Egypt and so on
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Leviathan imagery
Leviathan imagery
the Leviathan imagery with the Genesis 3 imagery. But catch the point here—there's a certain logic to portraying the divine enemy in this way because the serpent becomes a symbol of disorder, disruption, adversarial hostility to the way God wants things. That is not an accident. In fact, if you go to Isaiah 27:1, this is an eschatological passage:
In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
Guess what word is "dragon" there? You guessed it! It's tannim. And the fleeing serpent there is nachash. The twisting serpent is also nachash. This passage (in fact, a lot of this verbiage here and in Psalm 74) is right out of the Canaanite material about the same thing—the forces of chaos, the battle of Leviathan. Here's the larger point here for our purposes in Ezekiel 29. If this is the loaded backdrop against which people would naturally read Ezekiel 29... When they see Pharaoh and he's the dragon and the Nile and he's going to be destroyed and his carcass is going to be out there to get picked and all this kind of stuff, the literate Israelite who is familiar with the wider worldview that they're in (both Egyptian and Canaanite and just general Near-Eastern imagery because the imagery is not just isolated to one or two places), they're going to naturally read between the lines here and they're going to see how Pharaoh is being cast as the great chaos enemy. He's like other chaos enemies, like Leviathan, like the nachash of Genesis 3, like this or that, these passages that we read. Ezekiel 29 is going to be part of that whole matrix of divine rebellion motifs.
I'm belaboring this point for a specific reason. Why is it that if... Again, nobody fights about this stuff when it comes to Ezekiel 29. Why is it that we fight about it when it comes to Ezekiel 28? Again, I'm pointing this out to draw attention againto what I think is a great inconsistency with how Ezekiel 28 is handled. I'm not going to drift back into that). I'm not one who says Ezekiel 28 is all about comparing the prince of Tyre to Adam. I think it's about comparing the prince of Tyre to a divine rebel, and I think that's very consistent with what went before and now what's going to come after. Because it's not going to be just chapter 29 (with its transparent chaos mythology themes). It's not just chapter 29, it's going to be 31 and 32. We're going to get it over again. This whole section (these parts of the oracles against the nations) are casting the nations as forces of chaos. It's linking the nations back to the original time of chaos—back in the garden when all that was right was disrupted, when it all just gets blown up. It's casting the rebellion, the disobedience, the antipathy of the nations against God's people and against Yahweh himself. It's casting all of that in the same light. And therefore, this material needs to be read against this common backdrop. You don't just intrude into all of that (all of this cosmic upheaval, this war against God) and say that in this chapter it's about Adam. That's just hopelessly inconsistent. But again, I'll get off my hobby horse here. Let's go back to Ezekiel 29. I want to say a few more things about this just to give you a flavor for it. I want to read just a little section here from the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery about the sea and about the dragon, and then we'll move onto some other things here. This source says this from the entry on the word "sea:"
The cosmic sea, however, also symbolizes the continued threat the forces of chaos pose against God and creation. The sea pushes against the boundaries God established for it (Job 38:8–11; Jer 5:22). The Bible adapts its neighbors’ creation myths of a primeval battle between a creator god and a sea monster of chaos called Leviathan, Rahab, or the dragon or serpent (Job 41). Unlike the myths of neighboring nations, God creates the chaos monster and places it in the sea (Gen 1:20–21; Ps 104:24–26). The monster stirs the cosmic sea but is wounded and subdued by God (Job 26:12; Ps 74:12–14; 89:9–10; Is 51:9) and will ultimately be vanquished in the end times (Is 27:1). As the home of the chaos monster who can be roused, the sea symbolizes the threat of the reemergence of chaos (Job 3:8). In fact, the evil world powers and the antichrist of the last days which oppose God and his people are symbolized as beasts arising from the sea (Dan 7:3; Rev 13:1).
Again, that is not a coincidence. This is part of how this concept (the concept of the forces of chaos against God’s good order, against God’s wish that the world would be what it was originally intended to be… it would be Edenic. This orderly Kingdom of God on earth, where God’s children (humans) are part of the family and are happy and productive. All of that is contrasted in this way, and so it’s no coincidence that the great enemy of the end—the great eschatological enemy— would be cast in the same way: a beast that arises from the sea. And the antichrist is called “The Beast!” These things are deliberate, they’re intentional, they are put there in the text (Old or New Testament) by the writer with the presumption that you’re going to know what the language means.
God Controls
God Controls
As Creator, God controls the sea, both producing and calming its waves (Is 51:15; Jer 31:35), and keeping it within its boundaries (Job 38:8–11; Prov 8:27–29; Jer 5:22). He can dry up the sea at will (Nahum 1:4) or unleash it to judge the world as in the flood (Gen 6–8). Thus the threat of chaos and evil which the sea symbolizes is ultimately hollow. [because it’s under God’s authority] The parting of the Red Sea and destruction of Pharaoh is a reenactment of the subduing of the sea and chaos monster, once more demonstrating God’s ultimate authority over forces of chaos and evil (Ex 15; Is 51:9–10). This same authority is symbolized by Jesus’ walking on the sea [I’d like to add that he’s basically wiping his feet on it!] (Mk 6:45–52) and calming the sea (Mk 4:35–41). Even the beast of Revelation which arises from the sea is subdued and cast into the lake of fire (Rev 19:20).
The throne room of God contains something like a sea of glass which may refer to the cosmic sea (Rev 4:6; 15:2). The calmness of the sea symbolizes the absence of evil and chaos in heaven, for there is no “monster” of chaos able to disturb it. At the consummation, the cosmic sea is mingled with fire, perhaps a symbol of impending judgment (Rev 15:2). After the consummation there is no longer a sea (Rev 21:1), which symbolizes no more actual or possible threat to the creation and sovereignty of God.
I would say there is no more threat to the new global Eden. Everything comes full circle. In light of all that (what I've said and what DBI says), you read Ezekiel 29 and the judgment of Pharaoh is a reenactment of the judgment way back in Moses' day—the conquest of the sea for God's people. And even deeper than that, it's a reenactment or rehearsal of the idea that God is the one who is mightier than the forces of chaos. God will defeat Pharaoh, who is the dragon, who says "the Nile is my own"… “Well, actually, Pharaoh, it isn't your own! Actually, Pharaoh, it's not you who is in control of it. Your nice little ordered world is about to be turned upside-down because I view you as a force against me, and I'm going to deal with that force. Again, people in the ancient world would have picked up on the messaging very readily, but for us it takes a little bit of work.
speak, and say, Thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, I am against you,
Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great dragon that lies
in the midst of his streams,
that says, ‘My Nile is my own;
I made it for myself.’
Now a little side-note here about 29:3 that's kind of interesting. When we read "My Nile [or the Nile] is my own; I made it for myself," the reading "I made it for myself" is actually based on texts other than the Masoretic Text, like the Septuagint. The Masoretic Text says "My Nile is my own; I made myself." If you just go with the Masoretic Text, it's actually a claim of self-creation. Why is that important? Because Atum-Re (the high god of Egypt who is supposed to the one ruling in line with the Pharaoh) claimed to be self-created. And God's like, "Well, let's just find out how powerful you are! Let's just illustrate who's really the ultimate power here!" And there are some textual issues. If we go with that Masoretic Text (I'll just give you a "for instance" here), it's the only occurrence, according to Bauer-Leander's well-known lexicon, of a reflexive form with the suffix. They look at that and say maybe the translations really did read something else. So maybe it's not the original text, but if it is, this "I made myself" idea is very consistent with what an Egyptian would have been thinking because of Atum-Re. Let's just work through the rest of the passage real quickly because I want to get to something else in particular in chapter 30 here.
In the next few verses (6-9), Egypt is a broken reed. When God says:
Then all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord.
“Because you have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel, when they grasped you with the hand, you broke and tore all their shoulders; and when they leaned on you, you broke and made all their loins to shake. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will bring a sword upon you, and will cut off from you man and beast, and the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste. Then they will know that I am the Lord.
“Because you said, ‘The Nile is mine, and I made it,’
Basically, "The Israelites leaned on you and you weren't any help. In fact, you were destructive." If you want to go through the verses there, the whole point is that Egypt is not someone to be trusted. They are not reliable. It is a broken reed and it fails everybody who trusts her. It's an indictment. We have here that Egypt will be made a desolation in verses 10-15. We have a specific reference to 40 years. Verse 13:
In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, 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, and say, Thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, I am against you,
Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great dragon that lies
in the midst of his streams,
that says, ‘My Nile is my own;
I made it for myself.’
I will put hooks in your jaws,
and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales;
and I will draw you up out of the midst of your streams,
with all the fish of your streams
that stick to your scales.
And I will cast you out into the wilderness,
you and all the fish of your streams;
you shall fall on the open field,
and not be brought together or gathered.
To the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens
I give you as food.
Then all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord.
“Because you have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel, when they grasped you with the hand, you broke and tore all their shoulders; and when they leaned on you, you broke and made all their loins to shake. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will bring a sword upon you, and will cut off from you man and beast, and the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste. Then they will know that I am the Lord.
“Because you said, ‘The Nile is mine, and I made it,’ therefore, behold, I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Cush. No foot of man shall pass through it, and no foot of beast shall pass through it; it shall be uninhabited forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of desolated countries, and her cities shall be a desolation forty years among cities that are laid waste. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them through the countries.
“For thus says the Lord God: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered, and I will restore the fortunes of Egypt and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom. It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms, and never again exalt itself above the nations. And I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations.
Basically, Ezekiel is saying that Egypt is going to have a bit of comeback, but it will never be what it was. Scholars have been interested in the 40 years here because 40 is a very common symbolic number. Taylor writes here:
In terms of literal fulfilment these threats never became reality: Egypt never endured an exile as Judah did. But her subsequent history has consisted of repeated conquest and humiliation.
So he's actually saying it's not just restricted to 40 years. Ezekiel is prophesying that Egypt is going to get trashed—and they do by Nebuchadnezzar. That's the immediate context. And from that point on, they never really recover. They go through, not just 40 years, but centuries of "Well, we're still here, but somebody else is a threat now.” Somebody else takes over. This is the period where you're going to have foreigners become Pharaohs. We had a period earlier where you have Semites that become Pharaohs during one of the intermediate periods, and that factors into the whole discussion of biblical chronology. But afterwards, you actually have Persians in one instance and Libyans become the Pharaoh over a united Egypt. They're not natural-born citizen Pharaohs; they are ruled from outside. They never recover from the set of circumstances that Ezekiel is talking about here. In verses 17-21, we get a chronological reference.
In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army labor hard against Tyre. Every head was made bald, and every shoulder was rubbed bare, yet neither he nor his army got anything from Tyre to pay for the labor that he had performed against her. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and he shall carry off its wealth and despoil it and plunder it; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt as his payment for which he labored, because they worked for me, declares the Lord God.
“On that day I will cause a horn to spring up for the house of Israel, and I will open your lips among them. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
We talked about the circumstances with Tyre—that eventually their royalty (their rulers) were actually sent off into exile to live in Babylon, and Tyre became a city that functioned by tribute. Verse 19 in our present chapter, Ezekiel brings up Tyre and then says:
Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and he shall carry off its wealth and despoil it and plunder it; and it shall be the wages for his army.
So when Nebuchadnezzar shows up to face the Egyptians, he's going to be really irritated because of what happened at Tyre. It took a long time, they didn't completely destroy the city, but they did conquer it in the sense of a tribute situation and all that sort of stuff. Well, in Egypt's case, he's going to come off in verse 19… he will despoil it and plunder it. “It shall be the wages for his army.” Basically, the loss that Nebuchadnezzar suffered in time and expense on Tyre— he's going to make up for it in Egypt. This doesn't bode well for the Egyptians. Verse 20:
I have given him the land of Egypt as his payment for which he labored, because they worked for me, declares the Lord God.
In the case of the reference back to Tyre, Taylor writes this:
Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Tyre had lasted for thirteen years, and by the end of that time every head was made bald and every shoulder was rubbed bare, a graphic description of the chafing of helmets and the carrying of burdens for the siege-works.
It took so many years. Soldiers were suited up and helmeted for so long they started to lose their hair and their shoulders were rubbed raw because of having to carry siege works back and forth and all this stuff. It's just a reference to the duration and the frustration that Tyre put up in its resistance. Again,
Nebuchadnezzar wins out in a tributary sense, but he's going to basically make up what he lost when he gets to Egypt. And that is not good news for the Egyptians. The chronological reference gives us a book. The reference that is
actually given puts us at 571 B.C. It links the punishment of Egypt with that of Tyre a few years preceding that (when the Tyre campaign wrapped up). So it's the right time period and the picture here is consistent.
Last thing in chapter 29 that I want to say… In verse 21, God is speaking to the prophet:
“On that day I will cause a horn to spring up for the house of Israel, and I will open your lips among them. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
For those of you who have some serious Bible under your belt, when you see the reference to the horn, you might be thinking of the messiah. It might be messianic, because you do get this language in passages like Psalm 132:17
There I will make a horn to sprout for David;
I have prepared a lamp for my anointed.
There is horn language associated with the messiah. It could be a more general reference to the restoration of the Davidic dynasty (in other words, a return from exile). The people Ezekiel is with are in exile, so it could be a reference to the return of the Davidic dynasty back again to the homeland. Some scholars take it as a reference to Ezekiel's preaching about Israel's future restoration (linking those two ideas). So in essence, God says, "I'm going to judge Egypt. On that day when all this happens, I'm going to cause a horn to spring up for the house of Israel and you're going to start preaching about that. I will open your lips among them. So when I'm finished with Egypt, then we're going to turn our attention to the future of the people of God." And that's basically what happens in the rest of the book of Ezekiel, because we're going to have chapter 30, 31, and 32 that are still going to be about Egypt. Then in chapter 33 we're going to get the report that Jerusalem has fallen. In 34 we have the fallout of the report. And then, beginning with chapter 37, the rest of the book is about the restoration of Israel. So this verse might be a way of sort of telegraphing that historically we're about to get to the place where God says, "I'm going to start putting plans in motion to bring Israel back. And you're going to start preaching about it." That's probably the best general way to take it.
next week we will discuss this issue with the horn. What does a horn have to do with messiah? What does a horn have to do with David? It just doesn't make any sense. Well, there's a reason why it would have made sense with an ancient person.