Ezekiel 29:18
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:
Ezekiel 29:18 belongs to the prophecies in chapters 29-32 concerning Egypt and the certain fate of Pharaoh and his host, spoken six hundred years before Christ when Egypt was struggling against Babylon for supremacy in world empire. It is studied together with the prophecies concerning Tyre, for it concerns Nebuchadnezzar's campaign against Tyre in connection with the judgment on Egypt.
Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Tyre came during his campaign in Palestine around 598 BC. The city's island defenses and navy made the blockade difficult and largely ineffective, and according to Tyrian historians it resisted Babylonian power for thirteen years in a severe, long siege.
The baldness of every head and peeling of every shoulder describe a long, exhausting, extreme hard service of bodily hardship and labor. Constant wear from helmets made heads bald, and work with battering rams left shoulders peeled and raw. Though the army conquered and ruined the mainland city, Nebuchadnezzar and his army had no wages, payment, or spoil for the service served against it. The surviving people and their valuables and wealth had been moved to the island, so Tyre yielded no reward to repay their labor.
The campaign against Tyre ended in the city's capture, and from Tyre he would go on to conquer Jerusalem. God gave the spoils of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar for prey as the army's wages for its service against Tyre. That judgment was connected with Egypt's help to Tyre in resisting Babylon. His coming struck the first blow at Egypt's authority and power and left it a dwindling, enfeebled monarchy humbled to the dust as the basest of kingdoms that never again lifted itself above the nations, ruled by strangers with no native prince. The prophecies concerning Egypt were literally fulfilled in the history of Egypt, a fulfillment first written in prophecy and then written again in history that proves the truthfulness of God's word as a witness.