Ezekiel 32:16

16 This solemn warning will become a funeral song. The women of the nations will sing it to mourn for Egypt and all its people. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken."

Ezekiel 32:16 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 32:16

This is the lamentation with which they shall lament her
The Egyptians themselves, or rather they that are after mentioned. The Targum is,

``the prophet said, a lamentation is this prophecy, and it shall be for a lamentation;''

he was bid at the beginning of it to take up a lamentation, and now at the end of it he pronounces it to be one, and that it should be sung as such: the daughters of the nations shall lament for her;
either literally understood, it being the business and custom of women to say or sing the funeral dirge, or the lamentation at the interment of the deceased; or figuratively, the inhabitants of other nations. So Ben Melech and the Targum, ``the villages of the people shall lament her''; that is, the inhabitants of them, who were in alliance with Egypt, and under its protection: they shall lament for her, even for Egypt, and for all her multitude;
for the desolation of the land, and for the vast numbers of people that should be slain with the sword, or carried captive: saith the Lord God;
which is added for the confirmation of it; for what he has spoken shall be done.

Ezekiel 32:16 In-Context

14 I will let your waters settle and become clear and let your rivers run calm. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.

15 When I make Egypt a desolate wasteland and destroy all who live there, they will know that I am the Lord.

16 This solemn warning will become a funeral song. The women of the nations will sing it to mourn for Egypt and all its people. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken."

17 On the fifteenth day of the first month of the twelfth year of our exile, the Lord spoke to me.

18 "Mortal man," he said, "mourn for all the many people of Egypt. Send them down with the other powerful nations to the world of the dead.