In the twelfth month - About one year and seven months after the destruction of Jerusalem. In the meantime had occurred the murder of Gedaliah and the flight into Egypt of the Jews left behind by the Chaldaeans Jeremiah 41-43. Jeremiah, who had accompanied them, foretold their ruin Jeremiah 44 in a prophecy probably contemporaneous with the present - the sixth against Egypt, delivered in the form of a dirge Ezekiel 44:2-16.

In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month - On Wednesday, March 22, the twelfth year of the captivity of Jeconiah, A.M. 3417.

Instead of the twelfth year, five of Kennicott's MSS., and eight of De Rossi's, read בעשתי עשרה in the eleventh year. This reading is supported by the Syriac; and is confirmed by an excellent MS. of my own, about four hundred years old.

And it came to pass in the twelfth year,.... Of Jeconiah's captivity, above a year and a half after the taking of Jerusalem; the Syriac version reads in the eleventh year:

in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month; the month Adar, which answers to part of our February, and part of March; the Septuagint version reads it the tenth month: according to Bishop Usher (t), this was on the twenty second of March, on the fourth day of the week (Wednesday), 3417 A.M.or 587 years before Christ:

that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows:

(t) Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3417.

Lamentation over the King of Egypt

Pharaoh, a sea-monster, is drawn by the nations out of his waters with the net of God, and cast out upon the earth. His flesh is given to the birds and beasts of prey to devour, and the earth is saturated with his blood (Ezekiel 32:2-6). At his destruction the lights of heaven lose their brightness, and all the nations will be amazed thereat (Ezekiel 32:7-10). The king of Babel will come upon Egypt, will destroy both man and beast, and will make the land a desert (Ezekiel 32:11-16). - The date given in Ezekiel 32:1 - "In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first of the month, the word of Jehovah came to me, saying" - agrees entirely with the relation in which the substance of the ode itself stands to the prophecies belonging to the tenth and eleventh years in Ezekiel 29:1-16 and Ezekiel 30:20-26; whereas the different date found in the Septuagint cannot come into consideration for a moment.

And it came to pass in the {a} twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

(a) Which was the first year of the general captivity under Zedekiah.

32:1 Twelfth year - Of the captivity of Jeconiah.

Margin twelfth month

i.e. March. Also Ezek 32:17.

CHAPTER 32

Eze 32:1-32. Two Elegies over Pharaoh, One Delivered on the First Day (Eze 32:1), THE Other on the Fifteenth Day of the Same Month, the Twelfth of the Twelfth Year.

1. The twelfth year from the carrying away of Jehoiachin; Jerusalem was by this time overthrown, and Amasis was beginning his revolt against Pharaoh-hophra.

32:1-16 It becomes us to weep and tremble for those who will not weep and tremble for themselves. Great oppressors are, in God's account, no better than beasts of prey. Those who admire the pomp of this world, will wonder at the ruin of that pomp; which to those who know the vanity of all things here below, is no surprise. When others are ruined by sin, we have to fear, knowing ourselves guilty. The instruments of the desolation are formidable. And the instances of the desolation are frightful. The waters of Egypt shall run like oil, which signifies there should be universal sadness and heaviness upon the whole nation. God can soon empty those of this world's goods who have the greatest fulness of them. By enlarging the matters of our joy, we increase the occasions of our sorrow. How weak and helpless, as to God, are the most powerful of mankind! The destruction of Egypt was a type of the destruction of the enemies of Christ.