Ezekiel 32:17-32

VII. THE DESCENT INTO SHEOL 32:17-32

TRANSLATION

(17) And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, (18) Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her and the daughters of the mighty nations unto the lower parts of the earth, with those who go down to the pit. (19) Who do you surpass in beauty? Go down and be laid with the uncircumcised, (20) They shall fall in the midst of those who fall with the sword; to the sword she is given; draw her down and all her multitude. (21) The strong ones among the mighty shall speak to him from the midst of Sheol with his helpers: they have gone down, they lie still even the uncircumcised, those slain by the sword! (22) Assyria is there and all her company; round about them are their graves; all of them slain, fallen by the sword; (23) whose graves are in the uttermost parts of the pit, and her company is round about her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword who caused terror in the land of the living. (24) There is Elam and all her multitude round about her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword who have gone down uncircumcised unto the lower parts of the earth, who caused terror in the land of the living; yet they have borne their shame with those who go down to the pit. (25) They have put for her a bed in the midst of the slain with all her multitude; her graves are round about them; all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, because their terror was caused in the land of the living, yet they have borne their shame, with those who go down to the pit; they are put in the midst of the slain. (26) There is Meshech, Tubal and all her multitude; her graves are round about them; all of them are uncircumcised, slain by the sword; because they caused their terror in the land of the living. (27) The ones who are inferior to the uncircumcised shall not lie down with the mighty ones who went down to Sheol with all their war weapons, with their swords laid under their heads, and their iniquities upon their bones; because the terror of the mighty ones was in the land of the living. (28) But you, in the midst of the uncircumcised shall be broken, and shall lie with those slain by the sword. (29) There was Edom, her kings and all her princes who in their might are put with those slain by the sword; they with the uncircumcised shall lie with those who go down to the pit. (30) There are the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians who went down with the slain, ashamed for the terror which was caused by their might, and they lie down uncircumcised with those slain by the sword, and they bear their shame with those that go down to the pit. (31) Pharaoh shall see them and shall be comforted concerning all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army, slain by the sword, (oracle of the LORD). (32) For I have put My terror in the land of the living; and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude (oracle of the Lord GOD).

COMMENTS

Lofthouse calls the sixteen verses of the final Egyptian oracle the death song of the world in which Israel had grown up. The language here is highly poetical and one must be careful not to press it too far in formulating the Biblical doctrine of the afterlife. In this chapter Sheol is envisioned as consisting of compartments where nations lie together in graves gathered about their king. Warriors who had experienced proper burial are thought of as occupying a higher status than those who did not.

The month is missing in the Hebrew text of Ezekiel 32:17. The Greek version supplies the first month However, it is more likely that this oracle should be dated to the same month as the preceding one, the twelfth month. It would then have been composed two weeks after the oracle contained in Ezekiel 32:1-16. According to our calendar the date would be March 18, 585 B.C.

Ezekiel is told to wail over Egypt. A prophetic lament had the power to actually set in motion the wheels of judgment. In this sense Ezekiel is to cast down the multitude of Egypt into the lower parts of the earth. This is Sheol, the abode of the dead in which the once powerful nations on earth are thought of as continuing their collective identity. The daughters of the mighty nations are the countries which share the fate of Egypt in going down to Sheol. The pit is still another designation for Sheol (Ezekiel 32:18).

Egypt is in no way superior to the other powers of that day. She would go down in defeat. She would lie with the uncircumcised, those who have experienced the most dishonorable death (Ezekiel 32:19). Egyptian soldiers would fall by the sword and their corpses would be abandoned on the field of battle. Nations already in Sheol are exhorted to drag the slain Egyptian forces on down into their midst (draw her down and all her multitude; Ezekiel 32:20). The irony here is obvious. No nation in history put more emphasis on life after death the elaborate pyramids and subterranean burial vaults; the art of embalming; the amassing of enormous wealth and every conceivable provision for abundant life in the world to come. But none of this would prevent the mighty Pharaohs from being brought down in shame to the pit.

The leaders of nations already in Sheol are represented as greeting Pharaoh and his allies with mocking words upon their arrival in the pit. The mighty Egyptians have died an ignominious death the death of the uncircumcised by the sword (Ezekiel 32:21). Egypt has joined Assyria and her allies in Sheol. The Egyptian graves lie scattered about those of the Assyrians (Ezekiel 32:22) in the uttermost part of the pit. This expression may point to degrees of ignominy in the afterlife. The great nations which terrorized the earth have been permanently and totally removed from the world of the living. The graves of satellite nations surround that of Egypt itself in those inaccessible regions (Ezekiel 32:23).

Other once powerful nations lie quietly in Sheol far removed from the land of the living where once they spread terror. Elam rests in shame there (Ezekiel 32:24-25). Meshech and Tubal were once powerful kingdoms located south and south-east of the Black Sea. Other warlike powers descended into Sheol with their military equipment. But Meshech and Tubal met with an even more humiliating end. They rest among those who had been stripped of their arms. Ezekiel does not specify the particular crimes that justified this more severe humiliation of Tubal and Meshech (Ezekiel 32:26-27).

Apparently Pharaoh would experience still a worse fate. He would lie among those slain by the sword, but not, apparently, with the mighty ones mentioned in the preceding verses (Ezekiel 32:28). He would lie among the leaders of Edom, the princes of the north (Babylonian satellite kings) and the Zidonians (Phoenicians). These all lie uncircumcised, i.e., they have experienced the ignominious death of those slain in battle and left unburied (Ezekiel 32:29-30). Pharaoh would take some measure of comfort in the fact that others have shared Egypt's fate (Ezekiel 32:31).

All the mighty powers that terrorize the land of the living will ultimately be brought to nought. Ultimately God's power prevails on earth. The fall of Pharaoh and his host would be another indication of this grand truth (Ezekiel 32:32),

A fitting conclusion to this section dealing with Egypt is found on the final page of Breasted's monumental History of Ancient Egypt:

The fall of Egypt and the close of her characteristic history, were already an irrevocable fact before the relentless Cambyses knocked at the doors of Pelusium. The Saitic state was a creation of rulers who looked into the future, who belonged to it, and had little or no connection with the past. They were as essentially non Egyptian as the Ptolemies who followed the Persians. The Persian conquest in 525 B.C., which deprived Psamtik III, the son Amasis of his throne and kingdom, was but a change of rulers, a purely external fact. And if a feeble burst of national feeling enabled this or that Egyptian to thrust off the Persian yoke for a brief period, the movement may be likened to the convulsive contractions which sometimes lend momentary motion to limbs from which conscious life has long departed. With the fall of Psamtik III, Egypt belonged to a new world, toward the development of which she had contributed much, but in which she could no longer play an active part. Her great work was done, and unable, like Nineveh and Babylon, to disappear from the scene, she lived on her artificial life for a time under the Persians and the Ptolemies, ever sinking, till she became merely the granary of Rome, to be visited as a land of ancient marvels by wealthy Greeks and Remans, who have left their names scratched here and there upon her hoary monuments, just as the modern tourists, admiring the same marvels, still continue to do.[450]

[450] Cited by Wilbur Smith, EBP, p. 118.