Ezekiel 29:4

4 And I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales; and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, with all the fish of thy rivers which stick unto thy scales.

Ezekiel 29:4 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 29:4

But I will put hooks in thy jaws
The allusion is to fishhooks, which are taken by fishes with the bait into their mouths, and stick in their jaws, by which they are drawn out of the river, and taken. The king of Egypt being before compared to a fish, these hooks design some powerful princes and armies, which should be the ruin of Pharaoh; one of them, according to Junius and Grotius, was Amasis, at the head of the Cyreneans and Greeks; and another was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; see ( Job 41:1 Job 41:2 ) ( Isaiah 37:29 ) : and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales;
the people of his kingdom, especially his soldiers, generals, princes, and great men, to cleave to him, follow him, and go out with him in his expedition against Amasis. The Targum is,

``I will kill the princes of thy strength with thy mighty ones:''

and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers:
alluding to the crocodile, to which he is compared, which sometimes comes out of the river, and goes on dry land. The king of Egypt was brought out of his kingdom by the following means: Amasis, with the Cyreneans and Greeks, having seized upon Lybia, and drove the king of it from thence, he applied to Pharaoh for help, who gathered a large army of Egyptians, and led them out into the fields of Cyrene, where they were defeated by Amasis, and almost all perished, and the king saved himself by flight; upon which the Egyptians mutinied and rebelled against him, and Amasis became their king: and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales;
the common people of Egypt; for the above numerous army consisted only of Egyptians, whom he gathered from all parts, drained his rivers of them, and almost exhausted his country hereby; he had indeed in an army, after this battle with Amasis, thirty thousand auxiliaries, Carians and Ionians; but these were not the fish of his rivers. The Targum is,

``I will make thy kingdom to cease from thee, and all the princes of thy strength with thy mighty ones shall be killed;''

with which the history agrees. The allusion to the crocodile is here very just and pertinent, which is a fish full of scales. Monsieur Thevenot ^F1, who saw many of them, says, that

``the body of this fish is large, and all of a size; the back is covered with high scales, like the heads of nails in a court gate, of a greenish colour, and so hard that they are proof against a halberd; and it has a long tail covered with scales like the body;''

and another traveller says ^F2 they have scales on their back musket proof, and therefore must be wounded in the belly; but another traveller ^F3 says, this is a vulgar report that a musket shot will not pierce the skins of the crocodiles, for upon trial it is found false; yet all writers, ancient and modern, allow it to have very firm scales on its back, which render it capable of bearing the heaviest strokes, and to be in a measure impenetrable and invincible; so Herodotus ^F4 says, it has a skin full of scales, on the back infrangible; or, as Pliny ^F5 expresses it, invincible against all blows and strokes it may be stricken with; and so says Aristotle ^F6, with which Aelian ^F7 agrees, who says that the crocodile has by nature a back and tail impenetrable; for it is covered with scales, as if it was armed as one might say, not unlike to hard shells.

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 Travels, par. 1. B. 2. c. 72. p. 245.
F2 Mandelsloe in Harris's Voyages vol. 1. p. 759.
F3 Tavernier in ib. p. 835.
F4 Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 63.
F5 Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 25.
F6 Hist. Animal: l. 2. c. 10.
F7 De Animal. l. 10. c. 24.

Ezekiel 29:4 In-Context

2 Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt;

3 speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lieth in the midst of his rivers, that hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.

4 And I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales; and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, with all the fish of thy rivers which stick unto thy scales.

5 And I will cast thee forth into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open field; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered; I have given thee for food to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens.

6 And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am Jehovah, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.