Ezekiel 30:18
At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity.
At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened,.... The same with Hanes in Isaiah 30:4 and Tahapanes in Jeremiah 2:16 and Tahpanhes,
Jeremiah 43:7, it was a royal seat of the kings of Egypt: there was in Solomon's time a queen of Egypt of this name, and perhaps it might be so called from her, 1 Kings 11:19. It is generally thought to be the Daphne of Pelusium, it being near that city; though Junius takes it to be a place in another part of Egypt, at a great distance, which Herodotus {i} calls Tahcompso, an island encompassed by the Nile; and by Ptolemy {k} called Metacompso: now at this place the day should be darkened; or should "restrain" {l}, as it may be rendered; that is, its light; it should be a calamitous and mournful time with the inhabitants of it:
when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt; the yokes they put upon the necks of others, who now should be freed from them: or, "the sceptres of Egypt", as the Vulgate Latin version renders it; the regalia of their kings, which might lie in this place; it being a royal seat where Pharaoh had a house, as appears from Jeremiah 43:9:
and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her; all that grandeur and magnificence which appeared in the courts of the kings of Egypt in this place:
as for her, a cloud shall cover her; as for this city, a cloud of calamity shall cover it, so as its glory shall not be seen. The Targum is,
"a king with his army shall cover her as a cloud ascends and covers the earth:''
and her daughters shall go into captivity; which may be taken either in a literal sense for the daughters of the inhabitants of this place, which must be a great affliction to their tender parents, to have them forced away by rude soldiers, and carried captive into distant lands; or in a figurative sense, for the villages and the inhabitants of them round about this city; it being usual to represent a city as a mother, and its villages as daughters; and so the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi interpret it.
{i} Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 29.
{k} Geograph. l. 4. c. 5.
{l} Kvx "prohibuit", Montanus; "vitavit", Munster; "cohibuit", Cocceius; "probibebit, arcebit", Vatablus; so Ben Melech.