Ezekiel 29:1-5

A Prophecy Against Egypt

29:1 In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, ¹  the word of the Lord came to me: 29:2 “Son of man, turn toward ²  Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. 29:3 Tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Look, I am against ³  you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,

the great monster ⁴  lying in the midst of its waterways,

who has said, “My Nile is my own, I made it for myself.” ⁵ 

29:4 I will put hooks in your jaws

and stick the fish of your waterways to your scales.

I will haul you up from the midst of your waterways,

and all the fish of your waterways will stick to your scales.

29:5 I will leave you in the wilderness,

you and all the fish of your waterways;

you will fall in the open field and will not be gathered up or collected. ⁶ 

I have given you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the skies.

[29:1]  ¹ tn January 7, 587 b.c.

[29:2]  ² tn Heb “set your face against.”

[29:3]  ³ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

[29:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “jackals,” but many medieval Hebrew mss read correctly “the serpent.” The Hebrew term appears to refer to a serpent in Exod 7:9-10, 12; Deut 32:33; and Ps 91:13. It also refers to large creatures that inhabit the sea (Gen 1:21; Ps 148:7). In several passages it is associated with the sea or with the multiheaded sea monster Leviathan (Job 7:12; Ps 74:13; Isa 27:1; 51:9). Because of the Egyptian setting of this prophecy and the reference to the creature’s scales (v. 4), many understand a crocodile to be the referent here (e.g., NCV “a great crocodile”; TEV “you monster crocodile”; CEV “a giant crocodile”).

[29:3]  ⁵ sn In Egyptian theology Pharaoh owned and controlled the Nile. See J. D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament, 240-44.

[29:5]  ⁶ tc Some Hebrew mss, the Targum, and the LXX read “buried.”