Therefore, thus said the Lord Jehovah: Lo, I am bringing in against thee a sword, And have cut off from thee man and beast.

For this cause the Lord has said: See, I am sending a sword on you, cutting off from you man and beast.

Because of this, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will lead the sword over you, and I will destroy both man and beast from among you.

Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Because of the pride of the king of Egypt, asserting the river to be his own, and made by him for himself; and because of his perfidy to the house of Israel:
behold, I will bring a sword upon thee; or those that kill with the sword, as the Targum; first a cival war, occasioned by the murmurs of the people, on account of the defeat of their army at Cyrene; which issued in the dethroning and strangling of this king, as before observed and setting up another; which cival commotions Nebuchadnezzar took the advantage of, and came against Egypt with a large army:
and cut off man and beast out of thee; for what with the civil wars among themselves, and what with the devastations of the king of Babylon's army, putting men to the sword, and seizing upon the beasts for their food, to support such an army in a foreign land, it was pretty well stripped of both.

a sword--Nebuchadnezzar's army (Ezekiel 29:19). Also Amasis and the Egyptian revolters who after Pharaoh-hophra's discomfiture in Cyrene dethroned and strangled him, having defeated him in a battle fought at Memphis [JUNIUS].