The seventh prophecy against Egypt Ezekiel 32:17-32. A funeral dirge founded on Ezekiel 31:18. The figure is the same as in Isaiah 14, where see the notes. In this dirge Pharaoh is especially addressed. The other nations are represented by their kings, the nations' overthrow being depicted by the king's body laid low in the grave.

The month - i. e., the twelfth (see Ezekiel 32:1).

In the twelfth year - Two of Kennicott's MSS., one of De Rossi's, and one of my own, (that mentioned Ezekiel 32:1), have, in the Eleventh year; and so has the Syriac, as before. This prophecy concerns the people of Egypt.

It came to pass also the twelfth year,.... Another prophecy of the like kind was delivered out the same year as before:

in the fifteenth day of the month; of the twelfth month, the month Adar, which is not here expressed, because mentioned before, Ezekiel 32:1, it was about a fortnight after the other prophecy. The Septuagint and Arabic versions read it,

"it came to pass in the twelfth year, the first month, the fifteenth day of the month;''

according to which this prophecy was before the other, which is not to be supposed.

Funeral-Dirge for the Destruction of the Might of Egypt

This second lamentation or mourning ode, according to the heading in Ezekiel 32:17, belongs to the same year as the preceding, and to the 15th of the month, no doubt the 12th month; in which case it was composed only fourteen days after the first. The statement of the month is omitted here, as in Ezekiel 26:1; and the omission is, no doubt, to be attributed to a copyist in this instance also. In the ode, which Ewald aptly describes as a "dull, heavy lamentation," we have six regular strophes, preserving the uniform and monotonous character of the lamentations for the dead, in which the thought is worked out, that Egypt, like other great nations, is cast down to the nether world. The whole of it is simply an elegiac expansion of the closing thought of the previous chapter (Ezekiel 31).

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

17. The second lamentation for Pharaoh. This funeral dirge in imagination accompanies him to the unseen world. Egypt personified in its political head is ideally represented as undergoing the change by death to which man is liable. Expressing that Egypt's supremacy is no more, a thing of the past, never to be again.

the month-the twelfth month (Eze 32:1); fourteen days after the former vision.

32:17-32 Divers nations are mentioned as gone down to the grave before Egypt, who are ready to give her a scornful reception; these nations had been lately ruined and wasted. But though Judah and Jerusalem were about this time ruined and laid waste, yet they are not mentioned here. Though they suffered the same affliction, and by the same hand, yet the kind design for which they were afflicted, and the mercy God reserved for them, altered its nature. It was not to them a going down to the pit, as it was to the heathen. Pharaoh shall see, and be comforted; but the comfort wicked ones have after death, is poor comfort, not real, but only in fancy. The view this prophecy gives of ruined states shows something of this present world, and the empire of death in it. Come and see the calamitous state of human life. As if men did not die fast enough, they are ingenious at finding out ways to destroy one another. Also of the other world; though the destruction of nations as such, seems chiefly intended, here is plain allusion to the everlasting ruin of impenitent sinners. How are men deceived by Satan! What are the objects they pursue through scenes of bloodshed, and their many sins? Surely man disquiets himself in vain, whether he pursues wealth, fame, power, or pleasure. The hour cometh, when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of Christ, and shall come forth; those that have done good to the resurrection of life, and those that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation.