Ezekiel 29:20, commentary and pictures

Ezekiel 29:20 belongs to the prophecies of judgment against Egypt in chapters 29 to 32, foretelling the certain fate to come upon Pharaoh and his host, standing among the prophecies against the nations including Ammon, Moab, Tyre, and Egypt. It was spoken six hundred years before Christ when Egypt was struggling against Babylon for supremacy in world empire. Egypt, a former oppressor of God's people, would be brought low and abased.

God gave the land of Egypt with its spoil to Nebuchadnezzar as wages for the labor his army performed in destroying Tyre, because they wrought for God in fulfilling His prophecy. The Babylonian army endured great hard service and hardship in the siege of Tyre and found nothing there to repay its toil when the city was taken. Egypt's spoil became that pay because Egypt had helped Tyre resist. In another reading held by some, God gave Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as payment for the service he and his forces rendered against Egypt itself, because that campaign served God's purpose and was done on God's behalf.

The verse foretells Egypt's conquest and subjection by Babylon, in which Nebuchadnezzar's army struck the first blow at the authority and power of Egypt and broke it. From that day Egypt became a dwindling monarchy that never lifted itself up above the nations again and never rose again among them. It became the basest of the kingdoms, ruled by successive foreign powers and by strangers with no native Egyptian among its rulers, yet still standing enfeebled and humbled to the dust.

Every prediction against Egypt was literally fulfilled, with its fulfillment evident today. Egypt's history writes the prophecy through Ezekiel again and stands as a mighty witness to the truthfulness of God's word. The verse shows human achievement and reward as subject to God's rule, exposing the vanity of human achievement, with Egypt as a symbol of black infidelity brought low.