Ezekiel 30:3

For the day is near, even the day of the LORD is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the heathen. IT SHALL BE THE TIME OF THE HEATHEN - namely, for taking vengeance on them. The judgment on Egypt is the beginning of a world-wide judgment on all the pagan enemies of God (; Joel 2:1; Joel 3:1; )....

1-19 The prophecy of the destruction of Egypt is very full. Those who take their lot with God's enemies, shall be with them in punishment. The king of Babylon and his army shall be instruments of this destruction. God often makes one wicked man a scourge to another. No place in the land of Egypt shall escape the fury of the Chaldeans. The Lord is known by the judgments he executes. Yet these are only present effects of the Divine displeasure, not worthy of our fear, compared with the wrath to come, from which Jesus delivers his people....

THE TIME OF THE PAGAN - The time when the pagan (Egyptians) shall be judged....

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 30:1 THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME AGAIN, etc. The section that follows, ending with Ezekiel 30:18, is exceptional as standing without a date. It may be either (1) a continuation of the prophecy in Ezekiel 29:17, and so belong to the latest years of Ezekiel's work; or (2) that prophecy may be regarded as standing by itself—a parenthesis inserted at a later date, so that we go back to the earlier word of the Lord in Ezekiel 29:1. Jerome, Havernick, Hitzig, Rosenmüller, Kliefoth, and others are in favor of the former

FOR THE DAY IS NEAR,.... The day of Egypt's destruction, the time fixed for it: EVEN THE DAY OF THE LORD IS NEAR; the day appointed by him, and in which he would make himself known by the judgments he executed: Kimchi observes, that, the same year this prophecy was delivered, Egypt was given into the hands of the king of Babylon: A CLOUDY DAY; or; "a day of cloud" e; which was seldom seen in Egypt in a literal sense, rarely having any rain, their country being watered by the Nile; but now, in a figurative sense, the clouds would gather thick and black, and threaten with a horrible tempest of divine wrath, and of ruin and destruction: IT SHALL BE THE TIME OF THE HEATHEN: both when the Heathen nation of the Chaldeans should distress and conquer others; and when Heathen nations, as the Egyptians, Ethiopians, and others, should be destroyed by them. The Targum is, "it shall be the time o...

THE DAY OF THE LORD day (of Jehovah) (_ See Scofield) - (Isaiah 2:12). _...

Ezekiel 29-30. First Egypt's desolation is announced (Ezekiel 29:1). The king of Egypt addressed in this prophecy was Pharaoh-Hophra, called in Greek, Apries. He was the grandson of Pharaoh-Necho, who defeated King Josiah at Meggido 2 Chronicles 35:20. King Zedekiah of Judah expected help and relief from Pharaoh-Hophra, when Jerusalem was besieged. The Egyptian army under Hophra advanced through Phoenicia and forced the Chaldeans to raise the siege of Jerusalem Jeremiah 37:5. But the relief was only temporary, for the Egyptian army had to retire. The prophet Jeremiah announced also the doom of Hophra, associating it with Zedekiah's doom: “Thus saith the LORD, Behold I will give Pharaoh-Hophra, King of Egypt,

EZEKIEL 30. THE DESOLATION OF EGYPT. The interrupted denunciation of Egypt is resumed. The neighbours and allies will be involved in her ruin, which is to be effected by Nebuchadrezzar and his terrible army (Ezekiel 30:1). (In Ezekiel 30:5, for Put and Lud see Ezekiel 27:10: for mingled people read Arabians. For Cub, read Lub = Lybians; and for the next clause read the Cretans.) The collapse of Egypt is then described in detail, the towns which are singled out for special mention being all of religious, political, or military importance (Ezekiel 30:13). (In...

THE DAY OF THE LORD. See notes on Isaiah 2:12; Isaiah 13:6. and Revelation 1:10. THE TIME of, &c.: i.e. the season in which their power shall be judged and broken. HEATHEN. nations....

THE DAY IS NEAR— The _day_ of the Lord implies a day of sacrifice and vengeance upon his enemies. The destruction of Babylon, described in such awful terms, as if all nature suffered by the shock, is represented as _the day of the Lord,_ Isaiah 13:6. So is the destruction of Bozrah and Idumaea, Isaiah 34:8. See also Jeremiah 46:10. Joel 3:14. Zephaniah 2:2. When the figurative _day_ is used in general to express the period of any one's existence, then it denotes time; but when it is used to express any particular thing or employ, then it signifie