Context No. 3876 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Ezekiel 32:1-15: in context

1In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, the LORD’s word came to me, saying, 2“Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt, and tell him, ‘You were likened to a young lion of the nations; yet you are as a monster in the seas. You broke out with your rivers, and troubled the waters with your feet, and fouled their rivers.’” 3The Lord GOD says: “I will spread out my net on you with a company of many peoples. They will bring you up in my net. 4I will leave you on the land. I will cast you out on the open field, and will cause all the birds of the sky to settle on you. I will satisfy the animals of the whole earth with you. 5I will lay your flesh on the mountains, and fill the valleys with your height. 6I will also water the land in which you swim with your blood, even to the mountains. The watercourses will be full of you. 7When I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and make its stars dark. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon won’t give its light. 8I will make all the bright lights of the sky dark over you, and set darkness on your land,” says the Lord GOD. 9“I will also trouble the hearts of many peoples, when I bring your destruction among the nations, into the countries which you have not known. 10Yes, I will make many peoples amazed at you, and their kings will be horribly afraid for you, when I brandish my sword before them. They will tremble at every moment, every man for his own life, in the day of your fall.” 11For the Lord GOD says: “The sword of the king of Babylon will come on you. 12I will cause your multitude to fall by the swords of the mighty. They are all the ruthless of the nations. They will bring the pride of Egypt to nothing, and all its multitude will be destroyed. 13I will destroy also all its animals from beside many waters. The foot of man won’t trouble them any more, nor will the hoofs of animals trouble them. 14Then I will make their waters clear, and cause their rivers to run like oil,” says the Lord GOD. 15“When I make the land of Egypt desolate and waste, a land destitute of that of which it was full, when I strike all those who dwell therein, then they will know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel takes up a lament over Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who thought himself a lion among the nations but was really, God says, like a thrashing monster in the seas, churning up the waters and fouling them. Egypt's pride and the terror it spread would be brought to nothing; God would spread his net over the monster, haul it up, and cast it down.

The proud power that troubled the nations would itself be humbled. And the passage names the purpose of it all: when I make the land of Egypt desolate, then they will know that I am the LORD. God's judgment on the proud is not arbitrary cruelty; it has an aim, that the proud, and all who watch, would come to know who the true God is. The one who exalted himself as a monster over the nations would learn, and everyone would learn with him, that there is a God above every earthly power. There is a sobering truth here for every proud power and every proud heart. God brings down what exalts itself, and one purpose of that humbling is that we might finally know him as the LORD, the God above all.

Is there pride in me that exalts itself and troubles others, and will I humble myself before God now, coming to know him as the LORD rather than being brought low to learn it?

Sources

Ezekiel 32:2: "You were likened to a young lion of the nations; yet you are as a monster in the seas... and fouled their rivers."
Ezekiel 32:15: "When I make the land of Egypt desolate and waste... then they will know that I am the LORD."
Ezekiel 32:12: "They will bring the pride of Egypt to nothing, and all its multitude will be destroyed."