Questions From Readers

● Ezekiel 29:1-16 indicates that Egypt would be desolate for forty years. Did that actually take place?​—U.S.A.

This desolation of Egypt may have come after Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Egypt. Egypt’s downfall had already been pronounced by Jehovah’s prophet Jeremiah. (Jer. 25:17-19) It began with Egypt’s decisive defeat at Carchemish on the Euphrates River by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar in the early part of 625 B.C.E. This event is described at Jeremiah 46:2-10 as well as in the Babylonian Chronicles.

Nebuchadnezzar next took over Syria and Palestine, and Judah became a vassal state of Babylon. (2 Ki. 24:1) Egypt made one last attempt to remain a power in Asia. The ruling Pharaoh (believed to be Hophra) came to Canaan in answer to Judean King Zedekiah’s request for military support in his revolt against Babylon in 609-607 B.C.E. Producing only a temporary lifting of the Babylonian siege, Egypt’s troops were forced to withdraw and Jerusalem was left to its destruction.​—Jer. 37:5-7; Ezek. 17:15-18.

Despite vigorous warning by Jeremiah (Jer. 42:7-22), the remnant of Judah’s population later fled to Egypt as a sanctuary. (Jer. 24:1, 8-10) But the fulfillment of Jehovah’s prophecies caught up with the Israelite refugees when Nebuchadnezzar marched against Egypt and conquered the land.

Concerning this, Jehovah’s prophetic words state: “And he [Nebuchadnezzar] must come in and strike the land of Egypt. Whoever is due for deadly plague will be for deadly plague, and whoever is due for captivity will be for captivity, and whoever is due for the sword will be for the sword. And I will set a fire ablaze in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he will certainly burn them and lead them captive.” “Make for yourself mere baggage for exile, O inhabitress, the daughter of Egypt. For Noph itself will become a mere object of astonishment and will actually be set afire, so as to be without an inhabitant. . . . For the very day of their disaster has come in upon them.”​—Jer. 43:11, 12; 46:19, 21.

Thus, the certain devastation of Egypt by the forces of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar is foretold by Jehovah. And Nebuchadnezzar received Egypt’s wealth as his ‘pay’ for military service rendered in Jehovah’s execution of judgment against Tyre, the opposer of God’s people.​—Ezek. 29:18-20; 30:10-12.

While some commentaries refer to the reign of Amasis (Ahmose) II, the successor of Hophra, as prosperous, they do so on the testimony of Herodotus, who visited Egypt over a hundred years later. But the Encyclopœdia Britannica (1959, Vol. 8, p. 62) comments on Herodotus’ history of this period: “His statements prove not entirely reliable when they can be checked by the scanty native evidence.”

Also, the Bible commentary of F. C. Cook notes that Herodotus “was indebted for his information on past history to the Egyptian priests, whose tales he adopted with blind credulity. . . . The whole story [by Herodotus] of Apries [Hophra] and Amasis is mixed with so much that is inconsistent and legendary that we may very well hesitate to adopt it as authentic history. It is by no means strange that the priests should endeavour to disguise the national dishonour of having been subjected to a foreign yoke.

Hence, while the secular history of Egypt provides no positive evidence of the prophecy’s fulfillment, we may be confident of the accuracy of the Bible record. There indeed was a forty-year period of desolation as Jehovah had clearly foretold. This may have come when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Egypt following his desolating of Judah and Jerusalem.