You are like a dragon in the seas
Fri, 29 September, 2006: Today’s Bible readings.
1 In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him:
“You consider yourself a lion of the nations,
but you are like a dragon in the seas;
you burst forth in your rivers,
trouble the waters with your feet,
and foul their rivers.
3 Thus says the Lord GOD:
I will throw my net over you
with a host of many peoples,
and they will haul you up in my dragnet.
4 And I will cast you on the ground;
on the open field I will fling you,
and will cause all the birds of the heavens to settle on you,
and I will gorge the beasts of the whole earth with you.
5 I will strew your flesh upon the mountains
and fill the valleys with your carcass.
6 I will drench the land even to the mountains
with your flowing blood,
and the ravines will be full of you.
7 When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens
and make their stars dark;
I will cover the sun with a cloud,
and the moon shall not give its light.
8 All the bright lights of heaven
will I make dark over you,
and put darkness on your land,
declares the Lord GOD.”
Jerusalem has been destroyed by the Babylonians. As we learned from reading Jeremiah, the Jewishremnant left in the land will flee to Egypt because they believe Egypt will be safe from Babylonian aggression. Egypt considered themselves to be a rival power to the Babylonians, but they would soon be broken by Babylon.
Ezekiel relates God’s message that though Egypt thinks it is a lion among the nations, it is really like a monster in the seas that is about to be destroyed.
This seems to be referring to the creation myths of the people in Ezekiel’s day, where the world is created when a god and a sea dragon do battle. The god kills the sea monster, and the world is created from the remains of the sea dragon.
So Egypt thinks it is a great world power, but it is destined to be destroyed.
Ezekiel deals with Egypt from chapter 29 through chapter 33, detailing how the nation that has elevated itself will be thrown down and destroyed.
The language is very apocalyptic: the sky will darkened, etc. That is not because Ezekiel is speaking of the end times, but that this refers to major, world changing events. Egypt has been a major world power in the area since before the Exodus. But here God promises to humble them and bring them down by another world power.
What do we learn from this?
God deals with the small areas of life. He knows the number of hairs on your head. He governs when a sparrow falls from the sky. The minute details of life are all within His knowledge and His providence.
But the big, world shaking things of life are under God’s control as well. He throws down nations, and He rises up nations. He brings nations from obscurity to center stage of the world’s arena, and then He sends them back to obscurity. No nation is too big for God. If He decides to bring it down, it will fall, as He ordains.
Where is Christ in this passage?
We are comforted by this passage. Nothing is too big for God, not even the most powerful nation. But neither is anything to little. He cares about the nations. He also cares about the individuals that make up the nations. He cares enough about us as sinful individuals to provide a means for us to be reconciled to Him, and that reconciliation is by the person and work of Jesus Christ.
