“For thus says the Lord GOD: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered,
This explains the foregoing prediction, which was figurative, and looks something further. Here is a prophecy, I. Of the ruin of Egypt. The threatening of this is very full and particular; and the sin for which this ruin shall be brought upon them is their pride, Eze 29:9. They said, The river is mine and I have made it; therefore their land shall spue them out. 1.
Commenting on Ezekiel 29:8-16
Yet thus saith the Lord God, at the end of forty years,.... Reckoning from its devastation by Nebuchadnezzar to the taking of Babylon by Cyrus: will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered; from Babylon, and other places; Cyrus very probably being stirred up by the Lord to proclaim liberty to the Egyptians, as he did to the Jews, to return...
Will I gather the Egyptians - It is probable that Cyrus gave permission to the Egyptians brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, to return to their own country. And if we reckon from the commencement of the war against Pharaoh-hophra by Nebuchadnezzar, to the third or fourth year of Cyrus, the term will be about forty years.