Ezekiel 32:17 - Meaning and Application

This prophecy finishes the burden against Egypt and leaves it, with all its people, in the pit of destruction. We are invited to attend the funeral of a kingdom that once flourished, to mourn its fall, and to see who joins it in the grave.

First, this dead kingdom is brought to the grave. The prophet is told to cast it down into the pit (Ezekiel 32:18), and to announce its ruin with authority, just as Jeremiah was appointed over kingdoms (Jeremiah 1:10). He must speak in God’s name, as one declaring what God himself will do. Yet he must also weep for the great crowd of Egypt, even while he announces its fall.

When Egypt is destroyed, she is to have an honorable burial, suited to her rank. She is to be buried with the daughters of the famous nations, in their burial places and with the same ceremonies. That only softens death’s shame a little. But it is all Egypt receives. Does Egypt imagine it can escape the common fate of proud and powerful nations? No. It must take its place with them (Ezekiel 32:19). It is as if God says, “Whom do you surpass in beauty? Are you so much fairer than other nations that you should expect to be spared?” Others just as fair have gone down into the pit, so Egypt must go down and lie with the uncircumcised. The whole crowd of Egypt will fall among those already slain by the sword, once the general slaughter among the nations begins.

Egypt must drink from the same bloody cup as the rest. So it is handed over to the sword, the sword of war, though in God’s hand it is also the sword of justice. It is handed over to public judgment. The command, “Draw her and all her multitude,” may picture honored burial, like a great man’s body drawn in a hearse, or shameful execution, like a criminal drawn on a sledge. Either way, they are brought to the pit as a warning to all.

Second, this kingdom is welcomed to the grave, and Pharaoh is admitted among the dead, with a kind of outward ceremony. As the fall of the king of Babylon is pictured by the words, “Hell is stirred up to meet you” (Isaiah 14:9), so here the dead speak to Pharaoh from the midst of the grave (Ezekiel 32:21). They seem to greet his arrival and force the lesson he would not learn in life, that it is foolish to fight against God, and no one hardens his heart against him and prospers. They say to him, and to those who tried to help him, “Where are you now? What has all your effort come to?”

Several nations are named as already gone to the grave before Egypt, ready to receive her with scorn. They probably were nations ruined in recent years by the king of Babylon, with their rulers cut down. Egypt must now live on the same fare as her neighbors. She does not go to nothingness alone. There are countless others before her. Yet Judah and Jerusalem are not listed among these nations, though they were also ruined around this time. That is because their suffering had different purpose and outcome. God still had mercy in store for them, so their fall was not the same kind of descent into the pit as the nations around them (Isaiah 27:7).

Among those who had gone before Egypt is the Assyrian empire, with all its princes and strong men (Ezekiel 32:22). Assyria is there with all its company, all the lands that depended on that crown. The ruler who once lived in splendor, with guards and nobles around him, now lies in obscurity, surrounded by graves and soldiers who can no longer serve him or honor him. They are all slain, fallen by the sword. Their time was cut short, and because they were violent and deceitful, they did not live out half their days. Their graves are set along the sides of the pit, one beside another, like beds in a common room (Ezekiel 32:23). All this company is made up of those slain by the sword, a huge gathering of people who once caused terror in the land of the living.

But death ends their power. The people they terrified are no longer afraid, and the mighty men themselves can no longer frighten anyone. In the grave, prisoners rest together and do not hear the voice of the oppressor (Job 3:18). Who fears a dead lion? This reminds us that death will be a king of terrors for those who made themselves terrors instead of blessings in their own generation.

There is also Elam, the kingdom of Persia, perhaps already brought low within living memory (Ezekiel 32:24, Ezekiel 32:25). Elam and all her people are there, along with the king and his armies. They too caused fear in the land of the living and made a loud show among the nations. But now Elam has a grave by herself, with the graves of common people around her. She lies among those slain by the sword, who went down uncircumcised, that is, outside God’s covenant and without his saving mark. They bear their shame among those who go down to the pit. They share the common humiliation of death, and even more, they carry special disgrace from God and man.

The lesson is clear. Those who make others tremble will, sooner or later, bear their own shame and become a terror to themselves. The king of Elam is placed among the slain, and his only remaining honor is burial in the chief tomb.

Then there is the Scythian power, active in the world at that time. Meshech and Tubal, barbarous northern nations, had recently invaded the Medes and spread terror among them. They lived at their expense for some years and took whatever they could seize. At last Cyaxares, king of the Medes, trapped them by a trick, killed many of them, and forced the rest out of his country (Ezekiel 32:26).

There lie Meshech and Tubal, with all their people. There is a grave for them, with their chief leader in the middle of them, all of them uncircumcised, killed by the sword. These Scythians died without honor, just as they had lived without honor. They are not laid, as the other nations mentioned before, in a bed of honor (Ezekiel 32:27). They shall not lie with the mighty, and they will not be buried with ceremony, as those are who fall in battle with some respect from the enemy.

Such men go to their graves with their weapons carried before the funeral, or dragged after it. Sometimes their swords were laid under their heads, as if they could sleep more peacefully in the grave on such a pillow. But these Scythians receive none of those signs of honor. Instead, their guilt falls on their sons. Because of their sin, they are left unburied, though they had once struck fear even into the mighty in the land of the living.

There lies the kingdom of Edom, which had prospered for a long time, but by this time, at least before Egypt was destroyed, it had become completely ruined, as had been foretold (Ezekiel 25:13). Among the graves of the nations is Edom (Ezekiel 32:29). There lie her kings and all her princes, her wise leaders, for which Edom was known, and her brave soldiers, but none of them are marked with monuments or names. They are mixed in with common dust.

These, with all their power, are laid beside those who were killed by the sword. Their power could not save them. In fact, it helped bring about their fall, because it pushed them into war and stirred up their neighbors against them, since those neighbors felt they had to stop Edom from growing too strong. They worked hard to ruin themselves, as many people do, who with all their strength are laid beside those killed by the sword. The Edomites were circumcised, since they came from Abraham’s line, but that will not help them. They will lie with the uncircumcised.

There also lie the princes of the north and all the Zidonians. They knew the sea as well as the Egyptians did, and the Egyptians relied heavily on that part of their strength. But these nations have gone down with the slain (Ezekiel 32:30), down to the pit. Now they are ashamed of their power, ashamed to remember how much they boasted in it and trusted it. Like Edom with its strength, these with their terror are laid with those who were killed by the sword, and they must share the same fate. They bear their shame with those who go down to the pit, dying in disgrace like those cut off by public justice.

All this is applied to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. They have no reason to flatter themselves with hopes of peace when they see how the wisest, richest, and strongest of their neighbors have been destroyed (Ezekiel 32:28). God is bringing down nations that stay proud and refuse to change, and Egypt must expect to fall with them.

This may ease Egypt’s suffering a little, because so many great and powerful nations have already gone the same way (Ezekiel 32:31). Pharaoh will see them and take comfort. It may calm his mind to know that he is not the first king to be slain in battle, not the first army to be routed, and not the first kingdom to be laid waste. But the comfort that wicked people have after death is only weak and imagined comfort, not real comfort. They find little peace in having so many fellow sufferers. The rich man in hell felt no comfort from that. Pharaoh can only find comfort in the matter of honor, not in any true relief.

Yet nothing will keep him from these troubles, for God says, “I have made my terror known in the land of the living” (Ezekiel 32:32). Great men often stir up fear in others and try to make everyone afraid of them. They seem to say, “Let them hate us, if only they fear us.” But now the great God has made his own terror known in the land of the living, and so he laughs at the threats of men, because he sees that his day is coming (Psalm 37:13). On that day of terror, Pharaoh and all his people will be laid with those who are killed by the sword.

This prophecy also shows us something about ruined nations. First, it shows us what this present world is like, and how death rules in it. Come and see the sad condition of human life. This is a world that is always dying. The strong die, the mighty die, Pharaoh and all his people die. It is also a world of killing. People do not just die naturally and often enough for one another, they also invent many ways to destroy one another. It is not only a great grave, it is also a great battlefield.

It also points us to the world to come. The main meaning here may be the destruction of nations, but it clearly points toward the final and lasting ruin of stubborn sinners, those who are uncircumcised in heart. They are struck by the sword of God’s justice. Their guilt rests on them, and they carry their shame with it. Those who are Christ’s enemies, who would not have him rule over them, will be brought out and killed before him, even if they are as grand and as many as Pharaoh and all his people.