Ezekiel chapter 30

vs 1

Word.

vs 2

Sounding like the lament for Tyre so far.

vs 3

Could this be an unnamed reference to the day of the Lord?

vs 4

That's a fairly good summary of everything God has said so far, just without mentioning Babylon.

vs 5

Those are the fish stuck to her scales, we assume.

vs 6

I think Midgol is in one direction and Aswan is in the other.

vs 7

Repeating the promise of last chapter.

vs 8

So now all the tribune states of Egypt will also know that it is God, via crushing.

Okay, I really think there needs to be some discussion on what "know I am the Lord" means. I mean, if they read the book of Ezekiel and then see this stuff happen, yeah, they're going to go, "Wow, the God of this book did this." But without that, are they going to know it was Yahweh? Or just some power outside their tribal powers? Will they think it's the gods of Babylon being stronger than them? How will they recognise or know God through this? I don't think it's ever explained.

vs 9

Fear and destruction will be God's messages to those who oppose him. I think it's ignorant to assume those messages still don't hold weight.

vs 10

There's Babylon and our friend Neb.

vs 11

Again, this is fairly repetitive.

vs 12

Drying up the waters of the Nile is new. Is it literal, or figurative, talking about drying up the land of its wealth, and people?

vs 13

God does hate the idolatry of the other nations, and the god-king worship too. He lets it go for a long time, sometimes hundreds of years, perhaps longer. But when it suits his purposes, he goes for it.

vs 14

All pictures of badness.

vs 15

Double mention for Thebes. Lucky them.

vs 16

I'm guessing that these important cities (which at least Thebes and Memphis are) are going to suffer lots, which is probably the explanation for the devestation and ruin.

vs 17

Ahhh, captivity. I actually am interested to read more about the Egyptian captivity. I wonder if there is much on it.

vs 18

Can't say I know anything about this place, except what is written here. Not exactly something you want to be famous for.

vs 19

A nice regular statement that lets us know we're at the end of a section.

vs 20

So now we get a new section.

vs 21

I assume that this is figurative, not literal. It would be fantastic if it were both though. What a picture! Figuratively, Pharoah's arm represents his strength and might - something Egypt has apparently lost recently.

vs 22

God is nasty - he breaks both arms, even though one is already broken! He is going to cripple Egypt.

vs 23

Just like the northern kingdom of Israel.

vs 24

So it's a warrior king versus a cripple - instead of the clash of titans one would expect between the two superpowers.

vs 25

Babylon in strong, sure, but in its strength against Egypt God's hand should be powerfully seen.

vs 26

Perhaps Egypt will look back and realise that if God didn't protect his own people from exile, why would Egypt be safe? But perhaps not. it's easy not to want to see such things.