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6 lines
14 KiB
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<p>This prophecy concludes and completes the burden of Egypt, and leaves it and all its multitude in the pit of destruction.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">I. We are here invited to attend the funeral of that once flourishing kingdom, to lament its fall, and to take a view of those who attend it to the grave and accompany it in the grave.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">1. This dead corpse of a kingdom is here brought to the grave. The prophet is ordered to <i>cast them down</i> to the pit (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.32.18" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.32.18">Ezek. 32:18</a>), to foretel their destruction as one that had authority, as Jeremiah was set over the kingdoms, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.1.10" href="/passage/?search=Jer.1.10">Jer. 1:10</a>. He must speak in God’s name, and as from him who will cast them down. Yet he must foretel it as one that had an affectionate concern for them; he must <i>wail for the multitude of Egypt</i>, even when he <i>casts them down</i>. When Egypt is slain, let her have an honourable funeral, befitting her quality; let her be buried <i>with the daughters of the famous nations</i>, in their burying-places and with the same ceremony. It is but a poor allay to the reproach and terror of death to be buried with those that were famous; yet this is all that is allowed to Egypt. Shall Egypt think to exempt herself from the common fate of proud and imperious nations? No; she must take her lot with them (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.32.19" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.32.19">Ezek. 32:19</a>): “<i>Whom dost thou surpass in beauty</i>? Art thou so much fairer than any other nation that thou shouldst expect therefore to be excused? No; others as fair as thou have sunk into the pit; <i>go down</i> therefore, and <i>be thou laid with the uncircumcised</i>. Thou art like them and art likely to lie among them. The multitude of Egypt shall all <i>fall in the midst of those that are slain with the sword</i>, now that there is a general slaughter made among the nations.” Egypt with the rest must drink of the bloody cup, and therefore she is <i>delivered to the sword</i>, to the sword of war (but, in God’s hand, the sword of justice), is delivered to be publicly executed. <i>Draw her and all her multitude</i>; draw them either as the dead bodies of great men are drawn in honour to the grave, in a hearse, or as malefactors are drawn in disgrace to the place of execution, on a sledge; draw them to the pit, and let them be made a spectacle to the world.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">2. This corpse of a kingdom is bid welcome to the grave, and Pharaoh is made free of the congregation of the dead, and admitted into their regions, not without some pomp and ceremony. As the surprising fall of the king of Babylon is thus illustrated, <i>Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming</i>, and to introduce thee into those mansions of darkness (<a class="bibleref" title="Isa.14.9" href="/passage/?search=Isa.14.9">Isa. 14:9</a>), so here (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.32.21" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.32.21">Ezek. 32:21</a>), <i>They shall speak to him out of the midst of hell</i>, as it were congratulating his arrival and calling him to join with them in acknowledging that which neither he nor they would be brought to own when they were in their pomp and pride, that it is in vain to think of contesting with God, and none ever hardened their hearts against him and prospered. They shall say to him, and to those that pretended to help him, Where are you now? What have you brought your attempts to at last? Divers nations are here mentioned as gone down to the grave before Egypt that are ready to give her a scornful reception and upbraid her with coming to them at last. These nations here spoken of were probably such as had been of late years ruined and wasted by the king of Babylon, and their princes cut off; let Egypt know that she has <i>neighbour’s fare</i>. When she goes to the grave she does but <i>migrare ad plures—migrate to the majority</i>; there are <i>innumerable before her</i>. But it is observable that though Judah and Jerusalem were just about this time, or a little before, utterly ruined and laid waste, yet they are not mentioned here among the nations that welcome Egypt to the pit; for though they suffered the same things that these nations suffered, and by the same hand, yet the kind intentions of their affliction, and its happy issue at last, and the mercy God had yet in reserve for them, altered the property of it; it was not to them a <i>going down to the pit</i>, as it was to the heathen; they were not <i>smitten as others were</i>, nor <i>slain according to the slaughter of other nations</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Isa.27.7" href="/passage/?search=Isa.27.7">Isa. 27:7</a>. But let us see who those are that have <i>gone to the grave</i> before Egypt, that <i>lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword</i>, with whom she must now take up her lodging. (1.) There lie the Assyrian empire, and all the princes and mighty men of that monarchy (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.32.22" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.32.22">Ezek. 32:22</a>): <i>Asshur is there and all her company</i>, all the countries that were tributaries to and had dependence upon that crown. That mighty potentate who used to lie in state, with his guards and grandees about him, now lies in obscurity, with his <i>graves about him</i> and his soldiers in them, unable any longer to do him service or honour; they are <i>all of them slain, fallen by the sword</i>. The number of their months was <i>cut off in the midst</i>, and, being <i>bloody</i> and <i>deceitful men</i>, they were not suffered to <i>live out half their days</i>. Their <i>braves were set in the sides of the pit</i>, all in a row, like beds in a common chamber, <a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.32.23" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.32.23">Ezek. 32:23</a>. All their company is such as were <i>slain, fallen by the sword</i>; a vast congregation there is of such, who had <i>caused terror in the land of the living</i>. But as the death of those to whom they were a terror put an end to their fears (in the grave <i>the prisoners rest together</i> and <i>hear not the voice of the oppressor</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Job.3.18" href="/passage/?search=Job.3.18">Job 3:18</a>), so the death of these mighty men puts an end to their terrors. Who is afraid of <i>a dead lion</i>? Note, Death will be a king of terrors to those who, instead of making themselves blessings, make themselves terrors, in their generation. (2.) There lies the kingdom of Persi
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<p class="tab-1">II. The view which this prophecy gives us of ruined states may show us something, 1. Of this present world, and the empire of death in it. Come, and see the calamitous state of human life; see what a dying world this is. The strong die, the mighty die, Pharaoh and all his multitude. See what a killing world this is. They are all <i>slain with the sword</i>. As if men did not die fast enough of themselves, men are ingenious at finding out ways to destroy one another. It is not only a great pit, but a great cock-pit. 2. Of the other world. Though it is the destruction of nations as such that perhaps is principally intended here, yet here is a plain allusion to the final and everlasting ruin of impenitent sinners, of those that are uncircumcised in heart; they are <i>slain by the sword</i> of divine justice; their <i>iniquity is upon them</i>, and with it they <i>bear their shame</i>. Those, Christ’s enemies, that would not have him to reign over them, <i>shall be brought forth</i> and <i>slain before him</i>, though they be as pompous, though they be as numerous, as Pharaoh and <i>all his multitude</i>.</p>
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