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Ezekiel 29:11

in Ezekiel 29

No foot of man or beast will pass through, and it will be uninhabited for forty years.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.

KJV

No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.

This verse in Ezekiel 29

Commentary

5 notes on this verse

A commentator

Jerome

Commentary on Ezekiel · Written before 420.

(Verse 8 and following) Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will bring a sword upon you, and will cut off from you man and beast. And the land of Egypt shall become a desolation (or destruction) and a wilderness: and they shall know that I am the Lord: because he (or you) said, My river is mine, and I have made it (or My rivers are mine, and I have made them).

This site's exposition

from Migdol to Syene, and as far as the border of Cush

on Ezekiel 29:10-12

The desolation is given a real geography, from the tower of Syene, at Egypt's southern frontier, to the border of Ethiopia. Forty years uninhabited by man or beast is a specific and bounded sentence. Barnes notes the forty years as deliberately recalling Israel's own forty years.

This site's exposition

uninhabited for forty years

The same number measured Judah's punishment in 4:6, where Ezekiel lay forty days, a day for each year. Gill counts Egypt's forty years from Nebuchadnezzar's invasion to the rise of Cyrus; Keil reads the number as a set term of judgment. Either way the desolate land has a limit.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

No foot of man shall pass through it,....

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

A commentator

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

proposed

forty years--answering to the forty years in which the Israelites, their former bondsmen, wandered in "the wilderness" (compare Note, see on Eze 29:5). JEROME remarks the number forty is one often connected with affliction and judgment.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase

How the passage was read

What the Jewish commentators add

neither shall it be inhabited for forty years Forty-two years of famine were decreed in Pharaoh’s dream, corresponding to the three times the dream is written. He saw seven bad cows and seven bad ears of grain (Gen.
Rashi: France, 1040–1105 · Rashi on Ezekiel 29:11:1, via Sefaria, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg

This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.

Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 7 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.

The words behind it

14 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • לֹ֤אnot

    lo'H3808 →5168 times

  • תַעֲבָר־it will pass

    taavor-H5674 →556 times

  • בָּהּ֙in it

    bah

  • רֶ֣גֶל[the] foot of

    regelH7272 →247 times

  • אָדָ֔םhuman[s]

    ʾadamH120 →551 times

  • וְרֶ֥גֶלand [the] foot of

    veregelH7272 →247 times

  • בְּהֵמָ֖הanimal[s]

    behemahH929 →190 times

  • לֹ֣אnot

    lo'H3808 →5168 times

  • תַעֲבָר־it will pass

    taavor-H5674 →556 times

  • בָּ֑הּin it

    bah

  • וְלֹ֥אand not

    velo'H3808 →5168 times

  • תֵשֵׁ֖בit will remain

    teshevH3427 →1079 times

  • אַרְבָּעִ֥יםforty

    ʾarbaimH705 →136 times

  • שָׁנָֽה׃year[s]

    shanahH8141 →877 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Daniel 9:2

    in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the sacred books, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.

    it leads to

    • Jeremiah 29:10

      For this is what the LORD says: “When Babylon’s seventy years are complete, I will attend to you and confirm My promise to restore you to this place.

      Reached by 2 separate paths from here.

    • Jeremiah 25:11–12

      And this whole land will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.

    • 2 Chronicles 36:21

      So the land enjoyed its Sabbath rest all the days of the desolation, until seventy years were completed, in fulfillment of the word of the LORD through Jeremiah.

    • Zechariah 7:5

      “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted?

    • Revelation 1:3

      Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and obey what is written in it, because the time is near.

  • Through

    Isaiah 23:15

    At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years—the span of a king’s life. But at the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the harlot:

    it leads to

    • Jeremiah 25:22

      all the kings of Tyre and Sidon; the kings of the coastlands across the sea;

  • Through

    Ezekiel 33:28

    I will make the land a desolate waste, and the pride of her strength will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will become desolate, so that no one will pass through.

    it leads to

    • Ezekiel 7:24

      So I will bring the most wicked of nations to take possession of their houses. I will end the pride of the mighty, and their holy places will be profaned.

    • Ezekiel 24:21

      Tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I am about to desecrate My sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and the delight of…

Where this verse is studied

On this page

About Ezekiel

Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.