and I will restore the fortunes of Egypt and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom.
After forty years of ruin, God promises to gather the scattered Egyptians and bring them home to Pathros. But it is home to a kingdom that will never be great again. Two questions follow. Why restore a nation only to keep it low? And what does that lowering do for Israel?
A sentence with a measured end
The same word that fixed the judgment also fixed its limit. One writer points to that precision as proof of who spoke.
William KellyBut how clear the mouth and the hand of God! It was a measured sentence. The woe would come, and just as surely its worst would end, according to His word… How wonderful, and how exactly fulfilled! Yet no cleverness of man could have forecast it in any of its parts. It was the reversal of its own experience, and no other nation had a similar destiny or sentence.
Pathros, the land of their origin
Pathros is not a symbol but a place, named elsewhere in Scripture as a region with its own history.
Morrish Bible DictionaryA place situated in Egypt, probably a part of Upper Egypt, where there were many Jews who defied Jeremiah. Jeremiah 44:1, 15. In a future day the Israelites will be gathered from there, and the place will be destroyed. Isaiah 11:11; Ezekiel 29:14; Ezekiel 30:14.
What "base" means
The ESV calls Egypt a "lowly" kingdom; older translations say "base". Either way the word means low, not wicked — a kingdom nobody would lean on again. One writer ties that verdict to what Egypt had been to God's people.
F. W. GrantSo for Israel's sake God Himself must break this staff that they leaned on. He does show mercy in the end, and Egypt is not left to judgment at the last, as Edom or Babylon are. Yet from now on it must be a "base", that is, a low kingdom. It will no longer invite the confidence it has invited until now, and those around it will trust it no more. The lesson is as plain as it is basic. It is the lesson, "Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?"
The same writer names what Egypt had been to Israel before the break.
F. W. GrantEgypt had been a breaking staff to Israel: a staff of reed, which offered much but never kept its promises, and brought only ruin to all who trusted it. Going down to Egypt for help was the constant snare of the people of God, even though they had been delivered from that land and had seen God's judgment on it in their own deliverance.
The record since
What follows the forty years is not the end of Egypt but lasting subjection. That is how its later story ran.
F. W. GrantThis has been, as is well known, Egypt's condition since. Under the Ptolemies, whatever might look like more than this, it was still the foreigner who held the country. Egypt has been in the hand of foreigners ever since. The higher the ruling power lifted itself up, the heavier the burden on the people under it.
Not the millennial blessing
The restored Egypt is still the lowest of kingdoms. One commentator argues that this rules out reading the promise as the final age of blessing. He draws a rule for reading prophecy from it.
Arno C. GaebeleinEzekiel predicted that after the forty years Egypt would be restored, would be the lowest of all kingdoms, would rule no more, and would stay in a reduced condition. That rules out applying this prophecy to the coming millennium… Prophecy is not learned from historical events; history is revealed in prophecy. We believe prophecies not because history has measured up to them, but because they are the inerrant Word of God.
Egypt is not Babylon
The humbling is severe, but it is not the last word. One writer sets Egypt's future beside Babylon's and finds them very different.
C. H. MackintoshWe should also notice that there is a vast difference between the destinies of Egypt and those of Babylon. Isaiah 19 sets before us the blessings that are in store for Egypt. It ends like this: "And the LORD will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the LORD, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them." It goes on: "In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth." The LORD of hosts blesses them, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance."
Summary
- Measured. The forty years had a fixed end as well as a fixed start. God's word set both limits, and no human mind could have guessed either.
- Gathered. God brings the scattered people back to Pathros in Upper Egypt, a real place with a real later history. This is restoration, not erasure.
- Base. The word means low, not wicked: a kingdom so reduced that nobody thinks of leaning on it again.
- Broken. Egypt was a staff of reed, and God broke it. The lesson reaches past Egypt to every reader: stop leaning on man.
- Healed. Egypt's lowering is not its end. Unlike Babylon, God strikes Egypt and then heals it, until He calls it "my people."