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Ezekiel 32

KJV · Chapter 32/48

1And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

2Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas: and thou camest forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers.

3Thus saith the Lord God; I will therefore spread out my net over thee with a company of many people; and they shall bring thee up in my net.

4Then will I leave thee upon the land, I will cast thee forth upon the open field, and will cause all the fowls of the heaven to remain upon thee, and I will fill the beasts of the whole earth with thee.

5And I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains, and fill the valleys with thy height.

6I will also water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the mountains; and the rivers shall be full of thee.

7And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light.

8All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God.

9I will also vex the hearts of many people, when I shall bring thy destruction among the nations, into the countries which thou hast not known.

10Yea, I will make many people amazed at thee, and their kings shall be horribly afraid for thee, when I shall brandish my sword before them; and they shall tremble at every moment, every man for his own life, in the day of thy fall.

11For thus saith the Lord God; The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon thee.

12By the swords of the mighty will I cause thy multitude to fall, the terrible of the nations, all of them: and they shall spoil the pomp of Egypt, and all the multitude thereof shall be destroyed.

13I will destroy also all the beasts thereof from beside the great waters; neither shall the foot of man trouble them any more, nor the hoofs of beasts trouble them.

14Then will I make their waters deep, and cause their rivers to run like oil, saith the Lord God.

15When I shall make the land of Egypt desolate, and the country shall be destitute of that whereof it was full, when I shall smite all them that dwell therein, then shall they know that I am the Lord.

16This is the lamentation wherewith they shall lament her: the daughters of the nations shall lament her: they shall lament for her, even for Egypt, and for all her multitude, saith the Lord God.

17It came to pass also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

18Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.

19Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised.

20They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes.

21The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.

22Asshur is there and all her company: his graves are about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword:

23Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and her company is round about her grave: all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused terror in the land of the living.

24There is Elam and all her multitude round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth, which caused their terror in the land of the living; yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit.

25They 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.

26There is Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude: her graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused their terror in the land of the living.

27And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.

28Yea, thou shalt be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shalt lie with them that are slain with the sword.

29There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, which with their might are laid by them that were slain by the sword: they shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit.

30There be the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, which are gone down with the slain; with their terror they are ashamed of their might; and they lie uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword, and bear their shame with them that go down to the pit.

31Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword, saith the Lord God.

32For I have caused my terror in the land of the living: and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are slain with the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

A final lament over Pharaoh and Egypt describes them descending into the grave alongside other already-defeated empires — Assyria, Elam, Edom, and others — all lying together among the 'uncircumcised slain by the sword.'

Explanation

This poetic vision of the realm of the dead (Sheol) gathering great defeated empires functions as a picture of final equality: however powerful these nations may have been in life, they all end up in the same place of humiliation. The repetition of neighboring nations (Assyria, Elam, Meshech and Tubal, Edom) that had already fallen before Egypt serves as a historical catalog of empires the original audience would readily recognize. The central message, repeated throughout all the oracles against the nations (chs. 25-32), is that no human power, however great, is beyond God's judgment and sovereignty over history.

Fun facts

  • Elam was an ancient kingdom located in what is now southwestern Iran, with its capital at Susa, also mentioned in the book of Daniel as the setting of prophetic visions.
  • The term 'uncircumcised' used for the dead of foreign nations reflects the Israelite perspective that circumcision was a sign of the covenant with God, making its absence a symbol of being outside that covenant of protection.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Ezekiel 32:1A specific date (around 585 BC) opens a second lament over Pharaoh, still within the block of oracles against Egypt.
  2. Ezekiel 32:2Pharaoh is again compared to a crocodile stirring up the waters of his own river — the same image from chapter 29, reinforcing that the pride of dominating the Nile is exactly what will sink him.
  3. Ezekiel 32:3The image of a fishing net cast over the ‘dragon’ of the Nile, with the help of several nations allied with Babylon — it repeats the capture already announced in chapter 29.
  4. Ezekiel 32:4After being captured, the body is thrown onto the land to become food for birds and animals — the same image of unburied humiliation seen before.
  5. Ezekiel 32:5The ‘flesh’ scattered over mountains and valleys is a poetic exaggeration describing total destruction, covering the whole surrounding landscape.
  6. Ezekiel 32:6Pharaoh’s blood watering the land all the way to the mountains is a shocking image, meant to convey the scale of the predicted slaughter.
  7. Ezekiel 32:7Darkening the sun, the moon, and the stars because of Egypt’s fall is a common poetic convention among the prophets for describing a catastrophe as though the whole universe were reacting — it is not a literal astronomical prediction.
  8. Ezekiel 32:8The darkening of the sky — sun, moon, and stars — symbolically marks the end of an era, an image the prophets use whenever a great power falls.
  9. Ezekiel 32:9The news of Egypt’s fall would shock even distant peoples who had never had direct contact with it, showing the reach of its impact.
  10. Ezekiel 32:10Kings of other nations would tremble at seeing the sword used against Egypt, fearing for their own survival as they watched so great a power fall.
  11. Ezekiel 32:11It again identifies the instrument of judgment: the sword of the king of Babylon, the same agent named in the previous chapters.
  12. Ezekiel 32:12‘The terrible of the nations,’ the Babylonian army, destroy Egypt’s pride — repeating language already used in the earlier oracles against other nations.
  13. Ezekiel 32:13Egypt’s waters would be free of the people and animals that once stirred them — an image of an almost total emptying-out of life in the country.
  14. Ezekiel 32:14Calm waters running ‘like oil’ contrast with the earlier chaos — a stillness that here is a sign of death and abandonment, not of peace.
  15. Ezekiel 32:15The final refrain of this section: only when the land is truly devastated will everyone recognize who the Lord is behind the judgment.
  16. Ezekiel 32:16The text itself identifies as a formal ‘lamentation,’ a mourning-song pattern that other nations would repeat over Egypt’s fall.
  17. Ezekiel 32:17A second date within the same chapter, marking a new section: this is no longer prediction, but a scene of Egypt already descending into the world of the dead.
  18. Ezekiel 32:18The order to wail for the ‘multitude’ of Egypt, symbolically sending it down to ‘the nether parts of the earth’ together with other great nations already dead.
  19. Ezekiel 32:19An ironic question: why would Egypt be different, ‘passing in beauty’ beyond the other peoples who already ended up in this same place?
  20. Ezekiel 32:20A description of how Egypt, together with ‘all her multitudes,’ would be dragged into the same fate as those already slain by the sword.
  21. Ezekiel 32:21The warriors already dead, in the world of the dead, remark on the arrival of one more group of the ‘uncircumcised’ defeated by the sword.
  22. Ezekiel 32:22The list of already-defeated empires — Assyria, Elam, Meshech and Tubal, Edom — lying together in the world of the dead works like a gallery of the great empires that had already fallen before — Egypt is being warned that it will join this same list.
  23. Ezekiel 32:23Asshur (Assyria) is already there, its graves all around — a people that once caused terror is now among the dead like anyone else.
  24. Ezekiel 32:24Elam, a kingdom east of Babylon, appears on the same list of powerful nations that fell and are now in the same place, without any honor.
  25. Ezekiel 32:25It repeats the description of Elam, visually reinforcing the scene: graves arranged around one who was once feared by everyone.
  26. Ezekiel 32:26Meshech and Tubal, northern peoples in the region of Anatolia and the Caucasus, round out the list with the same fate: feared in life, without honor in death.
  27. Ezekiel 32:27A subtle contrast: even among the dead, these peoples do not receive the kind of rest given to honored warriors, because they had spread so much terror.
  28. Ezekiel 32:28It applies directly to Pharaoh the same sentence given to the earlier nations: he too would be broken and would lie among the uncircumcised.
  29. Ezekiel 32:29Edom, already judged in chapter 25, reappears in this final gallery of fallen nations, now with its kings and princes.
  30. Ezekiel 32:30‘The princes of the north’ and the Zidonians, already judged in chapter 28, round out the list of nations that now all lie in the same place.
  31. Ezekiel 32:31Pharaoh would see this whole company of defeated nations and find a bitter comfort in not being alone in this situation.
  32. Ezekiel 32:32It closes the chapter, and the entire block of oracles against the nations, repeating that the same terror caused in life ends in the same symbolic pit of the defeated.

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