Ezekiel 30:3

30:1-19 The prophecy of the destruction of Egypt is very full. Those who take their lot with God's enemies, shall be with them in punishment. The king of Babylon and his army shall be instruments of this destruction. God often makes one wicked man a scourge to another. No place in the land of Egypt shall escape the fury of the Chaldeans. The Lord is known by the judgments he executes. Yet these are only present effects of the Divine displeasure, not worthy of our fear, compared with the wrath to come, from which Jesus delivers his people.

For the day is near,.... The day of Egypt's destruction, the time fixed for it: even the day of the Lord is near; the day appointed by him, and in which he would make himself known by the judgments he executed: Kimchi observes, that, the same year this prophecy was delivered, Egypt was given into the hands of the king of Babylon: a cloudy day; or; "a day of cloud" (e); which was seldom seen in Egypt in a literal sense, rarely having any rain, their country being watered by the Nile; but now, in a figurative sense, the clouds would gather thick and black, and threaten with a horrible tempest of divine wrath, and of ruin and destruction: it shall be the time of the Heathen: both when the Heathen nation of the Chaldeans should distress and conquer others; and when Heathen nations, as the Egyptians, Ethiopians, and others, should be destroyed by them. The Targum is, "it shall be the time of the breaking or destruction of the people.'' (e) "dies nubis", V. L. Pagniaus, Montanus, Cocceius, Starckius.

(3) The time of the heathen.— The judgment upon Egypt is but an individual instance, and is symbolic of general judgment upon all merely worldly power. Her fall is one step in the general overthrow of whatever exalts and opposes itself to God. Very similar to Ezekiel 30:2-3 are the prophecies in Isaiah 13:6 ; Isaiah 13:9 ; Joel 1:13 ; Joel 1:15 ; Joel 2:2 ; Obadiah 1:15 ; Zephaniah 1:7 ; Zephaniah 1:14 .

Verse 3. - The day of the Lord . Here, as everywhere (see note on Ezekiel 13:5), the words stand for any time in which the Divine judgments manifest themselves in the world's history. Of it Ezekiel says, following in the footsteps of Joel ( Joel 2:2 ), that it shall be a day of cloud , i.e. of darkness and trouble; a day of the heathen , i.e. a time in which the heathen who had exulted in the punishment of Israel should know that the Lord was their Judge also, that he had his "day" appointed for them. Ezekiel 30:3

3 . the day is near ] The “day” of the Lord is never in the prophets a mere calamity or judgment from God. It is the time of Jehovah’s final interposition in the world to do judgment, to chastise evil, and give the crowning victory to his own cause. This day has a universal bearing: particularly, it falls in terror and calamity upon the heathen, the foes of Jehovah’s kingdom, but also upon the sinners in Zion, those who are at ease and settled on their lees ( Zephaniah 1:12 ), on the proud and the oppressors of the poor ( Isaiah 2:12 ). The presentiment of this day is common to all the prophets, and the knowledge of it exists among the people ( Amos 5:18 ). The feeling of its nearness, however, was awakened in various ways: either by great convulsions among the nations or calamities, in which Jehovah was so visibly operating that his final interposition seemed at hand (Isaiah 13; Zephaniah 1:7 ; Joel 2:1 ); or, by a moral condition of the world which it was felt he must intervene to chastise and put an end to (Isaiah 2, 3). Naturally the convulsions or calamities which awakened the presentiment of the nearness of the day passed over and the day was deferred, but this does not justify the supposition that the prophets mean merely a great calamity or judgment by the day of the Lord. the time of the heathen ] the nations , the foes of Jehovah’s kingdom and people, when Jehovah shall be revealed to them and they shall be judged.

The day; the time of such distresses, as never the like known by you. Near; it will begin in your overthrow in the Cyrenian and Libyan deserts in very little time next it will continue in your civil war, and finally end in the Babylonish conquest: some two years, and you shall be miserably routed in the deserts of Libya; immediately after the civil war for eleven years together shall waste you; and then Nebuchadrezzar’s forces will be upon you; so that, whereas there may be about sixteen or eighteen years between the prophecy and its fulfilling, here is thirteen or fourteen of them taken up with sorrows and afflictions, forerunners of the last. The day of the Lord; of the Lord’s sore displeasure against Egypt and its allies. Near; within two years, as is said. A cloudy day; a dark day, so times of trouble are called, whereas prosperity is a day of light. Troubles, like violent storms, are black. Of the heathen; of the Egyptians to be wasted, and of the Babylonians to waste them; the day of pride, cruelty, and revenges to the one, the day of falling, spoil, and destruction to the other.

Announcement of the judgment upon Egypt and its allies. - Ezekiel 30:1 . And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Ezekiel 30:2 . Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Howl ye! Woe to the day! Ezekiel 30:3 . For the day is near, the day of Jehovah near, a day of cloud, the time of the heathen will it be. Ezekiel 30:4 . And the sword will come upon Egypt, and there will be pangs in Ethiopia, when the slain fall in Egypt, and they take her possessions, and her foundations are destroyed. Ezekiel 30:5 . Ethiopians and Libyans and Lydians, and all the rabble, and Chub, and the sons of the covenant land, will fall by the sword with them. - In the announcement of the judgment in Ezekiel 30:2 and Ezekiel 30:3 , Ezekiel rests upon Joel 1:13 , Joel 1:15 , and Joel 2:2 , where the designation already applied to the judgment upon the heathen world by Obadiah, viz., "the day of Jehovah" ( Obadiah 1:15 ), is followed by such a picture of the nearness and terrible nature of that day, that even Isaiah ( Isaiah 13:6 , Isaiah 13:9 ) and Zephaniah ( Zephaniah 1:7 , Zephaniah 1:14 ) appropriate the words of Joel. Ezekiel also does the same, with this exception, that he uses ההּ instead of אההּ, and adds to the force of the expression by the repetition of קרוב יום.

In Ezekiel 30:3 , the words from יום ענן to יהיה are not to be taken together as forming one sentence, "a day of cloud will the time of the nations be" (De Wette), because the idea of a "time of the nations" has not been mentioned before, so as to prepare the way for a description of its real nature here. יום ענן and עת גּוים contain two co-ordinate affirmations concerning the day of Jehovah. It will be a day of cloud, i.e., of great calamity (as in Joel 2:2 ), and a time of the heathen, i.e., when heathen (גּוים without the article) are judged, when their might is to be shattered (cf. Isaiah 13:22 ). This day is coming upon Egypt, which is to succumb to the sword. Ethiopia will be so terrified at this, that it will writhe convulsively with anguish (חלחלה, as in Nahum 2:11 and Isaiah 21:3 ). לקח המנהּ signifies the plundering and removal of the possessions of the land, like נשׂא המנהּ in Ezekiel 29:19 . The subject to לקחוּ is indefinite, "they," i.e., the enemy. The foundations of Egypt, which are to be destroyed, are not the foundations of its buildings, but may be understood in a figurative sense as relating to persons, after the analogy of Isaiah 19:10 ; but the notion that Cush, Phut, etc. ( Ezekiel 30:9 ), i.e., the mercenary troops obtained from those places, which are called the props of Egypt in Ezekiel 30:6 , are intended, as Hitzig assumes, is not only extremely improbable, but decidedly erroneous.