1And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“Man, prophesy and say, Thus said the Master, the LORD:
Wail ‘woe’ for the day.
3For the day is near and the night is near for the LORD.
A day of cloud, a day of nations it shall be.
4And a sword shall come against Egypt,
and there shall be shuddering in Nubia
when the slain fall in Egypt
and they take off her abundance, and her foundations shall be ruined.
5Nubia and Put and Lud and all the mixed throng
and Cub and the people from the land of the pact,
they shall fall by the sword.
6Thus said the LORD:
The supporters of Egypt shall fall,
and the pride of her strength shall come down.
by the sword they shall fall within her
—said the Master, the LORD.
7And they shall be desolate among desolate lands,
and its towns among ruined towns shall be.
8And they shall know that I am the LORD
when I set fire to Egypt,
and all who help her are broken.
9On that day messengers shall go out before Me in ships to strike secure Nubia with terror, and there shall be shuddering in them on the day of Egypt, for look, it is coming. 10For thus said the Master, the LORD: I will bring an end to the abundance of Egypt by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia. 11He and his troops with him, the fearsome ones of the nations, are to be brought to lay ruin to the land, and they shall unsheathe their swords against Egypt, and they shall fill the land with the slain. 12And I will turn the rivers into dry land and give over the land into the hand of evil men, and I will make the land and its fullness desolate by the hand of strangers. I, the LORD, have spoken. 13Thus said the Master, the LORD: I will destroy the foul things and bring an end to the ungods from Noph, and no prince shall there be from the land of Egypt, and I will set fire to the land of Egypt. 14And I will make Patros desolate and set fire to Zoan, and I will execute punishments in No. 15And I will pour out My wrath upon Sin, the stronghold of Egypt, and cut off the abundance of No. 16And I will set fire to Egypt. Sin shall surely shudder, and No shall be breached, and Noph, the foes by day. 17The young men of Aven and Pi-Beseth shall fall by the sword, and the cities shall go into captivity. 18And in Tahpanhes the day shall go dark when I break there the staffs of Egypt. And the pride of her strength shall end within her. As to her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity. 19And I will execute punishments in Egypt, and they shall know that I am the LORD.”
20And it happened in the eleventh year in the first month on the seventh of the month that the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 21“Man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and, look, it has not been bound up to heal, to put a dressing on it to bind it for strengthening it to grasp a sword. 22Therefore, thus said the Master, the LORD: Here I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt. I will break his arms, the strong one and the broken one and make the sword drop from his hand. 23And I will disperse Egypt among the nations and scatter them among the lands. 24And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylonia and put My sword in his hand, and I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he shall groan as the slain groan before Me. 25And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylonia, but the arms of Pharaoh shall drop. And they shall know that I am the LORD when I put My sword in the hand of the king of Babylonia and he reaches it out against the land of Egypt. 26And I will disperse Egypt among the nations and scatter them among the lands, and they shall know that I am the LORD.”
CHAPTER 30 NOTES
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3. A day of cloud. Given the context of impending catastrophe, this is more than just a cloudy day. The day when God exacts retribution is here (compare verse 18), as in several other prophets, a day when the sky goes ominously dark.
4. shuddering in Nubia / when the slain fall in Egypt. The Hebrew features wordplay: “shuddering” is ḥalḥalah, “the slain” is ḥalal.
5. Nubia and Put and Lud and all the mixed throng / and Cub. These are all neighboring lands (though Cub has not been indentified) that were either allied with Egypt or provided mercenaries to the Egyptians.
the people from the land of the pact. The reference is somewhat obscure, but as part of a list of allies of Egypt, it probably indicates a country that had some sort of military pact with the Egyptians.
6. From Migdol to Seyene. As before, this is from north to south within Egypt.
8. all who help her. As with the “supporters” in verse 6, this is a term often used for those who provide military aid.
9. there shall be shuddering in them on the day of Egypt. This formulation conveys the idea that as retribution comes down on Egypt, it will engulf her neighboring allies as well.
12. I will turn the rivers into dry land. Again, “rivers” is literally “Niles,” meaning the Nile, its tributaries, and its canals.
14. No. This is a city in northern Egypt that at times served as a capital. “No” is a variant of “Noph”: the Hebrew sometimes uses one form and other times the other (e.g., in verse 16 below, as well as in Jeremiah 2:16).
15. the abundance of No. It should be noted that both here and in verses 4 and 10 above, the term hamon, “abundance” or “wealth,” can also mean “crowd.”
16. and Noph, the foes by day. The translation reproduces the obscurity of the Hebrew. Perhaps a preposition (“from,” “by”) was dropped.
18. Tahpanhes. Another prominent Egyptian city; like No, there are variant spellings in the Hebrew. This translation reflects that, sometimes using the spelling Tahpanes (e.g., Jeremiah 2:16).
go dark. The Masoretic Text reads ḥasakh, “hold back,” but many Hebrew manuscripts show the more plausible ḥashakh, “go dark.”
when I break there the staffs of Egypt. The staff is an emblem of sovereignty.
20. the eleventh year. This takes us back to 587 B.C.E. This historical moment, just before the final destruction of Jerusalem, seems to have been a time when Ezekiel was repeatedly moved to pronounce prophecies about the nations.
21. I have broken the arm of Pharaoh. The prophecy is a striking instance of the rhetorical strategy of resuscitating a dead metaphor. Repeatedly, “arm” is a term for “strength” or “power.” That is what it means here, but the literal sense of the word becomes salient: the arm is broken; it has been given no medical attention to heal it; dangling broken, it can no longer grasp a sword; then the other arm is broken, and the damaged one is broken a second time. The devastation of Egypt as a military power in this way is made painfully vivid.
22. make the sword drop from his hand. In keeping with the literalization of the metaphor of the arm, Pharaoh’s broken, pain-wracked arm, incapable of holding a sword, lets it drop from his grip.
24. And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylonia and put My sword in his hand. This is the final turn of the metaphor of the arm: while Pharaoh’s broken arms dangle, unable to wield any weapon, God makes Nebuchadnezzar’s arms strong and ready to grasp the sword. “My sword” does not refer to a divine or magical weapon but simply invokes the idea that the Babylonian king is acting on God’s behalf, or at God’s bidding.
26. And I will disperse Egypt among the nations and scatter them among the lands. One again sees the pronounced tendency in Ezekiel’s prose prophecies to deploy formulaic language and frequent repetition.