The Bible

 

Ezekiel 30

Study

   

1 The word of Yahweh came again to me, saying,

2 Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Wail, Alas for the day!

3 For the day is near, even the day of Yahweh is near; it shall be a day of clouds, a time of the nations.

4 A sword shall come on Egypt, and anguish shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt; and they shall take away her multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down.

5 Ethiopia, and Put, and Lud, and all the mixed people, and Cub, and the children of the land that is allied with them, shall fall with them by the sword.

6 Thus says Yahweh: They also who uphold Egypt shall fall; and the pride of her power shall come down: from the tower of Seveneh shall they fall in it by the sword, says the Lord Yahweh.

7 They shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted.

8 They shall know that I am Yahweh, when I have set a fire in Egypt, and all her helpers are destroyed.

9 In that day shall messengers go forth from before me in ships to make the careless Ethiopians afraid; and there shall be anguish on them, as in the day of Egypt; for, behold, it comes.

10 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will also make the multitude of Egypt to cease, by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.

11 He and his people with him, the terrible of the nations, shall be brought in to destroy the land; and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with the slain.

12 I will make the rivers dry, and will sell the land into the hand of evil men; and I will make the land desolate, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I, Yahweh, have spoken it.

13 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the images to cease from Memphis; and there shall be no more a prince from the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt.

14 I will make Pathros desolate, and will set a fire in Zoan, and will execute judgments on No.

15 I will pour my wrath on Sin, the stronghold of Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of No.

16 I will set a fire in Egypt: Sin shall be in great anguish, and No shall be broken up; and Memphis [shall have] adversaries in the daytime.

17 The young men of Aven and of Pibeseth shall fall by the sword; and these [cities] shall go into captivity.

18 At Tehaphnehes also the day shall withdraw itself, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt, and the pride of her power shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity.

19 Thus will I execute judgments on Egypt; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.

20 It happened in the eleventh year, in the first [month], in the seventh [day] of the month, that the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

21 Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and behold, it has not been bound up, to apply [healing] medicines, to put a bandage to bind it, that it be strong to hold the sword.

22 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will break his arms, the strong [arm], and that which was broken; and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand.

23 I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.

24 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword in his hand: but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he shall groan before him with the groanings of a deadly wounded man.

25 I will hold up the arms of the king of Babylon; and the arms of Pharaoh shall fall down; and they shall know that I am Yahweh, when I shall put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall stretch it out on the land of Egypt.

26 I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them through the countries; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.

   

Commentary

 

Seven

  

Seven, as in Revelation 15:1, signifies everything in an universal sense. The number 'seven' was considered holy, as is well known, because of the six days of creation, and the seventh, which is the celestial self, where peace, rest, and the Sabbath is. The number seven occurs so frequently in the rites of the Jewish church and is held holy everywhere.

So times were divided into seven, longer and shorter intervals, and were called weeks, like the great intervals of times till the coming of the Messiah, in Daniel 9:24-25. The time of seven years is called 'a week' by Laban and Jacob, as in Genesis 29:27-28. So wherever the number seven occurs, it is considered holy and sacred, as in Psalm 119:164, and in Isaiah 30:26.

As the periods of a person's regeneration are distinguished into six, prior to the seventh, or the celestial self, so the times of vastation are also distinguished, until nothing celestial is left. This was represented by the many captivities of the Jews, and by the last Babylonian captivity, which lasted seven decades, or seventy years. This was also represented by Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel 4:16, 22, 29. It also refers to the vastation of the end times, in Revelation 15:1, 7-8. They should 'tread the holy city under foot, forty and two months, or six times seven,' as in Revelation 11:2 and Revelation 5:1. So the severity and increments of punishment were expressed by the number seven, as in Leviticus 26:18, 21, 24, 28 and Psalm 79:12.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 5, 7-8, 15; Arcana Coelestia 395; Daniel 9, 9:24, 9:25; Psalms 119)