The last of the seven oracles against Egypt fittingly pictures the nation in its final resting place, the grave or Sheol, surrounded by other dead nations that had preceded it in judgment.
"The language is highly poetical and the details must not be taken too literally. This is not the chapter to turn to if one wishes to understand the Bible's teaching about the after-life. It does, however, illustrate something of the concept of death which was common to Near Eastern thought and from which the Old Testament was constantly striving to break free."422
32:17 Apparently Ezekiel delivered this oracle two weeks after the previous one, also in 585 B.C. The meter of this mourning song is two plus two rather than the three plus two meter of the more common funeral dirge (the qinahmeter). Thus while this lament is similar to the one in the preceding oracle (32:1-16), it is not exactly the same.423
32:18-19 Ezekiel was to wail for Egypt and the other peoples that would fall with her as people mourned when someone died. We can visualize these words being cried as people stood around an open grave. Even though Egypt had been unsurpassed in her beauty as a nation, she would lie in the grave with the most ordinary and barbarian dead nations. God would not favor Egypt over the other uncircumcised peoples that she proudly disdained.
32:20-21 Egypt would die as a victim of war, and her people would be scattered from their land. Nations already dead would speak of the demise of Egypt as the death of an uncircumcised (barbarian) people, namely, as a nation like their own.
32:22-23 Assyria and her allies were already in the grave having perished in war. Even though the Assyrians had struck terror into the hearts of other peoples in their day, they now lay in the grave while others viewed them and marveled.
32:24-25 The Elamites, another formerly mighty people who lived east of Babylonia, were also in the grave having died in warfare (cf. Jer. 49:34-38).424Ashurbanipal the Assyrian had destroyed Elam about 645 B.C. Both the Assyrians and the Elamites did not practice circumcision, and now the Egyptians, a circumcised people, would join them in the same grave. The end of Egypt would be no different or better even though they considered themselves superior to the uncircumcised nations of the world (cf. Gal. 5:6).
32:26-28 The nations of Meshech and Tubal in eastern Anatolia (modern western Turkey, cf. 27:13) along with their neighbors, other uncircumcised peoples, had also perished in war and were now dead powers. They had produced terrifying warriors, like the Nephilim, the ancient legendary warriors of Genesis 6:4, but they were not able to escape their fate, and Egypt would join them. It was customary in some countries to bury honored warriors with their swords and other weapons of war (v. 27; cf. 1 Macc. 13:29).
32:29-30 Edom is another example of a strong nation that had perished and joined the mass of humanity in the grave. Likewise the rulers of the North and the Sidonians, once terror-inspiring, were now dead. They too now shared their grave with the uncircumcised and their disgrace with other defeated and defunct peoples. The rulers of the North may be an allusion to the Phoenician coastal towns including Tyre.425But they may have been invaders who lived farther north, between the Black and Caspian seas.426
32:31-32 When Pharaoh died, he would see that his was not the only nation to suffer the fate that the Lord announced, and this would be of some comfort to him. Even though the Lord terrified him with the Babylonians while he was alive, he and his people would find some rest in death because they would lie with other peoples who had experienced a similar end.
The Egyptians took pride in their preparations for death and their burial customs thinking that these assured them safe passage to the nether world and rest there. But Ezekiel said they would die just like other proud, oppressive peoples, and their rest would be the common rest that all the dead enjoy, circumcised and uncircumcised alike.
"The oracles against the nations in Ezek 25-32 were originally delivered to the people of Judah. Although the words written seem to be solely for those particular nations, they are foremost for the people of Judah in Jerusalem and Babylon and serve at least three purposes. First, the oracles in Ezek 25:32 reveal God's judgment against the nations that either mocked or aided in Jerusalem's fall [cf. Gen. 12:3]. Second, as with both the king of Tyre and the Pharaoh of Egypt, God would throw them down from their self-elevated positions of power--there is no room for such arrogance and pride in God's creation. Third, the oracles are essentially a dismantling of the gods of the nations, which is in turn a dismantling of the gods Judah had begun to rely wrongly upon, and the proclamation that Yahweh is the one and only true God for all nations. . . . the phrase know I am the LORD' occurs nineteen times. The primary purpose of these oracles is that everyone should come to know the LORD.'"427
