Ezekiel 32:23

Against the Moabites, Ezekiel 25:8-11 Section 3. Against the Edomites, Ezekiel 25:12-14, Section 4. Against the Philistines, Ezekiel 25:15-17 Section 5. Against Tyre, through Ezekiel 26, Ezekiel 27, and Ezekiel 28:1-19. Section 6. Against Zidon, Ezekiel 28:20-26 Section 7. Against Pharaoh, Ezekiel 29:1-7 Section 8. Against Egypt, Ezekiel 29:8-21 Section 9. Against Etillopia, Ezekiel 30:1-5 Section 10. Against the Upholders of Egypt, Ezekiel 30:6-19 Section 11. Against Pharaoh, Ezekiel 30:20-26 Section 12. Assyria as a Cedar of Lebanon, Ezekiel 31:1-9 Section 13. Its Fall and Destruction, Ezekiel 31:10-18 Section 14. A Bitter Lamentation over Egypt, Ezekiel 32:1-21 Section 15. A Bitter Lamentation over Assyria., Ezekiel 32:22, 23 Section 16. A Bitter Lamentation over Elam, Ezekiel 32:24, 25 Section 17. A Bitter Lamentation over Meshech and Tubal, Ezekiel 32:26-28 Section 18. A Bitter Lamentation over Edom, Ezekiel 32:29-32 These Utterances are all most vividly and graphically portrayed. Allegories, Metaphors, and Parables are most appropriately interspersed with fiery Denunciations and awful Threatenings in consequence of gross iniquities.

32:17-32 Divers nations are mentioned as gone down to the grave before Egypt, who are ready to give her a scornful reception; these nations had been lately ruined and wasted. But though Judah and Jerusalem were about this time ruined and laid waste, yet they are not mentioned here. Though they suffered the same affliction, and by the same hand, yet the kind design for which they were afflicted, and the mercy God reserved for them, altered its nature. It was not to them a going down to the pit, as it was to the heathen. Pharaoh shall see, and be comforted; but the comfort wicked ones have after death, is poor comfort, not real, but only in fancy. The view this prophecy gives of ruined states shows something of this present world, and the empire of death in it. Come and see the calamitous state of human life. As if men did not die fast enough, they are ingenious at finding out ways to destroy one another. Also of the other world; though the destruction of nations as such, seems chiefly intended, here is plain allusion to the everlasting ruin of impenitent sinners. How are men deceived by Satan! What are the objects they pursue through scenes of bloodshed, and their many sins? Surely man disquiets himself in vain, whether he pursues wealth, fame, power, or pleasure.

Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit,.... Or vault, where lay the king of Assyria, and those who fell by the sword with him, who are represented as lying in graves all around him; the nearest to him those who were in the highest posts, and most valiant and courageous, and next the common soldiers, as follows: and her company is round about her grave not Pharaoh's company round about the grave of the Assyrian monarch; but the company of the king of Assyria, or his army, as the Targum, round about grave; or lying about in the ruins of his kingdom: all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused terror in the land of the living; even they who now are in the state of the dead, and can no more disturb and distress any, while they were alive, or in the world, struck terror in all neighbouring states and kingdoms; threatening destruction to them, and obliging them to submit to their tyranny and exactions. Jarchi interprets this of the land of Israel; and the Jewish writers commonly understand by the land of the living the land of Canaan wherever they meet with it; because here men worshipped the living God, and lived before him; and the inhabitants of this land were often terrified by the king of Assyria. So the Targum, "because they ruled in the land of Israel.''

23 . sides of the pit ] i.e. the depths or bottom of the pit. caused terror ] Cf. Ezekiel 26:17 ; Ezekiel 26:20 . This phrase must mean that Asshur inspired terror into the nations by his might; to suppose that the meaning is that the fate of Asshur by the judgment of God caused terror (Hitz.) is altogether false, cf. Ezekiel 32:24-27; Ezekiel 32:32 . Ezekiel 32:23

In Jeremiah 25 there is an enumeration of nations destined to be subject to the fury of the Chaldaeans. Here we find those of them who had already fallen not named by Jeremiah. Asshur is the king of Assyria, representing as usual the whole nation. The king is surrounded by the graves of his people.

At least for decorum here is supposed a spacious vault, or pit, in midst whereof the king of Asshur in a stately tomb lies buried, and round about the vault are places to lay others dead with him, and in his cause, some of his more famous captains and commanders. Her company; the common subjects and soldiers of the Assyrian empire, all buried undistinguished about her: see Ezekiel 32:22 . Her grave: the ruins of an empire are its grave; and so all the subjects of this empire lie buried with it. Caused terror; were a terror to all they would be enemies to, and proudly boasted of and inhumanly used their power, now lie quiet, their dust little regarded, less feared, and least of all pitied. In the land of the living; while they were in the land of the living, a periphrasis of life.

Elam; the Persians, and their great, famous kings, who lived in former days. All her multitude : see Ezekiel 32:22,23 . All of them slain: see Ezekiel 32:22 . Gone down: Ezekiel 32:21 . Uncircumcised: see Ezekiel 32:21 . The nether parts of the earth: see Ezekiel 32:18 . Their terror: see Ezekiel 32:23 . Their shame God and man poured contempt upon them, and punished them for their pride, and turned their glory into shame, whose vices and miscarriages are more remembered than their noble facts and glorious achievements.

23. in the sides of the pit—Sepulchres in the East were caves hollowed out of the rock, and the bodies were laid in niches formed at the sides. Maurer needlessly departs from the ordinary meaning, and translates, "extremities" (compare Isa 14:13, 15). which caused terror—They, who alive were a terror to others, are now, in the nether world, themselves a terrible object to behold.

Second strophe. - Ezekiel 32:22 . There is Asshur and all its multitude, round about it their graves, all of them slain, fallen by the sword Ezekiel 32:23 . Whose graves are made in the deepest pit, and its multitude is round about its grave; all slain, fallen by the sword, who spread terror in the land of the living. - The enumeration commences with Asshur, the world-power, which had already been overthrown by the Chaldeans. It is important to notice here, that אשּׁוּר, like עילם in Ezekiel 32:24 , and משׁך in Ezekiel 32:26 , is construed as a feminine, as המונהּ which follows in every case plainly shows. It is obvious, therefore, that the predominant idea is not that of the king or people, but that of the kingdom or world-power. It is true that in the suffixes attached to סביבותיו קברתיו in Ezekiel 32:22 , and סביבותיו in Ezekiel 32:25 and Ezekiel 32:26 , the masculine alternates with the feminine, and Hitzig therefore proposes to erase these words; but the alternation may be very simply explained, on the ground that the ideas of the kingdom and its king are not kept strictly separate, but that the words oscillate from one idea to the other. It is affirmed of Asshur, that as a world-power it lies in Sheol, and the gravers of its countrymen are round about the graves of its ruler. They all lie there as those who have fallen by the sword, i.e., who have been swept away by a judgment of God.

To this is added in Ezekiel 32:23 the declaration that the graves of Asshur lie in the utmost sides, i.e., the utmost or deepest extremity of Sheol; whereas so long as this power together with its people was in the land of the living, i.e., so long as they ruled on earth, they spread terror all around them by their violent deeds. From the loftiest height of earthly might and greatness, they are hurled down to the lowest hell. The higher on earth, the deeper in the nether world. Hvernick has entirely misunderstood the words "round about Asshur are its graves" ( Ezekiel 32:22 ), and "its multitude is round about its grave" (the grave of this world-power), when he finds therein the thought that the graves and corpses are to be regarded as separated, so that the dead are waiting near their graves in deepest sorrow, looking for the honour of burial, but looking in vain. There is not a word of this in the text, but simply that the graves of the people lie round about the grave of their ruler.