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Ezekiel 29 Commentary
by Brad Boyles
God would make His punishment very personal for Egypt.
Say that this is what the Sovereign LORD is telling the king of Egypt: I am your enemy, you monster crocodile, lying in the river. You say that the Nile is yours and that you made it. 4 I am going to put a hook through your jaw and make the fish in your river stick fast to you. Then I will pull you up out of the Nile, with all the fish sticking to you.
Ezekiel 29:3-4 GNB
Since the Egyptians worshiped crocodiles and lived in their rivers, God would set Himself far above these animals. The crocodile here most likely represents the king and the fish represent the nation as a whole. They were about to be pulled out of their native land (water).
I will throw you and all those fish into the desert. Your body will fall on the ground and be left unburied. I will give it to the birds and animals for food. 6 Then all the people of Egypt will know that I am the LORD.” The LORD says, “The Israelites relied on you Egyptians for support, but you were no better than a weak stick.
Ezekiel 29:5-6 GNB
Again, the personal twist here is that the Egyptians highly valued their desert land and their burial rituals. So, God would take them out of the water and place them in the sun. They would go unburied. This would have been extremely offensive to the Egyptians. But, this message was two-fold. Egypt was a land that the Israelites frequently ran to when they were in trouble. With these statements, God was illustrating that He was the One to trust in dark times. Egypt would crumble in His hands just like every other disobedient nation.