13‘For thus says the Lord GOD, “At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered. 14“I will turn the fortunes of Egypt and make them return to the land of Pathros, to the land of their origin, and there they will be a lowly kingdom. 15“It will be the lowest of the kingdoms, and it will never again lift itself up above the nations. And I will make them so small that they will not rule over the nations. 16“And it will never again be the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing to mind the iniquity of their having turned to Egypt. Then they will know that I am the Lord GOD.”’”

      17Now in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the word of the LORD came to me saying, 18“Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army labor hard against Tyre; every head was made bald and every shoulder was rubbed bare. But he and his army had no wages from Tyre for the labor that he had performed against it.” 19Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And he will carry off her wealth and capture her spoil and seize her plunder; and it will be wages for his army. 20“I have given him the land of Egypt for his labor which he performed, because they acted for Me,” declares the Lord GOD.

      21“On that day I will make a horn sprout for the house of Israel, and I will open your mouth in their midst. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

Parallel Verses

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
"The land of Egypt will become a desolation and waste. Then they will know that I am the LORD. Because you said, 'The Nile is mine, and I have made it,'

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Egypt will become a wasteland and a pile of rubble. Then you will know that I am the LORD. You said, "The Nile River is mine. I made it."

King James Bible
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.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And the land of Egypt shall become a desert, and a wilderness: and they shall know that I am the Lord: because thou hast said: The river is mine, and I made

Darby Bible Translation
And the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste: and they shall know that I am Jehovah, because he saith, The river is mine, and I made it.

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

Webster's Bible Translation
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.

World English Bible
The land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste; and they shall know that I am Yahweh. Because he has said, 'The river is mine, and I have made it;'

Young's Literal Translation
And the land of Egypt hath been for a desolation and a waste, And they have known that I am Jehovah. Because he said: The flood is mine, and I made it.

Cross References

Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.

Proverbs 18:12 Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, But humility goes before honor.

Ezekiel 29:3 "Speak and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, The great monster that lies in the midst of his rivers, That has said, 'My Nile is mine, and I myself have made it.'

Ezekiel 29:10 therefore, behold, I am against you and against your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Syene and even to the border of Ethiopia.

Ezekiel 30:7 "They will be desolate In the midst of the desolated lands; And her cities will be In the midst of the devastated cities.

Ezekiel 30:8 "And they will know that I am the LORD, When I set a fire in Egypt And all her helpers are broken.

Ezekiel 30:12 "Moreover, I will make the Nile canals dry And sell the land into the hands of evil men. And I will make the land desolate And all that is in it, By the hand of strangers; I the LORD have spoken."

Commentary

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

Verses 8-16

This explains the foregoing prediction, which was figurative, and looks something further. Here is a prophecy,

I. Of the ruin of Egypt. The threatening of this is very full and particular; and the sin for which this ruin shall be brought upon them is their pride, v. 9. They said, The river is mine and I have made it; therefore their land shall spue them out. 1. God is against them, both against the king and against the people, against thee and against thy rivers. Waters signify people and multitudes, Rev. 17:15. 2. Multitudes of them shall be cut off by the sword of war, a sword which God will bring upon them to destroy both man and beast, the sword of civil war. 3. The country shall be depopulated. The land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste (v. 9), the country not cultivated, the cities not inhabited. The wealth of both was their pride, and that God will take away. It shall be utterly waste (wastes of waste, so the margin reads it), and desolate (v. 10); neither men nor beasts shall pass through it, nor shall it be inhabited (v. 11); it shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are so, v. 12. This was the effect not so much of those wars spoken of before, which were made by them, but of the war which the king of Babylon made upon them. It shall be desolate from one end of the land to the other, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. The sin of pride is enough to ruin a whole nation. 4. The people shall be dispersed and scattered among the nations (v. 12), so that those who thought the balance of power was in their hand should now become a contemptible people. Such a fall does a haughty spirit go before.

II. Of the restoration of Egypt after awhile, v. 13. Egypt shall lie desolate forty years (v. 12) and then I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, v. 14. Some date the forty years from Nebuchadnezzar's destroying Egypt, others from the desolation of Egypt some time before; however, they end about the first year of Cyrus, when the seventy years' captivity of Judah ended, or soon after. Then this prediction was accomplished, 1. That God will gather the Egyptians out of all the countries into which they were dispersed, and make them to return to the land of their habitation, and give them a settlement there again, v. 14. Note, Though God will find out a way to humble the proud, yet he will not contend for ever, no, not with them in this world. 2. That yet they shall not make a figure again as they have done. Egypt shall be a kingdom again, but it shall be the basest of the kingdoms (v. 15); it shall have but little wealth and power, and shall not extend its conquests as formerly; it shall be the tail of the nations, and not the head. It is a mercy that it shall become a kingdom again, but, to humble it, it shall be a despicable kingdom; it shall be a long time before it recover any thing like its ancient lustre. For two reasons it shall be thus mortified:-(1.) That it may not domineer over its neighbours, that it may not exalt itself above the nations, nor rule over the nations, as it has done, but that it may know what it is to be low and despised. Note, Those who abuse their power will justly be stripped of it; and God, as King of nations, will find out a way to maintain the injured rights and liberties, not only of his own, but of other nations. (2.) That it may not deceive the people of God (v. 16): It shall no more be the confidence of the house of Israel; they shall no more be in temptation to trust in it as they have done, which is a sin that brings their iniquity to remembrance, that is, provokes God to punish them not for that only, but for all their other sins. Or it puts them in mind of their idolatries to return to them, when they look to the idolaters, to repose a confidence in them. Note, The creatures we confide in are often therefore ruined, because there is no other way effectually to cure us of our confidence in them. Rather than Israel shall be ensnared again, the whole land of Egypt shall be laid waste. He that once gave Egypt for their ransom (Isa. 43:3) will now give Egypt for their cure; and it shall be destroyed rather than Israel shall not in this particular be reformed. God, not only in justice, but in wisdom and goodness to us, breaks those creature-stays which we lean too much upon, and makes them to be no more, that they may be no more our confidence.

Calvin's Commentary

44. And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have wrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.

44. Et cognoscetis quod ego Iehovah, cum fecero vobiscum propter nomen meum, non secundum vias vestras malas, et secundum opera vestra corrupta, domus Israel, dicit Dominator Iehovah.

Here at length God pronounces that his glory would be chiefly conspicuous in the pity which he bestowed upon those who were desperate and abandoned, gratuitously and solely with respect to his own name. Hence Paul so specially celebrates; the grace of God in the first chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians, as that mercy by which God deigns to call his own elect in a peculiar sense -- his glory; for his glory extends farther than his pity. (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14.)

As thy name, so thy praise is extended through all lands, (Psalm 48:10)

for God deserves no less glory when he destroys the wicked than when he pities his own people. But Paul calls that gratuitous favor glory par excellence, by which God embraced his own elect when he adopted them. So also it is said in this passage, then you shall know that I am Jehovah, since I shall deal with you on behalf of my name, and not according to your sins. But when God wishes his glory to shine conspicuously in gratuitous pity, hence we gather that the enemies of his glory were too gross and open, who obscure his mercy, or extenuate it, or as far as they can, endeavor to reduce it to nothing. But we know the teaching of the papacy to be that God's gratuitous goodness either is buried or enfolded in dark obscurity, or utterly vanish away: for they have invented a system of general merits which they oppose to God's gratuitous favor. For they distinguish merits into preparations, good works acquiring God's favor, and satisfactions, by which they buy off the penalties to which they were subjected. Afterwards they add what they call the suffrages of the saints; for they fabricate for themselves numberless patrons, and various reasonings are concocted for the purpose of obscuring God's glory, or at least of allowing only a few sparks to be visible. Since therefore the whole papacy tends that way, we see that they professedly oppose God's glory, and those who defend such abominations are sworn enemies of God's glory.

For ourselves, then, let. us learn that we cannot otherwise worship God with acceptance unless we adopt whatever pleases him as pertaining to our salvation. For if we wish to come to a debtor and creditor account, or to consider that he is in the slightest degree indebted to us, we in this way diminish his glory, and as far as is in our power we despoil ourselves of that inestimable privilege which the Prophet now commends. Hence let us desire to acknowledge God in this way, since he treats us with amazing clemency and pity out of regard for his own name, and not according to our sins. And since that was said to his ancient people because they returned to the land of Canaan, how much more ought God's gratuitous goodness to be extolled by us, when his heavenly kingdom is at this day open to us, and when he openly calls us to himself in heaven, and to the hope of that happy immortality which has been obtained for us through Christ?
PRAYER.

Grant, Almighty God, since we have already entered in hope upon the threshold of our eternal inheritance, and know that there is a certain mansion for us in heaven after Christ has been received there, who is our head, and the first-fruits of our salvation: Grant, I say, that we may proceed more and more in the course of thy holy calling until at length we reach the goal, and so enjoy that eternal glory of which you afford us a taste in this world, by the same Christ our Lord. -- Amen.

PRAISE TO GOD.

After finishing this last Lecture, that most illustrious man, John Calvin, the Divine, who had previously been sick, then began to be so much weaker that he was compelled to recline on a couch, and could no longer proceed with the explanation of Ezekiel. This accounts for his stopping at the close of the Twentieth Chapter, and not finishing the work so auspiciously begun. Nothing remains, kind Reader, but that you receive most favorably and graciously what is now sent forth to the world.

Links

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