John Gill Commentary Ezekiel 29

In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month

In the tenth year Jeconiah's captivity, and Zedekiah's reign. The Septuagint version has it, the twelfth year; and the Arabic version, the twelfth month; and the Septuagint version again, the first day of the month; and the Vulgate Latin, the eleventh day of it. This month was the month Tebet, and answers to part of December, and part of January. This prophecy was delivered before that concerning Tyre, though placed after it, because fulfilled after it, which gave Nebuchadnezzar Egypt as a reward for besieging and taking Tyre:

the word of the Lord came unto me, saying ; as follows.

Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt Pharaoh was a name common to all the kings of Egypt; the name of this king was Pharaohhophra, (Jeremiah 44:30), and who, by Herodotus ^F24, is called Apries: and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt; prophesy of his destruction, and of the destruction of the whole land that is under his dominion.

FOOTNOTES:

• F24: Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 161.

Speak, and say, thus says the Lord God
The one only, living, and true God, the almighty, eternal, and unchangeable Jehovah, which the gods of Egypt were not: behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt ;

who, though so great a king, was not a match for God, yes, nothing in his hands; nor could he stand before him, or contend with him; or, I am above you
^F25 ; though the king of Egypt was so high above others, and thought so highly of himself, as if he was a god; yet the Lord was higher than he:

the great dragon that lies in the midst of his rivers ;
the chief river of Egypt was the Nile, which opened in seven mouths or gates into the sea, and out of which canals were made to water the whole land; and which abounding with rivers and watery places, hence the king of it is compared to a great fish, a dragon or whale, or rather a crocodile, which was a fish very common, and almost peculiar to Egypt; and with which the description here agrees, as Bochart observes. He also remarks that Pharaoh in the Arabic language signifies a crocodile, to which he may be compared for his cruel, voracious, and mischievous nature. He is here represented as lying at ease, and rolling himself in the enjoyment of his power, riches, and pleasures:

which has said, my river is mine own, and I have made it for myself ;
alluding to the river Nile, which his predecessors had by their wisdom cut out into canals, for the better watering of the land, and which he might have improved, so that it stood in no need of rain, nor of the supplies of other countries, having a sufficiency from its own product. Though he chiefly designs his kingdom, which was his own, and he had established it, and made himself great in it. For the last clause may be rendered either, "I have made it," as the Syriac version, the river Nile, ascribing that to himself which belonged to God; or, "I have made them," the rivers among whom he lay, as the Septuagint and Arabic versions; or, "I have made myself," as the Vulgate Latin version, that is, a great king. So the Targum, 'the kingdom is mine, and I have subdued it.'

Herodotus says of this king that he was so lifted up with pride, and so secure of his happy state, that he said there was no God could deprive him of his kingdom ^F26 . This proud tyrannical monarch was an emblem of that beast that received his power from the dragon, and who himself spoke like one; of the whore of Babylon that sits upon many waters, and boasts of her sovereignty and power, of her wealth and riches, of her ease, peace, pleasure, prosperity, and settled estate (Revelation 13:2Revelation 13:11) (17:1) (18:7) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F25: (Kyle) "super te", Montanus.
• F26: Herodot. Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 169. & l. 11. c. 163.

But I will put hooks in your jaws
The allusion is to fishhooks, which are taken by fishes with the bait into their mouths, and stick in their jaws, by which they are drawn out of the river, and taken. The king of Egypt being before compared to a fish, these hooks design some powerful princes and armies, which should be the ruin of Pharaoh; one of them, according to Junius and Grotius, was Amasis, at the head of the Cyreneans and Greeks; and another was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; see (Job 41:1Job 41:2) (Isaiah 37:29) :

and I will cause the fish of your rivers to stick to your scales ;
the people of his kingdom, especially his soldiers, generals, princes, and great men, to cleave to him, follow him, and go out with him in his expedition against Amasis. The Targum is,

``I will kill the princes of your strength with your mighty ones:''

and I will bring you up out of the midst of your rivers :
alluding to the crocodile, to which he is compared, which sometimes comes out of the river, and goes on dry land. The king of Egypt was brought out of his kingdom by the following means: Amasis, with the Cyreneans and Greeks, having seized upon Lybia, and drove the king of it from thence, he applied to Pharaoh for help, who gathered a large army of Egyptians, and led them out into the fields of Cyrene, where they were defeated by Amasis, and almost all perished, and the king saved himself by flight; upon which the Egyptians mutinied and rebelled against him, and Amasis became their king:

and all the fish of your rivers shall stick to your scales ;
the common people of Egypt; for the above numerous army consisted only of Egyptians, whom he gathered from all parts, drained his rivers of them, and almost exhausted his country hereby; he had indeed in an army, after this battle with Amasis, thirty thousand auxiliaries, Carians and Ionians; but these were not the fish of his rivers. The Targum is, ``I will make your kingdom to cease from you, and all the princes of your strength with your mighty ones shall be killed;'' with which the history agrees.

The allusion to the crocodile is here very just and pertinent, which is a fish full of scales. Monsieur Thevenot ^F1 , who saw many of them, says, that ``the body of this fish is large, and all of a size; the back is covered with high scales, like the heads of nails in a court gate, of a greenish colour, and so hard that they are proof against a halberd; and it has a long tail covered with scales like the body;'' and another traveller says ^F2 they have scales on their back musket proof, and therefore must be wounded in the belly; but another traveller says ^F3, this is a vulgar report that a musket shot will not pierce the skins of the crocodiles, for upon trial it is found false; yet all writers, ancient and modern, allow it to have very firm scales on its back, which render it capable of bearing the heaviest strokes, and to be in a measure impenetrable and invincible; so Herodotus ^F4 says, it has a skin full of scales, on the back infrangible; or, as Pliny ^F5 expresses it, invincible against all blows and strokes it may be stricken with; and so says Aristotle ^F6 , with which Aelian ^F7 agrees, who says that the crocodile has by nature a back and tail impenetrable; for it is covered with scales, as if it was armed as one might say, not unlike to hard shells.

FOOTNOTES:

• F1: Travels, par. 1. B. 2. c. 72. p. 245.
• F2: Mandelsloe in Harris's Voyages vol. 1. p. 759.
• F3: Tavernier in ib. p. 835.
• F4: Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 63.
• F5: Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 25.
• F6: Hist. Animal: l. 2. c. 10.
• F7: De Animal. l. 10. c. 24.

And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee, and
all the fish of thy rivers
Where fish in common cannot live, but die as soon almost as out of the water, and on dry land, excepting those that are of the amphibious kind. This wilderness designates the deserts of Lybia and Cyrene, where the battle was fought between Hophra and Amasis; and where the Egyptian army perished, only their king, before compared to a crocodile, which lives on land, as well as in water, escaped.

The Targum is, ``I will cast thee into a wilderness, and all the princes of thy strength:'' you shall fall upon the open fields you shall not be brought
together, nor gathered ,
this is to be understood of his army; for what is proper to an army is sometimes ascribed to its head or general; which fell by the sword in the fields of Lybia and Cyrene and was so discomfited, that the remains of it could not be brought and gathered together again: or the sense is, that those that were slain were left in the open fields, and had no burial; they were not gathered to the grave, as Kimchi interprets it; and so the Targum, ``upon the face of the field thy carcass shall be cast; it shall not be gathered, nor shall it be buried:''

This was only true of the carcasses of the soldiers slain in battle, not of the king, who fled, and afterwards in another battle was taken by Amasis, and strangled in the city of Sais, where he was buried among his ancestors, as Herodotus ^F8 relates:

I have given you for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls
of the heaven ;
that is, his army; as the armies of the kings, beast, and false prophet, will be at the battle of Armageddon, when the two latter will be taken and cast alive into the burning lake, of which this monarch was an emblem, (Revelation 19:17–20) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F8: Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 169.