XLVI. (1) THE WORD OF THE LORD... — We come here upon something like the traces of a plan in the arrangement of Jeremiah’s prophecies. Those that were concerned exclusively with the outside nations of the heathen were collected together, and attached as an appendix to those which were addressed dir... [ Continue Reading ]
AGAINST EGYPT, AGAINST THE ARMY OF PHARAOH-NECHO. — The king of Egypt thus named was the last of its great native sovereigns. He was the sixth king of the twenty-sixth dynasty of Manetho, and succeeded his father Psammetichus in B.C. 610, and reigned for sixteen years. Herodotus (ii. 158, 159) relat... [ Continue Reading ]
ORDER YE THE BUCKLER AND SHIELD... — The poem opens with a summons to the hosts of Nebuchadnezzar to prepare for their victory. First the foot-soldiers are called, then the horse, lastly the light-armed troops. PUT ON THE BRIGANDINES. — The history of the word is not without interest. Light-armed s... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEREFORE HAVE I SEEN THEM DISMAYED...? — The prophet speaks as seeing already in his mind’s eye the confusion of the defeated army, with no way to escape, driven back on the Euphrates. In the “fear round about” (_Magor-missabib_) we have one of his characteristic formulæ (Jeremiah 6:25; Jeremiah 20... [ Continue Reading ]
WHO IS THIS THAT COMETH UP AS A FLOOD?... — The Hebrew word for “flood” is used as a proper name almost exclusively (Daniel 12:5 being the only exception) for the Nile (_e.g.,_ Genesis 41:1; Exodus 2:3; Exodus 4:9; Amos 8:8; Amos 9:5), and thus the very form of the question points to the answer that... [ Continue Reading ]
THE ETHIOPIANS AND THE LIBYANS. — In the Hebrew, _Cush_ and _Put._ The verse describes the prominent elements in the composition of the Egyptian army. The “chariots and horses” had long been proverbial (1 Kings 10:28; 2 Chronicles 1:16; Exodus 15:19). The Cushites were the Ethiopians of the Upper Va... [ Continue Reading ]
THIS IS THE DAY OF THE LORD GOD OF HOSTS. — The prophet contemplates the issue of all these great preparations, and sees that they will end in a disastrous overthrow, the righteous retribution for long years of cruelty and outrage. In doing so he falls back upon the language of earlier prophets (Isa... [ Continue Reading ]
GO UP INTO GILEAD, AND TAKE BALM... — The words have the tone of a triumphant irony. The “balm of Gilead” was looked on as a cure for all wounds (Jeremiah 8:22; Jeremiah 51:8), but the wounds which Egypt received at Carchemish would be found incurable. It proved, in fact, to be a blow from which the... [ Continue Reading ]
THE WORD THAT THE LORD SPAKE... — The opening words clearly point to this as a distinct prophecy from the preceding, pointing to subsequent events, and it was probably delivered much later, possibly in connexion with Jeremiah 43:10, and placed where it is as belonging to the series of predictions wh... [ Continue Reading ]
DECLARE YE IN EGYPT. — The general proclamation is afterwards defined by the names of the cities which were the more immediate objects of Nebuchadrezzar’s attack. For the three cities named see Note on Jeremiah 44:1.... [ Continue Reading ]
WHY ARE THY VALIANT MEN SWEPT AWAY? — Better, _Why is thy strong bull dragged away!_ The Hebrew verbs are in the singular, and the adjective is given in the same number both in the LXX. and Vulgate. The former gives the rendering “Why did Apis flee from thee, and thy chosen calf abode not” as if ref... [ Continue Reading ]
ARISE, AND LET US GO AGAIN TO OUR OWN PEOPLE. — The case contemplated is that of the settlers in Egypt, the Lydians, Ionians, and Carians (see Note on Jeremiah 46:9) whom Psammetichus had encouraged, or the fugitives from Judæa of Jeremiah 43:5. These should find that it was no longer a safe home fo... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY DID CRY THERE... — Better, Th_ere they cry..._ The difficulty of the verse has led to very various renderings. The meaning of the English version is that the exiles returning to their own land would say that Pharaoh with all his haughty boasts was but an empty noise, that he had passed the limi... [ Continue Reading ]
SURELY AS TABOR IS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS... — Nebuchadnezzar in his high-towering greatness is compared to two of the most conspicuous mountains of Palestine, Tabor rising in solitary greatness 1,350 feet above the plain, Carmel 1,805 feet above the sea. So, in Jeremiah 22:6, the king of Judah is comp... [ Continue Reading ]
O THOU DAUGHTER DWELLING IN EGYPT. — As in Jeremiah 46:11, the daughter is Egypt itself personified. She is to prepare herself (literally, _with the instruments of captivity_)_,_ as with “bag and baggage” for a long journey. (Comp. Ezekiel 12:3.) Noph (= Memphis) is to be left as a depopulated city.... [ Continue Reading ]
EGYPT IS LIKE A VERY FAIR HEIFER. — The similitude points, like the “strong one” of Jeremiah 46:15, to the Apis worship of Egypt. The nation is like its god. The figure is continued in the words that follow. There comes from the north (from the land of the Chaldees, as in Jeremiah 1:1), not “destruc... [ Continue Reading ]
HER HIRED MEN ARE IN THE MIDST OF HER LIKE FATTED BULLOCKS. — Literally, _bullocks of the stall._ The prophet harps, as it were, on the same image. The mercenaries — Ionians, Carians, and others — in the army of Pharaoh-Hophra, who had their camp at Bubastis (Herod. ii. 152, 163), should be like a d... [ Continue Reading ]
THE VOICE THEREOF SHALL GO LIKE A SERPENT. — Better, _her voice_ — _i.e.,_ the voice of Egypt. In early prophecies Egypt had been compared to a “dragon” or “serpent” (Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 51:9; Psalms 74:13). Here the serpent is represented as hissing in its rage and terror in the forest against whic... [ Continue Reading ]
THE MULTITUDE OF NO. — More accurately, _I will punish Amon No._ The first word is the Egyptian Ammon or Hammon, but is probably used also, with a natural paronomasia on the name of the city, in its Hebrew sense of “multitude.” “No” here, and as No Amon in Nahum 3:8, stands for Thebes, the capital o... [ Continue Reading ]
AFTERWARD IT SHALL BE INHABITED, AS IN THE DAYS... — As in the earlier utterance of Isaiah (Isaiah 19:21) and the contemporary prophecies of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 29:11) there is a gleam of hope at the end of the vision of judgment. Egypt was to revive, though not again to take its place among the conque... [ Continue Reading ]
FEAR NOT THOU, O MY SERVANT JACOB... — The words that follow are found also in Jeremiah 30:10, and have been commented on there, and were either inserted here by the prophet himself, or by some later editor of his writings, as an appropriate conclusion, contrasting the care of Jehovah for His people... [ Continue Reading ]