Kommentar zu Jechezkiel 29:21

On that day will I cause the horn of the House of Israel to blossom out I have neither heard nor found the explanation of this verse. What is the blossoming of the horn of Israel in the downfall of Egypt? Was not Israel exiled eight years before the downfall of Egypt? [Therefore,] I say that “On that day” refers back to the above section, (verse 13): “At the end of forty years, I will gather the Egyptians.” That count ends in the year that Belshazzar assumed the throne, and we find in Daniel that in that year the kings of Persia began to gain strength, and downfall was decreed upon Babylon, as it is said (Dan. 7:1): “In the first year of Belshazzar,...Daniel saw a dream, etc.”; (verse 4) “The first one was like a lion” - that is Babylon. And it is written (ad loc.): “I saw until its wings were plucked off, etc. (verse 5) And behold another, second beast, resembling a bear” that is Persia. And it is written (ad loc.) “And thus it was said to it, ‘Devour much flesh.’” i.e., seize the kingdom. And the kingdom of Persia was the blossoming of the horn of Israel, as it is said regarding Cyrus (Isa. 45:13): “He shall build My city and free My exiles.” Now, how do we know that the forty years of Egypt ended at that time? [The proof is that] Egypt was given into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar in the twenty-seventh [year] of Nebuchadnezzar, in the year that this prophecy was said to Ezekiel. Add forty years, and you have sixty-seven. Deduct from them forty-five for Nebuchadnezzar and twenty-three for Evil- Merodach, as we say in Megillah (11b), one of these years counting for both [kings], as we say there: “they were incomplete years.”

and I will give you free speech in their midst You, Ezekiel, will have free speech when they see your prophecy being fulfilled.