Yehezkiel 29:3

29:3 Tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Look, I am against ¹  you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,

the great monster ²  lying in the midst of its waterways,

who has said, “My Nile is my own, I made it for myself.” ³ 

Yehezkiel 29:9

29:9 The land of Egypt will become a desolate ruin. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

Because he said, “The Nile is mine and I made it,”

Yehezkiel 30:12

30:12 I will dry up the waterways

and hand the land over to ⁴  evil men.

I will make the land and everything in it desolate by the hand of foreigners.

I, the Lord, have spoken!

Amos 8:8

8:8 Because of this the earth ⁵  will quake, ⁶ 

and all who live in it will mourn.

The whole earth ⁷  will rise like the River Nile, ⁸ 

it will surge upward ⁹  and then grow calm, ¹⁰  like the Nile in Egypt. ¹¹ 

[29:3]  ¹ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

[29:3]  ² tn Heb “jackals,” but many medieval Hebrew mss read correctly “the serpent.” The Hebrew term appears to refer to a serpent in Exod 7:9-10, 12; Deut 32:33; and Ps 91:13. It also refers to large creatures that inhabit the sea (Gen 1:21; Ps 148:7). In several passages it is associated with the sea or with the multiheaded sea monster Leviathan (Job 7:12; Ps 74:13; Isa 27:1; 51:9). Because of the Egyptian setting of this prophecy and the reference to the creature’s scales (v. 4), many understand a crocodile to be the referent here (e.g., NCV “a great crocodile”; TEV “you monster crocodile”; CEV “a giant crocodile”).

[29:3]  ³ sn In Egyptian theology Pharaoh owned and controlled the Nile. See J. D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament, 240-44.

[30:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “and I will sell the land into the hand of.”

[8:8]  ⁵ tn Or “land” (also later in this verse).

[8:8]  ⁶ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

[8:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “all of it.”

[8:8]  ⁸ tc The MT reads “like the light” (כָאֹר, kha’or; note this term also appears in v. 9), which is commonly understood to be an error for “like the Nile” (כִּיאוֹר, ki’or). See the parallel line and Amos 9:5. The word “River” is supplied in the translation for clarity. If this emendation is correct, in the Hebrew of Amos “Nile” is actually spelled three slightly different ways.

[8:8]  sn The movement of the quaking earth is here compared to the annual flooding and receding of the River Nile.

[8:8]  ⁹ tn Or “churn.”

[8:8]  ¹⁰ tn Or “sink back down.” The translation assumes the verb שָׁקַע (shaqa’), following the Qere.

[8:8]  ¹¹ tn The entire verse is phrased in a series of rhetorical questions which anticipate the answer, “Of course!” (For example, the first line reads, “Because of this will the earth not quake?”). The rhetorical questions entrap the listener in the logic of the judgment of God (cf. 3:3-6; 9:7). The rhetorical questions have been converted to affirmative statements in the translation for clarity.