“Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it:”
My Notes
What Does Ezekiel 29:18 Mean?
"Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it." After a thirteen-year siege of Tyre, Nebuchadnezzar's army has nothing to show for it. Heads bald from wearing helmets for over a decade. Shoulders peeled raw from carrying siege equipment. And no wages — Tyre's wealth escaped (probably by sea to Carthage) before the city fell. God's own instrument — the army he deployed against Tyre — went unpaid for the work.
God's response (v. 19): I'll give Nebuchadnezzar Egypt instead. The unpaid worker will be compensated from a different account. God pays his instruments, even pagan ones.
Reflection Questions
- 1.When has your work for God (or work God assigned) gone unpaid — and do you trust the compensation is coming?
- 2.What does God paying a pagan king for God-assigned work teach about divine fairness?
- 3.Where has your 'Tyre' (expected reward) been empty, and where might your 'Egypt' (unexpected compensation) be?
- 4.How does the thirteen-year siege with no wages test your faith in God's eventual repayment?
Devotional
Thirteen years. Bald heads from helmets. Peeled shoulders from carrying equipment. And at the end: no wages. Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for God and got nothing for it. The wealth was gone. The plunder had been shipped overseas. The army that did God's dirty work went home empty-handed.
Every head was made bald. Every shoulder was peeled. The physical cost of the siege is written on the soldiers' bodies. Thirteen years of helmet wear eroding their hair. Thirteen years of equipment hauling tearing their skin. These are real men with real injuries from a real assignment — an assignment given by God, whether they knew it or not.
Yet had he no wages. The sentence is almost comic in its injustice: God sent Nebuchadnezzar to do a job, and the job didn't pay. The plunder that should have compensated the siege army was already gone. Tyre's merchants had evacuated the wealth. The conqueror conquered a shell.
But God doesn't leave his instruments unpaid. The next verse is the divine compensation package: "Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar... and it shall be the wages for his army" (v. 19). God takes from one account to pay another. Egypt's wealth compensates for Tyre's emptiness. The balance sheet of divine employment spans nations.
This reveals something remarkable about God's economy: he pays even pagan instruments. Nebuchadnezzar served God without knowing it and went unpaid. And God noticed. And God compensated — from a different nation's treasury. The laborer is worthy of his hire, even when the laborer is a Babylonian emperor doing God's work without a conscious contract.
God's labor practices extend to everyone in his employ — aware or unaware, believing or pagan. The work gets compensated. If not from Tyre, then from Egypt. The invoice always gets paid.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon,.... The same with Nebuchadnezzar; he goes by both names in Scripture, nor is…
The prophet places this prediction out of chronological order, that he may point out what had not been stated in the…
Caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus - He was thirteen years employed in the siege. See Joseph. Antiq.…
The date of this prophecy is observable; it was in the twenty-seventh year of Ezekiel's captivity, sixteen years after…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture