Ezekiel 32:1 - Exposition

In the twelfth year , etc. March, B.C. 584, nineteen months attar the destruction of Jerusalem. The two sections of the chapter, Ezekiel 32:1-16 and Ezekiel 32:17-32 , belong to the same year, and probably, though the date of the month is net given for the second, were written within a fortnight of each other. The thoughts of the prophet still dwell upon the downfall of Egypt, and he is stirred, as by a special inspiration, to write an elaborate "lamentation" over its departed greatness. It would seem, from the repetition of the word in Ezekiel 32:16 , as if the elegy had originally been intended to end there. Possibly it may have occurred to the prophet that what he had written was rather a prediction of coming evil than a lamentation, and therefore needed to be completed by a second, coming more strictly under that title.