Ezekiel 32:16

16 This is a lament, and it will be sung as a lament. The daughters of the nations will lament for Egypt, and they will also lament for Egypt's hordes. This is what the LORD God says.

Ezekiel 32:16 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 32:16

This is the lamentation with which they shall lament her
The Egyptians themselves, or rather they that are after mentioned. The Targum is,

``the prophet said, a lamentation is this prophecy, and it shall be for a lamentation;''

he was bid at the beginning of it to take up a lamentation, and now at the end of it he pronounces it to be one, and that it should be sung as such: the daughters of the nations shall lament for her;
either literally understood, it being the business and custom of women to say or sing the funeral dirge, or the lamentation at the interment of the deceased; or figuratively, the inhabitants of other nations. So Ben Melech and the Targum, ``the villages of the people shall lament her''; that is, the inhabitants of them, who were in alliance with Egypt, and under its protection: they shall lament for her, even for Egypt, and for all her multitude;
for the desolation of the land, and for the vast numbers of people that should be slain with the sword, or carried captive: saith the Lord God;
which is added for the confirmation of it; for what he has spoken shall be done.

Ezekiel 32:16 In-Context

14 At that time, I will allow the waters to run clear, and make its rivers flow like oil. This is what the LORD God says.

15 When I turn the land of Egypt into a wasteland and the land is deprived of all that fills it, and when I strike down those who live there, then they will know that I am the LORD.

16 This is a lament, and it will be sung as a lament. The daughters of the nations will lament for Egypt, and they will also lament for Egypt's hordes. This is what the LORD God says.

17 In the twelfth year, on the fifteenth day of the first month, the LORD's word came to me:

18 Human one, mourn for Egypt's hordes. Send Egypt down with the mighty nations subject to it, to the world below, among those who go down to the pit.