Ezekiel 32:2

Son 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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) As a whale.—Rather, a crocodile. (See Note on Ezekiel 29:3, where the same word is used.) A striking contrast is brought out in this verse which is lost in our translation. “Thou wast compared to a young lion of the nations,” i.e., their leader and glory; “but thou wast (really) like a crocodile in the seas,” stirring up and fouling the rivers, the sources of their prosperity.

Thou carmest forth with.—Better, thou didst break forth in thy rivers, referring to the crocodile basking upon the bank, and suddenly plunging into the stream and stirring up its mud.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

32:1-16 It becomes us to weep and tremble for those who will not weep and tremble for themselves. Great oppressors are, in God's account, no better than beasts of prey. Those who admire the pomp of this world, will wonder at the ruin of that pomp; which to those who know the vanity of all things here below, is no surprise. When others are ruined by sin, we have to fear, knowing ourselves guilty. The instruments of the desolation are formidable. And the instances of the desolation are frightful. The waters of Egypt shall run like oil, which signifies there should be universal sadness and heaviness upon the whole nation. God can soon empty those of this world's goods who have the greatest fulness of them. By enlarging the matters of our joy, we increase the occasions of our sorrow. How weak and helpless, as to God, are the most powerful of mankind! The destruction of Egypt was a type of the destruction of the enemies of Christ.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou art like ... - Rather, Thou wouldest be like to (others, "wast likened unto") a young lion.

And thou art - In contrast to what thou wouldest be.

A whale - Rather, crocodile (marginal reference note). Pharaoh should have been like the king of beasts, but he is a mere sea-monster. There is strong irony here, because the Egyptian king was proud of the comparison between himself and the mighty crocodile.

Seas - The word is often used of the waters of a great river, like the Nile.

Thou camest forth with thy rivers - Rather, thou didst burst forth in "thy rivers" as the crocodile does from the water into which he has plunged.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. Pharaoh—"Phra" in Burmah, signifies the king, high priest, and idol.

whale—rather, any monster of the waters; here, the crocodile of the Nile. Pharaoh is as a lion on dry land, a crocodile in the waters; that is, an object of terror everywhere.

camest forth with thy rivers—"breakest forth" [Fairbairn]. The antithesis of "seas" and "rivers" favors Grotius rendering, "Thou camest forth from the sea into the rivers"; that is, from thy own empire into other states. However, English Version is favored by the "thy": thou camest forth with thy rivers (that is, with thy forces) and with thy feet didst fall irrecoverably; so Israel, once desolate, troubles the waters (that is, neighboring states).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Take a lamentation: see Ezekiel 19:1 27:2.

Pharaoh; Hophra.

Like a young lion: of this hieroglyphic see Ezekiel 19:3,6.

Of the nations; among, or to, the nations round about thee, spoiling all thou canst, a cruel devourer abroad.

A whale; a crocodile, a devouring dragon in thy rivers at home, for there the crocodiles lay and did mischief, though sometimes they went down the river to the sea.

In the seas; that comes forth to seek prey and devour, so a lion at land, a whale, or crocodile rather, at sea, ravenous every where.

Camest forth with thy rivers; raisedst mighty armies, and didst lead them out against thy neighbours, as in particular, Ezekiel 29:3,4.

The waters; the people, kingdoms, and kings near thee.

With thy feet; with thy soldiers.

Fouledst their rivers; disturbed and muddied their pleasant clearness, and made them unfit to drink, i.e. did spoil all the pleasant and useful conveniences of thy neighbours.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt,.... Pharaohhophra, or Apries; say a funeral dirge for him; this is ordered, not out of honour and respect to him, or in compassion for his misery and ruin, but to assure him of it:

and say unto him, thou art like a young lion of the nations; for strength and fierceness, for cruelty and tyranny, which he exercised, not in one nation only, but in many; a lively emblem of the beast of Rome, spiritually called Egypt and Sodom, compared to a leopard, bear, and lion, Revelation 11:8,

and thou art as a whale in the seas; or rather "like a crocodile" (u), which was common in the rivers of Egypt, but not the whale; which also has not scales, nor does it go upon land, nor is it taken in a net; all which is said of this creature here, and in Ezekiel 29:3 and to the crocodile there is an allusion in the name of Pharaoh, in the Arabic language, as Noldius from Camius observes (w); see Ezekiel 29:3,

and thou camest forth with thy rivers; or, "by thy rivers" (x); as the crocodile in the river Nile, by the arms of it, or canals made out of it, sometimes went out from thence to other parts: or, "out of thy rivers" (y) upon the land, as the crocodile does; so the king of Egypt went forth with his armies out of his own land, into other countries, to disturb them, as follows: or rather, "camest forth in thy rivers" (z); as the crocodile puts forth its head out of the water for respiration:

and thou troublest the waters with thy feet, and foulest their rivers; just as the feet of men or beasts, in shallow waters, raise up the mud or clay at the bottom, and so foul them; this best agrees with the crocodile, which has feet; Grotius thinks, for this reason, the sea horse is intended; the meaning is, that Pharaoh with his soldiers entered other nations, made war upon them, and disturbed their peace and tranquillity. The Targum is,

"thou hast been strong among the people, as a whale in the seas, thou hast fought with thine army; and thou hast moved the people with thine auxiliaries, and thou hast wasted their provinces.''

(u) "similis es crocodile", Noldius, Ebr. Concord. Part. p. 375. (w) Ibid. No. 1306. (x) "per flumina tua", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Polanus. (y) "Ex fluminibus tuis", Starckius. (z) "In fluviis tuis", V. L. Piscator; "in fluminibus tuis", Cocceius.

Geneva Study Bible

Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say to him, Thou art like a young {b} lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas: and thou didst come forth with thy rivers, and didst {c} trouble the waters with thy feet, and didst foul their rivers.

(b) Thus the scriptures compare tyrants to cruel and huge beasts which devour all that are weaker than they and such as they may overcome.

(c) You prepared great armies.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. art like a young lion] Perhaps: wast likened to, though the construction is exceedingly hard (cf. Ezekiel 31:18). So far as the form of words goes the meaning might rather be: O lion of the nations thou art undone (Isaiah 6:5; Hosea 10:15), the root being another. The prophet has a fondness, however, for using the Niph. (Cf. Ezekiel 14:4; Ezekiel 14:7, Ezekiel 19:5, Ezekiel 33:30, Ezekiel 36:3.) The words can hardly mean: thou thoughtest thyself a young lion. Cf. Ezekiel 38:13.

and thou art] whereas thou wast as a dragon (monster) in the rivers, lit. seas; cf. Isaiah 19:5; Isaiah 27:1; Job 41:23. The construction seems to imply an antithesis between this clause and the previous one.

camest forth with] didst break forth in thy rivers. The term “break forth” is used of coming forth out of the womb (Psalm 22:9; cf. Job 38:8), and also of those in ambush breaking out of their hiding-place (Jdg 20:33). The term describes not the origin of the monster but his activity; cf. “didst foul.” Ew. conjectured for “in thy rivers,” with thy nostrils—thou didst spout (cause spray) with thy nostrils; cf. Job 41:18-20. The object of the verb is wanting here, however, and the verb though used of Jordan (Job 40:23) is employed intransitively. Cf. however, Micah 4:10.

their rivers] Or, streams—those of the waters. The vitality of the monster and his violent activity are suggested by his troubling the waters and fouling the streams. Cf. the opposite idea, Ezekiel 32:13-14.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - Thou art like a young lion; rather, with the Revised Version, thou wast likened unto a young lion. The two clauses of the verse stand in direct contrast to each other. Flatterers, orators, courtiers, had used the usual symbolism of the animal world. The King of Egypt was as the king of beasts. Ezekiel rejects that comparison, and likens him rather to the whale, the dragon (Revised Version), in the seas, i.e. to the crocodile of his own river (compare the use of the "dragon" for the King of Egypt, in Ezekiel 29:3; Isaiah 51:9). Ewald and Smend, however, translate, "young lion of the nations, thou art brought to naught;" but there is no adequate reason for abandoning the Revised translation. Troubledst the waters. As in Ezekiel 34:18, the act is used as the symbol of all selfish and aggressive rule, defiling the streams of righteousness and judgment. Thou camest forth with thy rivers. Ewald and Smend translate, "Thou didst spurt out the water," as describing the act of the crocodile when it raises its head out of the water as in the "neesings," or "sneezings" of Job 41:12, Hebrew [English version, 18]. Ezekiel 32:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The destruction of Pharoah. - Ezekiel 32:2. Son of man, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and say to him, Thou wast compared to a young lion among the nations, and yet wast like a dragon in the sea; thou didst break forth in thy streams, and didst trouble the waters with thy feet, and didst tread their streams. Ezekiel 32:3. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Therefore will I spread out my net over thee in the midst of many nations, that they may draw thee up in my yarn; Ezekiel 32:4. And will cast thee upon the land, hurl thee upon the surface of the field, and will cause all the birds of the heaven to settle upon thee, and the beasts of the whole earth to satisfy themselves with thee. Ezekiel 32:5. Thy flesh will I put upon the mountains, and fill the valleys with thy funeral heap. Ezekiel 32:6. I will saturate the earth with thine outflow of thy blood even to the mountains, and the low places shall become full of thee. - This lamentation begins, like others, with a picture of the glory of the fallen king. Hitzig objects to the ordinary explanation of the words כּפיר גּוים נדמיתה, λέοντι ἐθνῶν ὡμοιώθης (lxx), leoni gentium assimilatus es (Vulg.), on the ground that the frequently recurring נדמה would only have this meaning in the present passage, and that נמשׁל, which would then be synonymous, is construed in three other ways, but not with the nominative. For these reasons he adopts the rendering, "lion of the nations, thou belongest to death." But it would be contrary to the analogy of all the קינות to commence the lamentation with such a threat; and Hitzig's objections to the ordinary rendering of the words will not bear examination. The circumstance that the Niphal נדמה is only met with here in the sense of ὁμοιοῦσθαι, proves nothing; for דּמה has this meaning in the Kal, Piel, and Hithpael, and the construction of the Niphal with the accusative (not nominative, as Hitzig says) may be derived without difficulty from the construction of the synonymous נמשׁל with כ. But what is decisive in favour of this rendering is the fact that the following clause is connected by means of the adversative ואתּה (but thou), which shows that the comparison of Pharaoh to a תּנּים forms an antithesis to the clause in which he is compared to a young lion. If נדמית 'כּפיר ג contained a declaration of destruction, not only would this antithesis be lost, but the words addressed to it as a lion of the nations would float in the air and be used without any intelligible meaning. The lion is a figurative representation of a powerful and victorious ruler; and כּפיר גּוים is really equivalent to אל גּוים in Ezekiel 31:11.

Pharaoh was regarded as a mighty conqueror of the nations, "though he was rather to be compared to the crocodile, which stirs up the streams, the fresh waters, and life-giving springs of the nations most perniciously with mouth and feet, and renders turbid all that is pure" (Ewald). תּנּים, as in Ezekiel 29:3. Ewald and Hitzig have taken offence at the words תּגח בּנהרתיך, "thou didst break forth in thy streams," and alter בּנהרתיך retla d into בּנחרתיך, with thy nostrils (Job 41:12); but they have not considered that תּגח would be quite out of place with such an alteration, as גּיח in both the Kal and Hiphil (Judges 20:33) has only the intransitive meaning to break out. The thought is simply this: the crocodile lies in the sea, then breaks occasionally forth in its streams, and makes the waters and their streams turbid with its feet. Therefore shall Pharaoh also end like such a monster (Ezekiel 32:3-6). The guilt of Pharaoh did not consist in the fact that he had assumed the position of a ruler among the nations (Kliefoth); but in his polluting the water-streams, stirring up and disturbing the life-giving streams of the nations. God will take him in His net by a gathering of nations, and cause him to be drawn out of his element upon the dry land, where he shall become food to the birds and beasts of prey (cf. Ezekiel 29:4-5; Ezekiel 31:12-13). The words 'בּקהל עמּים ר are not to be understood as referring to the nations, as spectators of the event (Hvernick); but ב denotes the instrument, or medium employed, here the persons by whom God causes the net to be thrown, as is evident from the והעלוּך which follows. According to the parallelismus membrorum, the ἁπ. λεγ. רמוּת can only refer to the carcase of the beast, although the source from which this meaning of the word is derived has not yet been traced. There is no worth to be attached to the reading rimowt in some of the codices, as רמּה does not yield a suitable meaning either in the sense of reptile, or in that of putrefaction or decomposed bodies, which has been attributed to it from the Arabic. Under these circumstances we adhere to the derivation from רוּם, to be high, according to which רמוּת may signify a height or a heap, which the context defines as a funeral-pile. צפה, strictly speaking, a participle from צוּף, to flow, that which flows out, the outflow (Hitzig), is not to be taken in connection with ארץ, but is a second object to השׁקיתי; and the appended word מדּמך indicates the source whence the flowing takes place, and of what the outflow consists. אל ההרים, to the mountains, i.e., up to the top of the mountains. The thought in these verses is probably simply this, that the fall of Pharaoh would bring destruction upon the whole of the land of Egypt, and that many nations would derive advantage from his fall.