Ezekiel 29:17-20

17-20. This is the latest of Ezekiel’s prophecies (572-570 B.C.), and must have been inserted here in order to be in close connection with the original prophecy concerning Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Tyre and invasion of Egypt. The revelation from Jehovah comes on New Year’s Day, when the Babylonians were celebrating the glory of Bel. (See New Year’s Hymns, Hibbert Lectures, Sayce, p. 81.) If this is an acknowledgment, without a word of protest or explanation, that the prophecy had failed in fulfillment, as many critics claim, then indeed we might say with truth of Ezekiel, “a greater than Jonas is here.” (See Jonah 4:0.) The fact of both passages being published “proves that in Ezekiel’s thought there was no inconsistency between the prophecy and the result” (Gautier). But it is now proved by a little fragment of Nebuchadnezzar’s annals, the only one so far discovered, that in the thirty-seventh year of his reign, which is the date required, he did invade Egypt and carry off rich booty, and by an Egyptian monument it is also proved that very near this same time, 568 B.C., certain Asiatics did fight against Egypt and plundered the country, even to Syene and Elephantine. (See note Ezekiel 29:11 and our Introduction, “V. Alleged Historical Mistakes.”) That he did not get the “wages” he expected from the capture of Tyre may be due either to the fact that the royal treasures were shipped away before the capture of the city (Jerome), or that for some reason he did not pillage the city, if indeed the city did not capitulate in order to be spared the very destruction which had been prophesied. (See Ezekiel 29:10-11; Ezekiel 26:0; Ezekiel 28:17-19.) It must indeed be remembered that the prophet saw in a vision not only the immediate but the remote future, and that even in the predictions of that prophet who was greater than Moses or Ezekiel these are sometimes fused into one picture. The prophets dealt with principles, and saw the real and necessary outcome of small sins and seemingly slight defects as their contemporaries could not and as we do not. Ezekiel saw that this was the beginning of the end with both Tyre and Egypt; thereafter they were servants of Babylon. (See Matthew 24:0.) Even Toy acknowledges that “the prophetic picture of its future is substantially correct.”

Every shoulder was peeled Rubbed bare. Ancient authors state that Nebuchadnezzar attempted to reach the island city by filling up the strait between it and the mainland. Alexander the Great did the same thing in his siege of Tyre. Even to this day it is almost impossible to get orientals to use wheelbarrows, and if they are forced to use them they will carry them on their heads. The “peeled shoulders” and “heads made bald” must be a graphic detail alluding to the navvy work of carrying loads of stones and earth for the above enterprise (Skinner), or else to the rasping of the soldiers’ armor during the long siege. Arabic poets refer to the baldness of soldiers caused by their headpieces (Davidson).

For his labor wherewith he served against it R.V., “as his recompense for which he served.”

They wrought for me Compare Jeremiah 25:9. All unknowingly these Babylonian soldiers had been doing Jehovah’s will.