Ezekiel 29:1-9a

¹In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me: ²Mortal, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt; ³speak, and say, Thus says the Lord GOD:
I am against you,
Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great dragon sprawling
in the midst of its channels,
saying, “My Nile is my own;
I made it for myself.”
⁴I will put hooks in your jaws,
and make the fish of your channels stick to your scales.
I will draw you up from your channels,
with all the fish of your channels
sticking to your scales.
⁵I will fling you into the wilderness,
you and all the fish of your channels;
you shall fall in the open field,
and not be gathered and buried.
To the animals of the earth and to the birds of the air
I have given you as food.
⁶Then all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know
that I am the LORD
because you were a staff of reed
to the house of Israel;
⁷when they grasped you with the hand, you broke,
and tore all their shoulders;
and when they leaned on you, you broke,
and made all their legs unsteady.
⁸Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: I will bring a sword upon you, and will cut off from you human being and animal; ⁹and the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.

The oracles against Egypt are equal in length to all the previous oracles against the nation, and this seventh nation mentioned now receives seven oracles against it. Six of the seven are given specific dates with this first oracle being the earliest. This oracle is dated January 7, 587 BCE which is roughly one year into the eighteen-month siege of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 44:30 indicates that Pharoah Hophra is the king of Egypt at this point who is referred to throughout this oracle. Tova Ganzel (Ganzel, 2020, p. 272)connects this prophecy with the actions of Jeremiah 37:5-10:

Meanwhile, the army of Pharaoh had come out of Egypt; and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news of them, they withdrew from Jerusalem. Then the word of the LORD came to the prophet Jeremiah: Thus says the LORD, God of Israel: This is what the two of you shall say to the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: Pharaoh’s army, which set out to help you, is going to return to its own land, to Egypt. And the Chaldeans shall return and fight against this city; they shall take it and burn it with fire. Thus says the LORD: Do not deceive yourselves, saying, “The Chaldeans will surely go away from us,” for they will not go away. Even if you defeated the whole army of Chaldeans who are fighting against you, and there remained of them only wounded men in their tents, they would rise up and burn this city with fire.

Although Ezekiel, unlike Jeremiah, was already in exile in Babylon it is likely that he and his fellow exiles were following events around Jerusalem. Ezekiel and Jeremiah both viewed Nebuchadrezzar’s siege of Jerusalem as God’s punishment and viewed the actions of the Egyptians as interference. Now amid what others in Judah may have considered a hopeful moment, Ezekiel speaks against the Egyptians (who many in Jerusalem would have looked to for aid at this time).

Ezekiel uses metaphor again, this time Pharoah Hophra is a great crocodile (NRSV great dragon) lying in the Nile. The Hebrew word tannin which in this image is obviously a crocodile like creature is often used with mythological overtones throughout scripture (hence the NRSV’s translation of great dragon) as a great monster or force of chaos which must be overcome. It is sometimes linked with both Rahab and Leviathan, and Job’s similar image of Leviathan is worth considering:

“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook, or press down its tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in its nose, or pierce its jaw with a hook? Job 41: 1-2.

Now Pharoah is drawn out with a hook, and with it all the fish that are caught in its scales. It had considered itself immovable from its place in the channels of the Nile, but now it is removed from its place of dominance to the wilderness where it becomes prey for the animals and birds. As Katheryn Pfisterer Darr notes this would be the ultimate disgrace for an Egyptian Pharoah who expended enormous resources and wealth on constructing a royal tomb to ensure their passage to the afterlife. (NIB VI: 1405)

Egypt was one of the few nations which had the military resources to resist Babylon, but as I mentioned in Egypt’s Role in the Geopolitics of Israel/Judah During the Time of the Assyrian and Babylonian Empire they were often an unreliable ally. Both 2 Kings and Isaiah record Rabshakeh’s taunt about the unreliability of Egypt:

The Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah. Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: on what do you base this confidence of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? On whom do you rely, that you have rebelled against me? See, you are relying now on Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharoah king of Egypt to all who rely on him. 2 Kings 18:19-21, Isaiah 36:4-6

Once again resorting to metaphor, to use Egypt as a crutch is to have it splinter in one’s shoulder and to lean on it for support makes the legs unsteady when it fails. Egypt’s support only causes more damage in the prophet’s view.

Ezekiel 29: 9b-16

Because you said, “The Nile is mine, and I made it,” ¹⁰therefore, I am against you, and against your channels, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Ethiopia. ¹¹No human foot shall pass through it, and no animal foot shall pass through it; it shall be uninhabited forty years. ¹²I will make the land of Egypt a desolation among desolated countries; and her cities shall be a desolation forty years among cities that are laid waste. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries.
¹³Further, thus says the Lord GOD: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered; ¹⁴and I will restore the fortunes of Egypt, and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin; and there they shall be a lowly kingdom. ¹⁵It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms, and never again exalt itself above the nations; and I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations. ¹⁶The Egyptians shall never again be the reliance of the house of Israel; they will recall their iniquity, when they turned to them for aid. Then they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

This continues the first oracle against Egypt but instead it moves from a poetic rhythm to an explanatory tone. Now in response to the declaration of the Pharoah that, “the Nile is mine, and I made it,” the declaration is made that the entirety of Egypt from western border to the eastern border and to the border of Ethiopia to the south will be uninhabited. Egypt is sentenced to forty years of desolation in this oracle, devoid of both human and animals. The mighty empire of Egypt is to be a wasteland where nothing lives, but the sentence is for a generation and then the people and animals will return. But Egypt, in the oracle, will never be a power who extends its influence towards Israel. They will never appear to be a strength that Israel can turn to again in their troubles.

Egypt is never a wasteland depopulated of people or animals. Although there is some conflict between Babylon and Egypt that will be talked about more in the following section, Egypt never becomes a part of the Babylonian empire, and the population is never forced into exile. The oracle is unique among the seven nations in that it does have a future for Egypt (the other nations have no future in Ezekiel’s oracles) and it may be impossible for the prophet to imagine a world without Egypt occupying some role. Egypt existed long before Israel and had always been major power to the south. Yet, Egypt’s time of independence would come to an end with the advent of the Persian empire a generation later.

Ezekiel 29: 17-21

¹⁷In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me: ¹⁸Mortal, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon made his army labor hard against Tyre; every head was made bald and every shoulder was rubbed bare; yet neither he nor his army got anything from Tyre to pay for the labor that he had expended against it. ¹⁹Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I will give the land of Egypt to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon; and he shall carry off its wealth and despoil it and plunder it; and it shall be the wages for his army. ²⁰I have given him the land of Egypt as his payment for which he labored, because they worked for me, says the Lord GOD.
²¹On that day I will cause a horn to sprout up for the house of Israel, and I will open your lips among them. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.

This is the second oracle and the latest of the oracles that receive a date. Ezekiel’s date places this oracle on April 26, 571 BCE, sixteen years after the oracle at the beginning of the chapter and twenty-two years after Ezekiel’s commission by the LORD. This oracle also marks a sharp departure from the oracles against Tyre in chapters 26–28 since now Tyre remains unconquered and King Nebuchadrezzar’s men need payment for the thirteen years spent in siege of the city.

Ezekiel’s prophecies against Tyre are not fulfilled in the manner that Ezekiel declared. There may have been people among Ezekiel’s peers who wondered if that made him a false prophet. Both Ezekiel and Jeremiah would have been criticized for their pro-Babylonian messages (since both viewed Babylon as acting on the LORD’s behalf). Yet, Ezekiel’s words were preserved as a prophet and the LORD the God of Israel has changed God’s mind before and remains free to allow things to proceed according to God’s designs. Still this inclusion of Ezekiel 29:18 owns that the previous prophecies against Tyre did not occur as foreseen.

The prophesies of Ezekiel attempt to provide a theological framing to the events of the world and I think both the theological framing and the historical events can provide insight into how we approach these passages. Theologically the Babylonian empire is cast as a tool utilized by the LORD and since the Babylonians are doing God’s will they deserve to be rewarded. In the absence of a reward for cracking open the island fortress of Tyre the riches of Egypt are offered in exchange. Egypt remained both a rich nation with a powerful military and a large, fertile territory. Historically it is important to remember that military action in the ancient world was about economics. A thirteen-year long siege would have been costly both in material resources but also in reputation for the Babylonians. It is plausible that the king of Tyre reached an agreement to become a vassal state, but the baldness and rubbed bare shoulders likely refer to the hard work of the attempted siege.

Looking this far back into the historical record is difficult because there are very few sources. The Babylonians did invade Egypt unsuccessfully between 601 and 599 BCE but this points to a later invasion. There is a cuneiform text that refers to Nebuchadrezzar marching against Egypt in his thirty-seventh year (568 BCE) roughly three years after this oracle. (Block, 1998, p. 151) It is also known that Pharoah Hophra dies and Amasis takes his place.[1] It is plausible that Nebuchadrezzar sees this time of transition as an opportunity to attack a weakened Egypt. It is also likely that an incursion into Egypt taxed Babylon’s forces even further. Nebuchadrezzar would die in Babylon six years later and Egypt would remain unconquered. Although Babylon likely did extract some wealth and resources from this conflict any evaluation of the ‘successfulness’ of these actions[2] would require sources that we do not have. As I have stated before I am making educated guesses based on what we do know and what we understand about the world at this point in history.

Finally, there is the final line about a ‘horn’ sprouting up for the house of Israel and the prophet’s lips being opened among them. Horns in the bible are images of power. They can be utilized in both positive imagery[3] and negative imagery,[4] but in both uses it is a symbol of power. There will be a new power that will arise for the house of Israel. This may be a hope for a renewed line of David, as in Psalm 132, but that type of Davidic/kingly expectation is not explicit here. What is explicit is that the prophet will now have his lips opened by God to be a messenger of hope among the people and the people will know the LORD. God’s actions against the nations are a portion of Israel’s renewed knowledge of the LORD.

[1] Josephus indicates that Nebuchadrezzar slew Hophra while Herodotus indicates that his own general, Amasis, kills Pharoah Hophra.

[2] Success depends upon the criteria used. Nebuchadrezzar, and most ancient kings, would view success as continuing to bring wealth and resources to themselves and the empire. The bible’s evaluation of the kings of Israel is on a completely different basis. See my comments on 1 Kings 11.

[3] For example, Psalm 132:17, “There I will cause a horn to sprout up for David;”

[4] For example, the blasphemous horn of Daniel 8.