Ezekiel 29

Perhaps January 587, a year and a half before Babylon leveled Jerusalem in the summer of 586. The Hebrew text sets the date more literally “in the 10th year, 10th month, 12th day.” Most scholars say Ezekiel is probably working from the year when Judah’s 18-year-old King Jehoichin and others were deported to Babylon in 597 BC. The 10th month on the Jewish lunar calendar is Tevet (falling between December-January).

The Hebrew text more literally says God will pull the king fish out of the water “with all the fish…sticking to your scales.” That’s difficult to imagine since fish scales aren’t like double-sided duct tape.

Location of Migdol is unknown. The word Migdol shows up in Egyptian writings to identify several military sites: watchtowers or forts. An Egyptian letter from Pharaoh Seti  II (reigned 1204-1198 BC) reports one in the Sinai desert near Wadi Tumilat, which ran by Succoth, one of the cities the Israelites passed through (Exodus 12:37). A wadi is a desert stream bed that sometimes runs dry.

The ancient name was Syene, an Egyptian city in the south, near Egypt’s border with Ethiopia. The identity linking Syene to the area comes from one of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls copied and hidden in caves about 2,000 years ago.

Cush was the ancient name of the region. In the Bible it usually refers to what is now southern Egypt and Ethiopia. But some Bible experts say it may refer to the land settled by the descendants of “Cush” (Genesis 10:7-8). They settled in Babylonia, in what is now Iraq.

“Hyperbole” and “superlative” are words Bible scholars use to describe this prediction of what never happened this literally. They suggest Ezekiel was comparing Egypt’s suffering to the 40 years in the desert that Moses and the Hebrew ancestors of today’s Jews suffered during their exodus out of Egypt. Like the people of Israel, Egyptians left Egypt, an exodus of their own.

Egypt started to come to Jerusalem’s rescue when Babylonians invaded in 588 BC, but they turned back to home (Jeremiah 37:7; 2 Kings 18:21).

Ezekiel said he got the message on the first day of the first month of the year on the Jewish lunar calendar, Nisan (between March-April). The year would have been about 571 BC, probably in March.

Worked themselves bald? Never heard of it. But we could worry ourselves bald trying to explain it. Some scholars guess the baldness came from chaffing while possibly hauling material to build a causeway to Tyre’s fortress island half a mile off shore. Sounds like a stretch. Perhaps Ezekiel was simply trying to say the soldiers gave it their best effort, yet failed to capture Tyre. It took Alexander the Great to finish the job.

This entire verse is a pair of guesses. The more literal statements are “I will make a horn sprout in Israel” and “I will open your lips.” Scholars are all left guessing what to make of this. Is the “horn” a leader, a messiah, or strength in general? And what does it mean that Ezekiel will start talking? He has been talking for a long time since his previous episode of inability to speak (Ezekiel 24:25-27). But perhaps it means people would take him seriously now that attacks on Tyre and on Egypt he started predicting over a decade ago finally took place.