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Welcome to the Cross References podcast on the Book of Ezekiel. In this study, you learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and most importantly, how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
Whether you’re a newbie Christian or a veteran Bible reader, my goal is that God’s Word will make more sense to you after every episode.
Host: Luke Taylor
The Prophecy Against Egypt
Ezekiel 30
Ezekiel series, Part 51
Introduction
On this podcast the past several months, we have studied the prophecies against Ammon, Moab, Philistia and Edom; we studied the prophecy against Tyre in great detail, and then the prophecy against Sidon; today we are continuing through the prophecy against Egypt.
This series of prophecies against ancient Egypt at the time of Ezekiel takes up chapters 29 through 32 of his book, and we will cover all of chapter 30 today.
This chapter contains a lot of interesting tidbits: why is it talking about the future Day of the Lord as if it was thousands of years ago? Who are the mysterious people of the land that is in league in verse 5? Why did God say He would break Pharaoh’s arm? And here’s an interesting one: is Cleopatra prophesied in verse 12? We’ll answer those questions, and we’ll talk about the main idea of this chapter that ties all of it together. All of that today on the Cross References podcast.
[theme music]
(Continued)
Welcome to the Cross References podcast, a Bible study where we learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
My name is Luke Taylor, and we are continuing our time travel expedition back to ancient Egypt that we started last time. I don’t usually say this but I encourage you to have listened to the previous episode before launching into this one. That’s because this is one of the musical lament chapters that usually follows a more straightforward descriptive chapter.
Have you noticed how the Bible does this thing where it might give you a story of something happening in one chapter and then some kind of song or dirge about it in the very next chapter? Think Judges 4 and 5. Judges 4 is the story of Deborah the judge and how they defeated the Canaanites. Then in Judges 5, they sing a song about how they defeated the Canaanites. Or in Exodus, God parts the sea and delivers the people through the waters in chapter 14; and then in chapter 15, the people sing a song about it. You see that pattern show up a lot in Scripture, and that’s kind of what happens here. Chapter 29 of Ezekiel told us about the fall of Egypt, and then Chapter 30 is going to give us a lament for Egypt. So it’s not a lot of new information in the sense of the big picture, but it gives us a few nuggets of insight as we pick through it.
V1-4, Egypt in the Day of the Lord
Ezekiel 30:1-4
The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord God:
“Wail, ‘Alas for the day!’
3 For the day is near,
the day of the Lord is near;
it will be a day of clouds,
a time of doom for the nations.
A sword shall come upon Egypt,
and anguish shall be in Cush,
when the slain fall in Egypt,
and her wealth is carried away,
and her foundations are torn down.
There’s something pretty weird for the Bible to refer to Egypt’s downfall as “The Day of the Lord.” The Day of the Lord is often though of as the apocalypse. The end of days. So for God to refer to Egypt’s downfall as being the Day of the Lord, that could mean a few things. One, that Egypt’s fall has not happened yet, but is still future. I don’t agree with that, because Egypt actually was destroyed back in Ezekiel’s day, and it was in exile for 40 years as we talked about last time.
So perhaps it means the Day of the Lord is not something future, but something that already happened? But again, I don’t think that, because there are too many other things associated with the Day of the Lord that have NOT happened yet.
So what I believe is that this is a dual fulfillment type of prophecy. A very common type of prophecy in the Bible where a prophecy is given and it has a fulfillment in the short term but also one in the long-term.
For example, in Genesis 2 and 3, God tells Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree or in that day they will surely die. Well, they ate of it, but they didn’t literally die that day. So was the prophecy untrue? What I think is that they did experience a spiritual death the moment they ate the fruit, which was a separation from God; but also, they would now have to face a literal death at a different date, hundreds of years later.
Isaiah 7:14 is another example, where it says:
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
That had a fulfillment in Isaiah’s day, where a young woman bore a son and named him Immanuel. That literally happened with a young boy literally named Immanuel. Bit it also had a fulfillment hundreds of years later when Jesus was born and he was Immanuel, which means “God with Us.” Jesus didn’t have the literal name Immanuel, but He was literally God With Us.
So that’s a dual fulfillment thing, and that’s what’s going on here as it compares Egypt’s fall to the Day of the Lord. As Egypt fell, it would be, in a small part, a picture of what’s going to happen someday when the Day of the Lord happens across the whole earth.
V5-8, which team are you on?
Now let’s look at verses 5-8; I call this section “What team are you on?”
Ezekiel 30:5-8
5 Cush, and Put, and Lud, and all Arabia, and Libya, and the people of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword.
6 “Thus says the Lord:
Those who support Egypt shall fall,
and her proud might shall come down;
from Migdol to Syene
they shall fall within her by the sword,
declares the Lord God.
7 And they shall be desolated in the midst of desolated countries,
and their cities shall be in the midst of cities that are laid waste.
8 Then they will know that I am the Lord,
when I have set fire to Egypt,
and all her helpers are broken.
To start, let me go back to these people in verse 5: the people of the land that is in league. What is that about? After studying it, I believe this is talking about the Israelites themselves. This word “league” can also mean covenant, so I think it’s saying “the people of the covenant.” As we mentioned last time, the book of Jeremiah talks about how some of the Israelites fled down to Egypt to get away from Nebuchadnezzar, against Jeremiah’s advice. And they paid dearly for it because Nebuchadnezzar- AKA Chad- was heading to Egypt next. So Egypt will not save you in the day of God’s judgement. You’re not benefiting yourself by relying on them.
I call this “What team are you on?” because we have to be careful who we align ourselves with. All of these nations mentioned here had aligned themselves with Egypt, and now they’re wailing because Egypt’s downfall means they’re going to fall, too.
Cush, Put, Lud, Arabia, Libya, too much of their economy and security is based on Egypt. So when Egypt falls, so do all of their hopes and dreams.
So, who is this a lesson to? Is it a lesson for Egypt? For the nations who relied on Egypt? On Israel? Or for us? The answer to all of those questions is: YES. Especially us, since we’re still alive, but we can all learn something from this. Be careful who you align yourself with.
II Corinthians 6:14-16 says
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols?
Now, you’ve probably heard this verse mentioned a lot in the context of dating and marriage; romantic relationships. But did you notice that these verses do not mention marriage specifically? They can certainly apply to marriage, but these are not marriage verses. These are for all of life. Every area of life that a partnership could compromise your Christian witness.
So be careful who you align yourself with. This is an area that we need so much prayer and wisdom. When you’re moving, or getting a new job, or dating someone, or making an important business decision, or buying a house, cover it in prayer. And seek godly counsel. If you publicly align yourself with someone who is ungodly, you become associated with that person in other people’s minds, often for many many years.
Now, thank about this. Say you start palling around with a guy or girl who is known for stirring up a lot of drama, having a lot of friendships end badly, rubbing a lot of people the wrong way. Well, use some wisdom. They might be one of these toxic personalities that you don’t want to have too much to do with. Because if you have a falling out with them, they might stir up a lot of trouble for you.
These verses say “do not be unequally yoked.” The idea of two animals being equally yoked means that the animals are equal, one not too larger than the other. Why does that matter? If you’re an animal and you don’t have your yoke set right, it could dislocate your shoulder. When you’re unequally yoked, that’s the risk. You could end up terribly injured from the experience. So take what the Bible says here seriously.
All these countries who yoked themselves to Egypt- when Egypt went down, they went down too. Gotta be careful about that. If you enter into some kind of business partnership with someone who is not always so honest, who maybe cheats a little on their taxes or in their paperwork to save money, and then they get caught in that, maybe you didn’t do anything wrong, but you might have the government crawling through your finances, too. Or you could get slapped with fines or something, ruin your credit score. Because when you’re unequally yoked, you could end up terribly injured from the experience.
Be careful who you go to work for. Cover it in prayer. And of course all this applies to dating and marriage, too, but don’t think you’re exempt from this verse just because you married a good person. There are a lot of areas of life where we want to make sure we’re equally yoked.
V10-12, Is Cleopatra prophesied?
Now, this next little section is interesting because it might contain an allusion to Cleopatra.
Ezekiel 30:10-12
10 “Thus says the Lord God:
“I will put an end to the wealth of Egypt,
by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
11 He and his people with him, the most ruthless of nations,
shall be brought in to destroy the land,
and they shall draw their swords against Egypt
and fill the land with the slain.
12 And I will dry up the Nile
and will sell the land into the hand of evildoers;
I will bring desolation upon the land and everything in it,
by the hand of foreigners;
I am the Lord; I have spoken.
So speaking of Chad, he shows up here as God’s agent of destruction against the Egyptians. In case you missed it last time, I’m calling him Chad because it’s shorter, and it sounds cool, and it’s right there in the middle of his name. Plus, isn’t it like a phrase nowadays to say some macho man is a Total Chad? I’m a little rusty on Gen Z lingo but I think that’s what the kids say nowadays. Fr Fr no cap. A total Chad is knocking on Egypt’s door. Knees will be knocking when the arise goyim (ah-ree-say goy-yim), the “most ruthless of nations,” Chad’s mercenaries, come down to wipe out Egypt. He will desolate the land. And God says the nation will be sold into the hand of foreigners.
Now, this is probably what I found the most interesting line of the chapter. Because if you know Egypt’s history- and if you don’t, you’re about to learn some- it has not always been able to be under the control of the Egyptians. Just as later on the Romans will take charge and put their own people in authority over the land of Israel, likewise, Egypt was put under a similar subjugation when it was under the control of the Greeks.
Daniel 11 tells a lot of this story, of how the Ptolemies and the Saleucids would war with each other, and eventually a Greek woman named Cleopatra of the Ptolemy dynasty comes to become in charge of the land of Egypt. She was the last ruler of Egypt before the Romans took it over, so she represented a great passing of the torch moment in world history, and on top of that, she lived a very fascinating life. They make movies and Netflix shows about her, even though I think I heard something like on the new Netflix miniseries they’re working on- or maybe it’s already out, IDK, I don’t have Netflix- but I guess they made her black in the series, and there was an outcry about that because it’s stupid because it’s historically inaccurate. It’s just the Critical Race Theory thing we have going on in Hollywood where they want to change the races of everyone to black, even historical figures. So I guess they’re like: “Cleopatra was in Africa, so she must be black.” Wrong. The whole point of why her story is interesting is that she was brought in as an outsider, a foreigner, who really became a powerhouse as a leader; and she was Greek, not Egyptian. She was even drawn with red hair in really really ancient paintings. Like I said, she’s also mentioned in Daniel 11:17, if you want to track down a Cross Reference on Cleopatra.
The Bible is a great source of info about a lot of ancient figures like Cyrus, Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes. But what makes the Bible so much more interesting than any history book is that it wrote in precise detail about these people before they were born. It wrote history in advance. It even mentioned Cyrus by name in Isaiah before he was even born as the king who would let the Jews go back into their land.
[music]
V13-19, cities of the gods
I am going to read a chunk of verses here; these deal with cities that are going to feel the wrath of Chad. But Chad’s doesn’t realize that he’s just carrying out God’s bidding. God is wiping out these Egyptian cities because of Egypt’s pride and idolatry:
Ezekiel 30:13-19
13 “Thus says the Lord God:
“I will destroy the idols
and put an end to the images in Memphis;
there shall no longer be a prince from the land of Egypt;
so I will put fear in the land of Egypt.
14 I will make Pathros a desolation
and will set fire to Zoan
and will execute judgments on Thebes.
15 And I will pour out my wrath on Pelusium,
the stronghold of Egypt,
and cut off the multitude of Thebes.
16 And I will set fire to Egypt;
Pelusium shall be in great agony;
Thebes shall be breached,
and Memphis shall face enemies by day.
17 The young men of On and of Pi-beseth shall fall by the sword,
and the women shall go into captivity.
18 At Tehaphnehes the day shall be dark,
when I break there the yoke bars of Egypt,
and her proud might shall come to an end in her;
she shall be covered by a cloud,
and her daughters shall go into captivity.
19 Thus I will execute judgments on Egypt.
Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
Don’t think of Egypt the way you think of where its borders are fixed today. In Ezekiel’s day, Egypt was essentially the big cities than ran up and down the Nile River. The Nile is the longest river in the world. It starts at the Mediterranean Sea and it goes 4,132 miles. The Mississippi River is 2,340, so just around half that length. The Amazon is 3,977 miles, so it’s almost as long as the Nile. And all these cities and regions that Ezekiel highlights here are located right along that river.
These are also some cities that often had gods associated with them. For example, On was the city of the Sun god, Ra. Pi-Beseth was the city of the cat god, named Bastet. Pi-Beseth means “house of Bastet.” Memphis was the city of a god called Ptah. Which is spelled Ptah and I have no idea how to properly say it.
These gods are significant. It said in verse 13 that God is destroying the idols of Memphis. God is disgusted by idolatry. Pride and idolatry seem to be Egypt’s chief sins. God is not impressed with all these other things we come up with to explain the Creation of the world. No, it has to be a sun god and a moon god and so on. Even a cat god. But they can’t imagine a God who created the Sun AND the Moon AND cats. No, they have to break it all up into smaller deities.
Now, we’re so much smarter today, right? We don’t believe in all kinds of little deities of the sun moon and stars in modern times, right? No, we’re so much smarter in 21st Century America. We’ve come up with something so much more clever to explain where everything came from: NOTHING. We just believe it all came from nothing.
Where did life come from? Evolution. It started when lightning struck a pond. And where did the pond come from? Where did the water come from? Where did the earth come from? Nothing! There was just a big bang. How does the big bang work? First there was nothing, and then it exploded!
How do you think God feels about that? This is the conceit of modern man. Western nations don’t believe in all that stuff about Ra and Bastet and Ptah, oh no no no. We’re so much more sophisticated. We believe it all came from nothing. That’s our deity.
I’d say that we have a problem with pride and idolatry, too. I’d say we’ve made science into an idol and imagined that it can give us all the answers. Even when the answer is literally “nothing.”
So here’s why I think God is telling Egypt all this, drawing attention to these particular cities and gods and what this section means: when Babylon comes knocking and you start to see these cities fall, it’s not Chad conquering you, it’s not Babylon’s god conquering you; it’s the Real God conquering you. Don’t get convinced and think it’s a little moon God. It’s the Real God who made the moon, and the sun, and the cats.
By the way, I’m not convinced that God actually did create cats. They might have come after the fall. That’s my theory.
V20-26, Breaking Pharaoh’s arm
OK, let’s wrap it up. For our last section of verses we’ll look at today, this is a new oracle, a short one, about what is going to happen to Pharaoh. I believe this is symbolic language of an arm being broken, not literal, but the literal fulfillment is actually going to be much worse than a broken arm:
Ezekiel 30:20-26
20 In the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: 21 “Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and behold, it has not been bound up, to heal it by binding it with a bandage, so that it may become strong to wield the sword. 22 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt and will break his arms, both the strong arm and the one that was broken, and I will make the sword fall from his hand. 23 I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them through the countries. 24 And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put my sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan before him like a man mortally wounded. 25 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh shall fall. Then they shall know that I am the Lord, when I put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon and he stretches it out against the land of Egypt. 26 And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them throughout the countries. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
Based on the date of this oracle, this comes right after Pharaoh Hoper interfered in Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem. The cross reference for this is Jeremiah 37:5-11. I won’t read all that here, but there was a brief moment during the siege of Jerusalem that Egypt showed up and it looked like they were ready to fight and assist Israel. But Jeremiah told the people a word from God and said, “Don’t trust it, Pharaoh is going to turn around and go home and Babylon is going to finish the job.” So you can go read that story if you want to.
And that brings us to this oracle here, where God tells Pharaoh that he’s going to break Pharaoh’s arms. This is probably a retaliation for interfering in the siege of Jerusalem. Here’s what’s interesting about God saying he would break Pharaoh’s arm: in archeological sources, it was very common for ancient Egypt to paint pictures of their Pharaohs holding a club or a sword. And Pharaoh Hophra’s nickname for himself was “possessor of a strong arm.” Literally. So this oracle is a direct attack on Hophra’s identity. Shots fired!
It goes to show, it doesn’t matter how powerful you think you are. You actually need God. You can’t do anything without His help. You think you can win so much as a fistfight without God’s help? What if you had a broken arm?
Sadly, sometimes we have to have a broken arm before we learn any dependence on God. We get a little cocky and full of ourselves, and we end up learning the hard way, like Pharaoh Hophra here. And God is not done with him yet; I honestly probably should have saved these verses for the next lesson because chapter 31 is going to be a further line of attack on Pharaoh himself. We’ll save that for next time. Right now, let’s take a short break and try to sum up what we learned in chapter 30 of Ezekiel.
[music]
Housekeeping/Mailbag
Next time on this podcast, I won’t go straight into Ezekiel 31 just yet. I have two side-quests I want us to complete as we do this study on Egypt, and so next time, I want to do a theological and historical analysis of the gods of Egypt. I want to do that because, as we read in these verses, God was destroying Egypt in part because of its reliance on silly idols. And as we learned in the last lesson, one of their downfalls was their worship of cats. So we’ll dig into that subject a bit in next week’s lesson.
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Weird stuff- learning about Balaam.
Email: crossreferencespodcast@gmail.com
American Decadence
I want to finish with an idea that I said on the previous episode: What can you turn to when even the most powerful nation in the world is falling apart? I had a dual meaning behind that statement. That was certainly the sentiment of Ezekiel’s day as the people watched the decline of Egypt. But I’d say that’s also an attitude we can relate to as we watch the degradation and apostasy and decline of America.
There is nothing we can trust in to take care of us except God. So it’s a good time to ask ourselves: what team are you on? What are you depending on? If it’s not God, it’s on a worldly system that will fail you. If it’s money, what if you woke up tomorrow and the American dollar was worthless? What if our national debt got so out of control that the government just decided we need to wipe it all away and start fresh. Suddenly, you’re as rich as Bill Gates, and it doesn’t mean anything. But at least it would shut up all those guys who invested in bitcoin.
Would that be the end of the world for you? Would life just not be worth living after that? If so, you might want to rethink your priorities. America has a lot of comforts. But godliness with contentment is great gain. Can you be just as joy filled if you lived in an African village as you are in your suburban neighborhood. These world systems shouldn’t be what give us comfort and peace.
I am saying all of this to myself more than you all. These are the thoughts I have as I read Ezekiel 30. I don’t want to be like Cush and Put and Libya and have all my hope and happiness depend on how well Egypt is taking care of me. I want to rely on God more than the world.
I have a lot of comfort in my life, and a lot to be thankful for. But I just have to challenge myself not to set my heart upon those things too much.
The more I place my trust in things of this world, the more I risk becoming unequally yoked.
And when you’re unequally yoked, you could end up terribly injured from the experience. Animals would get their shoulders dislocated. Pharaoh had his arm broken.
Thanks for listening to the Cross References Podcast. This has been Luke Taylor, and I hope the Bible makes more sense to you after this episode.