Ezekiel 30:12

And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I the LORD have spoken it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(12) Make the rivers dry—i.e., the canals of Egypt, by which the land was irrigated, and on which its fertility depended. It may also include the comparative drying, the lessening of the inundation of the Nile, which occurred from time to time, and was the cause of the various famines in Egypt mentioned in Scripture.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

30:1-19 The prophecy of the destruction of Egypt is very full. Those who take their lot with God's enemies, shall be with them in punishment. The king of Babylon and his army shall be instruments of this destruction. God often makes one wicked man a scourge to another. No place in the land of Egypt shall escape the fury of the Chaldeans. The Lord is known by the judgments he executes. Yet these are only present effects of the Divine displeasure, not worthy of our fear, compared with the wrath to come, from which Jesus delivers his people.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Careless Ethiopians - The Ethiopians, who were dwelling in fancied security Zephaniah 2:15, shall tremble at Egypt's ruin.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. rivers—the artificial canals made from the Nile for irrigation. The drying up of these would cause scarcity of grain, and so prepare the way for the invaders (Isa 19:5-10).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I will make the rivers dry; either by some extraordinary drought, or rather by means of that mighty lake, which drew so much water from Nilus, that all their canals were ever after shallow, and the lake, as the oracle foretold, helped their enemy, and hurt their friends; or the Chaldeans might divert them, and so their fortified towns would want one great defence.

Sell the land: God gave it, here he sells; the one is proper, the other a borrowed expression; indeed God seems to pay wages with it, Ezekiel 29:19,20; but hereby is intimated, that as sellers deliver into the hand of the buyer, so God would deliver Egypt into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar, as surely as if he had bought it. arid we may conclude the Chaldean as a buyer will make the most of all he buys.

Of the wicked; not of just and compassionate, but of injurious and merciless men. Strangers, who leave nothing they can carry away, eat up, or spoil.

I the Lord have spoken it; it is the decree and edict of Heaven, which cannot be broken.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And I will make the rivers dry,.... Egypt was a country that abounded with rivers; however, with canals cut from the river Nile; its wealth and riches very much depended here on, partly on account of the multitude of fishes taken out of them, and the paper reeds that grew upon their banks; but chiefly because the whole land, was watered by them, and made exceeding fruitful, rain being not so common in it; so that to dry up the riven was in effect to take away their substance and dependence; besides, hereby the way was made easy and passable for the enemy; there was nothing to obstruct him, he could overrun and ravage the land at pleasure:

and sell the land into the hand of the wicked; the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar, who were wicked idolaters, men of flagitious lives, and of merciless and cruel dispositions; who would show no favour to the inhabitants of the land, when delivered up to them, which is called a selling it; for, as things sold are delivered to the buyer, so should this land be to them; which though they had no right to it before, yet by the event of war, and disposal of divine Providence, came to have a property in it, given them by him who is the proprietor of all lands; and after them into the hands of the Persians, under Cambyses, and Ochus; who were very wicked and cruel princes, and may be reckoned among the terrible or violent ones of the nations in the preceding verse; and then into the hands of the Grecian, Romans, Saracen, Mamaluck, and now the Turks, all very wicked people:

and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers; the Babylonians, people of another country and distant, of another language, and with whom they had no commerce, alliance, and friendship, and so would not spare them, and their land, when in their possession; and so all the rest above mentioned, into whose hands they successively fell:

I the Lord have spoken it; determined it, prophesied of it; and it shall come to pass, as it did accordingly.

Geneva Study Bible

And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I the LORD have spoken it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12. make the rivers dry] Cf. Isaiah 19:5-6. The expression is scarcely figurative (Isaiah 44:27); the drying up of her rivers would be the severest calamity that could befall Egypt, as indeed in all her history whenever her canal system has been allowed to fall into disrepair the country has sunk into wretchedness.

hand of the wicked] Or, of evil men, ch. Ezekiel 7:24; Jeremiah 15:21; cf. Isaiah 19:4 “a cruel lord.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 12. - I will make the rivers dry. The rivers are the Nile-blanches of the Delta, and their being dried up points, perhaps, literally to a failure in the inundation of the Nile on which its fertility depended; figuratively to a like failure of all its sources of prosperity. Ezekiel 30:12

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The executors of the judgment. - Ezekiel 30:10. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, And I will put an end to the tumult of Egypt through Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. Ezekiel 30:11. He and his people with him, violent of the nations, will be brought to destroy the land; they will draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with slain. Ezekiel 30:12. And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of wicked men, and lay waste the land and its fulness by the hand of foreigners; I Jehovah have spoken it. - המון cannot be understood as signifying either the multitude of people only, or the abundance of possessions alone; for השׁבּית is not really applicable to either of these meanings. They are evidently both included in the המון, which signifies the tumult of the people in the possession and enjoyment of their property (cf. Ezekiel 26:13). The expression is thus specifically explained in Ezekiel 30:11 and Ezekiel 30:12. Nebuchadnezzar will destroy the land with his men of war, slaying the people with its possessions. עריצי, as in Ezekiel 28:7. מוּבאים, as in Ezekiel 23:42. 'הריק וגו, cf. Ezekiel 12:14, Ezekiel 12:28; 7. חלל...מלאוּ, as in Ezekiel 11:6. יארים, the arms and canals of the Nile, by which the land was watered, and on which the fertility and prosperity of Egypt depended. The drying up of the arms of the Nile must not be restricted, therefore, to the fact that God would clear away the hindrances to the entrance of the Chaldeans into the land, but embraces also the removal of the natural resources on which the country depended. מכר, to sell a land or people into the hand of any one, i.e., to deliver it into his power (cf. Deuteronomy 32:30; Judges 2:14, etc.). For the fact itself, see Isaiah 19:4-6. For 'השׁמּתי וגו, see Ezekiel 19:7.