Ezekiel 32:16

16 This [is] the lamentation with which they shall lament her: the daughters of the nations shall lament her: they shall lament for her, [even] for Egypt, and for all her 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 will I make their waters deep, and cause their rivers to run like oil, saith the Lord GOD.

15 When I shall make the land of Egypt desolate, and the country shall be destitute of that of which it was full, when I shall smite all them that dwell in it, then shall they know that I [am] the LORD.

16 This [is] the lamentation with which they shall lament her: the daughters of the nations shall lament her: they shall lament for her, [even] for Egypt, and for all her multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

17 It came to pass also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth [day] of the month, [that] the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

18 Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, [even] her, and the daughters of the famous nations, to the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.