בַּשָּׁנָה הָעֲשִׂרִית בָּעֲשִׂרִי בִּשְׁנֵים עָשָׂר לַחֹדֶשׁ הָיָה דְבַר ה' אֵלַי לֵאמֹר׃ - In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth of the month, the word of Hashem came to me, saying:
Right at the start of the chapter, a chronological question arises: the prophecy concerning the downfall of Tyre was delivered in the eleventh year, which we already examined in the preceding chapters, yet here the prophet steps back to the tenth year. Did he go backward? The Malbim, along with other commentators, addresses this and explains: Yechezkel also prophesies about Pharaoh in the twelfth year and in the twenty-seventh year. Had he arranged the prophecies chronologically, the prophecy of Tyre would have interrupted the flow: a prophecy regarding Egypt in the tenth year, then Tyre in the eleventh year, and then prophecies about Egypt once again. Therefore, he placed the prophecy of Tyre first, even though it was given later, in order to concentrate all the prophecies concerning Egypt in one continuous sequence.
The Malbim offers an additional reason: Egypt was devastated multiple times, and its final destruction occurred later than the destruction of Tyre. Therefore, the prophet placed the section on Egypt after Tyre, since its end came later than that of Tyre.
בֶּן־אָדָם שִׂים פָּנֶיךָ עַל־פַּרְעֹה מֶלֶךְ מִצְרָיִם וְהִנָּבֵא עָלָיו וְעַל־מִצְרַיִם כֻּלָּהּ׃ - Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all of Egypt.
The prophecy is not merely personal concerning Pharaoh alone, but pertains to the entire nation. Why, then, does the prophet address Pharaoh specifically? For two reasons: first, Pharaoh made himself into a god; and second, Pharaoh exercised great dominion - he possessed immense rule - and the downfall of the king is essentially the downfall of the entire nation. Thus, the address is ostensibly made to him personally, but the substance pertains to what would befall all of Egypt.
דַּבֵּר וְאָמַרְתָּ כֹּה־אָמַר אֲדֹנָי ה' הִנְנִי עָלֶיךָ פַּרְעֹה מֶלֶךְ־מִצְרַיִם הַתַּנִּים הַגָּדוֹל הָרֹבֵץ בְּתוֹךְ יְאֹרָיו אֲשֶׁר אָמַר לִי יְאֹרִי וַאֲנִי עֲשִׂיתִנִי׃ - Speak and say, So says the Lord Hashem: Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster crouching in the midst of its rivers, who said, "My river is mine, and I made myself."
Where does this parable come from? The Malbim explains: the Egyptians believed that the Nile was sacred. They saw it as the source of all their sustenance, as it says, "and irrigated with your foot like a vegetable garden" - such was the way of Egypt, to irrigate from the Nile, and so they attributed divine qualities to it. From this, one can also understand why the Holy One, Blessed be He, began with the Plague of Blood, for when He exacts punishment from a nation, He first punishes their gods and then the nation itself.
Moreover, the Egyptians did not stop there. Just as idolaters worshipped Tartak, Nibhaz, and Ashima, the he-goat and the rooster, and just as the Egyptians worshipped the ram and the Indians the cow, so too they attributed divinity to the crocodiles in the Nile. They believed that there was one crocodile greater than all the rest dwelling in the Nile, who ruled over them all, and that he had created himself and created the river.
The prophet compares Pharaoh to that great crocodile, for the very same characteristics were ascribed to him: the power and dominion attributed to the crocodile in the Nile were possessed by Pharaoh in his land. "Crouching in the midst of its rivers" - across the entire land of Egypt and all its waterways, confident that everything belonged to him. Furthermore, he boasted that he himself created the Nile and even made himself: "My river is mine" - the river is mine and I created it, "and I made myself" - and I created myself.
And here a brief question is in order: Pharaoh, before you created yourself - did you exist or not? And if you did not exist, how could you have created yourself? Apparently Pharaoh was not built for deep questions, nor were his people sharp enough to ask the right questions, and whoever did ask did not receive answers anyway. This is what he sold to his people: the Nile is mine and I am a god. Yet even a god has bodily needs, and Pharaoh would secretly go out to relieve himself in the Nile so that no one would know this god also had bodily excretions. This was the narrative Pharaoh sold to his people.
One should know that while this is the well-known and widespread explanation, the literal commentators (pashtanim) do not follow this path. According to the peshat, "and I have made myself" (ve'ani asitini) means: I made and engineered the Nile for myself to irrigate my land - I made it for myself, not that I made my own being.
Radak explains differently: "I made myself" - I made myself into a great and exalted king. My wisdom, my talent, and my power are what made me so great. That is, I forged my own greatness, not that I created my physical self. Targum Yonatan renders similarly: "The kingdom is mine, and I conquered it." Nevertheless, the widely accepted explanation is that of the Malbim, even though it is fascinating that this is not the simplest peshat, for believing that he actually created himself is difficult to fathom.
וְנָתַתִּי חַחִים בִּלְחָיֶיךָ וְהִדְבַּקְתִּי דְגַת־יְאֹרֶיךָ בְּקַשְׂקְשֹׂתֶיךָ וְהַעֲלִיתִיךָ מִתּוֹךְ יְאֹרֶיךָ וְאֵת כָּל־דְּגַת יְאֹרֶיךָ בְּקַשְׂקְשֹׂתֶיךָ תִּדְבָּק׃ - And I will put hooks in your jaws, and I will cause the fish of your rivers to cling to your scales; and I will bring you up out of the midst of your rivers, and all the fish of your rivers shall cling to your scales.
Egypt was struck down several times, the Malbim explains. At first Pharaoh held great dominion, ruling as far as the great Euphrates River. Then Nebuchadnezzar came and struck him during the reign of Yehoyachin (II Kings 24); in the fourth year of Yehoyakim he was struck again at Carchemish (Yirmiyahu 46); and on the third occasion, when Jerusalem was under siege, he went out again and was defeated. The common denominator of all these blows: Pharaoh was outside his country. He ventured out to fight abroad - and there he was struck.
This is the meaning of the parable: when one wants to pull a fish out, a hook is placed in its jaws and it is dragged out by it. So too here: the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to bring Pharaoh down outside his land, and since he would not venture out on his own, "And I will put hooks in your jaws" - dragging him and pulling him out by force, like a fish being pulled out of the water. And since he was compared to a crocodile and a fish, the metaphor fits perfectly.
"And I will cause the fish of your rivers to cling to your scales" - you will not go out alone, but with all your ministers and warriors. "The fish of your rivers" represents the dignitaries and royal ministers. Now, there seemingly appears to be a redundancy here: it has already been said, "and I will cause the fish of your rivers to cling to your scales"; why then does it repeat, "and all the fish of your rivers shall cling to your scales"? Rather, the intention is: I will bring you up out of your rivers to wage war outside your land - both you and all those clinging to you, the ministers and nobles who will come up with you. In his own land he enjoyed a measure of security, but outside his country, away from home turf, his power diminished, making him like a fish taken out of the water onto dry land. The Malbim also notes as a general grammatical rule that degat ("fish of") is a collective noun, as in "and the fish [ve-ha-daga] that was in the river died."
וּנְטַשְׁתִּיךָ הַמִּדְבָּרָה אוֹתְךָ וְאֵת כָּל־דְּגַת יְאֹרֶיךָ עַל־פְּנֵי הַשָּׂדֶה תִּפּוֹל לֹא תֵאָסֵף וְלֹא תִקָּבֵץ לְחַיַּת הָאָרֶץ וּלְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם נְתַתִּיךָ לְאָכְלָה׃ - And I will cast you into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers; you shall fall upon the open field, you shall not be brought together nor gathered; I have given you for food to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens.
Radak explains along the lines of this same metaphor: fish cannot survive in the desert, and likewise the Egyptians will perish by the sword in the open field when they march out to battle the Chaldeans, and there they will become food for the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky - like fish cast from the water into the desert, where their death is certain. The Malbim adds that his army will scatter and fall upon the open field, since the battle will not take place within his fortified land, but rather in the open field.
And what is the difference between "gathered" (te'asef) and "collected" (tikavetz)? The Malbim explains that in Lashon HaKodesh, "to collect" (lekabetz) means to bring scattered items together, whereas "to gather" (le'esof) means to return them to their proper place. A shepherd collects his flock into one area, and then gathers them into the pen; "they will not be gathered home" - gathering is always a return to the source and the base. Likewise with fish: the fisherman first collects them into a pile, and afterwards gathers them home. Here the prophet says: not only will you not be gathered home, but you will not even be collected together - you will not even be assembled in one place, for the beasts of the field will devour you all.
וְיָדְעוּ כָּל־יֹשְׁבֵי מִצְרַיִם כִּי אֲנִי ה' יַעַן הֱיוֹתָם מִשְׁעֶנֶת קָנֶה לְבֵית יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ - "And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am Hashem, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel."
The ultimate purpose: that all the inhabitants of Egypt will recognize that this punishment is from Hashem. "He raises up nations and destroys them" - the Holy One, Blessed be He, elevates a nation because falling from on high is far more devastating. Subsequently, war will come upon Egypt within its own land, when Nevuchadnezzar reaches the border of Egypt and strikes it there. Here, the first war is still being described, and its reason is also explained.
And the reason: "Because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel." We have seen repeatedly in Sefer Melachim and elsewhere that Israel relied upon Egypt for help, and not only did they fail to help, they brought upon them additional ruin and downfall. And primarily from a spiritual standpoint: the very act of turning to Egypt reflected a lack of faith, and in that itself lay Israel's downfall. When a person turns to Egypt, it is as though he says there is a restraint upon Hashem to save, but I have allies - Pharaoh king of Egypt will redeem me and deliver me. They turned their hearts away from Hashem, and did not heed Yirmiyahu who warned them against doing so. A reed is something weak, "reeds and rushes will wither," a crushed reed - something upon which one cannot lean at all.
בְּתָפְשָׂם בְּךָ בַכַּף תֵּרוֹץ וּבָקַעְתָּ לָהֶם כָּל־כָּתֵף וּבְהִשָּׁעֲנָם עָלֶיךָ תִּשָּׁבֵר וְהַעֲמַדְתָּ לָהֶם כָּל־מָתְנָיִם׃ - "When they took hold of you by the hand, you splintered, and tore all their shoulder; and when they leaned upon you, you broke, and caused all their loins to stand firm."
Now the prophet describes the damage Egypt caused to Israel when they relied upon it. Not only are you a reed, but a crushed reed, a broken reed. The Gemara says that a reed has sharp fibers: when a reed breaks, sharp splinters form at the top, and when a person grasps it, they pierce his hand.
However, we must understand: why is the shoulder mentioned here? It should have said that it would tear their hand. The Malbim explains that the parable is of a person holding a broken reed in his hand and wishing to threaten someone standing before him; for that purpose, he swings the stick back as if about to strike. When he swings it backward, the sharp edges of the broken reed pierce his own shoulder. "And tore all their shoulder" - his shoulder was fractured and torn, and this happened already at the stage of the mere threat.
"And when they leaned upon you, you broke" - and if he also wants to lean upon the staff, it breaks entirely. And what is "and caused all their loins to stand firm"? Some interpret it as related to ve-hima'adeta, in the sense of slipping and falling, but Rashi does not accept their view. The more widely accepted explanation, which is also that of the Malbim and Rashi, is: when a person braces himself upright, he stands on his loins. When a person walks on his feet, the center of gravity is between his legs, supported by the loins which hold up the body; without the loins, a person would buckle and fall. However, when he leans upon a staff, he is no longer standing on his loins but is bent over, and the center of gravity shifts between the body and the support. Then, when the support breaks and falls, he falls along with it, unless he quickly strengthens his loins and stabilizes himself so that his body does not continue to lean after the support. This is "and caused all their loins to stand firm": they will have to brace their loins with strength and vigor, for otherwise leaning on the staff would cause them to collapse.
And what is the nimshal? The Malbim explains: Initially, when the king of Babylonia besieged Jerusalem, Israel sought to intimidate the enemy by means of Pharaoh. They made an alliance with him so that he would lead his armies out of Egypt, expecting that Nevuchadnezzar would be frightened upon hearing that reinforcements had arrived to rescue them, and would flee as a result. This was merely raising the staff backward as a threat - yet even so, "you tore all their shoulder," for they were forced to pay Pharaoh immense wealth and bribes to the king of Egypt: "they carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses," and in the end it was "not to help... but for a shame." Afterwards, even this proved useless, and they were forced to go out and fight on their own - "and caused all their loins to stand firm": Israel was forced to stand on their own loins alone, after having already grown weary and faltered while expecting help, and in the end Pharaoh brought them no salvation.
Rashi interprets the shoulder differently: a person leans upon a support of a crushed reed, the reed breaks, and he falls; and as he falls, his shoulder lands on the reed and its sharp splinters penetrate his shoulder and wound it. This is "and tore all their shoulder."
לָכֵן כֹּה אָמַר אֲדֹנָי ה' הִנְנִי מֵבִיא עָלַיִךְ חָרֶב וְהִכְרַתִּי מִמֵּךְ אָדָם וּבְהֵמָה׃ - Therefore, so said the Lord Hashem: Behold, I am bringing a sword upon you, and I will cut off from you both man and beast.
Here Nebuchadnezzar penetrates into the heart of Egypt, and this occurred after the destruction of the Temple.
וְהָיְתָה אֶרֶץ־מִצְרַיִם לִשְׁמָמָה וְחָרְבָּה וְיָדְעוּ כִּי־אֲנִי ה' יַעַן אָמַר יְאֹר לִי וַאֲנִי עָשִׂיתִי׃ - And the land of Egypt shall become a desolation and a ruin, and they shall know that I am Hashem, because he said, "The river is mine, and I have made it."
Through this they will recognize His divinity even more than through the previous blows, for when the conqueror penetrates into the interior of their land, the downfall is far more severe: within his own territory a king wields immense power, fortified cities, and armies, yet when the destroyer nonetheless invades his homeland, the fall is all the more staggering. The Malbim explains that this refers to the third downfall, the total destruction of Egypt, in the twenty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, eighteen years after the destruction of the Temple. Pharaoh had already received his punishment for having been a broken reed of a staff; this new punishment was for "because he said, 'The river is mine, and I have made it'" - for he still attributed all his power to the Nile and to himself, Egypt had not yet been completely subdued, and he still harbored feelings of divinity. Therefore, an additional downfall was required. All this follows the interpretations cited above regarding "the river is mine and I have made it": either that I established my own kingdom, or, as the Malbim explains, that I created myself.
And what is the difference between desolation (shemamah) and ruin (chorbah)? The Malbim explains: chorbah generally applies to cities - one does not speak of a "ruined desert," since nothing was built there to be ruined; rather, a desert is desolate, and a land is desolate when nothing grows in it. Ruin, by contrast, applies to inhabited cities. Furthermore, desolation is generally a more severe state than ruin, for amid ruins stones and remnants still remain, whereas desolation denotes complete obliteration. Therefore Scripture states "a desolation and a ruin": the less settled areas will become a desolation, while the inhabited cities will be reduced to ruin.
לָכֵן הִנְנִי אֵלֶיךָ וְאֶל־יְאֹרֶיךָ וְנָתַתִּי אֶת־אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לְחָרְבוֹת חֹרֶב שְׁמָמָה מִמִּגְדֹּל סְוֵנֵה וְעַד־גְּבוּל כּוּשׁ׃ - Therefore, behold, I am against you and against your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt into utter ruins and desolation, from Migdol to Syene unto the border of Cush.
"Behold, I am against you" - bringing utter destruction upon you in the twenty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. The emphatic phrasing "utter ruins and desolation" serves to intensify the description: not merely "desolation and ruin" as above, but a vast and devastating destruction across every part of the land, from Migdol to Syene unto the border of Cush, which encompassed the whole of Egypt.
לֹא תַעֲבָר־בָּהּ רֶגֶל אָדָם וְרֶגֶל בְּהֵמָה לֹא תַעֲבָר־בָּהּ וְלֹא תֵשֵׁב אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה׃ - No foot of man shall pass through it, nor shall foot of beast pass through it, nor shall it be inhabited for forty years.
A true and absolute destruction, like an arid wasteland. Just as an arid desert has no animals and holds nothing for people to seek, so that travelers do not pass through it, so too here: the land will be entirely desolate, and not even animals will be seen there. And how long will this last? Forty years.
Rashi cites the Midrash on this matter. There are several opinions in the Midrash, and this is the view of the Sages: forty-two years of famine were decreed upon Egypt in Pharaoh's dream. In the plain meaning of the verses, we see only seven years of famine, yet the Sages say forty-two. How did they arrive at this calculation? Corresponding to the three times the dream is recorded - seven cows and seven bad stalks of grain recorded three times, which equals twenty-one. Furthermore, the actual seeing of the dream is counted on its own, and the recounting to Yosef is counted on its own - that is another fourteen, totaling thirty-five. And Yosef, in interpreting it, repeats, "The seven empty and bad cows..." and mentions seven years of famine once more - that is another seven, making a total of forty-two.
In practice, the Midrash explains, they experienced only two years of famine, for when Yaakov descended to Egypt, the Nile rose to greet him and the famine ceased. Thus, a debt of forty years remained, and those forty years are now collected from them: these are the forty years during which Egypt will be desolate, uninhabited, and laid waste - an absolute famine, where nothing grows there. These are the forty years that Egypt had to complete from that dream.
וְנָתַתִּי אֶת־אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם שְׁמָמָה בְּתוֹךְ אֲרָצוֹת נְשַׁמּוֹת וְעָרֶיהָ בְּתוֹךְ עָרִים מָחֳרָבוֹת תִּהְיֶיןָ שְׁמָמָה אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה וַהֲפִצֹתִי אֶת־מִצְרַיִם בַּגּוֹיִם וְזֵרִיתִים בָּאֲרָצוֹת׃ - And I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of desolate countries, and her cities in the midst of cities laid waste shall be desolate forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them throughout the countries.
The Malbim adds: there will also be destruction in the areas surrounding Egypt. For had it alone been desolate while the surrounding lands were flourishing and prosperous, its situation would not have been so dire, since it could have obtained food from them - just as when there was a famine in the land of Canaan and they went down to Egypt to buy grain. Therefore it is said, "in the midst of desolate countries": the surrounding lands will also be desolate.
Sometimes a land is desolate yet the cities are not destroyed, like an oasis where the entire surrounding desert is barren while a flourishing settlement lies in its center. Therefore it says, "and her cities in the midst of cities laid waste": the cities themselves will be in ruins, and the neighboring cities around them will also be ruined. This intensifies the hardship: had the surrounding cities remained built up, they would have made efforts to help rebuild it, but when they too are ruined, there is no one to rebuild it.
And if you might ask: if so, is it merely equal to all the surrounding lands, being desolate among the desolate and ruined among the ruined? To this the verse responds that its desolation and destruction will be far greater. Even though it is "in the midst of desolate countries," its degree of desolation will surpass theirs, to the extent that relative to Egypt, they will be considered not desolate at all, and it alone will be called "the desolate land." And all this will endure for forty years.
Furthermore, those who escape and survive will not settle in one place; rather, they will be scattered among the nations. This is an even harsher blow, for when people are exiled but remain concentrated in one place, they still preserve their identity to some degree, whereas those dispersed among the nations become completely assimilated.