Espacios naturales protegidos (incluida Red Natura)

17 In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month on the first day, the word of the Lord came to me:

1.

18 "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.

19 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.

20 I have given him Egypt as a reward for his efforts because he and his army did it for me, declares the Sovereign Lord.

21 "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."

Barnes’ Notes observes: “We have no record of the circumstances of the Chaldean invasion of Egypt, but it

is possible that it did not take place until after the fall of Tyre. We gather of what nature it must have been by comparing the description of the results of Assyrian conquest (Isa 37:25 ff). Minute fulfillment of every detail of prophecy is not to be insisted upon, but only the general fact that Egypt would for a time, described as 40 years, be in a state of collapse. No great stress is to be laid on the exact number of years. The number of years passed in the wilderness became to the Hebrews a significant period of chastisement. Nebuchadnezzar’s occupation of Egypt was of no long duration, and his ravages, though severe, must have been partial. Peace with Babylon was favorable to the development of home-works, but since the peace was in truth subjugation, it was hollow and in fact ruinous. Further, it is to be remembered that God fulfils His decree by a gradual rather than an immediate process. The ravages of Nebuchadnezzar were the beginning of the end, and all the desolation which followed may be looked upon as a continuous fulfillment of God’s decree. The savage fury with which Cambyses swept over Egypt amply realized all that Ezekiel foretold. Many places recovered some wealth and prosperity, but from the time of Herodotus the kingdom never again became really independent. Egyptian rulers gave place to Persian, Persian to the successors of Alexander the Great, who gave place in turn to Rome. So thoroughly was the prophecy of Ezekiel fulfilled (Ezek 29:14-15).” And The Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary adds: “Jerome remarks, the number 40 is one often connected with affliction and judgment. The rains of the flood in 40 days brought destruction on the world. Moses, Elias, and the Savior fasted 40 days. The interval between Egypt’s overthrow by Nebuchadnezzar and the deliverance by Cyrus was about 40 years. The ideal 40 years wilderness-state of social and political degradation, rather than a literal non-passing of man or beast for that term, is mainly intended (so Ezek 4:6; Isa 19:2,11).”

And John B. Taylor, in Ezekiel, concludes: “In terms of literal fulfillment these threats never became reality: Egypt never endured an exile as Judah did. But her subsequent history has consisted of repeated conquest and humiliation. She has never been anything more than a ‘lowly kingdom’ and it is unlikely that she will ever again enjoy the glory that once was hers.”

The Pulpit Commentary states: “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; 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 … 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 (19:18-25), connect the future of Egypt with any Messianic expectations.” About the Egyptians being scattered among the nations, the same commentary states: “As before, records are silent as to any such dispersion. All that we can say is that such a deportation was uniformly the sequel of the conquests of an Oriental king, as in the ease of the captivities of Samaria (… 2 Kings 17:6) and Jerusalem, and of the nations that were settled in Samaria (… 2 Kings 17:6), and of the Persians by Darius; that if we

find reason to believe that Egypt was invaded by Nebuchadnezzar after the destruction of Jerusalem, we may assume, with little risk of doubt, that it was followed by what Ezekiel describes.”

The problem with facts about unfulfilled prophecy is that the absence of record does not mean that the predicted events did not occur. We can also state that an unfulfilled prophecy cannot be considered unfulfilled until the end of world history.

On the concluding verses of this chapter, John B. Taylor, in Ezekiel, comments: “This oracle is the latest in the whole of the book, being dated on New Year’s Day in 571 BC. Although much later than any of the other oracles against Egypt, it is inserted at this point because it links the punishment of Egypt with the raising of the siege of Tyre, an event which took place in c. 574 BC. It is therefore put as near to the group of oracles against Tyre as the context will allow. Nebuchadrezzar’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. We do not know whether Tyre was captured by the Babylonian force or not, though a few years later Babylonian officials were in residence in the city and Babylonian suzerainty was acknowledged. All that Ezekiel tells us is that the rewards of the siege were not commensurate with the effort involved. There was insufficient booty to pay off the army (perhaps the treasures had been evacuated by sea), and so Nebuchadrezzar was to divert his attention to the more lucrative prey, Egypt. This is seen as a gift to him from God, inasmuch as his efforts against Tyre had been at the behest of Yahweh and so he was entitled to his reward (they worked for me, 20). In point of fact the Babylonian expeditionary force did not attack Egypt until after the date of this oracle (c. 568-567 BC) and we have no contemporary records of its measure of success, because the Babylonian inscriptions recording the campaign have been damaged. Ahmose II (Amasis), who had supplanted Pharaoh Hophra in 571 BC, had to come to terms with the invaders, so we may presume that Nebuchadrezzar won the tribute to pay his armies as Ezekiel had prophesied. Jeremiah also foretold Nebuchadrezzar’s campaign (cf. Je. 43:8-13; 46:1-25).”

This chapter ends with the announcement that God “will make a horn grow for the house of Israel.” The Hebrew word for “horn” is qeren, which may refer to any kind of projecting object, ranging from an animal horn to a mountain peak. In the Scriptures it is often used as a symbol of power, either good or evil.

On this, The Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary observes: “Israel was to rise on the fall of Egypt, because of the everlasting covenant which God made with His elect people (Ezek 29:21). God ‘caused the horn of Israel to bud forth’ after the 70 years of depression and captivity. Herein God fulfilled in part His promise in Ps 132:17, ‘I will make the horn of David to bud.’ The fuller accomplishment of this word took place when He ‘raised up a horn of salvation for His people in the house of His servant David’ (Luke 1:69), in the first coming of Messiah the Savior. The fullest accomplishment shall be when Messiah shall come again in glory as the universally recognized King of the Jews, and when His ancient people, as well as all His saints, shall hail Him, saying, ‘Hosanna! blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord! Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’ (Mark 11:9-10.)”

One of the problems in seeing a future fulfillment in the last verse of this chapter is that God links the growing of the horn to the opening of Ezekiel’s mouth. We read: “On that day … I will open your mouth among them.” John B. Taylor, in Ezekiel, says about this: “To interpret this verse in relation to Ezekiel’s ritual dumbness demands that it is taken in isolation from its context, because by the time of this oracle his dumbness was a thing of the past (cf. 33:22). It seems better to take it simply as a reference to the authentication of Ezekiel’s prophecy through fulfillment. The oracle ends with the refrain, then they will know that I am the Lord, which has punctuated this chapter three times already (verses 6, 9 and 16). It is Ezekiel’s overriding desire.”