Ezekiel 30:4

4 There will be war in Egypt And great distress in Ethiopia. Many in Egypt will be killed; The country will be plundered And left in ruins.

Ezekiel 30:4 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 30:4

And the sword shall come upon Egypt
The sword of the Chaldeans shall come upon the Egyptians, by which they should be cut off; it having a commission from the Lord for that purpose: and great pain shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in
Egypt;
Ethiopia being a neighbouring nation to Egypt, shall be in a panic when it shall hear of the sword of the Chaldeans being in Egypt, and of the ravages made by it, of the multitudes slain with it; fearing it will be their turn next to fall into the same hands, and in the same manner; and the rather, not only as they were neighbours, but allies: and they shall take away her multitude;
that is, the Chaldeans shall carry captive vast numbers of the Egyptians; such as fell not by the sword should not escape the hand of the enemy, but be taken and carried into other lands. Egypt was a very populous country; according to Agrippa's speech in Josephus ^F6, there were in it 7,500,000 persons from Ethiopia to Alexandria, besides the inhabitants of the latter, as might be gathered from the tribute each person paid; hence they are compared to the trees of a forest that cannot be searched, and to grasshoppers innumerable, ( Jeremiah 46:23 ) , but now their numbers should be lesser: and her foundations shall be broken down;
either in a literal sense, the foundations of the cities, towers, and fortified places in Egypt, should be undermined and destroyed, and consequently the buildings on them must sink and fall; or in a figurative sense, her king, princes, magistrates, laws, and government, which are the support of a state, should be removed, and be of no more service.

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 De Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 16. sect. 4.

Ezekiel 30:4 In-Context

2 "Mortal man," he said, "prophesy and announce what I, the Sovereign Lord, am saying. You are to shout these words: A day of terror is coming!

3 The day is near, the day when the Lord will act, A day of clouds and trouble for the nations.

4 There will be war in Egypt And great distress in Ethiopia. Many in Egypt will be killed; The country will be plundered And left in ruins.

5 "That war will also kill the soldiers hired from Ethiopia, Libya, Lydia, Arabia, Kub, and even from among my own people."

6 The Lord says, "From Migdol in the north to Aswan in the south, all Egypt's defenders will be killed in battle. Egypt's proud army will be destroyed. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.

Footnotes

• [a]. [Hebrew] Cushite (Cush): [Cush is the ancient name of the extensive territory south of the First Cataract of the Nile River. This region was called Ethiopia in Graeco-Roman times, and included within its borders most of modern Sudan and some of present-day Ethiopia (Abyssinia).]