with Ethiopia, are represented as the allies and confederates of Egypt, Jer 46:”
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.”
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
Ezekiel 30:6, 1 voice
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
3. (vv. 7-9)
a.in the midst of the countries that are desolate: Egypt joins a roster already familiar to Ezekiel's hearers, in the midst of the countries that are desolate, the same fate already announced for Tyre and her neighbors in the surrounding chapters, one more name added to a list of fallen nations rather than a singular catastrophe. The recognition formula lands again, they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have set a fire in Egypt, the book's constant purpose clause. Messengers in ships carry the alarm to Ethiopia, and the careless Ethiopians, secure behind Egypt's buffer, learn that no distance from the actual battlefield keeps a nation safe from the news.
Ezekiel 30:7, 1 voice
Ezekiel 30:7
“And they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate,.... Or among them, shall be ranked with them, and be as desolate as they are; as Judea and other countries, ravaged by the same enemy: and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted; undergo the same fate as they have done, as Jerusalem and others. The cities of Egypt were very numerous; Diodorus Siculus (n) says, that in ancient times Egypt had cities and villages of note, more than 18,0”
Ezekiel 30:9, 3 voices
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
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
B. The cities of Egypt broken one after another
1. (vv. 10-12)
a.make the multitude of Egypt to cease: Nebuchadnezzar is named outright as the Lord's chosen instrument, the terrible of the nations brought to destroy the land, the same agent the closing unit of the previous chapter had already given Egypt as wages for the unpaid Tyre siege. The rivers dried and the land sold into the hand of the wicked reverse Pharaoh's own boast from chapter 29, my river is mine own, the very source of Egypt's confidence turned into the thing that fails her. I the Lord have spoken it closes the unit with the formula the book uses to mark a sentence as settled rather than merely threatened.
Ezekiel 30:10, 1 voice
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.”
Ezekiel 30:12, 1 voice
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
2. (vv. 13-16)
a.destroy the idols: The judgment reaches Egypt's religion by name, I will also destroy the idols, and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt, striking at both the gods and the native monarchy in one sentence, a decisive end to Pharaonic rule the older commentators read as substantially fulfilled once Egypt passed under a succession of foreign crowns. Pathros, Zoan, and No, upper Egypt, the eastern delta capital, and Thebes, name Egypt's major regions and cities in turn rather than leaving the desolation vague, each city bearing its own clause of judgment. Barnes reads the specificity as the same method the book used against Tyre, naming real places so the outcome could be tested against a real map.
Ezekiel 30:13, 1 voice
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
Ezekiel 30:14, 2 voices
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.”
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
Ezekiel 30:15, 1 voice
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
3. (vv. 17-19)
a.The young men of Aven: Two more cities are named, Aven and Pi-beseth, their young men falling by the sword and the populations going into captivity, continuing the city-by-city sentence of the previous unit. Tehaphnehes, a delta fortress city where Jewish refugees would later flee after Jerusalem's fall, is singled out for the day to be darkened there, the yokes of Egypt broken, and her daughters led away captive. Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt closes the whole roster with the recognition formula, they shall know that I am the Lord, the same purpose already named repeatedly in these two chapters.
Ezekiel 30:17, 3 voices
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.”
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
Ezekiel 30:18, 3 voices
Ezekiel 30:18
“At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened,.... The same with Hanes in Isa 30:4 and Tahapanes in Jer 2:16 and Tahpanhes, Jer 43:7, it was a royal seat of the kings of Egypt: there was in Solomon's time a queen of Egypt of this name, and perhaps it might be so called from her, 1Ki 11:”
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
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
Ezekiel 30:19, 2 voices
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.”
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
C. Pharaoh's arm broken, Babylon's arm strengthened
1. (vv. 20-22)
a.in the eleventh year: A new date opens a fresh oracle within the chapter, the eleventh year, roughly three months after Jerusalem's wall was breached, and the image shifts from cities to a single body, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt. The arm already broken, from an earlier failed relief attempt, is declared beyond healing, no roller to bind it, no strength to hold a sword, while the sound arm is now broken too, behold, I am against Pharaoh, and will break his arms, the strong, and that which was broken. Gill reads the double image, one arm already broken and the other about to be, as Egypt's total military failure stated as a diagnosis before it is stated as a sentence.
Ezekiel 30:20, 2 voices
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
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, 2 voices
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 30:21
“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
Ezekiel 30:22, 1 voice
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
2. (vv. 23-26)
a.will disperse them through the countries: 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, and put my sword in his hand, the same transfer of strength from Egypt to Babylon the previous chapter already pictured as Egypt handed over for unpaid wages. The recognition formula closes the chapter twice in three verses, they shall know that I am the Lord, the purpose the book gives for every judgment named in it. Keil notes the near-identical wording that opens and closes verses 25 and 26, deliberate repetition rather than careless duplication, underlining that the whole point of Egypt's fall is what it teaches about the Lord rather than anything Egypt or Babylon does for its own sake.
Ezekiel 30:24, 1 voice
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
Ezekiel 30:26, 2 voices
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.”
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
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 30. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765) and Matthew Henry.
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