Ezekiel 32:9

I 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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Vex the hearts.—The margin, provoke to grief, is better, as being less ambiguous. “Thy destruction” means, the news of thy destruction. As is more fully expressed in the following verse, the fall of Egypt should be such a striking instance of Divine judgment as to awaken fear in every nation that should hear of the catastrophe.

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

When I shall bring thy destruction - i. e., the news of thy destruction. The phenomena here mentioned are the accompaniments of "the day of the Lord" Joel 2:10; Luke 21:25 or the day of judgment. The fall of Pharaoh represents the fall of the world-power before the sovereignty of God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. thy destruction—that is, tidings of thy destruction (literally, "thy breakage") carried by captive and dispersed Egyptians "among the nations" [Grotius]; or, thy broken people, resembling one great fracture, the ruins of what they had been [Fairbairn].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Vex; it speaks a passion mixed and made up with grief for what is done, fear of the consequence of it, anger against him that did it, and an astonishment at the report, and it seizeth the heart and spirits of the hearers.

Many people, and great nations.

Thy destruction; either the fame of it, or the remainders that fled timely from thy destruction, or thy captives who after thou art destroyed are carried away, and the news of thy fall with them, or when the like ruin and destruction shall fall upon them. Which thou hast not known; such as were strangers to Egypt, and which Egypt had no commerce with, shall be troubled with apprehension what mischief may come upon the world from so mighty a conqueror, and by the accession of so great a kingdom and power as that of Egypt.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I will also vex the hearts of many people,.... With anger and grief, with fear and dread, with consternation and amazement:

when I shall bring thy destruction among the nations; or, "thy breach" (b); the news of it, the tidings of their destruction; which by one means or another should come to their ears, and fill them with concern and great anxiety of mind, so rich and powerful a kingdom being subdued, and the king of Babylon made so great thereby, and fearing they fall a prey unto him also. The Targum renders it,

"when I shall bring the broken of thy war;''

that is, the soldiers that should be wounded in battle, their limbs broke, and they taken captive, and brought among the nations, dismal spectacles to look at; and which should be brought

into countries, which thou hast not known; at a distance from Egypt, and which had no commerce nor communication with them, nor were their friends and allies; yet as their destruction would reach their ears, so it would affect their hearts, and fill them with vexation and grief; not so much on account of Egypt, as the growing power of Nebuchadnezzar, and the danger they were in of falling into his hands.

(b) "fractionem tuam", Piscator, Cocceius, Starckius.

Geneva Study Bible

I 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.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. vex the hearts] Or, trouble. The precise feeling is not grief, and certainly not anger (A. V. marg.); in Ezekiel 32:10 it is dismay, and then terror for themselves. For people peoples.

bring thy destruction among] Hardly means “bring the news” of thy destruction; the destruction itself occurs among the nations, they observe it; cf. “brandish my sword before them,” Ezekiel 32:10.

into the countries] unto countries. The effect of Pharaoh’s fall shall be felt by nations lying beyond the horizon of his knowledge; cf. Isaiah 55:5.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - I will also vex the hearts. The words intensify the bitterness of the downfall. The prophet passes out of the region of metaphors into that of facts. The fall of Egypt will cause pity among the nations. They shall simply be "vexed" in heart, terrified at the thought (Ver. 10) that the sword which had laid her low was "brandished" also against them. Ezekiel 32:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

His overthrow fills the whole world with mourning and terror. - Ezekiel 32:7. When I extinguish thee, I will cover the sky and darken its stars; I will cover the sun with cloud, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. Ezekiel 32:8. All the shining lights in the sky do I darken because of thee, and I bring darkness over thy land, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Ezekiel 32:9. And I will trouble the heart of many nations when I bring out thine overthrow among the nations into lands which thou knowest not, Ezekiel 32:10. And I will make many nations amazed at thee, and their kings shall shudder at thee when I brandish my sword before their face; and they shall tremble every moment, every one for his life on the day of his fall. - The thought of Ezekiel 32:7 and Ezekiel 32:8 is not exhausted by the paraphrase, "when thou art extinguished, all light will be extinguished, so far as Egypt is concerned," accompanied with the remark, that the darkness consequent thereupon is a figurative representation of utterly hopeless circumstances (Schmieder). The thought on which the figure rests is that of the day of the Lord, the day of God's judgment, on which the lights of heaven lose their brightness (cf. Ezekiel 30:3 and Joel 2:10, etc.). This day bursts upon Egypt with the fall of Pharaoh, and on it the shining stars of heaven are darkened, so that the land of Pharaoh becomes dark. Egypt is a world-power represented by Pharaoh, which collapses with his fall. But the overthrow of this world-power is an omen and prelude of the overthrow of every ungodly world-power on the day of the last judgment, when the present heaven and the present earth will perish in the judgment-fire. Compare the remarks to be found in the commentary on Joel 3:4 upon the connection between the phenomena of the heavens and great catastrophes on earth. The contents of both verses may be fully explained from the biblical idea of the day of the Lord and the accompanying phenomena; and for the explanation of בּכבּותך, there is no necessity to assume, as Dereser and Hitzig have done, that the sea-dragon of Egypt is presented here under the constellation of a dragon; for there is no connection between the comparison of Egypt to a tannim or sea-dragon, in Ezekiel 32:2 and Ezekiel 29:3 ( equals רהב, Isaiah 51:9), and the constellation of the dragon (see the comm. on Isaiah 51:9 and Isaiah 30:7). In בּכבּותך Pharaoh is no doubt regarded as a star of the first magnitude in the sky; but in this conception Ezekiel rests upon Isaiah 14:12, where the king of Babylon is designated as a bright morning-star. That this passage was in the prophet's mind, is evident at once from the fact that Ezekiel 32:7 coincides almost verbatim with Isaiah 13:10. - The extinction and obscuration of the stars are not merely a figurative representation of the mourning occasioned by the fall of Pharaoh; still less can Ezekiel 32:9 and Ezekiel 32:10 be taken as an interpretation in literal phraseology of the figurative words in Ezekiel 32:7 and Ezekiel 32:8. For Ezekiel 32:9 and Ezekiel 32:10 do not relate to the mourning of the nations, but to anxiety and terror into which they are plunged by God through the fall of Pharaoh and his might. הכעיס , to afflict the heart, does not mean to make it sorrowful, but to fill it with anxiety, to deprive it of its peace and cheerfulness. "When I bring thy fall among the nations" is equivalent to "spread the report of thy fall." Consequently there is no need for either the arbitrary alteration of שׁברך into שׂברך, which Ewald proposes, with the imaginary rendering announcement or report; nor for the marvellous assumption of Hvernick, that שׁברך describes the prisoners scattered among the heathen as the ruins of the ancient glory of Egypt, in support of which he adduces the rendering of the lxx αἰχμαλωσίαν σου, which is founded upon the change of שׁברך into שׁביך. For Ezekiel 32:10 compare Ezekiel 27:35. עופף, to cause to fly, to brandish. The sword is brandished before their face when it falls time after time upon their brother the king of Egypt, whereby they are thrown into alarm for their own lives. לרגעים, by moments equals every moment (see the comm. on Isaiah 27:3).