Ezekiel 32:16

16 It is a wailing, and the daughters of heathen men shall bewail him; they shall bewail him on Egypt, and they shall bewail him on the multitude thereof, saith the Lord God. (It is a wailing, and the daughters of the heathen shall bewail it; they shall bewail it over Egypt, and they shall bewail it over its multitude, saith the Lord God.)

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 Then I shall yield the waters of them cleanest, and I shall bring the floods of them as oil, saith the Lord God, (Then I shall let their waters settle and become clear, and I shall let their rivers run as smooth as oil, saith the Lord God,)

15 when I shall give desolate the land of Egypt. Forsooth the land shall be forsaken of his fullness, when I shall smite all the dwellers thereof; and they shall know, that I am the Lord. (when I shall make the land of Egypt desolate. And the land shall be deserted over all its fullness, when I shall strike down all of its inhabitants; and they shall know, that I am the Lord.)

16 It is a wailing, and the daughters of heathen men shall bewail him; they shall bewail him on Egypt, and they shall bewail him on the multitude thereof, saith the Lord God. (It is a wailing, and the daughters of the heathen shall bewail it; they shall bewail it over Egypt, and they shall bewail it over its multitude, saith the Lord God.)

17 And it was done in the twelfth year, in the fifteen day of the month (on the fifteenth day of the month), the word of the Lord was made to me, and he said,

18 Son of man, sing thou a song of wailing on the multitude of Egypt, and draw thou down it the same, and the daughters of strong heathen men, to the last land, with them that went down into the pit. (Son of man, sing a song of wailing, thou and the daughters of the strong heathen men, for the multitude of Egypt, whom I shall draw down to the last land, with those who go down into the pit.)