Ezekiel 32:25

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.

They have set her bed in the midst of the slain, with all her multitude,.... The grave is called a bed, Isaiah 57:2 , whereon is put the sepulchral chest or coffin, in which the body is laid, and rests as on a bed. It may here design a stately sepulchre or coffin in it, with a magnificent monument over it for the king of Elam, with his army, and the generals of it slain in battle, placed all around him, in less stately beds, coffins, and graves, as explained in the next clause: her graves are round about him; the king of Persia and his grave, surrounded with the graves of his soldiers and officers: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword: though their terror was caused in the land of the living, yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit; which is repeated for the confirmation of it: he is put in the midst of them that be slain; the king of Elam or Persia; he is laid among the slain, having fallen with them, and his grave is placed in the midst of them.

Verse 25. - They have set her a bed . The noun is used for the sleeping-place of the dead - the cemetery, if we trace that word to its root in Isaiah 57:2 ; 2 Chronicles 16:14 . In the rest of the verse Ezekiel reiterates what had been said in Ver. 24 with an emphatic solemnity. In the Hebrew, as in the English, there is a constant variation in the pronouns used, now masculine, now feminine, now singular. Ezekiel 32:25

25 . though their terror ] for their terror … and they have borne , &c. The verse is greatly a repetition of Ezekiel 32:24 , and is wanting in LXX., except the words “in the midst of the slain,” which are attached to Ezekiel 32:24 . The words “that are gone down to the pit” usually close the verse, Ezekiel 32:18; Ezekiel 32:24; Ezekiel 32:29-30 ; and if the verse be retained the last clause should probably be omitted as an accidental repetition of the first clause, due to the copyist’s eye straying from “pit” in 25 to “pit” in 24. The three words retained in LXX. cannot stand by themselves.

They have set her a bed in the midst of the slain with all her multitude: her graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword: though their terror was caused in the land of the living, yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit: he is put in the midst of them that be slain.

See the marginal referenc. Elam answers to the country known to the Greeks and Romans as Elymais, near Persia and Media. The Elamites were a fierce and warlike people. In the records of Assurbanipal his final triumph over Elam seems to have been one of his proudest boasts. Elam no doubt in the decline of Assyrian power again asserted its independence and was again crushed by the Chaldaean conqueror.

Some conceive the prophet may allude to the manner of burying with the Persians who had their coffins, or sepulchral chests, in which with balms and spices the dead were kept, and these chests placed in midst of places provided for them; in such is the king of Elam here placed with his slaughtered captains about him: see Ezekiel 32:23 .

Third strophe. - Ezekiel 32:24 . There is Elam, and all its multitude round about its grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who went down uncircumcised into the nether world, who spread terror before them in the land of the living, and bear their shame with those who went into the pit. Ezekiel 32:25 . In the midst of the slain have they made it a bed with all its multitude, round about it are their graves; all of them uncircumcised, pierced with the sword; because terror was spread before them in the land of the living, they bear their shame with those who have gone into the pit. In the midst of slain ones is he laid. - Asshur is followed by עילם, Elam, the warlike people of Elymais, i.e., Susiana, the modern Chusistan, whose archers served in the Assyrian army ( Isaiah 22:6 ), and which is mentioned along with the Medes as one of the conquerors of Babylon ( Isaiah 21:2 ), whereas Jeremiah prophesied its destruction at the commencement of Zedekiah's reign ( Jeremiah 49:34 .). Ezekiel says just the same of Elam as he has already said of Asshur, and almost in the same words. The only difference is, that his description is more copious, and that he expresses more distinctly the thought of shameful destruction which is implied in the fact of lying in Sheol among the slain, and repeats it a second time, and that he also sets the bearing of shame into Sheol in contrast with the terror which Elam had spread around it during its life on earth. נשׂא , as in Ezekiel 16:52 .

The ב in בּכל־המונהּ is either the "with of association," or the fact of being in the midst of a crowd. להּ refers to עילם; and נתנוּ has an indefinite subject, "they gave" equals there was given. משׁכּב, the resting-place of the dead, as in 2 Chronicles 16:14 . The last clause in Ezekiel 32:25 is an emphatic repetition of the leading thought: he (Elam) is brought or laid in the midst of the slain.