Shared ground

Ezekiel 32:16 closes the lament over Egypt by treating the poem as a fixed, recognized grief-song: “This is the lamentation,” the one “they” will use. The verse also widens the target. The lament is not only about a single ruler but “over Egypt, and over all her multitude,” meaning the whole people or the full mass of Egypt associated with its fall.

The verse makes the mourning public and international. “The daughters of the nations” are identified as the voices who perform the lament, and the closing line (“says the Lord Yahweh”) presents this outcome as a declared divine decision rather than an uncertain human reaction. Ezekiel 32:16

Where interpretation differs

Two main questions are left open by the wording.

First, who are “they” who will lament? Some read “they” as the surrounding peoples (nations outside Egypt) picking up the lament. Others take “they” as Egyptians (or a mixed group) participating in the same lament that the nations’ “daughters” also perform.

Second, what does “daughters of the nations” mean? Many take it as a poetic way of referring to the nations themselves (their “daughter” cities or populations). Others take it more literally as women from those nations who lead the public mourning.

A related question is tone: is this sincere grief, or a formalized public dirge that can also function as humiliation and warning?

Why the disagreement exists The verse uses pronouns and poetic phrases without specifying identities (“they”) or giving a setting (funeral ritual, public performance, or mock lament). Hebrew poetry often speaks of peoples as “daughters,” which can be either figurative for communities or more literal for participants. Because Ezekiel’s oracles against nations regularly portray downfall as a public spectacle, readers differ on whether this lament is sympathetic sorrow, taunting memorial, or both at once.

What this passage clearly contributes Explicitly, the text assigns the lament’s performance to outsiders (“the daughters of the nations”) and sets the lament’s scope (“Egypt” and “all her multitude”). It also frames the lament as an established, repeatable piece (“this is the lamentation”) and anchors it with a divine signature (“says the Lord Yahweh”), emphasizing that Egypt’s collapse and its public remembrance are part of God’s announced judgment within Ezekiel’s wider set of oracles against surrounding peoples (Ezekiel 25–32).