5. But besides this deceit, Egypt and its king were guilty of direct rebellion against HaShem for their king proclaimed himself to be a god, saying, “Mine is the River Nile, the source of all Egypt’s wealth and weal, and I made myself!” In this, he, together with his minions, chose to follow in the footsteps of the Par’o of old who likewise claimed to be a god and not at all answerable to HaShem. For all this, proclaims Yechezkel in the name of HaShem, the Egyptian king and his people would now suffer forty years of exile. The land of Egypt shall be desolated, its people dispersed among the nations of the world. Even when they return after these forty years, they will never again achieve their powerful position among the nations of the world but they shall remain forever a lowly people among the nations.
6. This is the warning concerning Egypt proclaimed by Yechezkel and at the same time, of course, it is a warning to the Jewish People, too. But Egypt is deserving of punishment for taking a lead in misleading the Jewish People because they, more than any other nation, themselves had experienced the Hand of HaShem. Even though this was a thousand years earlier, nevertheless the Hand of HaShem against the Egyptians then was a clear and undeniable part of the people of Egypt. They, therefore, who knew of the almightiness of HaShem and His relationship with the Jewish People, should not have helped to entice the Jewish People away from the Torah by offering to form an alliance with them against the threat of Nevuchadnetzar, the king of Babylon.
7. Egypt’s foretold punishment was proclaimed against that people within the hearing of the Jewish People. For this prophecy is also to serve as a warning to the Jewish People, that when the time of reckoning comes, HaShem will also hold responsible all those who aided and abetted the Jewish People’s rebellion against HaShem for HaShem is the Father of all Mankind and Sovereign of all the world and He keeps careful account of all the misdeeds of all the peoples of the world.
8. The Haftorah then continues with another prophecy that Yechezkel is to proclaim, this time concerning Nevuchadnetzar. For not only does HaShem keep account of the misdeeds of the peoples of the world, He also keeps account of the frustrations and difficulties that they experience, too. Thus, sometimes a king and his fighting men might have tried hard to fight a battle against a people but HaShem does not grant that they should be successful for the victim does not at that time deserve such a fate. Nevertheless, sometimes HaShem considers that the frustrated fighter deserves some prize. So HaShem allows them another victory but this time over a people whom they did not even consider they could vanquish. And so it comes about that HaShem arranges that that people whom in HaShem’s “accounting book” is deserving of punishment, falls victim and becomes the reward of the other. In our Haftorah, Yechezkel is told to prophecy that Nevuchadnetzar, who had expended a great deal of effort in besieging the city of Tyre to conquer it, but without success, shall now prepare himself to take Egypt for its time for punishment had now arrived. HaShem has granted Nevuchadnetzar the country of Egypt as his consolation prize.
9. For us, the timeless lesson in all this is clear, namely, that behind the scenes of momentous events of the world, it is HaShem Who rules everything and everything is weighed in His scales of justice. And, in common with the declared theme of the Sidra “that you all shall know that I am HaShem, your G-d, Sovereign and Controller of all the world,” the Haftorah too restates that fact and teaches us that all Mankind shall acknowledge that HaShem is the Sovereign of the world.
10. Even the mighty empire of Nevuchadnetzar eventually fell before Persia, Persia was conquered by Greece and Greece by Rome. Empires come and go but the eternal people of the Torah lives on. The way in which HaShem orders the events of powerful kings and the world’s nations, declares Yechezkel, should also be an encouragement to the Jewish People. For they can always return to HaShem and even after they are exiled for their disobedience to Him, the time will come when they will repent and HaShem will take them back again.
