I will drench the land even to the mountains with your flowing blood, and the ravines will be full of you.
God makes Egypt's king listen to his own funeral song, and in it He drags a huge river creature out of the water, cuts him open, and lets his blood soak the ground. Why does God describe a nation's fall in such bloody detail, and why does He call it a lament?
A song of grief, not a taunt
A word of grief starts the whole chapter. One writer marks the date and hears mourning where there should have been only blessing.
Numerical Bible NotesWe now come to the twelfth year and the twelfth month, a time that speaks of God's ways of government shown in full. This should have been a time of blessing only. Instead a voice of grief comes with it. It reminds us of the tears once wept on earth by One who was God Himself shown in flesh. He wept over those who had despised His kind invitations, and would not be gathered under the wings that would have covered them so safely.
The creature hauled out of his river
The blood in this verse comes from a river monster. One writer says the older translation "whale" misses it: the creature belongs to the river.
William KellyThe Spirit of God adds one last message in two parts. The first, in the first half of this chapter, shows the coming ruin of Pharaoh under the pictures of a lion and a crocodile — a river dragon, not "a whale." He was once the terror of the nations. Now he is caught, killed and put on show before everyone, and this happens under the king of Babylon.
The blood is one step in a chain that runs from the river to the mountains. The same writer traces each stage: net, open field, scavengers, then the ground soaking him up.
Numerical Bible NotesGod was in fact spreading His net over him. The human instruments were only means in His hands. By them He would bring him up out of his streams and throw him out on the open field. He would fill the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth with his huge bulk. His flesh would lie on the mountains and fill the valleys. His blood would water the land, and his dead bodies would fill the rivers where he had been swimming.
The river he called his own
The sting is that his own river fills with his body. Pharaoh had built his whole boast on that water, and one writer looks hard at that boast.
Numerical Bible NotesHe lies there in no high position at all, as anyone can see, and he can make out little beyond the banks that shut him in on either side. Yet he still finds something to boast about in all this. "My river is my own," he says, "and I have made it for myself." The ditches, the canals, the banks and the sluice gates really are his own work, and he calls that making the river — just as we think so much of the little we do.
He boasted that he made the river. Now his own blood waters the land.
Why Egypt stands for more than Egypt
Egypt also stands as a picture. One writer sees in it what happens to any soul that stops trusting God.
Numerical Bible NotesThe soul away from God has lost faith in Him, so it must have faith in itself, or it would fall into despair at once. So man's own ability steps in to make up for God's supposed lack, and while he freely takes what God has kindly given him, he uses it to build himself up in pride and self-sufficiency. We see this plainly in Egypt, and the lesson there is as clear as it is basic.
Where the bleeding ends
The blood on the ground is not the end of the story. Pharaoh goes down to the same place as every empire before him, and one writer draws the lesson.
William KellyEgypt must go down to the lower parts of the earth along with all the rest. Human power and human scheming can win no exemption. Only in God is there permanence, and He will show it in His people on earth, as in heaven, once they have bowed to learn what they are as well as who He is.
Summary
- Boast. Pharaoh said the river was his own and that he had made it for himself. The ditches and banks were his work, and he called that making a river.
- Net. God spread His net over him, and the armies that took him were only instruments in His hands.
- Blood. Flesh on the mountains, valleys filled, blood watering the land, the streams he swam in choked with him. The river he owned becomes his grave.
- Mirror. Egypt pictures the soul that has lost faith in God and must trust itself instead, turning God's free gifts into pride.
- Lament. God does not gloat. The chapter opens as a song of grief. It recalls the tears of One who wept over those who refused to come under His wings.