The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 123

Ver. 3.-The great dragon. The wor<l is Ver. 8.-Behold, I will bring a sword cogno.te with tho.t used in Gen. i. 21 for the upon thee. The words are probably greo.t "whe.les," monsters of the deep. The 1ddressed to the nation personified rather "dragon," probably the crocodile of the Nile tho.n to the king. The sentence of doom (compe.re the description of "leviathan" in is now pronounced, no longer figuratively. Job xli.) he.d come to be the received pro- And the special guilt for which it w1s in- phetic symbol of Egypt (Ps. luiv. 13; Isa.. fflcted, a guilt which the nation shared with xxvii. 1 ; Ii 9). The rivers are the Nile- its ruler, ie emphatically repeated in ver. 9. branches of the Delta. My river is mine Ver. 10.-From the tower of Syene, etc. owu. The words probably imply that The Authorized Version is misleading, e.a Hophra., like his gra.ndfa.ther N echo, in hie Syene was itself on the border of Ethiopia. pla.n of a canal from the Nile to the Red Detter, with the Revised Version margin, Sea, had given much time and labour to /rum Migdol to Syene, ei,en to the border of irrigation works in Lower Egypt. The Ethiopia. The Migdol (equivalent to boast which rose to his lips reminds us of " tower") so named is mentioned in the that of N ebuchadnezzor as he looked on 'Itinerarium' of Antoninus (p. 171, edit. Babylon (De.n. iv. 30). He, like the kiugs Wo.fo.el), e.nd we.a about twelve miles from of Tyre and Babylon, we.a tempted to a self- Pdusium, and thus represented the northern apotheoaie, and thought of himself as the extremity of Egypt; e.a Syene, identified Creator of his own power. The words of with the modem .Assouan, represented the Herodotus (ii. 169), in which he so.ye tha.t southern, being the last fortified town in Apries believed himself so firmly established Egypt proper. The expedition of Pso.mmia in bis kingdom that there we.a no god thot against Ethiopia, e.s above, bad probably could cast him out of it, present a suggestive given prominence to the latter fortress. So parallel. taken, the phre.se corresponded to the Vere. 4, 5.-I will put hooks in thy jaws. familiar " from Dan to Beereheba " of J udg. So Herodotus (ii. 70) describes the wo.y in xx. I, eto. whioh the Egyptians caught the crocodile Ver. 11.-Neither shall it be inhabited by baiting a large hook with swine's flesh. forty years. It need ho.rdly be so.id that Jomard (' Description de l'Egypt,' i. 27) hietol'y reveals no such period of devastation. gives a similar account (comp. also ,Job Nor, indeed, would anything but the most xli. I, 2, though there the capture seems prosaic literalism justify us in looking for it. represented ns e.n almost impossible achieve• We a.re dealing with the language of B poet- ment ; probably the process he.d becomo prophet, which ie nAturally that of hyper- more familill.1' since the date of that book). bole, and eo the " forty years" stand, e.s, The fish tbnt stick to the scales of the perhaps, elsewhere (Judg. iii.11; v. 81,etc.), crocodile are, of course, in the interpre- for a period of undefined duration, and the tation of the parable, either the Egyptio.n picture of a land on wbich no m1rn or bee.at army ilself or the nations tbo.t had thrown sets foot for that of o. time of desolation, and themselves into allio.noe with Egypt, and consequent cesso.tion of o.11 the customary the destruction of the two together in. tro.ffio along the Nile. Such a period, there the wilderness points to some greo.t over- is reason to believe, did follow on the throw of the Egyptio.n army o.nd its auxi- conquests of Nebuchadnezzar. It is implied liuries, probably to that of the expedition in vers. 17-21, whioh carry us to B date o.gninst Cyrene (Herod., ii. 161) which led seventeen years later than that of the verse to the revolt of Amasis, o.nd which would with which we o.ro now dealing; and also take the wilderness west of the Nile ou in Jer. xliii. 10-12. Josephus (' Contra its line of mo.roh. The beasts of the field Apion,' i. 20) epeo.ks of Nebuchadnezzar ns and the fowls of the heaven (we note the ho.ving invaded Libyo.. The reign of recurrence of the old Homerio phrase, o.s Amaeie, which followed on the deposition of in 'Iliad,' i. 4, 5) should devour the car- Hophro., wo.e one of general prosperity e.s cases of tho slain, the corpses of the fo.llen rego.rde commerce a.ncl culture, but Egypt and prostro.te nation. oee.sed to be one of the grent world-powers Ver. 6.-A staff of reed unto the house of after the time of N obuohadnezzar and fell Israel. Ezekiel reproduces the fo.miliar eMily into the he.nds of the Persians under ima.ge of 2 Kings xviii. 21: Iso.. nxvi. 6. C11mbyscs. It ie noliceo.ble tho.t Ezekiel 'I'he proverb ho.d not ceased to be true, does not, like Isnio.h (xii:. 18-25), connect though the rulers were different. Here, the future of Egypt with o.ny Messianic o.gain, the imagery is strictly local. The expectations. reeds were ae oha.racteri:!tio of the Nile BB Ver. 12.-1 will soatter the Egyptfanl the crooodilos (Exod. i. 3; Job xl. 21). among the nations. As before, records are 'I'he image of the reed is continued in vor. silent as to o.ny such dispersion. All that 7, nnd the effect of trusting to its support we ca.n say is that such 11, deportation wo.s ill clcscribecl in dcta.i.l, 'Lllliforml1 the eeciucl of the conciuasts of 126 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL, [oH, xnx. 1-21.