Ezekiel 32:31

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.

Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over his multitude,.... That is, when Pharaoh is brought to the grave, and into the state of the dead, he shall look about him, and see who lie by him; and he shall behold the above mentioned kings of Assyria, Persia, Idumea, and the princes of Tyre and Zidon, and all their mighty armies, generals and soldiers, in the same condition with himself; and this shall be some solace to him in his own death, and at the loss of so great a kingdom, such numerous subjects, and a vast army, that others as rich, as powerful as himself, lie in the same low and miserable condition; though such comfort as this must be poor comfort indeed! and yet this is all the comfort wicked men have in hell, that they have company with them there: even Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword. Pharaohhophra and his numerous army slain by the sword of the king of Babylon. This explains who is meant by Pharaoh and his multitude: and that this would certainly be his case it is added, saith the Lord God; he hath spoken it, and it shall be done; whose words are continued in the next verse.

(31) Shall be comforted.— Comp. Ezekiel 31:16 . Here closes the series of prophecies against foreign nations. It is true that there are other prophecies against them in Ezekiel 35, 38, 39; but these, as already said, have much more of the character of promises to Israel than of simple denunciation of their enemies. The greater part of this series was uttered between the investment and the close of the siege of Jerusalem, a time during which the prophet was to be dumb towards the children of his people, and at the close of which his mouth was again to be opened. At this time, therefore, his prophetic gifts were appropriately exercised towards foreigners, and at the close, with the renewal of his instructions to Israel, a fresh charge is given as a sort of fresh induction to his prophetic office (Ezekiel 33:1-30).

Verse 31. - Shall be comforted , etc. (comp. for the thought, Ezekiel 31:16 ). That shall be all that he will have to console him. As before, other nations were comforted by the downfall of Egypt, so Egypt in her turn finds her comfort in their downfall. All are sharers alike in the fiend-like temper which exults in the miseries of others. Ewald and Hitzig, here as there, take the word as in the sense of "mourning over." As to the extent and manner in which the predictions of the chapter have been fulfilled, see notes on Ezekiel 29. - 31. Sufficient evidence has been given that Egypt was probably invaded and conquered by Nebuchadnezzar. The silence of the Greek historians, and notably of Herodotus, as to any such invasion goes for little or nothing. He could not read the Egyptian records, and derived his knowledge from the priests through an interpreter. They, after their manner, would draw a veil over all disasters, and so, while he records the revolution which placed Amasis upon the throne of Hophra, he is silent as to any invasion, and does not even mention the battle of Carchemish. Ezekiel 32:31

31 . comforted over all his multitude ] The Heb. order is: over all his multitude, slain with the sword, even Pharaoh and all his army, saith, &c. The words “slain with … his army” are wanting in LXX. On “comforted,” cf. Ezekiel 14:22 , Ezekiel 31:16 . Pharaoh will be “comforted” by the sight of all these nations in the pit, suffering the same humiliation as himself and his multitude.

Hophra shall go to them by a like destruction, and, as he saw them all ruined as he was, should be comforted, rejoice that others before him met with the same fatal end and whatever comfort this might be, it is all he shall ever have, did he know all those things and persons that are here represented and personated to us.

Sixth and last strophe. - Ezekiel 32:31 . Pharaoh will see them, and comfort himself over all his multitude. Pharaoh and all his army are slain with the sword, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Ezekiel 32:32 . For I caused him to spread terror in the land of the living, therefore is he laid in the midst of uncircumcised, those slain with the sword. Pharaoh and all his multitude, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - In these verses the application to Egypt follows. Pharaoh will see in the nether world all the greater and smaller heathen nations with their rulers; and when he sees them all given up to the judgment of death, he will comfort himself over the fate which has fallen upon himself and his army, as he will perceive that he could not expect any better lot than that of the other rulers of the world. נחם על, to comfort oneself, as in Ezekiel 31:16 and Ezekiel 14:22 . Hitzig's assertion, that נחם never signifies to comfort oneself, is incorrect (see the comm. on Ezekiel 14:22 ). נתתּי את־חתּיתו, I have given terror of him, i.e., I have made him an instrument of terror. The Keri חתּיתי arose from a misunderstanding. The Chetib is confirmed by Ezekiel 32:24 and Ezekiel 32:26 . In Ezekiel 32:32 the ode is brought to a close by returning even in expression to Ezekiel 32:19 and Ezekiel 32:20 .

If, now, we close with a review of the whole of the contents of the words of God directed against Egypt, in all of them is the destruction of the might of Pharaoh and Egypt as a world-power foretold. And this prophecy has been completely fulfilled. As Kliefoth has most truly observed, "one only needs to enter the pyramids of Egypt and its catacombs to see that the glory of the Pharaohs has gone down into Sheol. And it is equally certain that this destruction of the glory of ancient Egypt dates from the times of the Babylonio-Persian empire. Moreover, this destruction was so thorough, that even to the New Egypt of the Ptolemies the character of the Old Egypt was a perfect enigma, a thing forgotten and incomprehensible." But if Ezekiel repeatedly speaks of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon as executing this judgment upon Egypt, we must bear in mind that here, as in the case of Tyre (see the comm. on Ezekiel 28:1-19), Ezekiel regards Nebuchadnezzar as the instrument of the righteous punishment of God in general, and discerns in what he accomplishes the sum of all that in the course of ages has been gradually fulfilling itself in history.