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Ezekiel 29:12 - Prophecy of the Desolation of Egypt for 40 years
by VM44 104 Replies latest watchtower bible
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VM44
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VM44
Cross References
Jeremiah 25:15 For thus the LORD, the God of Israel, says to me, "Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it.
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Jeremiah 27:6 "Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him.
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Jeremiah 46:19 "Make your baggage ready for exile, O daughter dwelling in Egypt, For Memphis will become a desolation; It will even be burned down and bereft of inhabitants.
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Ezekiel 30:7 "They will be desolate In the midst of the desolated lands; And her cities will be In the midst of the devastated cities.
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Ezekiel 30:23 'I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them among the lands.
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Ezekiel 30:26 'When I scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them among the lands, then they will know that I am the LORD.'" (NASB 1995) -
VM44
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.
desolate in Eze 30:7 Jer 25:15-19 27:6-11
and I will scatter We learn from Berosus that Nebuchadnezzar sent several captive Egyptians to Babylon; and from Megasthenes, that he transplanted others to Pontus; and it is probable, that at the dissolution of the Babylonian empire, about forty years after, Cyrus permitted them to return to their native country. Eze 30:23 Jer 46:19
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VM44
Is this an example of a false prophecy contained in the Bible?
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Larsinger58
Actually, the Babylonian record claims they were dispersed when they fought in the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar.
I tried to confirm this 40-year desolation and all I was able to confirm was that Amasis, the ruling king, ended up very visible in Greece and he had a pact of some kind of exchange occupancy with Polycrates. That would be consistent with Amasis spending some of those forty years with Polycrates.
Even so, the 40 years would still end before the 70 years for the last deportees had ended in the 1st of Cyrus. Thus the Egyptians are returned to their land and allies with the Babylonians against the Medes before Babylon fell. Chrnologically there is no problem with this.
That is, you have a 70-year period of desolation from 525 BCE to 455 BCE, year 23 of Neb2 to year 1 of Cyrus, respectively. Year 37 would fall in 511 BCE. 40 years after that falls in 471 BCE (511-40=471). Darius the Mede ruled for 6 years beginning in 461 BCE (455+6=461 BCE), which means Babylon fell in 462 BCE. So Egypt had about 9 years before the fall of Babylon to have the scattered people return and reestablish a weakened empire.
The history though occurs all during the single reign of Amasis, as if Jehovah preserved his rule as he did Nebuchadnezzar's. One wonders about the age issue though because he didn't die until sometime during the reign of Kambyses, but at a very old age. A look at that would be...
Cyrus ruled for 9 years and Kambyses 7. If Amasis died in the middle of the reign of Kambyses we are looking at 9+4=13 years beyond 455 BCE. Year 37 in 511 BCE to year 455 BCE is 56 years. Add 13 years is 69 years. So Amasis as a young man say 25 would have died around 94. So that's within reasonable boundaries for as much as we can get from the scanty historical references.
He is said to have even financed the rebuilding of the temple of Apollo at Delphi after its destruction in 548 BC. This suggests he was in exile from Egypt for a while. There would be incentive to rebuild there if he was living there for any extended period of time as an exile. Upon his return he would still have a 29-year rule up until his death, plenty of time for rebuilding the monuments of Egypt he has left.
LS
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PSacramento
Is this an example of a false prophecy contained in the Bible?
I guess that would depend on your definition of "desolate".
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Leolaia
I had a lengthy post on this in my debate with thirdwitness, but of course Google is useless when it comes to finding the thread.
Actually, the Babylonian record claims they were dispersed when they fought in the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar.
Please cite the Babylonian text that says that the Egyptians were "dispersed" from their land.
I tried to confirm this 40-year desolation and all I was able to confirm was that Amasis, the ruling king, ended up very visible in Greece and he had a pact of some kind of exchange occupancy with Polycrates. That would be consistent with Amasis spending some of those forty years with Polycrates.
Your source on Polycrates, Herodotus, gives absolutely no hint that Amasis was ever in captivity, and in fact contradicts the entire notion that Egypt was desolated. He wrote (excerpting a much longer passage):
"It is said that the reign of Amasis was the most prosperous time that Egypt ever saw. The river was more liberal to the land and the land brought forth more abundantly for the service of man than had ever been before; while the number of inhabited cities was not less than twenty thousand. It was this king Amasis who established the law that every Egyptian should appear once a year before the governor of his nome, and show his means of living. Those failing to do so to prive that he obtained an honest livelihood would be put to death. Solon the Athenian borrowed this law from the Egyptians and imposed it on his countrymen, who have observed ever since. It is indeed an excellent custom. Amasis was partial to the Greeks, and among other favours which he granted them, gave to such as liked to settle in Egypt the city of Naucratis for their residence. To those who only wished to trade upon the coast, and did not want to fix their abode in the country, he granted certain lands where they might set up altars and erect temples to the gods... It happened in the reign of Amasis that the temple of Delphi had been accidentally burnt, and the Amphictyons had contracted to have it rebuilt for three hundred talents, of which sum one-fourth was to be furnished by the Delphians. Under these circumstances the Delphians went from city to city begging for contributions, and among their other wanderings came to Egypt, and asked for help. From few other places did they obtain so much; Amasis gave them a thousand talents of alum, and the Greek settlers, twenty minae" (Historiae, 2.177-180).
There also no Egyptian archaeological and historical evidence of a 40-year "gap" during the reign of Amasis, during which Egypt was depopulated -- which surely would have been the worst disaster Egypt would have experienced in its long history. Everything indicates that reign of Amasis was a continuous and prosperous one.
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Doug Mason
When you go to:
http://www.topix.com/forum/religion/jehovahs-witness/TBJHOKIJBBFLP99EO/p55#lastPost
you will arrive at the "last post" of a long-running debate between Alan and Thirdwitness (and his ilk) on this very subject.
You will need to back-peddle ("prev post") to locate where the debate on that aspect commenced.
Doug
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Leolaia
An inscription dated to the 23rd year of Amasis referring to the Apis bull that died in that year. This attests the Apis cult in Memphis at a time when Egypt should have been "desolated", as per Ezekiel.
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Leolaia
I suspect that the Babylonian text that Larsinger cited as claiming that the Egyptians were "dispersed" from their land in the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar is BM 33041. He may well be dependent on the translation (now widely circulated on the internet) given by M. G. Easton in the Illustrated Bible Dictionary (1894), which is as follows: "In the thirty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of the country of Babylon, he went to Egypt (Misr) to make war. Amasis, king of Egypt, collected [his army], and marched and spread abroad" (p. 494). Taking this translation at face value, it refers not to a dispersal of the Egyptians in captivity or in a diaspora, but to the mustering of an army to fight in a battle abroad. The claim of a dispersal implies the Egyptians lost the war but the translation given here says nothing of the outcome of the war.
This translation however is almost certainly incorrect. First of all, Easton simplifies considerably the text as given in his source, the editio princeps of the tablet: an article by T. G. Pinches published in TSBA (Vol. 7), 1882. Easton omits the many ellipses found in Pinches' rendering, which represent gaps and illegible portions of the inscription. Here is what Pinches originally gave as his translation: "Year thirty-seventh of Nebuchadnezzar king of the country [of Babylon] ..... [to] Mi
ir to make war he w[ent] ...... [his army Ama]sis king of Mi ir collected and .......... [his soldiers we]nt, they spread abroad. As for me (?) ............. a remote district, which (is) within the sea" (pp. 220-221). There are three major lacunae that disappear in Easton's version, and these lacunae significantly detract from understanding what the tablet is saying. But subsequent scholars who read the same tablet pointed out that Pinches misread a number of cuneiform signs, which is understandable because of the poor shape of the text. In his A History of Egypt (Vol. 7, 1902), E. A. Wallis Budge contested the reading in line 4 of the portion of the text under consideration:"In the next line the city Pu-tu-ia-a-...... is mentioned, and it is said in the following line to be a 'district remote which [is] in the midst of the sea;' the name of its king ended in -ku-u, which signs Mr. Pinches regarded as part of the verbal form illiku, and he translated the line '[his soldiers we]nt, they spread abroad. As for me (?)" instead of ".....ku, of the city of Pu-tu-ia-a-....." (pp. 20-21).
Pinches read the cuneiform in this line as [il-li]-ku u-sha-ra-bu-tu, ia-a-te (?) ...... which he translated as: "[his solders we]nt, they spread abroad. As for me (?)". But Budge read the same signs as ....-ku -usha URU pu-tu-ia-a- ....., which he understood as "-ku, of the city of Pu-tu-ia-a-....", with -ku as the ending of a personal name (possibly the governor or prince of Pu-tu-ia-a-...) and Pu-tu-ia-a-.... as a place name. Other scholars improved the reading and realized that the place name is pu-tu-ia-a-man, i.e. Puto-Iaman (cf. Friedrich Bissing, Geschichte Agyptens im Umriss, 1904, p. 9). This reading has unanimous agreement in references to BM 33041 since in the academic literature. One may compare the rendering the passage in Pritchard's Ancient Near Eastern Texts (1969): "In the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon marched against Egypt to deliver a battle. Amasis, of Egypt, called up his army ... from the town Putu-Iaman ... distant regions which are situated on islands amidst the sea" (ANET 308). There has been however disagreement about what pu-tu-ia-a-man refers to. The leading interpretation is the name is to be understood as "Libya of the Greeks" (Put is the name for Libya and Iaman is name for Ionia, related to the name "Javan" in the OT), i.e. the Greek colony at Cyrene. This fits very well with what is known about Amasis' reign, for Amasis had made a marriage alliance with Cyrene and thus could have called upon the Cyrenaeans as allies in time of war. Berger however read this line has containing a list of three place names (taking URU more generically than as referring to a town): ku-u-sha, i.e. Cush "Ethiopia", pu-tu, i.e. Put "Libya", and ia-a-man, i.e. Yaman "Ionia". These would thus represent allies of Egypt in the war against Nebuchadnezzar, and it makes sense out of the reference to "the distant regions in the midst of the sea" which could refer to Cyprus or other Mediterranean islands with relations with Egypt. But regardless of whether it is Puto-Iaman or Put and Iaman, such references replace the initial but inaccurate reading of the text as referring to soldiers who "spread abroad".
ir to make war he w[ent] ...... [his army Ama]sis king of Mi