Reflections on Ezekiel 29

Ezekiel 29 (Contemporary English Version)
1. Ten years after King Jehoiachin and the rest of us had been led away as prisoners to Babylonia, the LORD spoke to me on the twelfth day of the tenth month. He said:
   
2. Ezekiel, son of man, condemn the king of Egypt. Tell him and his people
   
3. that I am saying: King of Egypt, you were like a giant crocodile lying in a river. You acted as though you owned the Nile and made it for yourself. But now I, the LORD God, am your enemy!
   
4. I will put a hook in your jaw and pull you out of the water, and all the fish in your river will stick to your scaly body.
   
5. I'll throw you and the fish into the desert, and your body will fall on the hard ground. You will be left unburied, and wild animals and birds will eat your flesh.
   
6. Then everyone in Egypt will know that I am the LORD. You and your nation refused to help the people of Israel and were nothing more than a broken stick.
   
7. When they reached out to you for support, you broke in half, cutting their arms and making them fall.
   
8. So I, the LORD God, will send troops to attack you, king of Egypt. They will kill your people and livestock,
   
9. until your land is a barren desert. Then you will know that I have done these things. You claimed that you made the Nile River and control it.
   
10. Now I am turning against you and your river. Your nation will be nothing but an empty wasteland all the way from the town of Migdol in the north to Aswan in the south, and as far as the border of Ethiopia.
    
11. No human or animal will even dare travel through Egypt, because no sign of life will be found there for forty years.
    
12. It will be the most barren place on earth. Every city in Egypt will lie in ruins during those forty years, and I will scatter your people throughout the nations of the world.
    
13. Then after those forty years have passed, I will bring your people back from the places where I scattered them.
    
14. They will once again live in their homeland in southern Egypt. But they will be a weak kingdom
    
15. and won't ever be strong enough to rule nations, as they did in the past.
    
16. My own people Israel will never again depend on your nation. In fact, when the Israelites remember what happened to you Egyptians, they will realize how wrong they were to turn to you for help. Then the Israelites will know that I, the LORD God, did these things.
    
17. Twenty-seven years after King Jehoiachin and the rest of us had been led away as prisoners to Babylonia, the LORD spoke to me on the first day of the first month. He said:
    
18. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia has attacked the city of Tyre. He forced his soldiers to carry so many heavy loads that their heads were rubbed bald, and their shoulders were red and sore. Nebuchadnezzar and his army still could not capture the city.
    
19. So now I will hand over the nation of Egypt to him. He will take Egypt's valuable treasures and give them to his own troops.
    
20. Egypt will be his reward, because he and his army have been following my orders. I, the LORD God, have spoken.
    
21. Ezekiel, when Egypt is defeated, I will make the people of Israel strong, and I will give you the power to speak to them. Then they will know that I, the LORD, have done these things.
    
    

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    The focus of God's judgment now turns to Egypt. Egypt's sin was proving to be an unreliable ally to Judah. In so doing, Egypt enabled Judah's fall. Therefore, Egypt would be humbled so that Judah would never again look to Egypt for help instead of God. Judah sinned by looking to Egypt for help instead of God, but Egypt sinned by encouraging an alliance she would not honor, hoping to take advantage of Judah's plight.
    
    While God was judging Egypt He would also deal with Pharaoh's perception of himself as a god. He thought of himself as a god and of the Nile as his creation. But God would "put hooks in your jaws" and "haul you up from the middle of your Nile." (29:4) Pharoah, the "monster lying in the middle of his Nile," along with "the fish of your streams," which was the people of Egypt, would find themselves no longer along a fertile Nile but in a desolate desert. When this happened they would no longer think of Pharoah as a god but "all the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am the LORD." (29:6)
    
    As happened with Judah, Egypt would be exiled. While Judah's exile was to last 70 years, Egypt's lasted 40 years. But when Egypt was restored, she would be only a "Lowly kingdom" that would "never again be an object of trust for the house of Israel." (29:14 & 16) Egypt's fall would also come at the hand of the Babylonians. Since God was using Babylon to bring judgment on Judah and the surrounding nations, He would reward Babylon with the plunder from Egypt. The siege of Tyre lasted 13 years and once Tyre fell Babylon realized little plunder from it leaving Nebuchadnezzar without the usual means to pay his army. Therefore, Egypt was God's reward to Nebuchadnezzar that would enable him to pay his army.