(1) In the twelfth year.--This was one year and between six and seven months after the destruction of Jerusalem, and when, therefore, one great hindrance to Nebuchadnezzar's march upon Egypt had been removed. It is also nearly two months (Ezekiel 33:21) since Ezekiel had heard of this calamity through a fugitive. It could not have been very long before the arrival of the fugitive Jews in Egypt, after the murder of Gedaliah; yet that it was somewhat earlier is plain from Ezekiel 33:24. It was about the same time with the similar prophecies of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 43, 44); but as the date both of the murder and of the flight are unknown (except that the former occurred in the seventh month--Jeremiah 41:1--but of what year is not stated), the exact chronological relation of these things must remain uncertain.

Verse 1. - In the twelfth year, etc. March, B.C. 584, nineteen months attar the destruction of Jerusalem. The two sections of the chapter, Vers. 1-16 and 17-32, belong to the same year, and probably, though the date of the month is net given for the second, were written within a fortnight of each other. The thoughts of the prophet still dwell upon the downfall of Egypt, and he is stirred, as by a special inspiration, to write an elaborate "lamentation" over its departed greatness. It would seem, from the repetition of the word in Ver. 16, as if the elegy had originally been intended to end there. Possibly it may have occurred to the prophet that what he had written was rather a prediction of coming evil than a lamentation, and therefore needed to be completed by a second, coming more strictly under that title.

32:1-16 It becomes us to weep and tremble for those who will not weep and tremble for themselves. Great oppressors are, in God's account, no better than beasts of prey. Those who admire the pomp of this world, will wonder at the ruin of that pomp; which to those who know the vanity of all things here below, is no surprise. When others are ruined by sin, we have to fear, knowing ourselves guilty. The instruments of the desolation are formidable. And the instances of the desolation are frightful. The waters of Egypt shall run like oil, which signifies there should be universal sadness and heaviness upon the whole nation. God can soon empty those of this world's goods who have the greatest fulness of them. By enlarging the matters of our joy, we increase the occasions of our sorrow. How weak and helpless, as to God, are the most powerful of mankind! The destruction of Egypt was a type of the destruction of the enemies of Christ.And it came to pass in the twelfth year,.... Of Jeconiah's captivity, above a year and a half after the taking of Jerusalem; the Syriac version reads in the eleventh year:

in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month; the month Adar, which answers to part of our February, and part of March; the Septuagint version reads it the tenth month: according to Bishop Usher (t), this was on the twenty second of March, on the fourth day of the week (Wednesday), 3417 A.M.or 587 years before Christ:

that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows:

(t) Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3417.