No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of animal shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.
Parallel translations
- KJV No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.
- BSB No foot of man or beast will pass through, and it will be uninhabited for forty years.
- NKJV Neither foot of man shall pass through it nor foot of beast pass through it, and it shall be uninhabited forty years.
- NASB A human foot will not pass through it, nor will the foot of an animal pass through it, and it will not be inhabited for forty years.
- NLT For forty years not a soul will pass that way, neither people nor animals. It will be completely uninhabited.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
For forty years no man or beast will pass through Egypt, and it will lie uninhabited. The land suffers a measured period of desolation.
Overview
The forty-year span signals a complete but bounded period of judgment, echoing other biblical uses of forty as a time of testing or chastening. Egypt's emptiness demonstrates the seriousness of God's sentence. The limited term also hints that judgment, though severe, is not God's final word, as the following verses of restoration show.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Ezek 32:13I will destroy also all its animals from beside many waters; neither shall the foot of man trouble them any more, nor the hoofs of animals trouble them.
- Jer 43:11–12He will come, and will strike the land of Egypt; such as are for death shall be put to death, and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword.
- Ezek 31:12Strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: on the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land; and all the peoples of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.
- Isa 23:17It will happen after the end of seventy years that Yahweh will visit Tyre, and she shall return to her wages, and will play the prostitute with all the kingdoms of the world on the surface of the earth.
- Isa 23:15It will come to pass in that day that Tyre will be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king. After the end of seventy years it will be to Tyre like in the song of the prostitute.
- Jer 29:10For Yahweh says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.
- 2 Chr 36:21to fulfill Yahweh’s word by Jeremiah’s mouth, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. As long as it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
- Ezek 30:10–13Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will also make the multitude of Egypt to cease, by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
- Ezek 36:28You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
- Jer 25:11–12This whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
- Dan 9:2in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years about which Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.
- Ezek 33:28I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment; and the pride of her power shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, so that no one shall pass through.
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Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 29:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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