Ezekiel 32:2 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Take up a lamentation— As the style of the lamentations was always figurative and poetical, Ezekiel describes the king of Egypt as a great dragon or crocodile,—for so the word תנים tannim, should be rendered, and not whale,—troubling the waters with his feet, and fouling the rivers; or disturbing all the nations round about him: and in the name of the Lord he threatens to take him in his net, and cast him forth into the open field, as a prey to the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the whole earth; Ezekiel 32:3-4. So that he should no more trouble the waters with his feet, but the rivers should run [smooth] as oil: Ezekiel 32:14. And in the following part of the chapter, having sent Pharaoh and his multitude to the land of the Inferi; Ezekiel 32:18 he represents the inhabitants of these lower regions, as addressing the king of Egypt in the same manner, as Isaiah in his 14th chapter describes them welcoming the king of Babylon. Ezekiel 32:21. The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of Sheol, &c. The Hebrew for what we render, The strong among the mighty, is גבורים אלי eilei gibborim, The gods of the mighty; meaning, no doubt, their hero gods, whose souls, though the superstition of that people had placed them among the stars, the prophet, on the contrary, intimates to them were to be found in Sheol; thus ridiculing the worship of their men deities, of which Egypt was the great promoter, if not the inventor. But the most remarkable thing in his threatening of Pharaoh is, the prophet's telling him more than once, that he should lie down with the uncircumcised; Ezekiel 32:19-28. It is well known, that circumcision was in use and honour among the Egyptians; whatever reasons they might have for it, or what advantages soever they hoped from it. But the circumcision of this heathen prince, the prophet plainly tells him, should be of no avail to him after death. For an idolater and unbeliever, without doubt, though circumcised, must be in the same state there with other unbelievers. He should be laid with the uncircumcised, and find the same bad reception in the other world. But does not this of the prophet plainly speak a difference between the death and consequences of it to the uncircumcised, or unbelievers, and that of the circumcised believers, or God's people, and consequently tend to confirm the truth of that notion, that God's covenant with Abraham, of which circumcision was the seal, implied in it the promise of a future resurrection?—And if so, it is unreasonable surely to suppose, with some learned writers, that the body of the people, who were all without exception by an express law commanded to be circumcised, (see Genesis 17:14.) should be unacquainted with the very design and nature of that solemn rite by which they were admitted into covenant with God. See Peters on Job, p. 376.