‘And so it was that in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first day of the month, that the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say to him:
“You were likened to a young lion among the nations,
Yet you are as a monster in the seas.
And you burst forth on your rivers,
And you trouble the waters with your feet, and foul their rivers.
‘The word of Yahweh came to me saying.' This introduces every oracle. No prophet is quite like Ezekiel in his emphasis that what he received was a direct revelation from Yahweh. He spoke when Yahweh spoke.
The description in the poem is vivid like so much in Ezekiel. Pharaoh was seen among the nations as a powerful young lion in his prime, one to be feared by all. One to be admired for his ferocity. The Egyptian sphinx had the body of a lion, which was thus closely connected with Egypt. But by Yahweh Pharaoh and his people were seen as a sea monster, a large crocodile, dirtying the waters and causing harm and destruction among their own people, and also among others, wherever he went. This Pharaoh (Hophra) had done much interfering, not very helpfully. That was why he had to be dealt with.
There is a dual idea here moving between the great mythological monsters of the myths, defeated by the gods, and the crocodiles of the Nile, feared because of their nefarious activities. Both caused chaos and left problems behind them. The mythological association brings out the world shattering nature of the event, but Ezekiel grounds it firmly in this world.