Ezekiel 32:2

2 "Son of man, lament^[a] for Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: You compare yourself to a lion of the nations, but^[b] you are like a monster^[c] in the seas. You thrash about in your rivers, churn up the waters with your feet, and muddy the^[d] rivers."

Ezekiel 32:2 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 32:2

Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt,
&c.] Pharaohhophra, or Apries; say a funeral dirge for him; this is ordered, not out of honour and respect to him, or in compassion for his misery and ruin, but to assure him of it: and say unto him, thou art like a young lion of the nations;
for strength and fierceness, for cruelty and tyranny, which he exercised, not in one nation only, but in many; a lively emblem of the beast of Rome, spiritually called Egypt and Sodom, compared to a leopard, bear, and lion, ( Revelation 11:8 ) ( 13:2 ) : and thou art as a whale in the seas;
or rather "like a crocodile" ^F21, which was common in the rivers of Egypt, but not the whale; which also has not scales, nor does it go upon land, nor is it taken in a net; all which is said of this creature here, and in ( Ezekiel 29:3 Ezekiel 29:4 ) and to the crocodile there is an allusion in the name of Pharaoh, in the Arabic language, as Noldius from Camius observes ^F23; see ( Ezekiel 29:3 ) : and thou camest forth with thy rivers;
or, "by thy rivers" ^F24; as the crocodile in the river Nile, by the arms of it, or canals made out of it, sometimes went out from thence to other parts: or, "out of thy rivers" ^F25 upon the land, as the crocodile does; so the king of Egypt went forth with his armies out of his own land, into other countries, to disturb them, as follows: or rather, "camest forth in thy rivers" ^F26; as the crocodile puts forth its head out of the water for respiration: and thou troublest the waters with thy feet, and foulest their rivers;
just as the feet of men or beasts, in shallow waters, raise up the mud or clay at the bottom, and so foul them; this best agrees with the crocodile, which has feet; Grotius thinks, for this reason, the sea horse is intended; the meaning is, that Pharaoh with his soldiers entered other nations, made war upon them, and disturbed their peace and tranquillity. The Targum is,

``thou hast been strong among the people, as a whale in the seas, thou hast fought with thine army; and thou hast moved the people with thine auxiliaries, and thou hast wasted their provinces.''

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FOOTNOTES:

F21 (Myntk) "similis es crocodile", Noldius, Ebr. Concord. Part. p. 375.
F23 Ibid. No. 1306.
F24 (Kytwrhnb) "per flumina tua", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Polanus.
F25 "Ex fluminibus tuis", Starckius.
F26 "In fluviis tuis", V. L. Piscator; "in fluminibus tuis", Cocceius

Ezekiel 32:2 In-Context

1 In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first [day] of the month, the word of the Lord came to me:

2 "Son of man, lament for Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: You compare yourself to a lion of the nations, but you are like a monster in the seas. You thrash about in your rivers, churn up the waters with your feet, and muddy the rivers."

3 This is what the Lord God says: I will spread My net over you with an assembly of many peoples, and they will haul you up in My net.

4 I will abandon you on the land and hurl you on the open field. I will cause all the birds of the sky to settle on you and let the beasts of the entire earth eat their fill of you.

5 I will put your flesh on the mountains and fill the valleys with your carcass.

Footnotes

• [a] Ezk 19:1; 27:2; 28:12
• [b] Or Lion of the nations, you are destroyed;
• [c] Isa 27:1; 51:9; Jr 51:34
• [d] Lit their