Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S34 || When Nations Crumble || Ezekiel 30:1 - 31:14 || Session 34
What happens when a mighty nation forgets who placed them in power? Ezekiel's lament for Egypt reveals the sobering answer. This powerful examination of Ezekiel chapters 30 and 31 unpacks how God pronounced judgment on one of history's greatest empires—and why.
For over 2,500 years, Egypt had stood as a cultural and military colossus, wielding immense influence across the ancient world. Yet God declared its downfall with precise detail through His prophet Ezekiel. The specificity is remarkable: Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon would attack in 568 BC, followed by the Persians in 525 BC who would completely end the dynastic line of Pharaohs that had ruled continuously for millennia.
The heart of Egypt's downfall? Pride. "Its heart is haughty in its loftiness," God declares. Through vivid imagery, Ezekiel portrays Egypt as a mighty tree whose branches once sheltered many nations but would become a place where only scavengers feed after judgment. This transformation from protector to prey illustrates the totality of divine judgment—a pattern that repeats throughout history.
This message remains profoundly relevant today. God still raises up and brings down nations according to His sovereign purposes. Leaders who believe their countries exist autonomously, without accountability to divine standards, misunderstand the lessons of history. Yet there's hope in this warning—God always sends messengers before judgment, giving opportunity for repentance. The question for nations today is whether they will heed these warnings before experiencing the day of the Lord.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
In the book of Ezekiel, the Lord, god gives a great deal of condemnation of his own chosen people, the people of Israel. We're also now in a section where he gives condemnation and judgment towards the nations around Israel, and we're in specifically speaking of Egypt. So today we're going to see some details of what God thinks about Egypt and why. If you have your copy of the Word of God, open it to Ezekiel, chapter 30, and we're going to be reading there. This chapter is a lament for Egypt. A lament is a sad dirge for someone or something that is in the process of death. The prophecies of Egypt being defeated that are found in the previous chapter and the following ones were literally fulfilled in two different battles, one of which was in 568 BC. Babylon came in and took much of the wealth of Egypt. Then later, in 525, the Persians came in and completely took away the line of the pharaohs and took away the nation.
Speaker 1:Egypt was a great, highly educated and well-developed world power. For over 2,500 years After God judged it, most of the Egyptian history was buried in the sand and had to be rediscovered. Even today, historians know very little comparative to all of the history of it. What we know has been found on the walls of the tombs, but many of the cultural history has been lost. God judged Egypt thoroughly. When I was there we went through the Sinai Peninsula and I can tell you it has been judged. It is very desolate. We're going to see today this lament for the nation Israel. Steve, can you read the first three verses of Ezekiel, chapter 30?
Speaker 2:The word of the Lord came again to me, saying Son of man, prophesy, and say Thus says the Lord. God Wail, alas, for the day, for the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near. It will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.
Speaker 1:With this again. Verse 1, ezekiel says the word of the Lord came to me. So he's giving a very direct eyewitness, first-person account of what he experienced and what he was told by God. We have an eyewitness account that we can trust and there's no person today that can look back and question what the eyewitness said in ancient Israel. Verse 3, we'll stop here for a minute talks about the day of the Lord. Steve, what is the day of the Lord and what is it in this context specifically? When you look up that phrase the day of the Lord and what is it in this context specifically?
Speaker 2:When you look up that phrase, the day of the Lord, we see that it's referenced about 23 times throughout Scripture. Almost all of those are in the Old Testament. There's a couple of times it's referenced in the New Testament and a great many of them is referred to in the book of Joel itself the day of the Lord. That word there of the Lord. Anytime we see L-O-R-D in capital letters, the word behind that is Yahweh. We've mentioned that many, many times as we've gone through all of our teachings.
Speaker 2:The reason the translators use the Lord rather than the name Yahweh is out of respect of not using the name Yahweh itself. The Hebrews, the Israelites, they didn't want to use God's name directly. So you'll see today, many times in writing it will be written with a capital G and then a hash mark or an underscore and then a letter D. Another way that you'll hear them they'll talk about Hashem, meaning the name, whenever you hear Israelites or Jewish people referencing Yahweh, israelites or Jewish people referencing Yahweh. So I'm bringing this up because when you look at the words here, when it says the day of the Lord, what it's actually saying is the day of Yahweh. That's what's being referenced here through all of these different times.
Speaker 2:As we look at the different ways that it's used throughout the prophets, I think it's best for us to look at the context as to what is being used. Is it talking about something that is future, or is it talking about a day that has happened within the time period of what the prophets are talking about? So with that set up, glenn, I think you're going to go into a little bit of detail. Is this day of Yahweh here talking about something that's going to happen in the future, or is it talking about something that happened during the lifetime of Ezekiel?
Speaker 1:We don't have to guess at what the phrase means day of the Lord, because he tells us what it means in verse 3. He says it will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations. Whenever it uses the phrase day of the Lord, this is a time when Yahweh, the Lord, God, the one true God, will pour out his wrath on a country or countries. The day of the Lord is always used as a day of vengeance, a day of wrath, a day of punishment. The Lord is long-suffering and, as we've seen, as we've gone through Ezekiel, there was many, many centuries where God sent prophets but did not send full judgment. Here, most of the book, the context is he's sending full judgment on the Jewish people, the people of Jerusalem. Most of the time when it uses this term day of the Lord, the context is quite clearly speaking of a future time when God pours out his wrath on all nations. If we go through many of the Old Testament prophets and look up that phrase, it's very clearly speaking of a future time when God pours out his wrath on all nations. However, the context here raises some questions, simply because, as we've seen, the vast majority of the wrath poured out here in the book of Ezekiel has been relatively immediate. Within either the exact time that Ezekiel was alive or very shortly thereafter. Within less than a hundred years, was most of the prophecies. There have been some, as we've seen, where he said there's going to be a future day when Israel is restored. Well, the restoration is not a pouring out of vengeance. It's not, again the last part of verse 3, a time of doom for the nations. That's not a restoration, that is a pouring out of wrath. Verse 30, chapter 30, rather verse 5, lists several more nations that God is going to deal with, including Ethiopia, Arabia, Libya. So God is speaking of a time when he's going to pour out his wrath on Egypt specifically, because that's what this section of the book is talking about, but also these nations around it. This now makes at least a dozen nations that have been mentioned up to this point in the book of Ezekiel that have been mentioned so far, all of which God says he's going to deal with in judgment. Therefore, this particular day of the Lord was one where God poured out his wrath on the nations mentioned specifically here in Ezekiel. In this context, Much of it had already been completed. We're going to see as we get to the next chapter or two, he's going to speak of past tense, having already judged some of these people and destroyed them already.
Speaker 1:If we look in the book of Lamentations, chapter 2, verses 21 and 22, we can get one clue about how to answer this day of the Lord question, because there God speaks about the Lord's anger having already come upon Israel.
Speaker 1:Technically, the day of the Lord is any time when God's anger and wrath is poured out on the nations, and the context, as you well stated, on the nations and the context, as you well stated, Steve is the clue to telling us whether it's present or future. Most of the day of the Lord is clearly future. This one could be spoken of in a sense of the day of the Lord coming on Egypt, because again, there's Babylon's going to come within a few years, Persia a few years after that. For Egypt, the day of the Lord came when these nations came in and ended the line of the Pharaohs. But there will come future times, because there's just too many other Bible passages when it talks about the great and terrible day of the Lord coming as the pouring out of wrath on the nations. The next few verses reinforce this idea of God's judgment on the nations. Steve, can you read from verses 6 down to verse 9?
Speaker 2:Thus, says the Lord. Indeed, those who support Egypt will fall and the pride of her power will come down From Migdal to Syene. They will fall within her by the sword, declares the Lord. God, they will be desolate in the midst of the desolated lands and her cities will be in the midst of the devastated cities. And they will know that I am the Lord when I set a fire in Egypt and all her helpers are broken. On that day, messengers will go forth from me in ships to frighten, secure Ethiopia. Anguish will be on them, as on the day of Egypt. For behold, it comes.
Speaker 1:Steve, we've asked this question before. We'll ask it again here. Does God take action to control nations? Does God have a plan and expectations for countries as well as individuals?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he does. As we've talked about, there is going to be a redemption of the nations. We see through all of these chapters here that we've been dealing with since chapter 24 of God talking about dealing with and judging the Gentile nations. He's very clear as to the parts that he's talking about there in verse 6 when he says from Migdal to Syene, they will fall with her by the sword, her being Egypt, and Migdal was an outpost in the northern part of Egypt and Migdal was an outpost in the northern part of Egypt. Syene was in the southern part of Egypt. So it's clear here he's talking about the whole nation of Egypt and the geographic area of Egypt. He's not just talking about Pharaoh himself and in this section that I just read here, glenn, he's talking about the other nations that have aligned themselves with Egypt that they're going to be held accountable to. Specifically at the end there in verse 9, he was talking about Ethiopia and he was talking about secure Ethiopia, but it was no longer going to be secure whenever God passes judgment on it.
Speaker 1:In verse 9, god talks about how he's going to send messengers to these other countries. He uses the phrase he's going to send them on ships. Now the ships was the mass transportation of the day. God says here I'm going to send out the message and it's going to go across the lands quickly on a ship. Back in chapter 28, god had dealt with Tyre and he made the picture of Tyre as being a ship that he's going to deal with. Here God uses his own messengers as being on a ship. In chapter 30, verse 9, god uses his own message as coming on a ship.
Speaker 1:God always sends messengers out prior to casting judgment on a nation. He always sends prophets out with a message of what he's going to do. We find that throughout the Bible from the Old Testament New even in the future we have messengers that go out, prophets that go out with God's word before he casts judgment. So the reason I bring that up is because the skeptics and the critics make a lot of. So the reason I bring that up is because the skeptics and the critics make a lot of criticism about when God sent Joshua to go destroy the Canaanites. We can only conclude, because God does it everywhere else that he sent prophets to Canaan and they did not heed that. Those prophets did not obey and kept on doing their evil practices of child sacrifice. And the skeptics can't have it both ways. We can't have a God that destroys evil and a God that allows evil to continue.
Speaker 1:We have here a very just God that sends messengers out before he actually destroys a people. These people were evil, they were against God. They had been fighting against God. He sent messengers out. They ignored it, and now he's going to send prophets out to say that their doom is sure. God made it very clear what he was going to do and they refused. Steve, the message is still the same for us today, is it not? Steve? The message is still the same for us today, is it not? Has God sent messengers out on what we have to do to get right with Him and what happens if we don't?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're messengers. In our Bible study here we're being very direct in teaching God's Word, which tells us who God is, his characteristics and His attributes, what he has done in history past and what he is going to do in the future. We know what he's going to do in the future and can trust it because we know that from His prophecies. Of things that have happened in the past, we have historical evidence, we have historical records. We have archaeological evidence of actual places that exist and people's names that have been found in these archaeological digs from cities and seals with these prophets and others' names on them through various archaeological digs.
Speaker 2:God is very real and present and through his preachers and pastors and teachers in our age, those are the messengers that have gone out far and wide telling people of salvation that they can have through Jesus Christ. Jesus says I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. He also says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. That's the way to have eternal salvation and a life in eternity with God is through Jesus Christ. That's the message that goes out today, the good news, and we invite any of our listeners who are not already believers in Jesus Christ, to become a believer in Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
Speaker 1:Ezekiel, chapter 30, verse 10, and following. He continues to go on and give details about how he's going to destroy Egypt. I'm reading now Thus says the Lord God, I will also make the hordes of Egypt cease by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. He and his people with him, the most ruthless of the nations, will be brought in to destroy the land and they will draw their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the slain. Moreover, I will make the Nile canals dry and sell the land to the hands of evil men, and I will make the land desolate and all that is in it by the hand of strangers. I, the Lord, have spoken.
Speaker 1:This passage tells us that God will send in Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to come and attack Egypt. It was literally fulfilled in 568 BC, when Babylon attacked Egypt and Babylon took much of the wealth of Egypt but did not completely conquer it. The final conquering happened in 526, when the Persians came in and completely destroyed the land and ended the line of the pharaohs and the old kingdom. Skeptics try to make chapters 29 and 30 say that Ezekiel is predicting Nebuchadnezzar will completely conquer Egypt, but a close reading of this text says that Egypt will be destroyed and one of the invaders is going to be Nebuchadnezzar, who will kill a lot of people and make the land desolate. That was literally fulfilled in the years following Ezekiel's prophecy. The Bible once again is proven correct, for the text never says that Nebuchadnezzar will completely defeat Egypt by himself. It just says that he will kill a lot of people and that the land will then be destroyed. Steve, we have here once again God raising up nations and taking them down. This seems to be a major theme through the Old Testament.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as we've talked before, there's going to be a major theme through the Old Testament. Yeah, as we've talked before, there's going to be a redemption of the nations, and we can be assured that that's going to happen, because we see here and in other places of Scripture of God being very clear that the leaders of the nations serve at his pleasure. Whenever he decides to take them down or to take them out, then he's going to do that. We see that here with Egypt, he's using Nebuchadnezzar in order to do that, and he mentions that in verse 11, that Nebuchadnezzar, babylon, is the most ruthless of the nations At that time. That was the reputation that Babylon had as a ruthless invader that would come in and not spare people at all and then, when they defeated the nations, they would take those people and take them into exile, what they did with Israel in Judah and Jerusalem they took them off into exile. That's who Ezekiel is prophesying to. He's prophesying to the Israelite exiles that are in Babylon at the time.
Speaker 1:Verse 13 says this. Thus says the Lord God, I will also destroy the idols and make the images cease from Memphis. There will no longer be a prince in the land of Egypt, and I will put fear in the land of Egypt. What is God saying he's going to do there?
Speaker 2:He's saying that he's going to cause their idol worship to stop. Just like God is using this exile, this taking away from the land of Israel, taking them out of the land, and the final destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in order to finally get the nation of Israel out, away from idol worship, he's going to do the same thing here with Egypt. He's using Babylon, much like he has used with Israel, to get them to where they're not any longer going to serve or worship these false gods that Egypt has.
Speaker 1:He says here he's going to get rid of the idols. He also says no prince is going to be there. No prince means that the line of the heir to the throne is going to be ended. That was literally fulfilled. He destroyed the line of the pharaohs. We can trust these prophecies. He goes on in the following verses verses 14 to 19.
Speaker 1:God lists off a series of nine specific cities and regions of Egypt that are going to be destroyed. God is very specific in these prophecies. These cities were the strength of Egypt. Once the major cities were destroyed, then the strength of Egypt would be gone, whether or not the entire land was taken. Once you take the major cities, then the strength of Egypt was destroyed. The pharaohs had been leading Egypt for 2,500 years by this point and God ended the line of the pharaohs. God sent a series of invading nations that took away Egypt's ability to help Israel or influence Israel with idol worship. Egypt had been a world power for two and a half millennia, but in less than 60 years of Ezekiel's prophecy, babylon and Persia had destroyed it. They were literally fulfilled. Steve, can you start at verse 20 and read through 22?
Speaker 2:In the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh of the month, the word of the Lord came to me saying Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and, behold, it has not been bound up for healing or wrapped with a bandage that it may be strong to hold the sword. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, I am against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and will break his arms, both the strong and the broken, and I will make the sword fall from his hand.
Speaker 1:Steve, can somebody hold a sword with a broken arm?
Speaker 2:No, they can't.
Speaker 1:Can they hold a scepter with a broken arm?
Speaker 2:No, they can't, especially whenever it's put into a cast.
Speaker 1:That's what he's saying. He's going to break the arm of Pharaoh. That means the strength will be gone. They won't be able to militarily fight with a sword and won't be able to rule from the throne with a scepter. You have to have power, and oftentimes the right hand is used as the symbol of that. So he's going to break his arm, won't be able to fight militarily, won't be able to rule with a scepter. God is bringing a series of invading armies to come in and take away the strength of Egypt. His military might is going to be gone and the line of the pharaohs are going to be destroyed. That's literally fulfilled in the coming years. After Ezekiel's prophecy. That brings us to chapter 31,. And in chapter 31, he continues this lament for the downfall of Egypt.
Speaker 1:Verses 5 through 7 speak of the greatness of Egypt at the height of its power. I'm reading now in Ezekiel 31.5,. Therefore, its height was loftier than all the trees of the field and its bows became many and its branches long because of many waters as it spread them out. All the birds of the heavens nested in its bows and under its branches, all the beasts of the field gave birth and all the great nations lived under its shade. So it was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches, for its roots extended to many waters. Steve, it said here at the end of verse 6, all the great nations lived in its shade. How powerful and influential was Egypt.
Speaker 2:It was very influential. We talked about Tyre as having the trade and the commerce and that was up in the kind of the northern part of the Mediterranean. But a great trading partner for them was Egypt, the nation of Egypt, and it had great power throughout its history. It would make excursions into Israel, up into the northern part of Israel, into, then, the Tyre area and even up into the Assyrians. They had battles with Assyria, they had battles with Babylon, they had battles throughout its history, all throughout that region. In fact we have clay tablets called letters that were going back and forth between some of the city-states in the Canaanite area to pharaohs of Egypt asking them to come in and help them throw out some of the invaders that had come in. Egypt was very influential, at the height of its power within that region of Canaan and even north of that.
Speaker 1:Verse 10 gives us even more information. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, because it is high in stature and has set its top among the clouds and its heart is haughty in its loftiness, Therefore I will give it into the hand of a despot of nations. He will thoroughly deal with it according to its wickedness. I've driven it away. So in those verses, Steve, why does God say he's going to cut down Egypt?
Speaker 2:He says because of pride. Once again, it comes down to pride.
Speaker 1:We mentioned this before, but it's come up again here in the text. What is it about pride that God doesn't like, and what is it about humbleness that he does like? Why is it that those two features of the human nature are like?
Speaker 2:that Someone that is prideful thinks that they have done everything on their own power and they give no credit whatsoever to God. Who is humble and humbled themselves to God does the exact opposite. They acknowledge that their existence and the blessings that they have comes from God and they worship God. So it's the complete opposite of the spectrum and they worship God. So it's the complete opposite of the spectrum. One is all self-centered on man pride.
Speaker 1:The other is all centered on God humbleness In this passage in this chapter he's giving a description of before and after Egypt was judged. Before it was judged in verse 6, all the birds of heaven and the beast of the field were nesting and resting under its branches. The beast could give birth there. So all the other nations, and even the more unseemly, unsavory ones, were able to live within the shadow and influence of Egypt. In verse 13, after God judges Egypt, the birds came, but these were carrion birds that were there to eat the dead flesh of the people that had been killed, or the beast. They weren't giving birth there anymore. They were scavenging on the dead bodies and the dead flesh. This was a quite drastic description of before and after.
Speaker 1:Before, egypt was so powerful that even the smaller nations that were like the jackals could survive within its branches and under its shade. After God judged it then, these jackals were coming in like wolves to feed on a deceased animal. God had shown Egypt his power in the 10 plagues and the defeat of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, and he's doing it again here. They didn't learn their lesson the first time? Steve going all the way back to Genesis. Steve going all the way back to Genesis. Why did God judge the people of Egypt and the Tower of Babel and do all these nation things, and he's still doing it. Here we have this idea that the Bible is only about salvation, but we have here nations that are being judged, are they not?
Speaker 2:Yes, they are, and that was one of the purposes of the nation of Israel Whenever the covenant was made with Abraham. He says that I'm going to give you land to live in and through you and your seed, you're going to be a blessing to all the nations. So the nations were part of the covenant from the beginning with Abraham. It's not just about the redemption of mankind, it's also about the redemption of the nations.
Speaker 1:If God brought down the great and powerful Egypt and brought it down to desolation. What will he do to lesser nations like ours when they don't follow?
Speaker 2:his ways, and that's a very good question. If God has a plan for the nations, then he's got a plan for the nations today as well. It would be a good thing for the leaders of these nations to acknowledge that God is still in control.
Speaker 1:If the leaders of our nations today do not bow the knee to the Lord, god and learn his ways, then God will bring them down, because they will ultimately bow the knee either humbly in contrite repentance or under his mighty hand of wrath and judgment. But God is the one that raises up nations and he tears them down again, and it's his prerogative. That is such a great lesson that is just not taught today. We'll stop here for today. We'll next time learn the difference between Sheol and hell, because many of these nations are going to be there.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening, as always. May God bless you.
