Ezekiel 29:11

11. Neither shall it be inhabited forty years This prophecy was never literally fulfilled. It is a poetic description of the results of a campaign which laid waste the country and interrupted the traffic. (Compare Ezekiel 4:6; Ezekiel 32:13.) The forty years is a symbolic number. (See introduction to chapter 40, and general Introduction, VIII.) No one doubts that Egypt was in trouble at this very time. The brave General Nes-Hor tells us on his funeral statue how the “Aamu [Asiatics] and all the wretched Northerners from the land of Sati [Mesopotamia] wasted and plundered” the country as far as Nubia, ravaging the temple at Elephantine, etc. The fact that Nes-Hor claims to have driven back the invaders before they plundered Nubia proves that they had at least reached Syene. (See note Ezekiel 29:10.) It is more probable that the Aamu, being satisfied with their booty, or being overcome with the heat, returned of their own accord. The Egyptians claimed victories under such circumstances (Wiedemann, Zeits. fur Aeg. Sprach, 1878; Maspero and Brugsch, Zeits., 1884; Expositor, x; Tiele, Geschichte; Kuenen, Onderzoek).