Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
Down to the Pit With the Uncircumcised
Ezekiel 32:1-32
1 In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, · WEB
The lament over Pharaoh ends in a roll call of fallen empires already lying in the grave, and the last line says he will see them.
The lament opens by correcting Pharaoh's own preferred image. You were likened to a young lion of the nations; yet you are as a monster in the seas. A lion is a creature of the high ground with a certain dignity. What he actually is, the verse says, is the river beast of chapter 29 — thrashing about, troubling the waters with his feet and fouling the rivers other people drink from. The whole of Egypt's political record is compressed into that second sentence.
The capture is described as a hunt with a net, and then the language expands past anything a hunt would justify. When I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and make its stars dark. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon won't give its light. The fall of one kingdom is written in the vocabulary of the sky going out. That is a convention the prophets use for the collapse of an order, and it is worth noticing that Scripture applies such language to a historical event with a date attached, in a chapter dated to the twelfth year.
The second half is the strangest passage in the oracles against the nations. Pharaoh is escorted down to the pit, and the underworld is described as already occupied by nations who went before him. Assyria is there with all her company, her graves around her. Elam is there, with a note that she caused their terror in the land of the living and now bears her shame. Meshech and Tubal are there. Edom is there with her kings and princes. The princes of the north and all the Sidonians are there.
Each is described in the same terms, and the phrase that recurs is the uncircumcised — outsiders, buried without honor, and grouped by the fear they once caused. The effect of the roll call is cumulative and deliberate. Every one of these had been unanswerable in its day, and every one is now a name in a list with its weapons laid under its head. The lament ends by telling Pharaoh that he will see them, and will be comforted over all his multitude — which is the coldest comfort in Scripture, and the last word the book gives to any empire.
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