Scripture Daily

Context No. 1624 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 32:16-21: in context

16“‘“This is the lamentation with which they will lament. The daughters of the nations will lament with this. They will lament with it over Egypt, and over all her multitude,” says the Lord GOD.’” 17Also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, the LORD’s word came to me, saying, 18“Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her and the daughters of the famous nations, to the lower parts of the earth, with those who go down into the pit. 19Whom do you pass in beauty? Go down, and be laid with the uncircumcised. 20They will fall among those who are slain by the sword. She is delivered to the sword. Draw her away with all her multitudes. 21The strong among the mighty will speak to him out of the middle of Sheol with those who help him. They have gone down. The uncircumcised lie still, slain by the sword.

This passage is a lament over Egypt, the great empire, sung as she is brought down to Sheol, the realm of the dead. Wail for the multitude of Egypt, God tells the prophet; send her down to the lower parts of the earth, to lie with those already gone down to the pit. Whom do you surpass in beauty? Go down and be laid with the slain. And in the depths, the fallen of other nations, the once-strong of the earth, speak of Egypt's coming among them; the great empire joins the multitude of the dead.

The passage is a meditation on the leveling power of death, and it is sobering. Egypt was one of the great powers of the world, proud of her strength and her beauty, seemingly permanent. And here she is brought down to Sheol to lie among all the other fallen nations, the empires that thought themselves great and now lie together in the pit, indistinguishable in death. Whom do you surpass in beauty? God asks Egypt; go down and lie with the rest. In the grave, the great empire is no different from those it once looked down on; death levels them all, the great nation laid among the common dead. There is a truth here that the strong and the proud of every age would do well to hear. Earthly greatness, however vast, ends in the grave like everything else; the empire, the power, the beauty, the strength that seemed to set a nation or a person above others, all come down at last to the same pit. Death is the great leveler; it strips away the distinctions we prize, the greatness and the standing, and lays the proud among the ordinary dead. This is not said to make us despair but to make us wise, to loosen our grip on the earthly greatness that death will level anyway, and to seek what death cannot touch. Egypt's beauty and strength did not exempt her from the grave; and neither will ours exempt us. The wise reckon with this, holding earthly greatness lightly, since it ends in the pit, and setting their hope on the God who is Lord even of Sheol, and on the life that death cannot level.

Do I grip earthly greatness, standing, or strength as though it set me above others and would last, when death levels the proud nations and lays them among the common dead, and should I not hold such things lightly and set my hope on what death cannot touch?

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