1In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth of the month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“Man, set your face to Pharaoh king of Egypt and prophesy concerning him and concerning all of Egypt. 3Speak and say, Thus said the Master, the LORD:
Here I am against you, Pharaoh,
king of Egypt,
who said, ‘My Nile is mine,
and I made it for myself.’
4I will put the hooks in your jaws
and make the fish of your rivers cling to your scales
and bring you up from your rivers,
and all the fish of your rivers shall cling to your scales.
5And I will abandon you in the desert,
you and all the fish of your rivers.
On the surface of the field you shall fall,
you shall not be gathered nor taken up.
To the beasts of the earth and to the fowl of the heavens
I will give you to be eaten.
6And all the dwellers of Egypt shall know
that I am the LORD
inasmuch as they have been
a reed staff to the house of Israel.
7When they grasp you with the palm, you shatter,
and you crack every shoulder among them.
And when they lean on you, you break,
and you wrench all loins among them.
8Therefore, thus said the Master, the LORD: I am about to bring the sword against you, and I will cut off from you man and beast. 9And the land of Egypt shall become a desolation and a ruin, and they shall know that I am the LORD, inasmuch as he said, ‘The Nile is mine and I made it.’ 10Therefore, here I am against you and against your Nile and its offshoots, and I will turn the land of Egypt into ruins, desolate parched ground, from Migdol to Seyene and to the border of Nubia. 11No human foot shall pass over it, and no beast’s foot shall pass over it, and it shall be unsettled for forty years. 12And I will make the land of Egypt a desolation among desolate lands, and its ruined cities shall be a desolation for forty years, and I will disperse Egypt among the nations and scatter them among the lands. 13For thus said the Master, the LORD: At the end of forty years I will gather Egypt from the peoples where they were dispersed. 14And I will restore the fortunes of Egypt and bring them back to the land of Patros, to the land of their origins, and they shall be there a lowly kingdom. 15Among the kingdoms she shall be lowly and shall no longer be raised up over the nations, and I will diminish them, that they not hold sway over the nations. 16And they shall no longer be for the house of Israel a place to trust, recalling crime when they turned toward them. And they shall know that I am the Master, the LORD.”
17And it happened in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first of the month, that the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 18“Man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia has made his forces labor mightily against Tyre. Every head is bald and every shoulder scraped. But no gain did he and his forces get from all the labor that he spent upon it. 19Therefore, thus said the Master, the LORD: I am about to give Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia the land of Egypt, and he shall carry away her abundance and take her spoil and seize her plunder, and she shall be gain for his forces. 20His wages for which he labored I will give him, the land of Egypt, for what they did to Me, said the Master, the LORD. 21On that day I will make a horn sprout for the house of Israel, and to you I will give freedom to speak in their midst, and they shall know that I am the LORD.”
CHAPTER 29 NOTES
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1. In the tenth year. This would be 587 B.C.E., roughly half a year before the conquest of Jerusalem.
2. Pharaoh king of Egypt. Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel saw a proposed alliance with Egypt against Babylonia as a self-destructive illusion, but Pharaoh, like the king of Tyre, is also excoriated for his overweening idea that he is a god.
3. the great crocodile. Although this same Hebrew word in Genesis and Psalms refers to a mythological sea beast, here it is the crocodile, whose habitat is the Nile, and who also is an emblem for Pharaoh. The “scales” or armor plates of the beast belong to the crocodile.
its rivers. The Hebrew is the plural of yeʾor, an Egyptian loanword designating the Nile. In biblical poetry it often has the general sense of “rivers,” although here the probable reference is to the seven tributaries of the Nile. “Rivers” in the following lines is again the plural of yeʾor.
4. make the fish of your rivers cling to your scales. This is a double disaster: the crocodile (Pharaoh) will be hauled out of the Nile after being caught with hooks, and the fish of the Nile—a vital source of sustenance for the Egyptians—will be hauled out with the crocodile, to die on dry land.
5. And I will abandon you in the desert. This is, of course, a place without water where neither the crocodile nor the fish can survive.
you shall not be gathered nor taken up. The probable reference is to being collected for burial. Not only will the crocodile-Pharaoh perish in the desert, but it will suffer the ignominy of denied burial and becoming food for scavengers.
6. a reed staff. The slender reed will of course break when a person tries to lean on it.
7. When they grasp you. The “you” is the reed, made clear in the Hebrew because it is masculine singular, like the word for “reed.”
you crack every shoulder. When the reed breaks, the shoulder of the person leaning on it as though it were a solid staff is wrenched. This is an image of the illusory trust in any alliance with Egypt.
you wrench all loins. Though the Hebrew haʿamadta looks as though it meant “made stand,” there is a reversal of consonants here (something Rashi already understood), and the meaning is the same as hamʿadta—literally, “cause to stumble.”
10. your Nile and its offshoots. While this is the same plural form for the word for “Nile” that is translated above as “rivers,” the pointed reference to “The Nile is mine” at the end of the previous verse is crucial, so the word “Nile” needs to be repeated. A very literal rendering would be “your Niles,” but of course there is only one Nile.
desolate parched ground. Egypt, watered by the Nile and its tributaries, was famous in the region for its lushness. Now it will become a desert.
from Migdol . . . to the border of Nubia. Migdol is on the northern border of Egypt, Nubia (Cush in the Hebrew) to its south.
11. unsettled for forty years. The formulaic number forty is invoked.
14. And I will restore the fortunes of Egypt. This amounts to an ironic use of this familiar phrase. When the fortunes of Israel are restored, it is returned in splendid triumph to its land. Egypt will be returned to its land, but only in a pitifully reduced state.
17. in the twenty-seventh year. This would be 571 B.C.E., making this the latest of all the precisely noted dates in Ezekiel.
18. Nebuchadrezzar . . . has made his forces labor mightily. Much earlier, Ezekiel had predicted the fall of Tyre. The siege had been very protracted (according to Josephus, thirteen years, but perhaps even longer), hence the laboring mightily of the troops.
Every head is bald. Although elsewhere this is translated as “shaven,” here it is not a sign of mourning but an indication that the soldiers are worn (or perhaps simply aged) through the long siege.
19. she shall be gain for his forces. The conquest of Egypt becomes a kind of consolation prize for the Babylonians. Unable to take Tyre, they are compensated—at least they have “gain” for their labors—by the opportunity to plunder Egypt.
20. for what they did to Me. The phrase is cryptic. It could mean “for what the Egyptians did in offending Me”; it could also mean “for what the Babylonians did in acting on My behalf.”
21. make a horn sprout. As throughout biblical literature, the horn—whether bull’s or ram’s horn—is an idiom for “strength.”
to you I will give freedom to speak. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “opening of the mouth.” The idea is that in the restored Israel the prophet will be able to speak without inhibition, and everyone will listen to him.