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Eze 32:1-32.

TWO ELEGIES OVER PHARAOH, ONE DELIVERED ON THE FIRST DAY

(Eze 32:1),

THE OTHER ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF THE SAME MONTH, THE TWELFTH OF THE TWELFTH YEAR.

1. The twelfth year from the carrying away of Jehoiachin; Jerusalem was by this time overthrown, and Amasis was beginning his revolt against Pharaoh-hophra.

2. Pharaoh--"Phra" in Burmah, signifies the king, high priest, and idol.

whale--rather, any monster of the waters; here, the crocodile of the Nile. Pharaoh is as a lion on dry land, a crocodile in the waters; that is, an object of terror everywhere.

camest forth with thy rivers--"breakest forth" [FAIRBAIRN]. The antithesis of "seas" and "rivers" favors GROTIUS rendering, "Thou camest forth from the sea into the rivers"; that is, from thy own empire into other states. However, English Version is favored by the "thy": thou camest forth with thy rivers (that is, with thy forces) and with thy feet didst fall irrecoverably; so Israel, once desolate, troubles the waters (that is, neighboring states).

3. with a company of many people--namely, the Chaldeans

(Eze 29:3, 4; Ho 7:12).

my net--for they are My instrument.

4. leave thee upon the land--as a fish drawn out of the water loses all its strength, so Pharaoh (in

Eze 32:3,

compared to a water monster) shall be

(Eze 29:5).

5. thy height--thy hugeness [FAIRBAIRN]. The great heap of corpses of thy forces, on which thou pridest thyself. "Height" may refer to mental elevation, as well as bodily [VATABLUS].

6. land wherein thou swimmest--Egypt: the land watered by the Nile, the the source of its fertility, wherein thou swimmest (carrying on the image of the crocodile, that is, wherein thou dost exercise thy wanton power at will). Irony. The land shall still afford seas to swim in, but they shall be seas of blood. Alluding to the plague

(Ex 7:19; Re 8:8).

HAVERNICK translates, "I will water the land with what flows from thee, even thy blood, reaching to the mountains": "with thy blood overflowing even to the mountains." Perhaps this is better.

7. put thee out--extinguish thy light

(Job 18:5).

Pharaoh is represented as a bright star, at the extinguishing of whose light in the political sky the whole heavenly host is shrouded in sympathetic darkness. Here, too, as in

Eze 32:6,

there is an allusion to the supernatural darkness sent formerly

(Ex 10:21-23).

The heavenly bodies are often made images of earthly dynasties

(Isa 13:10; Mt 24:29).

9. thy destruction--that is, tidings of thy destruction (literally, "thy breakage") carried by captive and dispersed Egyptians "among the nations" [GROTIUS]; or, thy broken people, resembling one great fracture, the ruins of what they had been [FAIRBAIRN].