Day 234: Ezekiel 29–32 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Hey Bible Nerds, this is Dr. Manny Arango. Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by ARMA. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. Family, welcome to day 234. We are in Ezekiel chapters 29 to 32 today, and if you were here yesterday, you know that this chunk of Ezekiel actually fits together with yesterday's reading and Ezekiel chapters 25 to 32 make up the oracles against the nations. We looked at the first half of those oracles yesterday. We are going to look at the second half of those oracles today. Now you may be thinking half and half is going to be, oh there's seven oracles, we'll do three and a half in chapters 25 to 28 and then three and a half in chapters 29 to 32. Nope, that's not how it's actually assembled or organized. Ezekiel goes ahead and prophesies against six nations or six cities, six groups of people. We looked at that yesterday in Ezekiel chapters 25 to 28 and today Ezekiel chapter 29 to 32 focuses solely on the nation of Egypt. So in terms of biblical real estate, it takes up half and that is because there are seven oracles against Egypt. So there are seven oracles or seven nations that are prophesied against in totality. I'll actually give you the full list just so that you know. It's Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon in Egypt. So seven nations are going to be prophesied against. Six of those we've already looked at. We've already looked at Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, and Sidon and today there are going to now be seven oracles against the seventh nation, which is Egypt. And to be honest, that is all the context that we really need. If you want to see how oracles against the nations fit into the broader tapestry of scripture, then you can look at Jeremiah chapter 46 to 51. That is the section of the book of Jeremiah that's dedicated as an oracle against the nations. That's Jeremiah's oracles against the nations. And then Isaiah chapter 13 to 21, Isaiah also has a section of his book that is his oracles against the nations. And I guess the better way to say it would be Yahweh's oracles against the nations spoken through Jeremiah and Yahweh's oracles against the nations spoken through Isaiah. And we are now going to dive in to the second half, which is just dedicated to the nation of Egypt. My job today, that's all our context clues for the day. My job today is to try to give you at least a nerdy nugget for each chapter that we're going to look at 29, 30, 31, and 32. But let me just be straight up. We're really going to focus on chapters 29 and chapters 32. So I'm going to try to give you a nerdy nugget for every chapter, but we're really going to focus heavily on our first chapter in today's reading and our last chapter, because I

actually think that looking at the first and last chapter of today's reading will shed a lot of light on what we talked about yesterday and whether or not the prophecy from Ezekiel chapter 28 is about the King of Tyre, the King of Tyre, or about Satan. Okay. And so I think today's content will really fill in the gaps on yesterday's content and shed a lot of light. So let's get into our nerdy nuggets for today, and I'll leave chapter 29 till the end. Okay. So let's jump into Ezekiel chapter 30. Chapter 30 is a lament. It's actually a funeral song for Egypt. The wealth of Egypt that it caused so many problems for Judah and the wider region would end. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon would conquer Egypt. Obviously this prophecy is going to come true. So good job Ezekiel for being a true prophet. Pharaoh would be powerless before Nebuchadnezzar. Ezekiel chapter 30 verse 24 says this, I will strengthen the arms of the King of Babylon and put my sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh and he will groan before like a man mortally wounded. So Ezekiel is going to give a prophecy against Egypt and declare, hey, the King of Babylon is actually going to strip you of all your power. Ezekiel chapter 31 continues this theme. Ezekiel chapter 31 looks back at Egypt's glorious past, its mighty empires. It was the cedar that not even the cedars of the garden of God could rival. That's Ezekiel chapter 31 verse eight. Also Ezekiel chapter 31 verse eight just kind of lets us know that language around the garden of God and Eden is not like foreign language. So it shouldn't be completely bizarre that the Eden language or the garden of God language is being used in Ezekiel chapter 28, okay? I remember one of my big frustrations was, well, if this is just about the king of Tyre and it's not about Satan, why does it say in Ezekiel chapter 28

that you were in the garden of God? You were in Egypt. I mean, you were in Eden. And then some of my friends and scholars helped me to see like, actually that language is kind of found all throughout the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 31 verse eight being one of those places. We'll talk even more about this as we continue. The theme here is Egypt dying. Rather than simply being judged, it's going to totally end, okay? So some nations are just judged, but then some nations come to a screeching halt. They come to an end. And honestly, this fits with history. Egypt had been conquered before, okay? There are tons of times where Egypt had been conquered. But what's going to happen in history, that the Egypt that we know today is honestly not the Egypt of the ancient world. The Egypt of the ancient world literally like ceased to exist. Like that, that Egypt actually did die. And so we just kind of look at a little bit of history. Babylon would conquer Egypt and it would stay conquered. Persia would then defeat Babylon. And so Egypt will become a satrapy of the Persian empire. Then Alexander is gonna defeat the Persians and he is gonna conquer Egypt.

And it was actually declared king over Egypt. After Alexander's death, his friend General Ptolemy took Egypt for himself and established the Ptolemaic Macedonian kingdom. His descendants ruled Egypt for nearly 300 years until the last Macedonian ruler by the name of Cleopatra was defeated by Octavian and Egypt then became a province of Rome. It has been ruled by Arabs, Marilux, Ottomans, French, British, and finally won its independence in the 20th century. But in all that time, no ancient Egyptian has ever ruled Egypt ever again. There's never been a Pharaoh to sit on the throne. No true Pharaoh has sat on its throne since this prophecy was spoken by Ezekiel in chapter 31 of the book of Ezekiel. The Egypt of today is insanely different, vastly different in every way from ancient Egypt. And Ezekiel's words did come to pass, okay? So that's chapter 30, chapter 31. Let's actually move into chapter 32 and we're gonna look at chapters 29 and chapter 32 together as our final nerdy nugget. I actually wanna compare two verses from Ezekiel chapter 29 and Ezekiel chapter 32. Ezekiel chapter 29, verse three says this, behold, I'm against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt. So the same way that God is against the king of Tyre is the same way that God is here

against the king of Egypt, okay? I'm against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his streams that says, my Nile is my own, I made it for myself. So the issue here with Pharaoh is arrogance. And here's what we may not realize is that that word dragon, that's a cosmic word. The same way that when we look at Tyre and Sidon, when we look at the oracles against Tyre and Sidon and we see cherubim, we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's a spiritual being. In the ancient world, the word dragon would have been spiritual being, okay? So when we're in Ezekiel chapter 28, I think the thing that triggers most Christians to interpret this as if it is Satan is this verse right here, Ezekiel chapter 28, verse 14, you are anointed as a guardian chariot. So when we hear chariot, we're like, oh, oh, oh, oh, my spidey sense is no, that's a spiritual being. Well, here's what is kind of fascinating, cool, odd. When an ancient audience saw the word dragon, they would have gone, yeah, that would have triggered them to think in terms of an angelic being or a spiritual being or a supernatural being in the same way that the word cherub makes us think about a supernatural being, okay? So the fact that the Pharaoh king of Egypt is being called a dragon, it just doesn't resonate with us

the same way that it would have resonated with the original audience. And I actually want us to interpret the Bible the way that the original audience would have interpreted the Bible, okay? So let's now get to Ezekiel 32, because we're gonna get another prophetic word against the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt in Ezekiel 32. It says, you consider yourself a lion of the nations, but you are like a dragon in the seas. You're not a lion, you're a dragon. You are a force of wickedness and chaos and evil. You're not a lion, you are a dragon. This is a total insult, okay? That God, that Yahweh is calling the king of Egypt, Pharaoh, a dragon in the seas. You burst forth in your rivers, trouble the waters with your feet and foul their rivers. So Ezekiel 29 and Ezekiel 32 are both passages where Yahweh is calling a human king because of their arrogance and pride. He is using supernatural cosmic language or mythical language to talk about a king. John the Revelator is gonna pick up on this in Revelation chapter 12, okay? In Revelation chapter 12, John is gonna be talking about Nero, Domitian, a human ruler, an actual Roman Caesar, but he's also gonna say there's a force of evil that's behind these Roman rulers, okay, these Caesars.

And there's a lot of Babylonian language that's gonna get thrown into the book of Revelation because this is the way that authors of the Bible talk about rulers or kings of kingdoms who are arrogant and haughty. John the Revelator is gonna make it very clear who the dragon is, this dragon that we've seen all throughout the Bible, all throughout the Old Testament. He's gonna make it very, very clear. It's not a human ruler we're talking about. Revelation chapter 12, verse nine, the great dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth and his angels with him, okay? So I just need you to see this. If we understand that the dragon in Revelation is actually Satan and God has no problems using that word dragon to describe Pharaoh, then we also shouldn't have a problem with the fact that God is using the word cherub to describe the king of Tyre. That track, okay? If God is gonna use cosmic language like dragon to describe Pharaoh, king of Egypt, then it's probably tracks that God is gonna use cosmic language like cherub to describe the king of Tyre. So I just want you to see that a lot of times we're gonna read Ezekiel 28 and go, yeah, wait, wait, wait, but he's called a cherub.

It's like, yeah, but Pharaoh's also called a dragon. The only problem is that for you and I, we don't put cherub and dragon in the same category. But for an ancient audience, cherub and dragon would have both been in the same category. Supernatural beings, beings that are spiritual beings, beings that are clearly not belonging to the animal kingdom or the human kingdom. These are beings that are majestic and wonderful, and they are definitely something other, okay? Something other than humans and dolphins and ostriches, okay? These beings, dragons and cherubs, both exist in a realm that is very, very, very spiritual. For us, we just think of dragons as mythical and make-believe and we think of cherubs as angelic beings. But in the ancient world, dragons and cherubs are actually in the exact same category, whereas for us, they are in different categories. And I hope that that actually sheds some light on our reading from yesterday in Ezekiel chapter 28. Now, is it possible that these texts are simply layered and they're talking about multiple things at the same time? Yeah, possible. But is it also possible that it's really just talking about the king of Tyre in Ezekiel chapter 28? Yes, that's possible. And is it possible that we're just talking about the king of Egypt, the Pharaoh, in Ezekiel chapter 29?

Yes. In Ezekiel chapter 32? Yes. Actually, If you've been on the Bible reading plan with us for a while, you probably remember that Isaiah chapter 14, the exact same thing happened. Isaiah chapter 14, verse three says, on the day the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labor forced on you, you will take up this taunt against the King of Babylon. And a lot of people interpret the taunt against the King of Babylon as thinking that Yahweh is actually talking about Satan. But really, it's just about the King of Babylon. And the wording, I could get why the wording would make you think, oh no, there's multiple things going on here. But again, if you either go back to the day on the Bible reading plan where we covered Isaiah chapter 14, or you just want to look at Isaiah chapter 14 for yourself, you'll begin to see, ah, this is not really talking about Satan. This is definitely talking about the King of Babylon. Even though there are moments where it feels like it's talking about spiritual being, it is indeed talking about the King of Babylon. Verse 12, it's kind of the verse that really trips people up. How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn, you have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations. So really, this is the King of Babylon. He laid low the nations and God is using cosmic language to talk about the King of Babylon. Everything about Isaiah chapter 14 would indicate that the King of Babylon is being talked about. He's mortal. And the way that we get tripped up here is that word in verse 13. Oh no, sorry. That word in verse 12, morning star, gets translated in Latin as Lucifer. So the only reason why anybody ever calls Satan Lucifer is because of a mistranslation of this verse here in Isaiah chapter 14. All right. Kind of wrapping everything up. Okay. It is totally normal for authors of the Bible, especially prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel, to use cosmic language to talk about human rulers. Not only does that happen in Ezekiel chapter 28, but it also happens in Isaiah chapter 14. And it definitely happens in our reading today, which is Ezekiel chapters 29 and 32. I wanted to compare chapter 29 and chapter 32 for you so that you could see that Yahweh is definitely using the dragon imagery that really belongs to Satan and that John the Revelator is going to say, no, the dragon is Satan. Right here in the book of Ezekiel, Yahweh is using dragon language to describe Pharaoh, King of Egypt. Now let's move

into our Thomas Truth. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere books are sold. Literally today, I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble, or you can go to a books a million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. I actually wrote an entire book called Crushing Chaos based on our Thomas Truth for today. And that Thomas Truth is that the Bible is actually depicting Jesus, the Messiah, as the dragon slayer. Now I didn't grow up in Sunday school knowing that Jesus was a dragon slayer. But if you begin to take these bits and pieces of what the Bible says about the dragon, you would actually begin to conclude that it was not a snake in the garden of Eden, but it was actually a dragon in the garden of Eden. So not only is Ezekiel 28 referencing Eden, the garden of God, but actually Ezekiel 29 is referencing Eden, the garden of God. Because what happens when you curse a dragon and say you will go on your belly, that dragon loses its legs and its limbs, which means in pre-cursed form, the serpent is actually a dragon. And that is why John the Revelator is going to link the imagery of serpent and dragon. In our modern American Western world, snakes and dragons are in two different categories. In the ancient world, snakes and dragons are actually in the exact same category. And so Jesus, the prophecy that's given in Genesis chapter three, that Jesus will crush the head of the dragon or of the serpent really should be interpreted as he will crush the head of the dragon. And what does dragon represent all throughout the Bible? Chaos, chaos, evil, wickedness.

And God is going to put an end to chaos. Your personal chaos, my chaos, the chaos of the cosmos, the chaos of the world. Actually, when you look at Genesis chapters one and two, God is standing in front of a chaotic world at the beginning of creation and then imposes his order on that creation. He moves the creation from chaotic to ordered so that humans can flourish. And chaos always devolves humanity, brings humanity back down into a reality where it cannot flourish. So order is the environment where humans flourish. And honestly, today's reading is a massive reminder that Jesus doesn't just conquer sin, but he also conquers the dragon. He conquers chaos. A lot of the times when I was a youth pastor, I learned that kids wanted me to pray for their anxiety. They wanted peace. And I learned after a while, if I prayed for peace, the kids would need peace again next week and peace again next week. So I actually stopped praying for peace and I began to teach them how to order their lives because once they got order, guess what went away? Chaos went away. And when chaos goes away, anxiety goes away. And so the solution for chaos is never peace. The solution for chaos is order.

And when we begin to invite God's order into our life, chaos is actually crushed and dealt with. And we can actually walk into the fruitfulness of not just peace, but joy, love, selflessness, and all the other virtues that God wants us to walk in. And that's not just true for Ezekiel's audience. Man, that's true for you and I. Ezekiel makes a promise. Hey, one day God's gonna deal with the chaos. He's gonna deal with the dragon. And can I tell you, God has dealt with the dragon. He has dealt with the chaos. On the cross, Jesus dealt with the dragon of chaos once and for all, so that you and I can walk in perfect peace, which is gonna require that we adopt his order into our life. And man, that is timelessly true. That's true yesterday, today, and forever, that we can never have God's peace if we reject his order in our life. So tomorrow, we've got day 235 on this Bible reading plan. I'm super excited. We're gonna go through Ezekiel chapters 33 to 37. I think it's gonna be fun. I think it's gonna be a blast. I can't wait. If you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. I'll see you right here tomorrow as we continue our trek, the book of Ezekiel. Love you, peace.

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