Ezekiel 30:18 - Exposition

At Tehaphnehes ; the Tabapanes of Jeremiah 2:16 ; Jeremiah 42:7 ; Jeremiah 44:1 ; Jeremiah 46:14 ; (where it appears as having a royal palace); the Taphnae of the LXX .; the Daphne of Herod; 2.30. It was another frontier-fortress in the neighborhood of Pelusium, built by Psammetichus. It may, perhaps, be represented by the modern Tel-ed-Defenne, about twenty-seven miles southwest of Pelusium. The day shall be darkened . The normal image for the departure of the sunshine of prosperity, as in Jeremiah 46:3 and Ezekiel 32:7 (comp. Amos 5:20 ; Amos 8:9 ; Isaiah 5:30 ; Jeremiah 13:16 , etc.). The yokes of Egypt . Commonly, as in Ezekiel 34:27 ; Le Ezekiel 26:13 ; Jeremiah 27:2 ; Jeremiah 28:10 , Jeremiah 28:12 , the phrase would imply the deliverance of Egypt from the yoke of oppression suffered at the hand of others. Here that sense is clearly inappropriate. The LXX . and Vulgate give "the scepters" of Egypt, which implies a different reading, and this is adopted in substance by Ewald and Smend, the latter preferring rendering it by "supports" or "props," the "red" being used as a "staff" rather than as a "scepter" (comp. Ezekiel 19:14 ; Jeremiah 43:8 ; Jeremiah 48:17 ). The pomp of her strength . The phrase meets us again in Ezekiel 33:28 , and includes what we speak of as the parade of power, here probably with a view to the foreign forces that garrisoned both Daphne and Pelusium. The daughters may be literally the women of the city, who were to share the usual fate of their sex on the capture of a city; or as in Ezekiel 26:6 , Ezekiel 26:8 ; or probably as in Ezekiel 16:53 , Ezekiel 16:55 , for the villages and towns dependent on the strong city. On the whole, looking to the mention of the "young men" in Ezekiel 16:17 , the literal meaning seems preferable.