Page 149 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER XXX. 143
power and judge (not first the dead but) the quick. There
was the direct government of God then in Israel, which
dealt also with the nations that meddled with His
people, as there will be by and by an incomparably
better display of it when the Lord comes to reign over
the earth. Meanwhile we have only the course of pro­
vidence regulating sovereignly and unseen, while the
Jews are for the time abandoned for their apostasy and
also now their rejection of the Messiah.
“ The word of Jehovah came again unto me, saying,
Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord
Jehovah; Howl ye, Alas for* the day ! For the day
is near, even the day of Jehovah is near, a cloudy day;
it shall be the time of the heathen. And the sword
shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in
Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they
shall take away her multitude, and her foundations
shall be broken down. Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia,
and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the men of
the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the
sword.” (Ver. 1—5.) The intervention of Jehovah in the
downfall of Egypt identifies itself in principle with the day
of Jehovah which closes this age and spreads over that
which is to come. Not only should the African races
fall, but the sons of the land of the covenant, which
seems to point to such Jews as had gone to live there
away from the distresses of home.
“ Thus saith Jehovah; They also that uphold Egypt
6hall fall; and the pride of her power shall come down:
from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword,
* Our version gives the obsolete phrase “ Woe worth ** instead of
“Woe unto ” &c.