Bible Strands
Ezekiel 32:3
This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will spread My net over you with a company of many peoples, and they will draw you up in My net.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Yahweh speaks through Ezekiel to Pharaoh king of Egypt during a formal lament. The declaration follows the comparison of Pharaoh to a thrashing sea monster.
The words — פָרַשְׂתִּי (pa.ras.Ti) translates as I will spread, and רִשְׁתִּי (rish.Ti) translates as my net. These terms establish the capture as a deliberate, sovereign action rather than a random event.
The thread — The net metaphor appears in Ezekiel 12:13 regarding a captured ruler, Jeremiah 16:16 regarding fishermen gathering people, and Ecclesiastes 9:12 regarding humans caught unawares.
Why it lands — The text states that divine judgment will execute through a coalition of nations, leaving the target no means of escape. It requires the reader to acknowledge that political power operates only within permitted boundaries.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thus saith the Lord God; I will therefore spread out my net over thee with a company of many people; and they shall bring thee up in my net.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 12:13 But I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, and there he will die.
- Jeremiah 16:16 But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.
- Ecclesiastes 9:12 For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.
- Lamentations 1:13 He sent fire from on high, and it overpowered my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long.
- Ezekiel 17:20 I will spread My net over him and catch him in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon and execute judgment upon him there for the treason he committed against Me.
- Hosea 7:12 As they go, I will spread My net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the air. I will chastise them when I hear them flocking together.
- Habakkuk 1:14 You have made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler.