Ezekiel Chapter 29 verse 11 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 11. - Neither shall it be inhabited forty years. It need hardly be said that history reveals no such period of devastation. Nor, indeed, would anything but the most prosaic literalism justify us in looking for it. We are dealing with the language of a poet-prophet, which is naturally that of hyperbole, and so the "forty years" stand, as, perhaps, elsewhere (Judges 3:11; Judges 5:31, etc.), for a period of undefined duration, and the picture of a land on which no man or beast sets foot for that of a time of desolation, and consequent cessation of all the customary traffic along the Nile. Such a period, there is reason to believe, did follow on the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar. It is implied in Vers. 17-21, which carry us to a date seventeen years later than that of the verse with which we are now dealing; and also in Jeremiah 43:10-12. Josephus ('Contra Apion,' 1:20) speaks of Nebuchadnezzar as having invaded Libya. The reign of Amasis, which followed on the deposition of Hophra, was one of general prosperity as regards commerce and culture, but Egypt ceased to be one of the great world-powers after the time of Nebuchadnezzar and fell easily into the hands of the Persians under Cambyses. It is noticeable that Ezekiel does not, like Isaiah (Isaiah 19:18-25), connect the future of Egypt with any Messianic expectations.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(11) Neither shall it be inhabited forty years.--In Ezekiel 29:9-12 a state of desolation is predicted for Egypt, which, if understood in the literal sense of the words, has certainly never been fulfilled. In Ezekiel 29:9 it is said that it "shall be desolate and waste," and this is repeated with emphasis in Ezekiel 29:10; while in Ezekiel 29:11 it is declared that neither foot of man nor foot of beast shall pass through it. There is also a difficulty in regard to the time of "forty years," mentioned in Ezekiel 29:11-13. No such definite period can be made out from history. The two difficulties go together, and the former is explained by the latter. It has already been seen in Ezekiel 4:6 that the prophet represents the calamity of Judah in the historic terms of their former suffering in the wilderness, without thereby intending either any specific time or any precise repetition of the same troubles they had then experienced. He does the same thing here in regard to Egypt. The people are to pass into a condition like that of the Israelites in the wilderness, in which they were to endure the judgment of God upon their sins. This is expressed, after the manner of Ezekiel, in strong concrete terms, the literal fulfilment of which was neither intended nor expected. . . .