Ezekiel 29:4-14

4 But I will put hooks in your jaws and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales. I will pull you out from among your streams, with all the fish sticking to your scales.

5 I will leave you in the desert, you and all the fish of your streams. You will fall on the open field and not be gathered or picked up. I will give you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky.

6 Then all who live in Egypt will know that I am the LORD. “ ‘You have been a staff of reed for the people of Israel.

7 When they grasped you with their hands, you splintered and you tore open their shoulders; when they leaned on you, you broke and their backs were wrenched.^[a]

8 “ ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will bring a sword against you and kill both man and beast.

9 Egypt will become a desolate wasteland. Then they will know that I am the LORD. “ ‘Because you said, “The Nile is mine; I made it,”

10 therefore I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush.^[b]

11 The foot of neither man nor beast will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years.

12 I will make the land of Egypt desolate among devastated lands, and her cities will lie desolate forty years among ruined cities. And I will disperse the Egyptians among the nations and scatter them through the countries.

13 “ ‘Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the nations where they were scattered.

14 I will bring them back from captivity and return them to Upper Egypt, the land of their ancestry. There they will be a lowly kingdom.

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Ezekiel 29:4-14 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 29

This chapter contains a prophecy against Pharaoh king of Egypt; and of the destruction of the land of Egypt; and of the restoration of it after a certain time. The time of prophecy is noted, Eze 29:1, the order to prophesy against Pharaoh, who is described as a large fish, lying in his rivers, and boasting of them, Eze 29:2,3, his destruction and the manner of it, Eze 29:4,5, the reason of it, his treachery to the Jews, Eze 29:6,7, hence the whole land of Egypt is threatened with desolation, from one end to the other, so as to be uninhabited by man or beast for the space of forty years, Eze 29:8-14, but shall not arrive to their former glory as a kingdom, nor be any more the confidence of the house of Israel, Eze 29:15,16, then follows a prophecy seventeen years after this, showing the reason why Egypt was given to the king of Babylon, Eze 29:17-20, and the chapter is closed with a promise of happiness to Israel, Eze 29:21.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 22

1. S 2 Kings 19:28; S Job 41:2
2. Ezekiel 38:4
3. S Jeremiah 8:2
4. S Jeremiah 7:33; Jeremiah 34:20; Ezekiel 31:13; Ezekiel 32:4-6; Ezekiel 39:4
5. S 2 Kings 18:21; Isaiah 36:6
6. 2 Kings 18:21; Isaiah 36:6
7. Jeremiah 17:5; Ezekiel 17:15-17
8. Ezekiel 14:17; Ezekiel 25:13; Ezekiel 32:11-13
9. S Jeremiah 46:8
10. Eze 30:7-8,13-19
11. S Jeremiah 21:13
12. S Exodus 3:22
13. S Jeremiah 46:19
14. S Exodus 14:2
15. Ezekiel 30:6
16. Isaiah 18:1; Ezekiel 30:4
17. Ezekiel 32:13
18. S Isaiah 34:10
19. S Jeremiah 46:19; Eze 30:7,23,26
20. S Isaiah 11:11; Ezekiel 30:14
21. Ezekiel 17:14
22. S Isaiah 19:22; Jeremiah 46:26

Footnotes 2

[a]. Syriac (see also Septuagint and Vulgate); Hebrew "and you caused their backs to stand"
[b]. That is, the upper Nile region