BOOK 26 OF 66 · MAJOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Ezekiel 29

Ezekiel book home•Chapter 29 of 48•21 verses

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Ezekiel 29 Overview

Ezekiel prophesies against Pharaoh and Egypt, picturing the king as a great river monster claiming the Nile as his own creation. Egypt will be humbled and scattered, later restored as a lowly kingdom, and Nebuchadrezzar will receive Egypt as wages after his difficult campaign against Tyre.

EzekielBook

29Chapter

21Verses

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Before you read Ezekiel 29

Coming from

The LORD condemns the prince of Tyre for claiming godlike status because of wisdom and wealth, then raises a poetic lament over the king of Tyre using Eden and cherub imagery to portray exaltation corrupted by pride and trade. Sidon is also judged, and the chapter closes with hope for Israel’s secure restoration.

In this chapter

Leads into

A lament announces the day of the LORD against Egypt and her allies. Egypt’s military strength, wealth, cities, idols, and princes will fall through Babylon, while the LORD breaks Pharaoh’s arms and strengthens the arm of Babylon’s king so the nations will know who rules history.

Key understandingExplore deeper

Egypt’s ruler is condemned for self-exaltation and for being an unreliable support to Israel. The Nile imagery attacks the idea that Egypt’s prosperity and royal power are self-created or independent of the LORD.

The forty-year desolation/scattering language and the later restoration of Egypt have generated historical questions about exact scope and chronology. The clear interpretive center is Egypt’s humiliation from imperial pride to a permanently lesser international role.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Political powers can become idols when they claim self-sufficiency

Pharaoh speaks as though the Nile and its wealth belong to him by creative right.

False allies can wound those who lean on them

Egypt is compared to a staff of reed that breaks and injures Israel.

God can assign the spoils of one campaign as compensation for another

Nebuchadrezzar’s service against Tyre and reward in Egypt display divine rule over imperial labor and reward.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Isaiah 36:6

Rabshakeh also calls Egypt a broken reed that pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it.

Jeremiah 46

Jeremiah delivers a major oracle against Egypt and Pharaoh’s military power.

Ezekiel 17:15-18

Zedekiah’s attempt to obtain Egyptian military help had already been condemned as both political folly and oath-breaking.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not present one disputed reconstruction of Egypt’s forty-year desolation as though Scripture itself supplies every chronological detail.

The prophecy’s theological direction is clear even where historians debate the precise extent or dating.

Do not infer that God morally approves everything Nebuchadrezzar does.

He can use Babylon as an instrument and speak of its service while elsewhere judging imperial pride and violence.

Read Ezekiel 29 watching for…

Pharaoh as the great river creature

the boast concerning the Nile

Egypt as a broken reed for Israel

scattering and later lowly restoration

Nebuchadrezzar receiving Egypt as wages

Chapter outline3 sections

1-7Pharaoh is pictured as a great dragon in the river and Egypt as an unreliable staff to Israel 8-16Egypt will be desolate, scattered, and later restored as a lowly kingdom 17-21Nebuchadrezzar is given Egypt as wages for his service against Tyre, and Israel’s horn will bud

In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt:

Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.

But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.

And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.

And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.

When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee.

And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it.

Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.

No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.

And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.

Yet thus saith the Lord GOD; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered:

And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom.

It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.

And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it:

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army.

I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord GOD.

In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

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Ezekiel 29:1

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