(3) The time of the heathen.--The judgment upon Egypt is but an individual instance, and is symbolic of general judgment upon all merely worldly power. Her fall is one step in the general overthrow of whatever exalts and opposes itself to God. Very similar to Ezekiel 30:2-3 are the prophecies in Isaiah 13:6; Isaiah 13:9; Joel 1:13; Joel 1:15; Joel 2:2; Obadiah 1:15; Zephaniah 1:7; Zephaniah 1:14.

Verse 3. - The day of the Lord. Here, as everywhere (see note on Ezekiel 13:5), the words stand for any time in which the Divine judgments manifest themselves in the world's history. Of it Ezekiel says, following in the footsteps of Joel (Joel 2:2), that it shall be a day of cloud, i.e. of darkness and trouble; a day of the heathen, i.e. a time in which the heathen who had exulted in the punishment of Israel should know that the Lord was their Judge also, that he had his "day" appointed for them.

30:1-19 The prophecy of the destruction of Egypt is very full. Those who take their lot with God's enemies, shall be with them in punishment. The king of Babylon and his army shall be instruments of this destruction. God often makes one wicked man a scourge to another. No place in the land of Egypt shall escape the fury of the Chaldeans. The Lord is known by the judgments he executes. Yet these are only present effects of the Divine displeasure, not worthy of our fear, compared with the wrath to come, from which Jesus delivers his people.For the day is near,.... The day of Egypt's destruction, the time fixed for it:

even the day of the Lord is near; the day appointed by him, and in which he would make himself known by the judgments he executed: Kimchi observes, that, the same year this prophecy was delivered, Egypt was given into the hands of the king of Babylon:

a cloudy day; or; "a day of cloud" (e); which was seldom seen in Egypt in a literal sense, rarely having any rain, their country being watered by the Nile; but now, in a figurative sense, the clouds would gather thick and black, and threaten with a horrible tempest of divine wrath, and of ruin and destruction:

it shall be the time of the Heathen: both when the Heathen nation of the Chaldeans should distress and conquer others; and when Heathen nations, as the Egyptians, Ethiopians, and others, should be destroyed by them. The Targum is,

"it shall be the time of the breaking or destruction of the people.''

(e) "dies nubis", V. L. Pagniaus, Montanus, Cocceius, Starckius.