distinctive privilege because the Egyptians were witnesses to the Old Testament deliverance, which is itself the primary Old Testament prophetic type of the salvation that we have in Christ. The Passover was the Old Testament predecessor of the Lord's Supper. And that great deliverance on the night when the angel of God passed over the land and those who were under the blood were delivered was typical of our salvation in Christ. And so the Egyptians, among all the nations of the earth apart from Israel, were eyewitnesses to that great event. And then remember that in the days of Solomon, An alliance was made with the Egyptians. If you look at 1 Kings 3, just take note of this. Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter. He brought her to the city of David until he finished building his palace and the temple of the Lord. and the wall around Jerusalem. So, from a very glorious period of Israel's history too, Egypt is very closely involved. And look at chapter 9 of 1 Kings, verse 16, where we read, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, 916 Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Giza he had set it on fire he killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter Solomon's wife and Solomon rebuilt Giza so there was a kind of mutual alliance between these two countries in the time of Israel's greatest glory under the Old Covenant. So there was a long history of close contact between Israel and Egypt. In the nearer background, the more immediate background to these prophecies, was the tendency in Ezekiel's own time For Israel, now that it is greatly weakened, has lost its former glory, has been divided, and now faces the danger of captivity itself, there was a tendency in Ezekiel's time for Israel to look not to God, in repentance, but to look to Egypt for help against Babylon's growing power. And mutually, that is to say, from Egypt's side, there was an inclination to want to capitalize on this and to make use of Israel as a buffer state against the rising power of Babylon. Clearly, Egypt's interests were self-interests. They were not concerned about the covenant people of God or what happened to them. They were concerned about their own welfare. In 605 B.C., Egypt was decisively defeated on a battlefield at Karkemesh. If you know your Old Testament history, if you've got a map in your Bible, you might look it up. Carchemish was about as straight north as you can go in Palestine, way up above Haran, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. So that was a really decisive battle in determining the dominant power for the period to come. With this victory, Babylon began to rule over Judah. That is to say, its ascendancy began, and it came about that It was Babylon that installed some of the Judean kings of David's line at first as puppet kings under a very solemn oath of allegiance, the penalty being a very great penalty to be faithful to the Babylonian master And then when they were treacherous and betrayed that oath, as you know, they were carried away into a final total captivity by the Babylonians. Well, during this period of final subjugation, which extended from 589 to 571 BC, and you'll notice that that's only about sixteen years and thereafter, from the time of that defeat at the Battle of Carchemish, a very short time in terms of the history of nations. In other words, not very long after that bitter defeat at Carchemish, this process of subjugation of Judah was going on. And the table that I've given you That outline of events gives you a kind of chronology of the nearer events with which we are dealing. In 589 B.C., as I said, that's only 16 years after that decisive battle, there was the beginning of the second great siege of Jerusalem. If you look at 2 Kings chapter 25 verse 1, we have a reference to this. 25 verse 1 of 2 Kings. So in the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, marched against Jerusalem with his whole army. He encamped outside the city and built siege works all around it. The city was kept under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah, a considerable time in other words. So that great siege began in 589. It's also mentioned, as I've pointed out there, in Ezekiel 24, verse 1. In the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day, the word of the Lord came to me, and that was the vision of the cooking pot, which you will remember if we studied recently. Now, about a year after that, a pharaoh by the name of Hophra attempted to interfere with this, and it did temporarily interrupt the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. If you look at Jeremiah 37, beginning at verse 5, we will see this. Pharaoh's army had marched out of Egypt, and when the Babylonians who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem. I think you can imagine the psychological effect of that on the people of Judah. Oh wow, they thought, we're delivered. Pharaoh's coming, and old Nebuchadnezzar's playing it safe and backing off. It was a foolish exaltation. But we go on reading there. Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. Tell the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of me. Pharaoh's army which has marched out to support you will go back to its own land, to Egypt. Then the Babylonians will return and attack this city. They will capture it and burn it down. This is what the Lord says, don't deceive yourselves thinking the Babylonians will surely leave us. They will not. Even if you were to defeat the entire Babylonian army that is attacking you and only wounded men were left in their tents, they would come and burn this city down. After the Babylonian army had withdrawn from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh's army and so on. Well, you see, the kind of thing that was going on here. Pharaoh was playing a dangerous game, but it certainly was not motivated by a real concern for God's covenant people. The very opposite. Now in 587, the very next year, Ezekiel's introductory prophecy, which we have in chapter 29, comes. We know that because it says in chapter 29, verse 1, in the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day, the word of the Lord came to me. And that would probably almost certainly mean in the tenth year of Zedekiah's reign. We just read about the ninth year. In the tenth year, this prophecy came. And that tallies with our chronology. Now, later in that same year, about March, probably, maybe April, Ezekiel's description of the initial defeat of Hophra and of the ultimate desolation of Egypt by the Babylonians was given. If you look for a moment at 30, Ezekiel 30, verse 20, you'll see that. There's a time reference there again. In the eleventh year, We just read a moment ago of the tenth year, you see. In 29.1 it says, in the tenth year. In 30.20 it says, in the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh day, the word of the Lord came to me. And then probably later that year still was the prophecy of 31.1-18. Notice 31.1, in the eleventh year, in the third month on the first day. That previous one was the first month on the seventh day. This is the third month on the first day. So those are quite close together. And in that year, as Jeremiah confirms, the siege of Jerusalem was in progress, which lasted for thirteen months. In the next year, in June, Zedekiah's regency ended, and if you look at 2 Kings 25, verse 7, we have the biblical reference to this. 25, verse 7. You remember they captured him, and it says, they killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon. on the 7th day of the 5th month in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar, and so on. So, his regency ended in 586. Jerusalem's destruction followed speedily after that. If you have 25, verse 8 of 2 Kings, we go on to read of this. Nebuchadnezzar, pardon me, Nebuchadnezzar, commander of the imperial guard, An official of the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down and so on. So Jerusalem's destruction followed in 586, and in 585 BC, about a half year later, the exiles in Babylon received the first word. They didn't travel by jet airplane in those days. It took a long time. If you look at chapter 33 of Ezekiel, verse 21. In the twelfth year of our exile, In the tenth month, on the fifth day, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, The city has fallen." In February of that year, probably, we're guessing to a certain extent, but just shortly after that came Ezekiel's funeral dirge, and lament for Pharaoh and Egypt. And that's recorded in chapter 37, beginning at verse 17 and running to 3320. And you'll find the reference for that in verse 17. In the twelfth year, now you see we're a year later, in the twelfth year, On the 15th day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me." And so on. No, 32. Sorry. Ezekiel 32 is written right there on your page. 32.17 through 33.20 records that. And then finally, Several years later, about 14 years later, came the final statement in 2917 to 3019, the prophecy of Egypt as spoiled by the Babylonians in Egypt's day of the Lord. And I will explain a little bit more about that in a moment. Now, the reason for pointing these out is I want you to see two things. One, that these prophecies against Egypt, while they had that more remote background that I mentioned running way back through the history of Israel, They are also, these prophecies, clearly synchronized with primary events in this last period of Israel's history before the calamity of the captivity. And it's a very interesting, fascinating thing that Egypt, which had played such a a large part at the time when Israel was born, as it were, out of slavery by the mighty hand of God, again play such an interesting part, and sad, a contrary to God part in this last chapter, as they seek to gain advantage in this time of Israel's extremity. The other thing that I want you to see is that When Ezekiel put these things together for the benefit of later generations, and the Apostle Peter tells us that they were well aware that this is what they were doing, he does not put them together in the order in which they were spoken. He puts them together rather according to the structure of a well-organized topic. I can understand that as a writer. Some of the things I have written When they come out in a book, they don't come out in the order I wrote them. They come out in the order of the subject. Maybe you've written something long ago on a certain subject and when you're trying to put together this book, you remember that and you use it and you put it in there because it's appropriate topically. And so we must not think that Ezekiel is not aware of the fact that his prophecies are here not in exact chronological order. He's well aware of that, but he's putting them together this way for a topical reason. All right, with that introduction we will deal with this material, first of all by pointing out that there are six oracles. in these chapters. And the first oracle is found in chapter 29, verses 1 to 16. The second in verses 17 to 21. That leaves four more, but we will only be able to deal tonight with these first two. Let us read, then, the first one. In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day, the word of the Lord came to me, Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Speak to him and say, This is what the sovereign Lord says. I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, you great monster lying among your streams. You say, the Nile is mine, I made it for myself. But I will put hooks in your jaws and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales. I will pull you out from among your streams with all the fish sticking to your scales. I will leave you in the desert, you and all the fish of your streams. You will fall on the open field and not be gathered or picked up. I will give you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air. Then all who live in Egypt will know that I am the Lord. You have been a staff of reed for the house of Israel. When they grasped you with their hands, you splintered, and you tore open their shoulders. When they leaned on you, you broke, and their backs were wrenched. Therefore, this is what the Sovereign Lord says, I will bring a sword against you and kill your men and their animals. Egypt will become a desolate wasteland. Then they will know that I am the Lord. Because you said the Nile is mine, I made it. Therefore, I am against you and against your streams. And I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste. From Migdal to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. No foot of man or animal will pass through it, no one will live there for forty years. I will make the land of Egypt desolate among devastated lands, and her cities will lie desolate forty years among ruined cities, and I will disperse the Egyptians among the nations, and scatter them through the countries. Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says, at the end of 40 years I will gather the Egyptians from the nations where they were scattered. I will bring them back from captivity and return them to Upper Egypt, the land of their ancestry. There they will be a lowly kingdom. It will be the lowliest of kingdoms and will never again exalt itself above the other nations. I will make it so weak that it will never again rule over the nations. Egypt will no longer be a source of confidence for the people of Israel, but will be a reminder of their sin in turning to her for help. Then they will know that I am the Sovereign Lord." This prophecy was the first, and it came in the tenth year of Zedekiah's reign. Verses 3 through 7 according to the experts, are in Hebrew poetic form. I'm not such a scholar as to be able to pronounce on that sort of thing, but I can believe it, because you have here a kind of a poetic, exaggerated picture. The king of Egypt is compared to the most famous animal of the Nile area, the crocodile. As the crocodile ruled the great rivers, which were tributary to the Nile, so Pharaoh ruled Egypt and the smaller nations of antiquity. As the crocodile is pictured as being captured with iron hooks and drawn from the river, taken into the desert, which is not its natural habitat, and there stripped of its glory so it is with the land of Egypt. A perfectly apparent picture of what is going to happen to this great nation. The fish which adhere to the scales of the crocodile clearly represent then people who adhere to Pharaoh from whatever national group they might be. being cast into the dry land or the desert clearly represents the desolation of Egypt, because from all known history, Egypt was known for its dependence upon the river for its very existence. Still true today, I guess. Verse 6 indicates the purpose. Why is God going to do this? Answer. then all who live in Egypt will know that I am the Lord." The lesson they failed to learn in the days of Moses, they will now learn the hard way in the days of Ezekiel. And the reason why they have to learn it, because of what they have been to Israel. You have been a staff of reed for the house of Israel. A staff of reed is then explained in verse 7. I remember when we were kids in Iowa, there used to be a kind of weed that was like a reed that grew in our area. We used to pull them out of the ground and make spears out of them to throw. And they looked really quite impressive. In fact, my friend, a neighbor boy, one day threw one of them through the window of the streetcar as it went by, and it worked real good. We got into trouble for that, by the way. But I can assure you that if you lean on one with your hand, you are going to regret it, because they're not strong enough, and they will break and splinter, and they can cause a really serious injury if they're used the wrong way. And so, Egypt was to Israel, as a staff of reed is to a man who looks to it for support, a thing to lean on, a thing to rely on. The result is that they are injured, and not just lightly, but very seriously injured. And that, of course, was the effect of what was going on in this historical period. Egypt was offering itself as a support to Israel, but it was a support that was worse than no support, because it would bring great harm. From verse 8 to 16 we see the consequences of this for Egypt. And here, Departing from the poetic picture, we have quite a literal description. I will bring a sword against you and kill your men and their animals. The sword of God is Babylon. The military might of Babylon is the Lord's sword. That's a very interesting concept. If the same God is in heaven tonight, and he surely is, then communism can be his sword today to afflict judgment on many nations as they need it. The result is, he says, that Egypt will become a desolate wasteland. Verse 9, the reason is because of the arrogance of divine pretension. And I really think that it's equivalent to what we saw in the Prince of Tyre. For we read there, "...because you said, The Nile is mine, I made it." that is no less a pretension to deity than we saw in the Prince of Tyre. So the judgment of God falls upon these pagan nations of antiquity, and again and again we note that it is because they have pretensions of divine power. That's really the root of it. They have pretensions to being almighty. And it is because of that which is such an offense to the one living and true God that He, therefore, verse 10, therefore I am against you and against your streams. and he makes the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste. And you notice that it is a judgment that affects the whole nation and that I think is clear from the place names. Migdal was a place to the south Pardon me, that's wrong. Migdal was a place name far to the north and east of the land of Egypt. Aswan, which has become well known in recent history, when the Russians went there to build the Aswan Dam for the Egyptians of the modern era, is far to the south and Cush of course was Ethiopia which is the nearest neighboring nation of antiquity and still is today although the Sudan is also today mentioned. So really what is being said there is that this desolation that the sword is going to bring is going to be The whole nation it's not going to be just a part of it or a little bit of it. It's going to be the whole works and Also in Verses 9 through 11 you keep reading this and 12 you keep reading this 40-year statement. No foot of man or animal will pass through it. No one will live there for 40 years. I will make the land of Egypt desolate for 40 years. We'll come back to that in a moment, but I just want to point out that that has an important recurring mention in this passage. In verses 13 through 16, There is a promise of limited restoration after this judgment is passed, but with the accompanying fact that henceforth Egypt will never again be anything but a lowly kingdom, and therefore never again a reed that Israel will be even tempted to lean on. And that's an interesting fact of history, that after the time of The Babylonians, Egypt, really passes out of the realm of the superpowers of world history. Never again does it really count for much. It's one of the little nations and the big nations are elsewhere. That was not true prior to this, after it is true. Now in chapter 29, 17 through 21 you have a second prophecy. And as the outline I gave you indicates, this is really the final prophecy of this period, quite a few years later. Something like 15 years later. And it continues on through in the 30th chapter, because there's no new time reference there, but tonight we're only going to take the first part of it. But I want you to realize that you jump from the very first to the very last of the prophetic statements. Very good reason for it, because he first states the beginning and the end of the matter, and then in the latter portions he fills it out. That's just characteristic of Ezekiel. But now let us read that second part. In the 27th year, in the first month, on the first day, the word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, drove his army in a hard campaign against Tyre. Every head was rubbed bare and every shoulder made raw. Yet he and his army got no reward from the campaign he led against Tyre. Therefore, this is what the Sovereign Lord says, I am going to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and he will carry off its wealth. He will loot and plunder the land as pay for his army. I have given him Egypt as a reward for his efforts, because he and his army did it for me, declares the Sovereign Lord. On that day I will make a horn grow for the house of Israel, and I will open your mouth among them. Then they will know that I am the Lord." Now, 17 years after that first prophecy comes this one, and there is a clear reference in it to the campaign against Tyre. And you will remember that we said that siege of Tyre took 13 years. And when they finally did overwhelm Tyre, it was such a devastating campaign that there was nothing left. In other words, for all their hard work, sure, they finally subdued that little island city and made it a pile of rubble, but there's nothing there worth taking home with them afterwards. And so it was a very exhausting thing, and I believe all that's reflected here when God says, well, that was a hard job that Nebuchadnezzar had subduing Tyre for me, and he didn't get anything out of it, so now I'm going to pay him. And I'm going to pay him with the wealth and glory of Egypt. So verse 18 suggests that this was the course of events, that it was a costly event without any reward, so God is now going to pay via the gift of the land of Egypt as a spoil. And verses 19 and 20 virtually certify that as the picture. It clearly teaches us something that God regards Nebuchadnezzar as a servant who's doing his will and accomplishing his will in the earth. It doesn't mean that Nebuchadnezzar was necessarily in a right relationship with God, although I inclined to think he was after that period of time when he went out and lived as a beast. And then when he came to his right mind, gave glory to the King of Heaven, you remember that's in Daniel chapter 2, But, in any event, the great monarch was a servant of God, an instrument of God's hand in accomplishing His will in the earth. What a tremendous thought that is to remember in this day in which we are living. Now, finally, in verse 21, God says He will cause a horn to bud for the house of Israel. And I have no doubt that what that means is that the next world empire at this very period will begin its first sign of rising. Now you know that the next world empire was the Medo-Persian empire that overthrew the city of Babylon. Remember the night when Belshazzar was having his feast and Cyrus came and marched into the city and the hand was writing on the wall. You remember that fantastic scene and you remember how on that night Babylon was overthrown and the mighty empire of the Medes and Persians came into existence under Cyrus. And Cyrus was favorable to the house of Israel as Babylon had been unfavorable. So when it says, on that day I will make a horn grow, it means at the very hour when Egypt falls and is a reward for the Babylonians. Already God is beginning to raise up the second great world empire, which will replace the Babylonian and begin to favor the people of God so that they can return and go back to their land. Then they will know, He says, that I am the Lord. I think that means the Egyptians are going to know that He is the Lord when, number one, He has humbled them to a second-class nation status, and yet brought the children of Israel back out of that captivity to which fate they were so indifferent in this period of the history of the Church. And Ezekiel's words, it says, I will open your mouth among them, I think that means that the words of Ezekiel will in that era really begin to have effect. They didn't have much effect in the day in which Ezekiel lived. As you know, the great prophets of God who were right in that era were pretty much ignored, and they were even ignored to some extent in captivity where people were sobered to some degree. But the words of the prophet Ezekiel really began to exercise their influence and power. in that next era of world history, after the fall of the Babylonian Empire. Now, one other thing requires comment, and that is that 40-year statement in verses 11 to 13. I do not believe that there is any historical evidence of a literal fulfillment of that. And people who want what I would call a crass literalism miss the boat in my opinion. What do you immediately think of when you think of 40 years? You think of the wilderness journey. And why was there a wilderness journey? Well, it was because the children of Israel murmured against God and did not acknowledge Him as they should. And the 40 years was to humble them. And I believe that that became a kind of shorthand way then of telling the Egyptians that a similar thing is going to happen to them. Just as Israel had to be humbled in that 40 year wilderness journey, so Egypt must now be humbled until they know that the Lord is God. And I don't think it requires a literal, exact, point-by-point correspondence. I've often said that in our own era, the word Holocaust has come to have a very great significance, and probably for a long time to come in history, if Christ does not return soon, Holocaust will serve as a one-word way of conveying a lot of meaning, and there will be historical similarities to it. We already have heard of some cases of genocide that are a kind of Holocaust, we say. They're not an exact reproduction of it, but everyone understands the meaning. So the leading features are the same. Well, we'll have to leave it there for tonight and next time we'll come back and take up some more of this final prophetic era in chapter 30 and work our way on through as far as we can for chapter 22. I do hope you'll either keep these little papers I gave you or pass them back in to me.