Ezekiel 32:1
And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ezekiel 32:1 belongs to and introduces the prophecies in chapters 29-32 concerning Egypt, directed against Pharaoh of Egypt and his army and host concerning their certain fate. The prophecies were delivered about six hundred years before Christ, more than twenty-four centuries ago, while Egypt was contending with Babylon for world supremacy. At that time Egypt was one of the most ancient and powerful kingdoms in the world, with eighteen hundred cities and seventeen million inhabitants, strongly defended by the Red Sea, the desert, its navy, and the flooding or inundation of the Nile.
The prophecies describe the revolutions and future state of Egypt and its decline. They are declared against Egypt as a former oppressor of God's people and a symbol of dark unbelief or black infidelity. Egypt would be invaded, conquered, spoiled, and made waste, brought low and abased, lose its power over other nations and never rule over the nations or rise again among them. It would suffer destruction of its cities, idols and images, and rule, have its rivers dried, fall into the hand of strangers and the wicked forever, have no more a native prince, and become the basest of kingdoms.
The prophecies were literally fulfilled, leaving the once-great kingdom the basest of kingdoms. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded and subdued Egypt, and afterward Egypt was successively subjected to Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Saracens, Mamelukes, and Turks. It was left for centuries deprived of its natural proprietors, under foreign slavery and tyranny, impoverished and diseased, without images, and with drying rivers.