to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Lord
אֲדֹנָ֣י'a.do.Nai
H136
the Lord (used as a proper name of God only) · proper noun, a title
GOD
יְהוִ֔הYah.weh
H3069
YHWH · proper noun, a title
bring
מֵבִ֥יאme.Vi'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, hiphil active participle, masculine singular absolute
sword
חָ֑רֶבCha.rev
H2719
drought · noun, common feminine singular absolute
off
וְהִכְרַתִּ֥יve.hikh.ra.Ti
H3772
to cut (off · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
man
אָדָ֥ם'a.Dam
H120
ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · noun, common masculine singular absolute
beast
וּבְהֵמָֽהu.ve.he.Mah
H929
properly · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Ezekiel 14:17 Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it:
Genesis 6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the f…
Exodus 12:12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against…
Jeremiah 7:20 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon th…
Jeremiah 32:43 And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is desolate without man or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.
Jeremiah 46:13-26 The word that the LORD spake to Jeremiah the prophet, how Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon should come and smite the land of Egypt.
Ezekiel 25:13 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it d…
Ezekiel 29:19-20 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitud…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 29:8-16
This explains the foregoing prediction, which was figurative, and looks something further. Here is a prophecy,
I. Of the ruin of Egypt. The threatening of this is very full and particular; and the sin for which this ruin shall be brought upon them is their pride, Eze 29:9. They said, The river is mine and I have made it; therefore their land shall spue them out. 1. God is against them, both against the king and against the people, against thee and against thy rivers. Waters signify people and multitudes, Rev 17:15. 2. Multitudes of them shall be cut off by the sword of war, a sword which God will bring upon them to destroy both man and beast, the sword of civil war. 3. The country shall be d…
a sword--Nebuchadnezzar's army (Eze 29:19). Also Amasis and the Egyptian revolters who after Pharaoh-hophra's discomfiture in Cyrene dethroned and strangled him, having defeated him in a battle fought at Memphis [JUNIUS].
Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 29:6
They have been a staff of reed - An inefficient and faithless ally. The Israelites expected assistance from them when Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem; and they made a feint to help them, but retired when Nebuchadnezzar went against them. Thus were the Jews deceived and ultimately ruined, see Eze 29:7.
John Gill on Ezekiel 29:8
Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Because of the pride of the king of Egypt, asserting the river to be his own, and made by him for himself; and because of his perfidy to the house of Israel:
behold, I will bring a sword upon thee; or those that kill with the sword, as the Targum; first a cival war, occasioned by the murmurs of the people, on account of the defeat of their army at Cyrene; which issued in the dethroning and strangling of this king, as before observed and setting up another; which cival commotions Nebuchadnezzar took the advantage of, and came against Egypt with a large army:
and cut off man and beast out of thee; for what with the civil wars among themselves, and what…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 8 and following) Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will bring a sword upon you, and will cut off from you man and beast. And the land of Egypt shall become a desolation (or destruction) and a wilderness: and they shall know that I am the Lord: because he (or you) said, My river is mine, and I have made it (or My rivers are mine, and I have made them). Therefore behold, I am against you and against your rivers: and I will make the land of Egypt desolate, cut off by the sword from Migdol to Syene (or from Migdol to Syene and beyond) to the border of Ethiopia. The foot of man shall not pass through it, nor shall the foot of beast tread upon it; it shall not be inhabited for forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of desolated countries, and her cities shall be desolate for forty years. And I will scatter (or disperse) the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries. For thus says the Lord God: After the end of forty years, I will gather Egypt (or the Egyptians) from the peoples (or nations) among whom they were scattered. And I will bring back the captivity of Egypt, and I will place them in the land of Phatures, in the land of their birth (or in the land from which they were taken). And there they shall be in a humble kingdom (or principality), among the other kingdoms it shall be the most humble (or lowest). And they shall no longer be elevated above the nations, and I will diminish them so that they will not rule over the nations (or so that there are not many among the nations). And they shall no longer be a confidence (or hope) to the house of Israel, teaching iniquity in order to flee and follow them (or in order to remember the iniquity and follow them). And they shall know that I am the Lord God. You were a reed staff to the house of Israel, and not only were you broken in his hand, but according to Isaiah (Isa. XXXVI), you pierced his hand, and now you have torn his shoulder, and you yourself are broken, and you have loosened the loins of those who leaned on you. Therefore, I will bring the sword of the enemies upon you, and I will devastate both men and animals, and the land of Egypt will be reduced to desolation, and the Egyptians will know for the second time that I am the Lord. But I will not be content with this; but because he burst forth into such great blasphemy, that he…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Egypt — The land of the Nile and the pyramids, the oldest kingdom of which we have any record, holds a place of great significance in Scripture. The Egyptians belonged to the white race, and their original…
Nebuchadnezzar — In the Babylonian orthography Nabu-kudur-uzur, which means “Nebo, protect the crown!” or the “frontiers.” In an inscription he styles himself “Nebo’s favourite.” He was the son and successor of…
Egypt · Prophecies respecting: Utter desolation of, for forty years — Prophecies respecting: Utter desolation of, for forty years
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The Judgment upon Pharaoh and His People and Land
Because Pharaoh looks upon himself as the creator of his kingdom and of his might, he is to be destroyed with his men of war (Eze 29:2-5). In order that Israel may no longer put its trust in the fragile power of Egypt, the sword shall cut off from Egypt both man and beast, the land shall be turned into a barren wilderness, and the people shall be scattered over the lands (Eze 29:5-12). But after the expiration of the time appointed for its punishment, both people and land shall be restored, though only to remain an insignificant kingdom (Eze 29:13-16). - According to Eze 29:1, this prophecy belongs to the tenth year of the captivity of Jehoia…
God’s solution was to devastate the land of Egypt, making it into a desolate wasteland. The threatened destruction would stretch from Migdol in the northeast down to Aswan in the south, leaving the whole of Egypt uninhabited for an entire generation of forty years (cp. 4:6). Egypt’s fate would be like Judah’s, as God would first scatter the Egyptians to distant lands and then bring the Egyptians home. The Babylonians seem to have invaded Egypt successfully in 568 or 567 BC and carried off Egyptian prisoners of war who remained in exile until the time of Cyrus, a generation later.
Rashi on Ezekiel 29:7
When they took hold of you with the hand [Heb. בְּכַפְּךָ, lit. with your hand,] to be read בַּכַּף, with the hand, like a man who walks and supports himself on his staff.
you splintered [Heb. תֵּרוֹף] [like] תֵּרָצֵף.
and pierced the whole of their shoulders [lit. the whole of a shoulder,] i.e., their shoulders, like a man who leans on a reed, which breaks, and the man falls on it, and the shreds enter his shoulders.
and you made their loins stand upright [Heb. וְהַעֲמַדְתָּ.] Since you will break, they will be required to strengthen their loins and stand on them. You are like a man upon whom his friend was leaning, but he is weak and he says to him, “Strengthen yourself on your loins, f…
