Morning Light – August 21st, 2017 – Ezekiel 29: The Fate of Egypt and the Spirit of Leviathan

Morning Light – Ezekiel 29
Today: [Ezekiel 29] The Fate of Egypt and the Spirit of Leviathan. In Ezekiel 30 the prophet speaks against Egypt as a type of the world system. Her king is described as the crocodile, or Leviathan – swimming in the waters of lost humanity. Leviathan is king of all the children of pride, Job tells us and in this chapter the promise of God is that Egypt as a type of the world will be brought down and the horn of the house of Israel will be established in the birth, death and resurrection of Christ.
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[Eze 29:1-21 KJV] 1 In the tenth year, in the tenth [month], in the twelfth [day] of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 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 GOD; Behold, I [am] against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river [is] mine own, and I have made [it] for myself. 4 But 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, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. 5 And I will leave thee [thrown] into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven. 6 And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I [am] the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. 7 When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand. 8 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. 9 And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I [am] the LORD: because he hath said, The river [is] mine, and I have made [it]. 10 Behold, therefore I [am] against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste [and] desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. 11 No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years. 12 And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries [that are] desolate, and her cities among the cities [that are] laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.
Ezekiel 29 is a prophecy given during the final years of Zedekiah’s reign. Zedekiah was the last of the kings in the line of David before the city of Jerusalem was destroyed and the kingdom of Judah defeated. The Pharaoh during this time greatly encouraged Zedekiah to rebel against the Chaldeans because the kingdom of Judah was a preoccupation to Babylon that delayed and distracted them from putting their energies into overthrowing Egypt. This chapter then is a denunciation of Egypt as the false hope of the people of God. The Pharaoh was so effective in seducing the people of the southern kingdom that a cult of worship to Egypt’s gods in Jerusalem even polluted the altars in the temple of Solomon. In all of this there was no help forthcoming from Egypt during the invasion of Judah. As the Chaldeans crushed the southern kingdom the people of Jerusalem violently perished with the cries of Egypt on their lips, all in vain. As Isa. 30:7 tells us, Egypt’s strength was in sitting still.
This chapter speaks to false trust. Isaiah 8:19 laments this declaring in astonishment, why should the living seek out the dead (Egypt’s religion was based on a death cult) rather than looking to their God. In our own lives this is a danger and a caution to us. 1 John 5:21 admonishes us “little children keep yourselves from idols…” Now as believers we would never get a statue of Buddha or some other image and kneel down to worship it, but idolatry is much more subtle. Idolatry is what results when we look to others for what we ought to be looking to the Lord for. We all know that petition is the answer to the needs of the world and of our nation. We petition the courts, the political arena, the military, thinking that a legal remedy, a political solution, or military intervention will solve the problems of the world. And the men and women in these systems will say “yes if you give me enough authority and enough money I can meet your needs and the needs of your city and your nation…” This is idolatry. This is the lie of Egypt, for Egypt represents the world and the false systems of the world. Petition is indeed the answer, but when we loose faith in our God as the southern kingdom of Judah did, then we cease to petition God in prayer and put our energies into calling to Egypt, the next political messiah, or the courts, the next conservative Supreme court justice, or the military, the next drone strike to solve the world’s problems and we are disappointed every time. Our hope and redress lies not in the systems of men but in the court of heaven. Let that be where we lodge our petitions and we will see our land once again become the land of peace and quiet and godliness and honesty.
13 Yet thus saith the Lord GOD; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered: 14 And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return [into] the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom. 15 It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations. 16 And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, which bringeth [their] iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I [am] the Lord GOD. 17 And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first [month], in the first [day] of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 18 Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head [was] made bald, and every shoulder [was] peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it: 19 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. 20 I have given him the land of Egypt [for] his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord GOD. 21 In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I [am] the LORD.
The 29th chapter of Ezekiel lodges 7 prophetic words against Egypt, which is a type of the world system. The king of Egypt is described as a great dragon that swims in the waters of the Nile. This is otherwise identified as Leviathan. Job 41:34 tells us that Leviathan is king of all the children of pride. Have you ever noticed that politicians seldom apologize or admit they were wrong? In America, it is political suicide to apologize or say you got it wrong. Americans throughout their history have consistently shown support and been willing to vote for the children of Leviathan. Then when the leaders are incapable or unwilling to deliver on their promises, the nation reels away from that incumbent and chooses the next leader to make promises they cannot or will not deliver on. The answer is not a political sea change but a change of heart. To look at ourselves and see if perhaps, just maybe we are looking to man for what we should be looking to the Lord for.
In verse 3 the Lord speaks through Ezekiel reminding the Pharaoh as child of Leviathan that the waters he swims in belong to the Lord. Psalm 24:1 says that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. In our culture we have excluded God from the public square, under the thinly veneered suggestion that religion and spiritual matters are only matters of the heart with no place in the public discourse. Perhaps those who believe such things have forgotten that God’s posture toward the world and its leaders is found in Psalm 2:
[Psa 2:1-5, 10-12 KJV] 1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, [saying], 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. … 10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish [from] the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed [are] all they that put their trust in him.
How did this apply in king Zedekiah’s day and the king of Egypt’s day? God lifted His hand of restraint from them and allowed them to fall to the Babylonian invaders. Verse 18 says that God gave Egypt into the hands of the king of Babylon as payment for the Chaldean war against the city of Tyrus. Yet the Lord says in verse 21 that in the midst of all this chaos there would be a horn of the house of Israel that would bud. What was that horn? It was the line of the kings of David. Although the throne of Jerusalem is no more, and even to this day from Zedekiah’s time until now a king from the line of David after the natural has never ruled in Israel. What then is the horn of Israel promised to bud? It was the grandparents, and parents of Zerubbabel who was instrumental in the reconstruction of the temple 70 years later. It was the bloodline of the Messiah, kept intact during all this upheaval, from Adam to Abraham, from Abraham to David, from David to Zerubbabel and from Zerubbabel to Christ, born in a manger, the redeemer of the world. In spite then of wars and rumors of wars, and unrest in every hemisphere of the globe, we rejoice and trust in this – that God rules overall and at the end of the day it will be the kingdom of God superintending the affairs of our life in equity, justice and according fully to God’s purpose.