32:17-32 Divers nations are mentioned as gone down to the grave before Egypt, who are ready to give her a scornful reception; these nations had been lately ruined and wasted. But though Judah and Jerusalem were about this time ruined and laid waste, yet they are not mentioned here. Though they suffered the same affliction, and by the same hand, yet the kind design for which they were afflicted, and the mercy God reserved for them, altered its nature. It was not to them a going down to the pit, as it was to the heathen. Pharaoh shall see, and be comforted; but the comfort wicked ones have after death, is poor comfort, not real, but only in fancy. The view this prophecy gives of ruined states shows something of this present world, and the empire of death in it. Come and see the calamitous state of human life. As if men did not die fast enough, they are ingenious at finding out ways to destroy one another. Also of the other world; though the destruction of nations as such, seems chiefly intended, here is plain allusion to the everlasting ruin of impenitent sinners. How are men deceived by Satan! What are the objects they pursue through scenes of bloodshed, and their many sins? Surely man disquiets himself in vain, whether he pursues wealth, fame, power, or pleasure. The hour cometh, when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of Christ, and shall come forth; those that have done good to the resurrection of life, and those that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation.
For I have caused my terror in the land of the living,.... Or, "his terror" (f); there is a double reading. The Keri or marginal reading, which we follow has it "my terror" (g); but the Cetib or writing is his terror; and so read the Septuagint. Syriac, and Arabic versions; both may be taken, and the sense be, I have caused or suffered him, Pharaoh king of Egypt, to be a terror to the nations about him, particularly to the land of Israel, which the Targum expressly mentions as the land of the living; and now I will terrify him who has terrified others:
and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with those that are slain with the sword; shall have a common burial with other Heathen nations; even with such, who, in a way of judgment, have perished by the sword of their victorious enemies, as he will:
even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God; the king of Egypt, his subjects, and his soldiers, as numerous as they are; and thus ends this doleful ditty, and funeral dirge or lamentation, composed, taken up, and sung for Pharaoh as ordered, thereby to assure him of his certain destruction.
and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with those that are slain with the sword; shall have a common burial with other Heathen nations; even with such, who, in a way of judgment, have perished by the sword of their victorious enemies, as he will:
even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God; the king of Egypt, his subjects, and his soldiers, as numerous as they are; and thus ends this doleful ditty, and funeral dirge or lamentation, composed, taken up, and sung for Pharaoh as ordered, thereby to assure him of his certain destruction.
(f) "terrorem ejus", Grotius; "consternationem ejus", Starckius. (g) "terrorem meum", Pagninus, Munster, Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Polanus.