Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 46:1
The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles;
Against the Gentiles – Or, concerning the nations Jer. 4649:33.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
CHAPTER XLVI
The difference between the preceding and the subsequent
prophecies in point of composition is very remarkable; the
last excelling much in majesty and elegance. This chapter (of
which the first verse forms a general title to this and the
five chapters following) contains two distinct prophecies
relating to Egypt. The first was delivered previous to an
engagement between Pharaoh-necho, king of Egypt, and
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; in which the Egyptians were
routed in Carchemish with great slaughter, as here predicted.
The prophet sees the mighty preparations; but they are all
declared to be of no avail, as God had decreed their fall, 1-6.
The King of Egypt, however, is represented as marching with all
the confidence of victory, like a river overflowing its banks,
and threatening all around with its inundation, 7, 8.
But this immense armament of Pharaoh-necho, consisting of
various nations, shall, by a righteous judgment of God, receive
such a signal overthrow near the river Euphrates, that the
political consequence of Egypt shall be thereby irretrievably
ruined, and its remaining power become contemptible in the
sight of the nations, 9-12.
The other prophecy, beginning at the thirteenth verse, relates
to the memorable overthrow of the Egyptians by Nebuchadnezzar,
subsequent to his siege of Tyre, in the sixteenth year after
the destruction of Jerusalem, 13-26.
The promise, in the conclusion of the chapter, of preservation
to the Jews, (who have for many ages continued a distinct
people, when the various nations of antiquity who oppressed
them, or with whom they had any intercourse, have long ago
ceased to have any separate and visible existence,) has been
most remarkably fulfilled; and is a very signal act of
providence, and a pledge of the restoration of Israel to the
Divine favour, when the time of the Gentiles shall be
fulfilled, 27, 28.
NOTES ON CHAP. XLVI
Verse 1. The word of the Lor d -against the Gentiles] This is a general title to the following collection of prophecies, written concerning different nations, which had less or more connexion with the Jews, either as enemies, neighbours, or allies.
They were not written at the same time; and though some of them bear dates, yet it would be difficult to give them any chronological arrangement. Dahler’s mode of ascertaining the times of their delivery may be seen in the table in the introduction.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This verse contains the title to all the ensuing discourses of this prophet; for though there be some particular verses in these chapters that relate to the Jews, yet they are all concerning their restoration. The prophecies of judgments from the beginning of this chapter to the 52nd chapter are all against foreign nations, which are called Gentiles; as to whom God revealed his will for the punishment of them, for the relief and satisfaction of his people, to whom the most of them had been bitter enemies. The 52nd chapter is by most concluded not to have been wrote by Jeremiah, who it is not probable would have repeated what he had related before, Jer 39, but it was wrote (as it is supposed) by some of the captives in Babylon, as a preface to the Book of Lamentations. This particular chapter containeth the revelation of the will of God concerning Egypt, whither some of the Jews fled for refuge after this time, and which had been a great occasion of sin to the Jews before, not only through the Jews too many leagues with them, and confidence in them, but from their communicating in their idolatry with them: Jer 2:16, The children of Noph and Tahpanhes brake the crown of their head.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. General heading of the nextsix chapters of prophecies concerning the Gentiles; the propheciesare arranged according to nations, not by the dates.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles. Or “nations”; distinguished from the Jews; not all the nations of the world, but some hereafter mentioned, as the Egyptians, Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Syrians, Arabians, Persians, and Chaldeans: or “concerning the nations” p; the above mentioned; though the prophecies delivered out concerning them are all against them, and not in their favour. Mention is made of Jeremiah’s prophesying against all the nations in Jer 25:13; after which follow the several prophecies contained in the next chapters in the Septuagint and Arabic versions, as they stand in the Polyglot Bible.
p “super gentes”, Montanus; “de gentibus”, Cocceius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Superscriptions. – Jer 46:1 contains the title for the whole collection of prophecies regarding the nations ( , as contrasted with Israel, mean the heathen nations), Jer 46-51. As to the formula, “What came as the word of Jahveh to Jeremiah,” etc., cf. the remarks on Jer 14:1. – In Jer 46:2, the special heading of this chapter begins with the word . is subordinated by to the general title, – properly, “with regard to Egypt:” cf. , etc., Jer 48:1; Jer 49:1, Jer 49:7, Jer 49:23, Jer 49:28, also Jer 23:9. This chapter contains two prophecies regarding Egypt, Jer 46:2-12, and vv. 13-28. refers to both. After this there follows an account of the occasion for the first of these two prophecies, in the words, “Concerning the army of Pharaoh-Necho, the king of Egypt, which was at the river Euphrates, near Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah.” , as in 2Ch 35:20, or , as in 2Ki 23:29, in lxx ; Egyptian, according to Brugsch ( Hist. d’Egypte, i. p. 252), Nekaaou ; in Herodotus , – is said by Manetho to have been the sixth king of the twenty-sixth (Sate) dynasty, the second Pharaoh of this name, the son of Psammetichus I, and grandson of Necho I. Brugsch says he reigned from 611 to 595 b.c. See on 2 Chr. 23:29. The two relative clauses are co-ordinate, i.e., in each case depends on . The first clause merely states where Pharaoh’s army was, the second tells what befall it at the Euphrates. It is to this that the following prophecy refers. Pharaoh-Necho, soon after ascending the throne, in the last year of Josiah’s reign (610 b.c.), had landed in Palestine, at the bay of Acre, with the view of subjugating Hither Asia as far as the Euphrates, and had defeated the slain King Josiah, who marched out against him. He next deposed Jehoahaz, whom the people had raised to the throne as Josiah’s successor, and carried him to Egypt, after having substituted Eliakim, the elder brother of Jehoahaz, and made him his vassal-king, under the name of Jehoiakim. When he had thus laid Judah under tribute, he advanced farther into Syria, towards the Euphrates, and had reached Carchemish on that river, as is stated in this verse: there his army was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar, in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim (606 b.c.); see on 2Ki 23:29. Carchemish is , Circesium, or Cercusium of the classical writers,
(Note: See the opinion of Rawlinson in Smith’s Bible Dictionary, vol. i. p. 278. – Tr.)
Arabic karqi=si=yat, a fortified city at the junction of the Chebar with the Euphrates, built on the peninsula formed by the two rivers (Ammian. Marc. xxiii. 5, Procop. bell. Pers. ii. 5, and Maras. under Karkesija ). All that now remains of it are ruins, called by the modern Arabs Abu Psera, and situated on the Mesopotamian side of the Euphrates, where that river is joined by the Chebar (Ausland, 1864, S. 1058). This fortress was either taken, or at least besieged, by Necho. The statement, “in the fourth year of Jehoiakim,” can be referred exegetically only to the time of the defeat of the Egyptians at Carchemish, or the year of the battle, and is actually so understood by most interpreters. No one but Niebuhr ( Gesch. Ass. u. Babl. S. 59, 86, 370ff.) alters the date of the battle, which he places in the third year of Jehoiakim, partly from consideration of Dan 1:1, partly from other chronological calculations; he would refer the date given in our verse to the time when the following song was composed or published. But Dan 1:1 does not necessarily require us to make any such assumption (see on that passage), and the other chronological computations are quite uncertain. Exegetically, it is as impossible to insert a period after “which Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon smote” (Nieb. p. 86, note 3), as to connect the date “in the fourth year of Jehoiakim” with “which word came to Jeremiah” (Jer 46:10). The title in Jer 46:1 certainly does not refer specially to the prophecy about Egypt, but to . But if we wished to make the whole of Jer 46:2 dependent on ‘ , which would, at all events, be a forced, unnatural construction, then, from the combination of the title in Jer 46:1 with the specification of time at the end of Jer 46:2, it would follow that all the prophecies regarding the nations had come to Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, – which would contradict what is said in the heading to the oracle against Elam (Jer 49:34), not to mention the oracle against Babylon.
Moreover, there is nothing to prevent us from assuming that the first prophecy against Egypt was revealed to Jeremiah, and uttered by him, in the same fourth year of Jehoiakim in which Necho was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar. In this way, the argument brought forward by Niebuhr in support of his forced interpretation, viz., that all specifications of time in the addresses of Jeremiah refer to the period of composition, loses all its force. In Jer 45:1 also, and in Jer 51:9, the time when the event occurred coincides with the time when the utterance regarding it was pronounced. Although we assume this to hold in the case before us, yet it by no means follows that what succeeds, in Jer 46:3-12, is not a prophecy, but a song or lyric celebrating so important a battle, “the picture of an event that had already occurred,” as Niebuhr, Ewald, and Hitzig assume. This neither follows from the statement in the title, “which Nebuchadnezzar in the fourth year of Jehoiakim smote,” nor from the contents of the succeeding address. The superscription does not naturally belong to what Jeremiah has said or uttered, but must have been prefixed, for the first time, only when the address was committed to writing and inserted in the collection, and this not till after the battle had been fought; but it is evident that the address is to be viewed as substantially a prophecy (see Jer 46:6 and Jer 46:10), although Jeremiah depicts, in the most lively and dramatic way, not merely the preparation of the mighty host, Jer 46:3, and its formidable advance, Jer 46:7-9, but also its flight and annihilation, in Jer 46:5 and in Jer 46:10-12.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Judgment of Egypt. | B. C. 608. |
1 The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles; 2 Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah. 3 Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle. 4 Harness the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, and put on the brigandines. 5 Wherefore have I seen them dismayed and turned away back? and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: for fear was round about, saith the LORD. 6 Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; they shall stumble, and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates. 7 Who is this that cometh up as a flood, whose waters are moved as the rivers? 8 Egypt riseth up like a flood, and his waters are moved like the rivers; and he saith, I will go up, and will cover the earth; I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof. 9 Come up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians and the Libyans, that handle the shield; and the Lydians, that handle and bend the bow. 10 For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates. 11 Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt: in vain shalt thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be cured.
The first verse is the title of that part of this book, which relates to the neighbouring nations, and follows here. It is the word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah against the Gentiles; for God is King and Judge of nations, knows and will call to an account those who know him not nor take any notice of him. Both Isaiah and Ezekiel prophesied against these nations that Jeremiah here has a separate saying to, and with reference to the same events. In the Old Testament we have the word of the Lord against the Gentiles; in the New Testament we have the word of the Lord for the Gentiles, that those who were afar off are made nigh.
He begins with Egypt, because they were of old Israel’s oppressors and of late their deceivers, when they put confidence in them. In these verses he foretells the overthrow of the army of Pharaoh-necho, by Nebuchadnezzar, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, which was so complete a victory to the king of Babylon that thereby he recovered from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates, all that pertained to the king of Egypt, and so weakened him that he came not again any more out of his land (as we find, 2 Kings xxiv. 7), and so made him pay dearly for his expedition against the king of Assyria four years before, in which he slew Josiah, 2 Kings xxiii. 29. This is the event that is here foretold in lofty expressions of triumph over Egypt thus foiled, which Jeremiah would speak of with a particular pleasure, because the death of Josiah, which he had lamented, was now avenged on Pharaoh-necho. Now here,
I. The Egyptians are upbraided with the mighty preparations they made for this expedition, in which the prophet calls to them to do their utmost, for so they would: “Come then, order the buckler, let the weapons of war be got ready,” v. 3. Egypt was famous for horses–let them be harnessed and the cavalry well mounted: Get up, you horsemen, and stand forth, c., <i>v. 4. See what preparations the children of men make, with abundance of care and trouble and at a vast expense, to kill one another, as if they did not die fast enough of themselves. He compares their marching out upon this expedition to the rising of their river Nile (Jer 46:7; Jer 46:8): Egypt now rises up like a flood, scorning to keep within its own banks and threatening to overflow all the neighbouring lands. It is a very formidable army that the Egyptians bring into the field upon this occasion. The prophet summons them (v. 9): Come up, you horses; rage, you chariots. He challenges them to bring all their confederate troops together, the Ethiopians, that descended from the same stock with the Egyptians (Gen. x. 6), and were their neighbours and allies, the Libyans and Lydians, both seated in Africa, to the west of Egypt, and from them the Egyptians fetched their auxiliary forces. Let them strengthen themselves with all the art and interest they have, yet it shall be all in vain; they shall be shamefully defeated notwithstanding, for God will fight against them, and against him there is no wisdom nor counsel,Pro 21:30; Pro 21:31. It concerns those that go forth to war not only to order the buckler, and harness the horses, but to repent of their sins, and pray to God for his presence with them, and that they may have it to keep themselves from every wicked thing.
II. They are upbraided with the great expectations they had from this expedition, which were quite contrary to what God intended in bringing them together. They knew their own thoughts, and God knew them, and sat in heaven and laughed at them,; but they knew not the thoughts of the Lord, for he gathers them as sheaves into the floor,Mic 4:11; Mic 4:12. Egypt saith (v. 8): I will go up; I will cover the earth, and none shall hinder me; I will destroy the city, whatever city it is that stands in my way. Like Pharaoh of old, I will pursue, I will overtake. The Egyptians say that they shall have a day of it, but God saith that it shall be his day: The is the day of the Lord God of hosts (v. 10), the day in which he will be exalted in the overthrow of the Egyptians. They meant one thing, but God meant another; they designed it for the advancement of their dignity and the enlargement of their dominion, but God designed it for the great abasement and weakening of their kingdom. It is a day of vengeance for Josiah’s death; it is a day of sacrifice to divine justice, to which multitudes of the sinners of Egypt shall fall as victims. Note, When men think to magnify themselves by pushing on unrighteous enterprises, let them expect that God will glorify himself by blasting them and cutting them off.
III. They are upbraided with their cowardice and inglorious flight when they come to an engagement (Jer 46:5; Jer 46:6): “Wherefore have I seen them, notwithstanding all these mighty and vast preparations and all these expressions of bravery and resolution, when the Chaldean army faces them, dismayed, turned back, quite disheartened, and no spirit left in them.” 1. They make a shameful retreat. Even their mighty ones, who, one would think, should have stood their ground, flee a flight, flee by consent, make the best of their way, flee in confusion and with the utmost precipitation; they have neither time nor heart to look back, but fear is round about them, for they apprehend it so. And yet, 2. They cannot make their escape. They have the shame of flying, and yet not the satisfaction of saving themselves by flight; they might as well have stood their ground and died upon the spot; for even the swift shall not flee away. The lightness of their heels shall fail them when it comes to the trial, as well as the stoutness of their hearts; the mighty shall not escape, nay, they are beaten down and broken to pieces. They shall stumble in their flight, and fall towards the north, towards their enemy’s country; for such confusion were they in when they took to their feet that instead of making homeward, as men usually do in that case, they made forward. Note, The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Valiant men are not always victorious.
IV. They are upbraided with their utter inability ever to recover this blow, which should be fatal to their nation, Jer 46:11; Jer 46:12. The damsel, the daughter of Egypt, that lived in great pomp and state, is sorely wounded by this defeat. Let her now seek for balm in Gilead and physicians there; let her use all the medicines her wise men can prescribe for the healing of this hurt, and the repairing of the loss sustained by this defeat; but all in vain; no cure shall be to them; they shall never be able to bring such a powerful army as this into the field again. “The nations that rang of thy glory and strength have now heard of thy shame, how shamefully thou wast routed and how thou are weakened by it.” It needs not be spread by the triumphs of the conquerors, the shrieks and outcries of the conquered will proclaim it: Thy cry hath filled the country about. For, when they fled several ways, one mighty man stumbled upon another and dashed against another, such confusion were they in, so that both together became a pray to the pursuers, an easy prey. A thousand such dreadful accidents there should be, which should fill the country with the cry of those that were overcome. Let not the mighty man therefore glory in his might, for the time may come when it will stand him in no stead.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
PART IV
PROPHECIES AGAINST FOREIGN NATIONS
(Chapters 46 -51)
AN ORACLE CONCERNING EGYPT
Vs. 1-2: CONFRONTATION AT CARCHEMISH
1. It is appropriate that Jeremiah’s prophecies against foreign nations should begin with Egypt – a nation that had always exercised far too great apolitical influence on the covenant people.
a. The Jewish people had once been in bondage there -tasting the severe oppression and affliction of Egyptian taskmasters; yet, they always remembered Egypt as a land of plenty, comfort and ease, and longed to return there l
1) Thus Egypt symbolizes “the world” – with all its attractions and allurements.
2) Carnal men seek satisfaction in its pleasures instead of
seeking God’s kingdom and glory, (Mat 6:33).
3) Worldliness is an ATTITUDE wherein one lives to satisfy the senses.
b. The beloved king Josiah had been slain by Pharaohnecho’s army at Megiddo, in 609 B.C., when he attempted to hinder an Egyptian relief force from going to assist the Assyrians in Haran, (2Ch 35:20-25).
2. This prophecy is not dated, but it foretold the clash of Pharaoh necho and Nebuchadnezzar “by the river Euphrates at Carchemish”, during the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign in Judah, (vs. 2).
a. This was during the first year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign.
b. The defeat of Egypt, at the battle of Carchemish, was the political turning point of that age.
c. From that battle Babylon emerged as the principle power of the ancient world.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Jeremiah begins here to prophesy against foreign nations, and continues to do so to the last chapter but one, not that he then for the first time began to announce these oracles, but as I have already said, a volume was at length formed, including his prophecies, the order of time being not everywhere observed; for we see in the 25 chapter that he threatened heathen nations with the punishments they had deserved before Jehoiakim was made king. But as I have said, the prophecies respecting heathen nations have been separated, though as to time Jeremiah had predicted what afterwards happened.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.1. Chronology of the Chapter.First Part: Jer. 46:1-12, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim; written at Jerusalem, immediately before the battle of Charchemish. This section forms a natural addendum to chap. 25. Vide notes there on Chronology, National Affairs, and Contemporaneous History; also on chaps. 7 and 10. Second Part: Jer. 46:18-28, is a prophecy uttered in Egypt after the migration of the remnant thither, carrying Jeremiah with them, and should be connected with chap. Jer. 43:8-13. It must have preceded chap. 44, which is the final message of abandonment; for here in Jer. 46:27-28, a message of comfort is sent, in which the old (and as yet disannulled) covenant-relationship is still recognised and asserted. Vide notes on chaps. 43 and 44. See Historic Facts below.
2. Geographical References.Jer. 46:2. By the river Euphrates in Charchemish. Charchenish is usually identified with Cercusium, at the juncture of the Chebar with the Euphrates; but Professor Rawlinson disputes this localisation, and would place it considerably higher up the river.
Jer. 46:8. As a food, and his waters are moved like the rivers. Year, flood, is the Nile; and his waters are the branches of the Nile in Lower Egypt.
Jer. 46:9. Ethiopians, Libyans, and Lydians: Heb. Cush, Phut, and Ludim. Cush, the Nubian negro; Phut, the Libyans of Mauritania; and Ludim, the Hamite Lydians of North Africa.
Jer. 46:14. Migdol, Noph, Tahpanhes. Vide notes on chaps. Jer. 2:14-16, and Jer. 44:1.
Jer. 46:18. Tabor lifts itself from the plain of Esdraelon 1350 feet; its height above the sea-level being 1805 feet. Carmel forms a bold promontory jutting out into the Mediterranean.
Jer. 46:25. Multitude of No; rather Amon of No; called in Nah. 3:8 (margin) No-Amon. The sacred city of Thebes, capital of Upper Egypt. Comp. Eze. 30:14-16. Jupiter-Ammon had his famous temple there. Ammon was the supreme deity of the triad of Thebes.
3. Personal Allusion.Jer. 46:2. Pharaoh-Necho king of Egypt, son and successor of Psammeticus, and the sixth king of the twenty-sixth dynasty. It was he who, when going against Charchemish, four years earlier, encountered king Josiah at Megiddo, and slew him, but whose defeat by Nebuchadnezzar is here pronounced. In this battle he lost all the territory which had been subject to the Pharaohs west of the Euphrates, and between it and the Nile. He is famed as having equipped a fleet of discovery from the Red Sea along the coast of Africa, which doubled the Cape of Good Hope and returned to Egypt by the Mediterranean.
4. Natural History.Jer. 46:8. Riseth like a flood. The Niles annual overflow at the approach of the summer solstice.
Jer. 46:11. Gilead, and take balm. Vide chap. Jer. 8:22.
Jer. 46:20. A very fair heifer. Her god was the bull Apis, and she is here called, as his spouse, the fair heifer.
Jer. 46:22. Voice shall go like a serpent, hissing as a snake disturbed in its haunts by the woodcutter.
Jer. 46:23. Grasshoppers. Rendered locust (Exo. 10:4; Exo. 10:15; Jdg. 6:5). The gryllus gregarius.
5. Manners and Customs.Jer. 46:3. Order the buckler and shield. Buckler, a small round target carried on the left arm by the light infantry; shield, carried by the heavy-armed troops and covering the whole body.
Jer. 46:4. Harness the horses, the cavalry and charioteers. Brigandines, cuirasses or coats of mail.
6. Literary Criticisms.Jer. 46:5. Fear was round about. The prophets old cry, Magor-Missabib (see on chap. Jer. 6:25).
Jer. 46:9. Come up, ye horses; or, Mount ye the horses.
Jer. 46:11. Many medicines, &c. Comp. chap. Jer. 30:13, Healing-plaster hast thou none.
Jer. 46:15. Why are thy valiant men swept away? Lit. why is (singular) thy valiants. Evidently a corruption of the text. The LXX. read ; : thus recognising in the valiant, or strong, Apis the bull. It is a Scripture figure, strong bulls (Psa. 22:12); and this Apis, the bull-shaped Egyptian idol, to whom might was attributed by its worshippers, would be unable to stand before Jehovah. This original reference to Apis as the strong one became corrupted by transcribers (who did not understand its reference) into a plural noun, as if alluding to horses or heroes. Cambyses, in his invasion of Egypt, destroyed the sacred bull.
Jer. 46:17. They did cry there, Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise. The LXX. translate, Call ye the name of Pharaoh-Necho king of Egypt, Sam Esbir. The Syriac renders the words, Disturber and passer of times; and the Vulgate, Time hath brought tumult. All three regard the last two words as a prophetic name for Necho. But is in the abstract destruction; but in chap. Jer. 25:31, it is rendered a noise; tumult, therefore, confusion, as associated with destruction. So Pharaoh is to be surnamed a noise or tumult.
HISTORIC FACTS REFERRED TO IN CHAPTER 46
I. The Egyptian power broken by Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 46:1-12).
1. Preliminary incidents. About four years before this decisive campaign, Pharaoh-Necho had marched towards Charchemish. Josiah, king of Judah, has hastened to Megiddo to intercept Pharaoh, and was there slain in battle. Necho thereupon made Judea tributary, carried away to Egypt Josiahs son Jehoahaz (Shallum), and set up his brother Jehoiakim. This defeat of Judah laid Phnicia and Syria easily open to subjugation by Necho, who soon established his own dominion over the whole country between Egypt and the Euphrates (Rawlinson). Meanwhile, two years after Josiahs fall (see note, Contemporaneous History, to chap. 7), and two years before this campaign at Charchemish, the Assyrian power at Nineveh had been defeated by the Babylonians and Medes. Nebuchadnezzar thereupon became the leader of this new Babylonian power, and came at length to confront the proud Egyptian forces at Charchemish.
2. The decisive battle. Taking this prophetic poem literally, we have here described the struggle at Charchemish. First, the flower of Egypts army advances (Jer. 46:3), magnificently equipped (Jer. 46:3-4). They are repulsed by Nebuchadnezzars forces (Jer. 46:5); and with graphic and stirring language Jeremiah depicts the sudden terror and amazement of the Egyptian hosts, long used to victory, at finding the battle turning against them; then falling back and betaking themselves to hasty flight (Jer. 46:5-6). But from this first repulse they rally; and the whole land of Egypt (Jer. 46:8), together with its dependent nations and allies (Jer. 46:9), seems to rise up like a flood and rolls into the furious conflict. They march forth now in assurance and pride; but this day of their fury and pomp is the appointed day of Jehovahs vengeance (Jer. 46:10). Egypt is smitten with an incurable wound (Jer. 46:11), and the cry of the smitten armies resounds through the lands (Jer. 46:11).
II. Egypt invaded and vanquished by Babylon (Jer. 46:13-26).
1. Intervening events. The new Babylonish empire (Chaldea) was now supreme. Judahs tributary dependence was now transferred to Nebuchadnezzar (see note, Contemporaneous History, to chap. 1); this was in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (see note, National Affairs, to chap. 25) Until the eleventh year of Zedekiah this vassalage continued (chap. Jer. 29:2), when, in consequence of Zedekiahs falsity and the nations treachery, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, carrying the people captive to Babylon. The remnant of the poor who were left on the land afterwards migrated into Egypt (chap. 43), where they lapsed into grossest idolatry (chap. 44) In vain had the prophet Jeremiah there pleaded with his apostate people; therefore Jehovah withdrew His name from them (chap. Jer. 44:26), and threatened their extermination when Egypt should be overthrown (chap. Jer. 43:9-13), of which the death of Pharaoh-Hophra should be the ominous sign (chap. Jer. 44:29-30).
2. The fatal invasion of Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar had been held back by his siege of Tyre, which, though all the nations had been forced into subjection by his irresistible armies, long withstood his attack. At length (585 B.C.), after thirteen years siege, Tyre fell; Nebuchadnezzar marched his army against Egypt. The Egyptian power was now in its boastful zenith; its cities were like a forest (Jer. 46:23), numbering a thousand and twenty. Yet the Egyptian army was devoid of patriotism, for they were subjected races (see Jer. 46:9) and mercenaries, thirty thousand of whom Hophra hired from Asia MinorCarians and Ionians (see Herodotus). In this crisis these hirelings, instead of defending the country, resolve to desert the Egyptian cause and return each to his native land (Jer. 46:16). Egypt thus sinks into impotent rage, like a serpent hissing in a thicket (Jer. 46:19-23); terrified by the force of the Babylonish assault into abject submission (Jer. 46:24-26). For forty years Egypt bore the yoke of Babylon, when, in the time of Cyrus, she recovered her freedom, but not her glory; for she has been in servile subjection to foreign powers until this day (see Eze. 29:11-15).
III. Egypt preserved from total extinction by the Chaldeans (Jer. 46:26). Forty years after the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, in which she was despoiled of all her glory and treasures (Eze. 29:19), Cyrus won for Egypt her emancipation. And through these long centuries, though Babylon has ceased to exist, though mighty dynasties have become extinct, Egypt has continued as a monument of Gods faithful word. Instead, however, of regaining her old force for aggression and aggrandisement, her power is permanently broken (Eze. 29:11-15). But from that time she has been inhabited; and to this day, in her humiliation, she testifies to the might and justice of Goda warning to those who harm His people, and an encouragement to those He promises to befriend.
HOMILIES AND OUTLINES ON CHAPTER 46
Jer. 46:1. Theme: GODS JUDGMENTS UPON THE NATIONS.
I. Jehovahs sway is wide as the universe. Not limited to Israel and Judah. His omniscience surveys the nations. His omnipotence sways the nations. He marks their history; He works their destinies.
II. Jehovahs wrath is against all ungodliness. Angry with His own apostate people. Equally angry against iniquitous Egypt. The fate of Josiah shall be avenged (see above, Historic Facts). All nations who defy Gods rule shall feel His rod. If He smite His own people, let not His foes think to escape!
III. Jehovahs justice pursues into all lands. Let not Israel impiously think to defy God by fleeing into Egypt; nor to secure immunity by alliance with the mighty.
Let not Israel despondently imagine that the wicked will retain their proud ascendancy over Gods people whom they have subdued.
AGAINST THE GENTILES. See Homilies on chap. 25, The Manifold Judgments of God (p. 469); The Wine-cup of Wrath (p. 474).
Jer. 46:3-4. Theme: BRILLIANT HOPES BAFFLED. Order ye the buckler and shield, &c.
The satire of prophecy is very severe. Thus the prophet summons the proud Egyptians to the war against Nebuchadnezzars hosts. This rallying call is full of bitter irony. Grand preparations only to issue in ignominious defeat.
I. A mighty army well equipped for war. It would almost seem that victory was theirs before they engaged in war.
1. Absorbing attention to our own resources of strength shuts out all heed of God and His designs. We trust in armaments and forces, rest in outward defences; and thus ignore God, and alienate Him.
2. All our resources of strength are but a deception and a snare when God is against us. They delude us; and allure on boastfully in the course of defeat and destruction.
3. External splendour, being greatly impressive and imposing, is often imagined to ensure prosperity. Men believe in display; and
4. Grow confident in the parade of power and skill. But Goliath may fall before a stone and sling. The loftiness of men may be brought low.
II. A baffled army utterly vanquished in war. It was a sight for wonder. Wherefore have I seen, &c. (Jer. 46:5). Wherefore is a particle expressive of surprise: How? Why?
1. Wondrous surprises do occur in human experience, which reverse all our boastings. Often in secular courses men find events occur which shake them from their confidences. Death-scenes have shown the boastful lips put to silence, &c.
2. Proud and resplendent forces are startlingly overthrown; vanquished contrary to all reckonings; as if a superhuman Hand had to do with the issues of our struggles and efforts. God reverses the plans of the proud, and defeats the hopes of the vainglorious.
3. Strongest forces will find themselves beaten down when they oppose the will of Omnipotence. The Divine power strikes down the mighty, and thereby
(a.) Human arrogance is chastised.
(b.) Divine righteousness is satisfied (Jer. 46:10).
Jer. 46:5. Theme: THE DISMAY OF DEFEAT.
I. Solid guarantees of success. Mighty (Jer. 46:5); Swift (Jer. 46:6).
1. Hopes are built on seeming securities.
2. With boastful confidence men attempt their aims.
3. None, however opposed to Gods purposes, allows himself to expect defeat; but makes his endeavours amid promises of success.
II. Guarantees of success overthrown.
1. Forces, whose resistance are unreckoned, may thwart our hopes.
2. Human resources of strength are impotent when God is opposed to our success.
3. Pride and prowess will fall in the day of Gods resistance.
4. Souls, deluded by vain boasting, will meet an appalling defeat.
III. Success overthrown followed by dismay.
1. What amazement will overwhelm the wicked in their doom!
2. How helpless will the sinner be in the moment of his overthrow.
3. How certain is the failure of all earthly schemes, and especially of all plans of salvation, which God disapproves.
4. Oh, the terror of an eternal defeat!
Jer. 46:11. Theme: HEALING FOR STRICKEN ONES. For Egypt? Yes; equally as for Israel (chap. Jer. 8:22).
It is always right to recognise amongst you, as a congregation, the suffering. Not in physical affliction merely, but spiritual sufferers; sinners, backsliders, Christians who have lost health.
The need of Christs ministry of healing, and of the Christian ministry of consolation, is still evident; and can never cease while men suffer from the wounds of sin.
I. Healing urgently needed. What has wounded Egypt? Sin and strife. What has wounded souls? The same.
1. Persevering search for remedies. Use many medicines.
2. Fruitless application of remedies. In vain use many, &c. The world offers many medicines. If conscience is distressed, try pleasure, business, ceremonialism. If the heart is wounded, try exciting literature, diverting travels, cheerful society, &c.
But like the sufferer (Mar. 5:26) who spent her money on many physicians, yet could be healed of none.
II. Healing offered the stricken.
1. Seek the healing at the right place. Go up to Gilead. Sinners, go to Calvary.
2. Secure the right remedy. Take balm. The blood of Christ for cleansing the conscience; the love of Christ for calming the heart; the grace of Christ for clothing the soul.
See homilies on chap. Jer. 30:12-15 : Faithless Healers and Vain Remedies; and Healing Medicines.
Jer. 46:15. Theme: VALOUR DEFEATED. Why are thy valiant men swept away? They stood not, because the Lord did drive them.
(i.) There is AN UNSEEN POWER GREATER than that visible.
(ii.) When the unseen Power is against the valiants, VALOUR IS OF NO AVAIL.
(iii.) It is GOD WHODECIDES VICTORIES, and weakest armies may, therefore, take the field against the strong.
I. Since power belongeth unto God, we should attempt no conflict without first gaining Omnipotence on our side. Enter, therefore, upon no enterprise without God.
II. Valour is noble, and merits a better issue than to be defeated.
They who are valiant for the truth, for rights civil and religious, &c., deserve success.
With God for them they shall go on conquering and to conquer.
Yet reliance on our valour will repel God from our side, and insure that the valiant men are swept away.
III. The overthrow of the valiant carries its own admonition against Godless confidence.
Mighty armies have fallen, because they trusted in their equipments and strategies. Mighty men have fallen before weaker forcesSamson, Goliath, &c.
God is jealous, and will allow no arrogance and boasting. He has threatened the proud and wicked with overthrow. Pride goeth before destruction, &c. Victory will therefore be denied to the valiant who ignore God, trusting in their own courage and strength.
IV. Humility blended with valour wins Gods mighty help.
1. Humility is better even than valour, for it secures that which is infinitely more importantGod giveth grace to the humble.
2. Valour blended with humility has wrought marvels, making men mighty through God, so that one may chase a thousand, and two may put ten thousand to flight.
3. Valour is commanded in those who stand up for Christ and His causeQuit ye like men, be strong; but the uniform to be worn by every soldier of the Cross is this: Be clothed with humility.
Jer. 46:19. Theme: EXULTING OVER THE RUIN OF ENEMIES. Jeremiah had reason to loathe Egypt, and it had been well had his people hated the land and its inhabitants. Come out from the midst of her, My people, and be not partakers of her plagues.
I. The overthrow of sinners contemplated with a natural satisfaction.
1. The Egyptians typify the foes of Gods Church.
2. All the miseries and humiliations of life are associated with these spiritual enemies: like the hard bondage of Egypt before God redeemed His people.
3. Molestations and oppression had been experienced by Israel at the hands of these enemies.
4. The righteous see with satisfaction that the wrongs they have suffered will be requited.
5. It is with equanimity and a sense of right that the overthrow of our oppressors is contemplated.
II. The overthrow of sinners rejoiced in with righteous gladness.
1. The law of recompense is a gracious law; it vindicates Gods justice and power, and assures the righteous who suffer wrongfully that God will in due season reverse the tyranny of evil-doers.
2. The honour of God, as much as the peace of the righteous, necessitates the ultimate overthrow of the enemies of God and His kingdom.
3. A godly soul therefore exults in the merited defeat of evil; for
(a.) It insures the peace of the godly.
(b.) It vindicates the faithfulness of God.
(c.) It frustrates the purposes of evil.
(d.) It demonstrates the certainty of justiceagainst the guilty, and to the godly.
Jer. 46:27-28. Theme: ISRAELS RESTORATION. (See notes and homilies on chap. Jer. 30:10-11 : Recovery of Lost Israel, and Nations Obliterated; Israel Preserved.) Egypts fall and restoration have been foretold; but the prophet closes with a word of exhortation to the many erring Jews who dwelt there. With loving earnestness he
I. Reminds them of Israels hope, and of the promise of salvation to mankind bound up with their national existence. Further, he calls back to their remembrance the prediction from which these two verses are taken (chap. 30), and thereby
II. Assures them of Israels return from exile, and of the certain accomplishment, by their means, of Gods purposes of mercy to the whole human race. Why, then, should they flee from their country and trust in a heathen power, instead of endeavouring to live in a manner worthy of
III. The noble destiny which was their true glory and ground of confidence?Dr. Payne Smith.
Note.When God turns things upside down, and takes care that neither root nor branch remains, His little flock must be preserved. The punishments which redound to the destruction of the ungodly redound to the amelioration of the godly. For from these He takes the eternal punishment, and turns even the temporal punishment to their advantage; but the ungodly drink it to the dregs.Cramer.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND THE NATIONS
Jer. 46:1 to Jer. 49:39
With the exception of the Book of Hosea, every prophetic book of the Old Testament contains at least one oracle concerning a foreign nation. Rather large collections of such oracles can be found in the books of Isaiah (chaps. 1323) and Ezekiel (chaps. 2532) as well as here in Jeremiah (chaps. 4651). The prophets of Israel could not avoid bringing heathen nations also with the sphere of their predictions. The vital interests of the theocracy were at stake in the standing and falling of neighboring nations. Furthermore the prophets emphasized the universal sovereignty of the Lord and this necessitated utterances concerning the destiny of the nations.
It is probable that of all parts of the Old Testament the oracles concerning the foreign nations are the least frequently read. Even among Old Testament scholars very little attention has been paid to these passages. One has only to observe in the standard commentaries the disproportionately small amount of space devoted to these oracles to realize that they have not aroused a great deal of scholarly interest. Whatever the reasons for this neglect may be, it is nevertheless a pity if for no other reason than that among these oracles is some of the finest poetry in the prophetic literature. Occasionally beautiful Messianic prophecies are embedded within these messages of doom. Furthermore, sayings of the type found in this section of the Book of Jeremiah represent a characteristic feature of prophetic preaching, and must be taken into account if one is to have a true picture of the prophetic ministry.
That there would be an international dimension to the ministry of Jeremiah is clearly indicated in his call. God had made him a prophet to the nations (Jer. 1:5); he was appointed over the nations to pull up and tear down, to destroy and to rend, to build and to plant (Jer. 1:1()). In chapter 25 Jeremiah was told to take the cup of Gods wrath and pass it among the nations of his day. They would drink from that cup, stagger and fall to their destruction. Last of all the king of Babylon would drink and perish. The foreign nations in chapters 4651 are treated roughly in the same order in which they are treated in chapter 25. In chapter 27 Jeremiah confronts the ambassadors of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon with the divine demand that they capitulate to the rule of Nebuchadnezzar. These passages prepare the reader for the somewhat more comprehensive treatment of foreign nations in this present section of the book.
The foreign nation oracles in the Book of Jeremiah seem to be organized in a definite pattern. Jeremiah placed first in the collection the oracles against Egypt, the great and ancient archenemy of Israel to the south. Then he places together a number of oracles addressed to smaller nations of his day which, along with Israel, were somewhat like pawns in the struggle between the great powers. The climax of this part of the book is reached in chapters 5051 when Jeremiah announces the judgment upon Babylon, the greatest power of that time.
The foreign nation oracles come from various periods of Jeremiahs ministry and it is not possible to assign a precise date to each oracle. Scholars are not entirely agreed as to the general chronological sequence of the oracles. The following chart indicates the approximate chronological placement of the various oracles of this section of the book.
I. THE FIRST ORACLE CONCERNING EGYPT Jer. 46:1-12
Standing first in the collection of oracles against the nations are two utterances against Egypt. The first of these, found in Jer. 46:1-12, is dated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (605 B.C.). The theme of this oracle is the Egyptian defeat at Carchemish. The author develops his theme in two graphic pictures.
A. The First Picture of Egyptian Defeat Jer. 46:1-6
TRANSLATION
(1) The word of the LORD which came unto Jeremiah concerning the nations. (2) For Egypt: Concerning the army of Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, who was beside the river Euphrates at Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah. (3) Prepare the buckler and shield! Draw near for battle! (4) Harness the horses! Mount, O cavalry! Stand firm in your helmets! Polish your spears! Put on armor! (5) Why have I seen it? They are dismayed, turning backward and their mighty men are beaten down; they have fled and not turned; terror is on every side (oracle of the LORD). (6) Let not the swift flee or the mighty one escape. In the north by the river Euphrates they have stumbled, they have fallen.
COMMENTS
Jer. 46:2 serves as a preface to the first oracle concerning Egypt. The oracle describes the defeat of Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in the fourth year of Jehoiakim i.e., 60f B.C. It is important to note that Jer. 46:2 dates the battle of Carchemish, not the oracle which follows. The poetic oracle in Jer. 46:3-12 may have been composed at any time during the early ministry of Jeremiah; but it probably was not written until a few months before the decisive showdown at Carchemish.
The first poetic description of the Egyptian defeat at Carchemish begins with a graphic picture of the preparations in the Egyptian camp on the eve of the great battle (Jer. 46:3-4). One can feel the excitement here as the Egyptian officers bark orders to their men. Prepare the buckler and shield! Draw near to battle! The buckler was the small round shield carried by the light infantry; the shield covered the entire body and was borne by the heavy-armed. The chariotry and cavalry forces as well are directed to make ready for battle. Harness the horses shouts an officer, and the deadly chariots which were such an important part of the ancient army of Egypt are immediately made ready for action. Mount up, shouts the officer in charge of the cavalry unit. The weapons are polished; the armor or coat of mail (the word translated brigandines in KJV) is put on. Finally comes the command, Stand forth with your helmets. Since helmets were not worn except when actually in battle this command is equivalent to an order to engage the enemy. Confident of victory the mighty army of Egypt rushes forward. The battle that would decide the fate of the world and the destiny of nations has been launched.
The picture suddenly changes in Jer. 46:5-6. The prophet himself is astonished at what he sees and expresses his amazement. How can it be that such a well-trained and disciplined army could be thrown into confusion and flight? It is beyond comprehension that such a magnificent army could be thoroughly defeated and routed. Jeremiah uses his favorite expression fear was round about to describe the terror that plunged those hardened soldiers into flight. Even the most swift and mighty among them will not be able to reach their homeland. They will stumble in exhaustion, stumble over the slain, stumble over one another in their haste to flee the scene of battle. They will fall in a foreign land, in the north, by the river Euphrates. Why does this happen, the prophet asked in the opening line of verse five. The answer is found in the saith the Lord (lit., oracle of the Lord) in the last line of the same verse. Egypt will meet with the defeat at Carchemish because God has so decreed it. It is His judgment against Egypt.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XLVI.
(1) The word of the Lord . . .We come here upon something like the traces of a plan in the arrangement of Jeremiahs 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 directly to his own people. Most of those that follow were connected historically with Jer. 25:15-26, and may be regarded as the development of what is there given in outline, and belong accordingly to the reign of Jehoiakim (circ. B.C. 607).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
THE CAPTION GENERAL AND PARTICULAR, Jer 46:1-2.
1. Against the Gentiles This is a general caption, embracing the following four chapters.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
General Heading.
‘The word of YHWH which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations.’
Here we have an indication of what this final main section is all about. It deals with YHWH’s ‘powerful word’ (dbr YHWH) against all the nations which were affecting Judah/Israel at that time. It indicated that YHWH’s judgment would be active against such nations. It must be remembered that during the time of Jeremiah’s prophecies following Josiah’s death in 609 BC, Babylon was the dominant nation in the ancient Near Eastern world, and we therefore learn from these prophecies how their tentacles would embrace all the nations round about, bringing YHWH’s judgment on them. None would escape their attention. But the final important point is that in the end Babylon itself would succumb, overtaken by judgment from the north. In contrast God’s people would arise triumphantly from the ashes. Jeremiah’s message was thus that against all appearances it was to be recognised that God was still in control.
Oracles Concerning Egypt.
There are two oracles concerning Egypt. The first deals with the rout of the Egyptian armies at Carchemish as Nebuchadrezzar began to take over that part of the world (c 605 BC) after a lull following the final defeat of the Assyrians. At that stage, after a further rout at Hamath, Egypt were driven back to their own borders. The second deals with Nebuchadrezzar’s ‘invasion’ of Egypt in a punitive expedition which occurred decades later. Both are confirmed archaeologically, although the latter only in a fragmentary inscription.
In the second millennium BC Egypt had seen Palestine and beyond as its own special province and had mainly exercised control over it. But Egyptian power had waned and to a certain extent in the first part of the 1st millennium BC Palestine had been left to itself prior to its becoming subservient to Assyria. But at the time to which this prophecy refers Egypt under Pharaoh Necho had sought once again to exercise its authority outside its own borders and to extend its control over this and other territory, engaging in wars of belligerence, and it was his attempt to assist a weakened Assyria against the Babylonians that had resulted in his advance to the Euphrates and the death of Josiah, and the loss of Judean independence.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jer 46:1 The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles;
Jer 46:1
Jer 46:2-28 Prophecy Against Egypt Jer 46:2-28 is a prophecy against the nation of Egypt.
Jer 46:2 Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaohnecho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah.
Jer 46:2
[28] Josephus says, “Now in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, one whose name was Nebuchadnezzar took the government over the Babylonians, who at the same time went up with a great army to the city Carchemish, which was at Euphrates, upon a resolution he had taken to fight with Neco, king of Egypt, under whom all Syria then was. ( Antiquities 10.6.1)
2Ki 23:34, “And Pharaohnechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away: and he came to Egypt, and died there.”
Jer 22:18-19, “Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah; They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”
Hobbs tells us that the Babylonian Chronicle supports the possibility of multiple invasions by Nebuchadnezzar into Palestine during Jehoiakim’s reign. Therefore, he does not take 2Ch 36:6-7 as a “complete parallel” passage. He dates Jehoiakim’s initial subjection to Babylon in 604/603 B.C., and rebellion about three years later (601 to 598 B.C.). This is earlier than Josephus’ date of subjection in the eighth year of his reign (601/600 B.C.), and rebellion in his eleventh year. [29]
[29] Hobbs refers to Wiseman, Chronicles, 43 77, and Grayson, Texts from Cuneiform Sources 5:99 102. See T. R. Hobbs, 2 Kings, in Word Biblical Commentary: 58 Volumes on CD-Rom, vol. 13, eds. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker (Dallas: Word Inc., 2002), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), 348.
However, many scholars believe the siege described in 2Ki 24:1 and 2Ch 36:6 refers to the same event, arguing that the sacred and royal vessels could only have been taken away one time, and that there was only one siege on Jerusalem during Jehoiakim’s reign. Those who take this view date Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Judah in 605 B.C., during the third year of Jehoiakim’s reign (Dan 1:1-2). However, a contradiction must now be addressed; for Jeremiah dates the year of the Babylonian king’s invasion into this region and his battle against Egypt as the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign (Jer 25:1; Jer 25:9; Jer 46:2). A number of resolutions have been proposed. (1) Some scholars attempt to resolve these conflicting dates by saying the Babylonians followed a different dating system from Judah for the reign of kings, which called the first year of reign the accession year and the following year as the first year of reign. However, in Judah the first year of a king’s reign was counted as his first year. Thus, Jeremiah’s date of the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign would be equivalent to Daniel’s description of the event taking place during his third year of reign, since Daniel would be following the Babylonian method of counting, and Jeremiah the Jewish method. (2) A second resolution is to suggest that Nebuchadrezzar first seized Jerusalem in Jehoiakim’s third year, and fought with the Egyptians during his fourth year of rule. (3) Keil and Delizsch disagree with both suggestions, saying that in the first option no such reckoning system is recorded in Scripture, and in the second option that Nebuchadrezzar could not have passed to Jerusalem without luring Egypt out in a battle to protect Judah as their vassal. They suggest a third alternative by interpreting Dan 1:1 to say that Nebuchadrezzar began to “march towards Jerusalem” in the third year of Jehoiakim’s reign. This allows the battle of Carchemish to take place first as a part of this march towards Judah. [30]
[30] C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, The Book of Daniel, in Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database (Seattle, WA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1996), in P.C. Study Bible, v. 3.1 [CD-ROM]. Seattle, WA: Biblesoft Inc., 1993-2000, notes on Daniel 1:1-2.
Jer 25:1, “The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon;”
Jer 25:9, “Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations.”
Jer 46:2, “Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaohnecho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Prophecies Against the Nations Jer 46:1 to Jer 51:64 consists of a collection of nine prophecies against the nations surrounding the land of Israel. The Lord had spoken to Jeremiah during his divine commission and said, “Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.” (Jer 1:9-10)
1. Prophecy Against Egypt Jer 46:2-28
2. Prophecy Against the Philistines Jer 47:1-7
3. Prophecy Against Moab Jer 48:1-47
4. Prophecy Against the Ammonites Jer 49:1-6
5. Prophecy Against Edom Jer 49:7-22
6. Prophecy Against Damascus Jer 49:23-27
7. Prophecy Against Kedar and Hazor Jer 49:28-33
8. Prophecy Against Elam Jer 49:34-39
9. Prophecy Against Babylon Jer 50:1 to Jer 51:64
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The First Prophecy Against Egypt
v. 1. The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah, the prophet, v. 2. Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-necho, king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, v. 3. Order ye the buckler, v. 4. Harness the horses, v. 5. Wherefore have I seen them dismayed and turned away back? v. 6. Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape, v. 7. Who is this that cometh up as a flood, v. 8. Egypt riseth up like a flood, v. 9. Come up, ye horses, v. 10. For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, v. 11. Go up into Gilead and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt, v. 12. The nations have heard of thy shame,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
This chapter, the first of a series, consists of two prophecies united, though it is probable enough that the latter was intended to supplement the former, for Jer 46:2-12 are clearly incomplete (from the point of view of this group of prophecies) without a distinct and unmistakable prediction of the conquest of Egypt. The earlier prophecy is, in fact, not itself a prediction, but a triumphal ode, analogous to such as we find in the Becks of Isaiah and Ezekiel. It falls into three stanzas:
(1) verses 3-6;
(2) verses 7-9;
(3) verses 10-12.
In the first two the great event is described with poetical imagery; in the third, its cause is declared, and the irremediable completeness of its effects. The point of time assumed is immediately before the battle of Carehemish. The Egyptian army has taken up its position by the Euphrates, and Jeremiah, from his prophetic watch tower, recognizes the importance of the step. He knows that a collision of the two great powers is inevitable, and that the fortunes of his world will be decided by the result. It is, in short, a “day of Jehovah” which he sees before him. As a prophet, he cannot doubt what the issue will be. He falls into a lyrically descriptive mood, and portrays the picture which unrolls itself before his imagination.
Jer 46:1
Against the Gentiles; rather, concerning the nations (as distinguished from Israel). This heading relates to all the seven prophecies in Jeremiah 46-49:33.
Jer 46:2
Against Egypt, against the army; rather, concerning Egypt, concerning the army. Pharaoh-necho. Necho II; a member of the twenty-sixth Egyptian dynasty, sou of Psametik I. (Psammetichus), who had for a time revived the declining power of Egypt. Herodotus (2.158) credits him with being the first to construct a canal to the Red Sea, which seems an exaggeration (see Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s note ap. Rawlinson), also (4.42) with having caused the circumnavigation of Africa, after which the Phoenician seamen brought back the startling news that they had had the sun upon their right hand. This energetic monarch noticed the decline of Assyria, and, at the battle of Megiddo (Herodotus, 2.159, wrongly says Magdolus or Migdol), reattached Judah to the Egyptian empire. Four years later, at the battle of Carchemish, he himself sustained a crushing defeat at the hands of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (2Ch 35:20). Carehemish. This was the great emporium of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. Its true site was discovered by Mr. George Smith, in his last fatal journey, to be at Jerabis or Jirbas, on the right bank of the Euphrates. It was anciently a city of the Kheta (equivalent to Khittim, “Hittites”), but passed to the Assyrians, under Sargon, under whom it attained the highest commercial prosperity, especially after the overthrow of Tyre by Sennacherib. The “mana,” or mina, “of Gargamis” is constantly referred to as a standard weight in the commercial cuneiform inscriptions. In the fourth year, etc. Marcus Niebuhr wishes to put a stop before these words, so as to make them a definition of the date of the prophecy. He thinks the date of the battle of Carchemish was the third and not the fourth year of Jehoiakim. This view, however, is very uncertain (see Keil), and it is exegetieally very unnatural to detach the closing words of Jer 46:2 from those which precede. The obvious inference, moreover, from the prophecy (Jer 46:2-12) is that it was written at or about the time of the battle; a special date for the prophecy did not require to be given. Should Niebuhr’s chronological combinations, however, turn out to be correct, the mistake would probably not be that of Jeremiah, nor of his scribe, but of his editor, who may easily have fallen into error in the mere minutiae of chronology.
Jer 46:3
Order ye, etc. The leaders of the Egyptians are heard summoning their men to make ready their armour, and set themselves in array (comp. Jer 46:9). The buckler (Hebrew, magen) is the small shield; the shield (Hebrew, cinnah) is the large one (scutum), which covered the whole body.
Jer 46:4
Harness the horses; viz. to the war chariots, for which Egypt was famous (comp. Exo 14:6, Exo 14:9; 1Ki 10:28, 1Ki 10:29 : Isa 31:1). Get up, ye horsemen. An equally possible rendering, and one which better suits the parallelism, is, “mount the chargers.” Put on the brigandines. “Brigandine” is an archaic word (Hakluyt’s ‘Voyages’), meaning the armour of a “brigand “or member of a “brigade,” or “troop” (comp. Italian, brigata). The Hebrew word means “coats of mail.”
Jer 46:5
That so well equipped an army should flee seems incredible. Hence the astonished question, Wherefore have I seen, etc.? literally, Why do I see (that) they (are) dismayed, turning back? And look not back. With the object of rallying the scattered forces. For fear was round about. It is a pity that the Authorized Version has not kept one uniform rendering for this favourite expression of Jeremiah. In Jer 6:25 (see note) it is translated, “fear is on every side” (Hebrew, magor missabib).
Jer 46:6
Let not the swift flee away. A strong way of expressing that even the swiftest cannot expect to flee, just as, in Isa 2:9, “forgive them not” means “thou canst not forgive them.” Nothing seems to have struck the Jews so much as the unparalleled swiftness of the Chaldean warriors (Heb 1:6, Heb 1:8; Jer 4:13). They shall stumble; literally, they have stumbled; it is most probably the prophetic perfect (“they shall certainly fall”), though Ewald denies this, and consequently maintains that the prophecy was written after the battle of Carchemish. Toward the north; i.e. “in the northern region,” or, more loosely, “in the north” (comp. Isa 2:10). Carchemish was, of course, far to the north of Jerusalem.
Jer 46:7
Who is this, etc.? “Once more surprise at the [same] phenomenon recurs, and in a stronger form; a monstrous, devastating river appears to roll itself wildly along, overwhelming all countries: who is it? It is Egypt, which is now threatening to overrun the earth and to lay everything waste, whose various nationalities are advancing fully equipped” (Ewald). As a flood; rather, as the Nile (y’or, a word of Egyptian affinities, and only once used of another river than the Nile, Dan 12:5, Dan 12:6, Dan 12:7). The naturalness of the figure in this context needs no exhibiting. It reminds us of Isa 8:7, Isa 8:8, where the Assyrian army is compared to the Euphrates. Are moved as the rivers; rather, toss themselves as the rivers. By the “rivers” the prophet means the branches of the Nile, which are described by the same word in Isa 19:8; Exo 7:19.
Jer 46:8
Egypt riseth up, etc. The answer to the question in Jer 46:7. The city. The article is not expressed; and there can be no doubt that the word is used collectively of cities in general (comp. Jer 47:2).
Jer 46:9
A call to the army, particularizing its two grand divisions, viz. the warriors in chariots, and the light and heavy armed infantry. M. Pierret, of the Egyptian Museum at the Louvre, writes thus: “The army was composed
(1) of infantry equipped with a cuirass, a buckler, a pike or an axe, and a sword; they manoeuvred to the sound of the drum and the trumpet;
(2) of light troops (archers, slingers, and other soldiers carrying the axe or the tomahawk);
(3) warriors in chariots. Cavalry, properly so called, was not employed The Egyptians also enlisted auxiliaries, such as Mashawash, a tribe of Libyans, who, after the defeat of a confederation of northern peoples hostile to Menephtah, into which they had entered, refused to leave Egypt, and entered the Egyptian army; the Kahakas, another Libyan tribe; the Shardanas (Sardinians); the Madjaiu, who, after having been in war with the Egyptians under the twelfth dynasty, enrolled themselves under the standard of their conquerors, and constituted a sort of gendarmerie,” etc.. Among the mercenaries mentioned by Jeremiah, the Ludim deserve special mention. They are generally supposed to be a North African people (and so Eze 30:5). Professor Sayce, however, thinks they may be the Lydian soldiers by whose help Psammetichus made Egypt independent of Assyria, and his successors maintained their power (Cheyne’s ‘Prophecies of Isaiah,’ 2.287). Come up, ye horses; rather, bound (or, prance), ye horses. The verb is literally go up, and seems to be used in the same sense, only in the Hiphil or causative conjugation, in Nah 3:3 (which should begin, “Horsemen making (their horses) to rear”). Ewald and others render, “Mount the horses,” the phrase being substantially the same as in Nah 3:4 (see above). But the parallelism here is opposed to this; and the prophet has evidently been a reader of the prophecy of Nahum, as the very next clause shows. Rage, ye chariots; rather, rush madly, ye chariots (alluding to Nah 2:5). The Ethioplans; Hebrew, Cush; often mentioned in connection with Egypt. The whole Nile valley, as far as Abyssinia, had been reduced to an Egyptian province. At last Cush had its turn of revenge, and an Ethiopian dynasty reigned in the palaces of Thebes. The Libyans; Hebrew, Put (which occurs in combination with Lud, as here with Ludim, in Eze 27:10; Eze 30:5). This appears to be the Egyptian Put (nasalized into Punt), i.e. the Somali country on the east coast of Africa, opposite to Arabia (Brugsch).
Jer 46:10
The contrast. And yet that day is (the day) of the Lord, Jehovah Sabdoth (the rendering of the Authorized Version, For this is the day, etc; is clearly a mistake). The “day of Jehovah” is an expression so familiar to us that we are in danger of losing a part of its sublime meaning. It is, in brief, “that crisis in the history of the world when Jehovah will interpose to rectify the evils of the present, bringing joy and glory to the humble believer, and misery and shame to the proud and disobedient . This great crisis is called a day, in antithesis to the ages of the Divine long suffering: it is Jehovah’s day, because, without a special Divine interposition, there would be no issue out of the perplexities and miseries of human life.” We may say, with equal truth, that there are many “days of the Lord,” and that there is only one. Every great revolution is a fresh stage in the great judgment day; “die Weltgesehichte ist das Weltgericht” (Schiller). The loci classici for the expression in the prophets are Amo 5:18, Amo 5:20; Zep 1:7, Zep 1:14; Joe 2:1, Joe 2:11; Isa 2:12; Isa 13:6, Isa 13:9 (in Isa 2:12, the phraseology closely resembles that of our passage”for there is a day unto Jehovah Sabaoth;” Jehovah, that is, hath it in readiness in the supersensible world, where there is no time, and where all God’s purposes have an ideal, but no less real existence. We might, in fact, render our passage, “but that day (is the day that belongeth) unto the Lord,” etc.). The Lord here, as generally elsewhere, is that expressive form which intimates the universal lordship of the God who has revealed himself to Israel. The sword. A comparison with Isa 34:6 suggests that it is “the sword of the Lord” which is meanta symbolic phrase for the Divine vengeance, which meets us again in Jer 12:12; Jer 47:6; Deu 32:41, Deu 32:42; Jdg 7:20 (comp. Jos 5:13); Isa 27:1; Isa 31:8; Isa 34:5, Isa 34:6; Isa 66:16; Zec 13:7. If Jehovah can be spoken of as having an Arm, a Hand, and a Bow, why not also as having a sword? Both expressions represent the self-revealing side of the Divine nature, and are not merely poetical ornaments, but correspond to awful objective realities. Divine vengeance exists, and must exercise itself on all who oppose the Divine will. Hath a sacrifice. The same figurative expression occurs in Isa 34:6, and, developed at considerable length, in Eze 39:17-20, where the slaughtered foes are described as fatted beasts, rams, lambs, he-goats, bullocksanimals employed in the Jewish sacrifices. This, then, is the purpose for which this immense host “rolls up from Africa”it is that it may fall by the Euphrates, at once as a proof of God’s justice, and as a warning to transgressors.
Jer 46:11
Go up into Gilead (see on Jer 8:22). In vain shalt thou use, etc.; rather, in vain hast thou used, etc.; a much more vigorous, pictorial expression. Thou shalt not be cured. The literal rendering is more forcible, there is no plaster for thee; i.e. no bandage will avail to heal the wound (comp. Jer 30:13).
Jer 46:12
Hath filled the land; rather, the earth, corresponding to “the nations.”
Jer 46:13
The word, etc. This verse is the heading of a new prophecy, which, however, for the reason already mentioned (see introduction to this chapter), is not to be regarded as entirely independent of the preceding prophecy, but rather as a supplement (just as Isa 18:1-7, though not in strict sequence to Isa 17:12-14, is yet a supplement to it). The heading does not expressly state when the prophecy was written, but from the mention of Nebuchadnezzar, both in the heading and in the prophecy itself, we may assume a date subsequent to the battle of Carchemish, for the earlier prophecies contain no reference to that redoubtable name. An important question now arisesWhen did Nebuchadnezzar invade and conquer Egypt? and what would be the consequences of admitting that a Babylonian subjugation of that country is historically not proven? There can be no doubt that Jeremiah did hold out such a prospect; for he not only says so here, but also in Jer 43:8-13 and Jer 44:30. In the latter prophecy it is not Necho, but Hophra, in whose reign the blow is to fall. But no monumental evidence has as yet been found [see, however, postscript to this note] of anything approaching to an invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar; nor do the accounts of Herodotus (2.159, etc.) at all supply the deficiency (on this, however, see further at end of note). It is true that Josephus quotes passages from Berosus, the Babylonian historian, to the effect that Nabopolassar had set a Chaldean governor over Egypt, but that this governor had revolted, and that Nabopolassar’s son, Nebuchadnezzar, crushed the rebellion and incorporated Egypt into his empire. But these events happened, according to the quotation from Berosus, partly before, partly immediately after, the death of Nabopolassar, and was consequently earlier than the prophecy in this chapter. Another fact of importance must be mentioned in this connection, viz. that Ezekiel repeats the announcement of the Babylonian conquest of Egypt, of which he speaks as if it were to happen at the close of the thirteen years of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Tyre (Eze 29:17-21). Thus there is a gradual increase in the definiteness of the announcement. Looking at our chapter by itself, we might suppose that the conquest was to take place soon after the decisive battle at Carchemish. After the murder of Gedaliah, when Jeremiah had removed to Egypt, we find him foretelling the sore punishment of Egypt in greater detail, and the name of Hophra (instead of Necho) is introduced as that of the deposed king. Finally, Ezekiel (as we have seen) specifies a definite time. Now, it is true that our knowledge of this period is somewhat incomplete. We have not the direct historical proof that could be wished as to the result of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Tyre, though it would be fastidious to scruple at the evidence which satisfied so cool a judgment as that of George Grote. The great historian denies, however, that Tyre at this time suffered such a terrific desolation as is suggested by a literal interpretation of Eze 26:1-21; and continues in these remarkable terms: “Still less can it be believed that that king conquered Egypt and Libya, as Megasthenes, and even Berosus so far as Egypt is concerned, would have us believethe argument of Latchet, ‘Ad Herodot.,’ 2.168, is anything but satisfactory. The defeat of the Egyptian king at Carchemish, and the stripping him of his foreign possessions in Judaea and Syria, have been exaggerated into a conquest of Egypt itself”. Supposing Mr. Grote’s view of the facts of the siege of Tyre to be correct, it is clear that the prophet’s reproduction of the Divine revelation made to him was defective; that it presents traces of a stronger human element than we are accustomed to admit. Tyre had to suffer a fall; but the fall was not as yet to be so complete a one as Ezekiel, reasoning upon his revelation, supposed. It is equally possible that Jeremiah and Ezekiel, reasoning upon the revelation of the inevitable fall of Egypt, mistook the time when, in its fulness, the Divine judg. ment was to take place. The case may, perhaps, turn out to be analogous to that of an apparently but not really unfulfilled prophecy in Isa 43:3. A literal interpretation of that passage would give the conquest of Egypt to Cyrus; as a matter of fact, we know that it was Cambyses, and not Cyrus, who fulfilled the prophecy. It would not be surprising if we should have to admit that it was Cambyses, and not any earlier monarch, who fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah. Certain great principles of God’s moral government had to be affirmed; it was of no moment whatever whether Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, or Cambyses was the instrument of their affirmation. A parallel from Isaiah may again be adduced. The shameful captivity of Egypt, and perhaps Ethiopia, which Isaiah foresaw in the time of Sargon (Isa 20:3), was not realized in fact until Esar-haddon despoiled Tithakah, King of Egypt and Ethiopia, of the whole of Upper Egypt. There are cases in which a literal fulfilment of prophecy may be abandoned without detriment to Divine revelation, and this seems to be one of them. And yet we must always remember that even the letter of the prophecy may some day turn out to be more nearly in harmony with facts than we have supposed, our knowledge of this period being in several respects so very imperfect. It has been acutely pointed out that the oracle given to Necho (Herod; 2.158), “that he was labouring for the barbarian,” seems to imply a current expectation of an invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, and that the gradual conquest by that king of one neighbouring country after another suggests that the invasion of Egypt was at any rate the object at which he aimed. The silence of Herodotus as to a Chaldean invasion is, perhaps, not very important. He does not mention Necho’s defeat by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish, nor does he ever refer to the victories over Egypt of any King of Assyria.
POSTSCRIPT.The above note is left precisely as it was written, February, 1881, in ignorance of Wiedemann’s then recent discovery of a contemporary hieroglyphic inscription which, as the report of the German Oriental Society expresses it, “ratifies the hitherto universally doubted fact of an invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar.” The hieroglyphic narrative is supplemented and confirmed by two cuneiform records, and the combined results are as follows. In the thirty-seventh year of his reign, Hophra or Apries being King of Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar undertook an expedition against Egypt, and penetrated as far as the island of Elephantine, and damaged the temple of Chnum, which stood there. His army could not, however, pass the cataracts. At Syene the Egyptian troops, under Neshor, met and repelled the invaders. Two years later, however, the Babylonians came again, were victorious over the Egyptian host under Amasis, and compelled the whole land to pay tribute. Thus we have a remarkable confirmation of Ezekiel’s prophecy that Egypt should be “waste and desolate from Migdol unto Syene, even unto the border of Ethiopia” (Eze 29:10). It should be mentioned that the Babylonians are not described in the hieroglyphics by their proper name, but as “the Syrians (?), the peoples of the north, the Asiatics;” it is from a terra-cotta cuneiform tablet that we learn that, in Nebuchadnezzar’s thirty-seventh year, a war arose between him and the King of Egypt, which ended with the payment of tribute to the former. The value of prophecy does not, happily, depend on the minuteness of its correspondence with history, and the evidential value of the argument from such a correspondence is but secondary. Still, as long as such a correspondence can be proved, even in part, by facts such as Wiedemann has discovered, the apologist is perfectly justified in using it in confirmation of the authority of Scripture.
The second prophecy falls into two partsverses 14-19 and 20-26 respectively.
Jer 46:14-19
The cities of Egypt are called upon to prepare to meet the foe. But it is in vain; for all that is great and mighty in the landApis, the mercenary soldiers, and the Pharaohbows down before that terrible one who is comparable only to the most imposing objects in the inanimate world. Pharaoh’s time is over; and Egypt must go into captivity.
Jer 46:14
Declare ye; viz. the approach of the foe (comp. Jer 4:5). The news is to be told in the frontier towns Migdol and Tahpanhes, and in the northern capital Noph or Memphis (see on Jer 2:16; Jer 44:1). The sword shall devour, etc.; rather, the sword hath devoured those round about thee. The neighbouring nations (the same phrase occurs in Jer 48:17, Jer 48:39) have one after another succumbed; no ally is left there.
Jer 46:15
Why are thy valiant men, etc.? The literal rendering of the received text is, Why is thy strong ones (plural) swept sway (or, cast down)? He stood not, because Jehovah thrust him! It is true that the first half of the verse might, consistently with grammar, be rendered, “Why are thy strong ones swept away?” But the following singulars prove that the subject of the verb in the first verse half must itself be a singular. We must, therefore, follow the reading of the Septuagint, Vulgate, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and many of the extant Hebrew manuscripts, and change the plural “strong ones” into the singular “strong one.” The word so rendered is elsewhere in Jeremiah one used (in the plural) of strong horses (Jer 8:16; Jer 47:3; Jer 1:11); but there is no necessity to bind ourselves to this acceptation. Other possible meanings are
(1) strong man, e.g. Jdg 5:22 and Lam 1:15;
(2) steer, bull, e.g. Psa 22:13 and Psa 22:1 :13, and (metaphorically of princes) Psa 68:31.
It is a tenable view that “thy strong one” is to be understood distributively as equivalent to “every strong one of thine.” But it is certainly more plausible to regard the phrase as a synonym for Apis, the sacred bull in which the supreme god Osiris was believed by the Egyptians to be incarnate. This was a superstition (strange, no doubt, but not so ignoble as some have thought) as deeply ingrained in the Egyptian mind as any in their complicated religion. “In fact, they believed that the supreme God was with them when they possessed a bull bearing certain hieratic marks, the signs of the incarnation of the divinity” (Pierret). His death was the signal for a mourning as general as for a Pharaoh, and the funeral ceremonies (accounts of which are given in the inscriptions) were equally splendid. M. Mariette has discovered, in the neighbourhood of Memphis, a necropolis in which the Apis bulls were successively interred from the eighteenth dynasty to the close of the period of the Ptolemies. For the Apis to be “swept away” like ordinary plunder, or “cast down” in the slaughtering trough (comp. Isa 34:7), was indeed a token that the glory of Egypt had departed. It is a singular coincidence that the very word here employed by Jeremiah for “bull” (abbir) was adopted (like many other words) into the Egyptian languageit received the slightly modified form aber. The Septuagint, it should be added, is in favour of the general view of the verse thus obtained, and the authority of the Egyptian-Jewish version in a prophecy relative to Egypt is not slight. Its rendering of the first half is, “Why hath Apis, thy chosen calf, fled?” But the probability is that it read the Hebrew differently, “Why hath Khaph (= Apis), thy chosen one, fled?” This merely involves grouping some letters otherwise, and reading one word a little differently.
Jer 46:16
To fall; rather, to stumble. The fugitives are in such a wild confusion that they stumble over each other. The parallel passage in the earlier prophecy (Jer 46:12) suggests that the Egyptian warriors are here referred to, the most trustworthy portion of which, since the time of Psammetichus, was composed of mercenaries, the native troops having lost that military ardour for which they had been anciently renowned (see Herod; 2.152, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s note ap. Rawlinson). Being devoid of patriotic feeling, it was natural that these hired soldiers should hasten from the doomed country, exclaiming, as the prophet puts it, Arise, and let us go again to our own people. Greeks were probably among the speakers, at any rate, Ionians and Carians formed the mercenary troops of Psammetiehus, according to Herodotus (2.152).
Jer 46:17
They did cry there, etc.; rather, they cry there, viz. the following words. But why should attention be called to the place where the cry is made? and why should the mercenaries (the subject of the preceding verb, and therefore presumably of this verb) have their exclamation recorded? Alter the vowel points (which merely represent an early but not infallible exegetical tradition), and all becomes clear. We then get a renewal of the summons in Jer 46:14 to make a proclamation respecting the war. The persons addressed are, not foreigners, but the children of the soil, and the summons runs thus: “Call ye the name of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, Desolation.” No longer “Pharaoh,” honoured by titles indicating that he, like Apis, is a Divine incarnation (neb, i.e. lord, and nuter, i.e. god), but Shaon, the Hebrew for Desolation, is the fittest name for the fallen monarch. The custom of changing names with a symbolic meaning is no strange one to readers of the prophecies. We have met with it in this very book (see Jer 20:3); and Isaiah contains a parallel as exact as could be desired, in the famous passage in which the prophetic name (itself symbolic) of Egypt (Rahab, i.e. boisterousness, arrogance) is changed into “Rahabhem-shebheth” (i.e. “Rahab! they are utter indolence”). In behalf of this view we may claim the authority of a tradition still older than that preserved in the vowel points, for the Septuagint (followed substantially by the Peshito and the Vulgate) has, . He hath passed the time appointed. A difficult clause, and variously interpreted. One thing is clear, that “passed” cannot be correct, as the verb is in the Hifil or causative conjugation. We must, at any rate, render, “He hath let the time appointed pass by.” This is, in fact, the simplest and most natural explanation. There was a time within which repentance might have averted the judgment of God; but this “accepted time” has been foolishly let slip.
Jer 46:18
The threat implied in Jer 46:17 is set forth more fully; he who speaks is a very different “king” from the fallen Pharaoh. As Tabor is among the mountains. The sense is deformed by the insertion of “is.” The King of Babylon is compared to “Tabor among the mountains and Carmel by the sea.” Mount Tabor is a most prominent object, owing to the wide extent of the plain of Esdraelon, in which it is situated; and a similar remark applies to Mount Carmel. The view of Tabor differs considerably according to the point from which it is taken; but “its true figure is an elongated oval” (Thomson). Carmel, so called from the rich orchards and vineyards with which it was anciently adorned, is not lofty (being only about six hundred feet above the sea), but the form in which it breaks off towards the sea has a beauty of its own. It is now deprived of its rich forest and garden culture, but is still described as “a glorious mountain.”
Jer 46:19
O thou daughter dwelling in Egypt; literally, O inhabitress-daughter of Egypt. The phrase is exactly parallel to “virgin daughter of Zion.” The “daughter of Egypt” means the population of Egypt, the land being regarded as the mother of its people. Furnish thyself to go into captivity. The rendering of the margin is, however, more exact. The “vessels of captivity [or, ‘exile’]” are a pilgrim’s staff and wallet, with the provisions and utensils necessary for a journey (so in Eze 12:4).
Jer 46:20-26
A figurative description of the dark future of Egypt.
Jer 46:20
Like a very fair heifer. (The insertion of “like” weakens the passage.) The well nourished heifer reminds of the prosperity of the fruitful Nile valley. But destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north; rather, a gadfly from the north hath come upon her (not, “hath come, hath come,” as the received text hasa very slight change in one letter is required, supported by the versions). The figure is precisely analogous to that of the “bee in the land of Assyria” (Isa 7:18). St. Chrysostom renders “a gadfly” (see Field, ‘Origen’s Hexapla,’ 2.708); and so virtually Aquila and Symmachus.
Jer 46:21
Also her hired men are in the midst of her, etc.; rather, also her hirelings in the midst of her are like, etc. These seem to be distinguished from the mercenaries mentioned in Jer 46:9, the Ethiopians, Libyans, and Arabs, who were never adopted into the midst of the Egyptian people. On the other hand, the description will exactly apply to the Caftans and Ionians in the service of Psammetichus and Apries, who were “for many years” settled “a little below the city of Bubastis, on the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile.” In this fertile country, itself comparable to “a very fair heifer” (Jer 46:20), these pampered and privileged mercenaries became “like calves of the stall.” They did not stand, etc.; rather, they have not stood (firm), for the day of their destruction is come upon them.
Jer 46:22
The voice thereof shall go like a serpent; rather, her voice is like (the sound of) a serpent gliding away. Egypt (like Jerusalem, in Isa 29:4) is imagined as a maiden (comp. Jer 46:19) seated on the ground, and faintly sighing; and her feeble voice is likened to the rustling sound of a serpent in motion. Come against her with axes. A sudden change of figure. Egypt, or, more strictly, Egypt’s grandeurits rich and complex national life, its splendid cities, its powerful army, all combined in one, is now compared to a forest (comp. Jer 21:14; Jer 22:6, Jer 22:7; Isa 2:13; Isa 10:18, Isa 10:19, Isa 10:33, Isa 10:34). It seems far fetched to suppose, with Graf and Dr. Payne Smith, that the comparison of the Chaldean warriors to wood cutters arose from their being armed with axes. It is probably true that the Israelites did not use the battle axe, but the axe is merely an accident of the description. It is the forest which suggests the mention of the axe, not the axe that of the forest, and forests were familiar enough to the Israelites.
Jer 46:23
They shall cut down; better, they cut down. The prophet is describing a picture which passes before his inner eye. Though it cannot be searched; rather, for it cannot be searched out. The subject of the verb is uncertain. De Dieu’s explanation is, “Because the forest is so dense, so intricate, it is necessary to clear a path by cutting down the trees.” But this does not seem to suit the context. Surely no other reason was required for the destruction of the “forest” than the will of the wood cutters. “Searching out” occurs in Job (Job 5:9; Job 9:10; Job 36:26; comp. also 1Ki 7:47) in connection with numbering, and the second half of the verse expressly describes the foe as innumerable. The singular alternates with the plural, as in Isa 5:28, a host being regarded sometimes as a whole, and sometimes as an aggregate of individuals. Than the grasshoppers; rather, the locust. The name is one of nine which we find given to the various species of locusts in the Old Testament, and means “multitudinous.”
Jer 46:24
Shall be confounded; rather, is brought to shame; the next verb too should rather be in the past tense.
Jer 46:25
The multitude of No; rather, Amen of No. Amon-Ra, or rather Amen-Ra, was the name adopted at Thebes (Homer’s Thebes “of the hundred gateways,” ‘Iliad,’ 9.383, called here “No,” and in Nah 3:8 “No [of] Anion”) from the time of the eleventh dynasty, for the sun god Ra. Amen (Amen) signifies “hidden,” for it is the mysterious, invisible deity who manifests himself in bodily form in the sun. From this name comes the classic designation, Jupiter-Ammon. Their gods their kings; rather, her gods her kings (viz. Egypt’s). The “kings” are probably the high officials of the state, not a few of whom were either by birth or marriage members of the royal family. Even Pharaoh, and all them that trust in him. With a suggestive allusion to the many in Judah who “trusted” in that “broken reed” (Isa 36:6).
Jer 46:26
Afterward it shall be inhabited, etc. After all these gloomy vaticinations, Jeremiah (as elsewhere in this group of prophecies; see Jer 48:47; Jer 49:6, Jer 49:39) opens up a brighter prospect. “In the days of old,” patriarchal and unmilitary, the fertile valley of the Nile offered a peaceful and a happy home to its teeming inhabitants; those times shall yet come again. To understand this, we must assume that during its period of depression Egypt has been but sparsely peopled, owing to the large numbers of its inhabitants carried away captive. Another explanation, “afterwards Egypt shall stay at home [i.e, ‘be quiet’],” though equally justifiable item the point of view of the lexicon (comp. Jdg 5:17; Psa 55:7), seems less natural. Possibly Eze 29:13-16 is a development of our passage; it contains a promise of future remission of punishment, though a promise qualified in such a way as to be akin to a threat. The words, “And it shall no more be the confidence of the house of Israel” (Eze 29:16), seem like a comment on Jeremiah’s threat to “Pharaoh, and them that trust in him,” in the preceding verse.
Jer 46:27, Jer 46:28
A word of comfort to Israel, obviously not written at the same time as the preceding prophecy. The prophet is suddenly transported in imagination into the period of the Babylonian exile. Egypt and its fortunes are far away; the troubles of Israel entirely absorb his attention. After thinking sadly of the reverses of his people, he bursts out with an encouraging exhortation not to fear, though, humanly speaking, there was everything to fear. Did Jeremiah write these verses here? There is strong reason to doubt it; for they occur, with insignificant variations, in Jer 30:10, Jer 30:11, where they cohere far better with the context than here.
HOMILETICS
Jer 46:1-26
The judgment of Egypt.
This is twofold, first in the defeat at Carchemish (Jer 46:1-12), and then in a complete overthrow of the kingdom (Jer 46:13-26), which Jeremiah seems to have anticipated immediately after, just as the early Christians connected the destruction of Jerusalem with the expected end of the world. Though this anticipation was not chronologically correct, the essence of the prophecy was ultimately fulfilled. The kingdom of the Pharaohs has passed away.
I. EGYPT WAS A HEATHEN COUNTRY. The two prophecies about Egypt occur first in a series of predictions concerning the Gentile nations. God is the God of the Gentile as well as the Jew, of the heathen as well as the Christian, of the godless as well as the godly. In him all men live and move and have their being; from him they receive every blessing of life; to him they will have to give account of their deeds. Therefore God notes the conduct of heathen nations, and chastises them when needful; so he does with individual men who renounce his authority over them or are brought up in ignorance of it. The heathen will be judged by their heathenish light, and not by the high standards of Christian principles; but there is enough in that light to allow of a genuine judgment and a just sentence (Rom 2:14, Rom 2:15). The ‘Book of the Dead’ contains a high and noble system of morality. With this in his possession, the Egyptian was without excuse in his vice and cruelty.
II. EGYPT WAS AN ANCIENT NATION. Her history dates back long before the time of Abraham. But she found no immunity in age. If judgment is long delayed, it will come in God’s appointed time. The mere continuance of peaceful circumstances hitherto is not the slightest ground for crediting them with a special charm to ward off the sentence of Divine justice. The hoary sinner will not be spared out of regard to his years. Age is not venerable in itself. It is only odious when it is the ripening and rotting of a long life of sin.
III. EGYPT WAS A LAND OF WEALTH AND SPLENDOUR, (For this point, see homily on verse 20.)
IV. EGYPT WAS A HOME OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. There philosophy arose, and the knowledge of nature was first systematically pursued. There strange mystic religions had their birth. If knowledge could save a people, Egypt of all lands should be safe. But though knowledge is power, there are foes against which it is impotent, The science of the encyclopaedists was no protection against the horrors of the French Revolution. Modern science cannot find an antidote to sin, nor can modern inventiveness devise any armour that shall resist the piercing darts of Divine justice. Our religious simulation will not redeem our souls.
V. EGYPT WAS THE ALLY OF ISRAEL. The alliance of the Church is no safeguard when the Church herself is erring. Companionship in sin with men who have been accounted Christians will do nothing to lighten the weight of guilt. They will have to suffer for their share in the wickedness, and if their previous reputation cannot shield them, it can have no protection to extend to others.
VI. EGYPT MADE A BRAVE RESISTANCE. Jeremiah describes the battle array in stirring words. The army was imposing. Yet was defeated. It is vain to resist the decree of Divine judgment. He who fights against this is striking at Heaven. The blow can only recoil on his own head.
VII. EGYPT WAS TO BE INHABITED AGAIN. God mingles mercy with judgment. He has pity on the heathen. He seeks the ultimate recovery of those whom he first punishes. In later years Egypt became the home and centre of the most brilliant Christian life and thought.
Jer 46:11
Incurable diseases.
I. WHAT DISEASES ARE NATURALLY INCURABLE?
1. Sin. No man can root out his own evil nature. The wicked man, left to himself, will never grow into righteousness. Sin does not burn out; it continually finds fresh fuel and kindles a greater fire.
2. The judgment of sin. This cannot be resisted, for it comes from the hand of the Almighty. It cannot be bought off by compensating merits, for the most we can do is not to deserve more punishment in the future by new sin. When we have done our best we are “unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do.”
II. HOW GOD CURES THE NATURALLY INCURABLE DISEASE. Christ is the good Physician, the great Healer. Where medicine fails miracle triumphs. She who “had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse” was made whole by a touch of the hem of the Saviour’s garment. The cure may be impossible with man, but with God all things are possible.
1. The cure for sin. This is in the new birth which makes the Christian a “new creation” in Christ Jeans, and the constant aid of the Spirit of God to cleanse and purify the soul.
2. The cure for the judgment of sin. This is in the free pardon offered to the penitent who trust to Christ, and it is secured through his mediation, his one sacrifice for sin, and his perpetual intercession for sinners.
Jer 46:20
The heifer and the gadfly.
“Egypt is a very fair heifer, but a gadfly cometh.”
I. WORLDLY ADVANTAGES ARE NO SAFEGUARDS AGAINST TROUBLE. The heifer is very fair, yet the gadfly attacks her. Egypt, rich in her fertile Nile valley, the granary of the East; splendid with vast and gorgeous temples, whose ruins are now the wonder of the world; in the forefront of speculation and science; hoary with antiquity, and proud of her aeons of history even in Jeremiah’s agetwenty-five dynasties had already passed away;this great Egypt is to suffer humiliation at the band of the upstart Babylon. Her very magnificence attracts the greedy invader. Wealth and rank may ward off some distresses, but they will invite others which never condescend to attack the poor and obscure.
II. WORLDLY ADVANTAGES AFFORD LITTLE CONSOLATION IN TROUBLE. If the heifer is very fair, her beauty is no antidote to the pain she feels when the probe of the gadfly is in her back. Egypt may have every advantage of wealth and science, and yet she finds no comfort in these things when her life blood is flowing beneath the sword of the rude invader. The death of her firstborn is as heavy a blow to the queen as to the meanest slave in the land. The rich man feels his gout at least as acutely as the poor man. Mental distress, anxiety, and care are not to be bought off with money.
III. A SMALL OCCASION MAY PRODUCE GREAT TROUBLE. The gadfly is but half an inch long. Yet it can so irritate the heifer that she will rush madly about, with head thrust forward and tail stuck out, in the vain hope of escaping from her tormentor. Many a man has just one cause of trouble, looking to others quite insignificant, yet which is to him the fly spoiling the most precious ointment. How much of the distress of life comes from the fret and worry of little things! It is a comfort that we are not only invited to cast our burden upon the Lord, but to cast all our “care upon him, for he careth for us.”
IV. WE MAY BE UNABLE TO PREVENT THE ATTACK OF THE SMALLEST OCCASION OF TROUBLE. The horns, which would be good weapons for attacking a large animal, are useless against the gadfly. Many troubles come like this fly. We cannot touch them; they are swift to attack, and once they are upon us no defence is possible. In our own strength we cannot throw off the smallest sin. Perhaps we are strong to resist great temptations, and fall victims to miserable little failings. The devil is not always a roaring lion; sometimes he is more like a gadfly. We can drive off the lion; we cannot resist the gadfly. Lying, theft, murder, etc; may be kept out, and yet our souls may lose all peace and Divine communion by yielding to hasty temper, discontent, cowardice, etc. But Christ comes as the Saviour from all evil and all sin, including those meaner sins which may ruin our spiritual life even when greater sins are avoided,
Jer 46:27, Jer 46:28
(See homily on Jer 30:10, Jer 30:11.)
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR
Jer 46:1
The judgment of the nations.
I. UTTERED BY THE PROPHET OF THE THEOCRACY.
1. Because they are related to the theocracy. Even in antagonism; but sometimes in conscious or undesigned cooperation. The future of the kingdom of God is not, therefore, to evolve itself independently of these, but in close connection with them. It is this, and this alone, which gives them their importance. They are associated with the destinies of God’s people. What mysterious necessity is it that ever blends God’s kingdom with the main stream of history? It is the dominant influence even when it seems to be temporarily overthrown.
2. The kingdom of God is to be fulfilled in the whole earth. Not only in Israel is it to come, but in the “uttermost parts of the earth.” The kingdoms of this world are to “become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ” (Rev 11:15). For this reason their history, too, is sacred, and is to be read in the light of revelation if it is to be understood. The true history of every nation and individual is determined by relation to the truth of God.
3. For the instruction and comfort of God’s people. It is manifest that Divine providence can be explained worthily only upon such a scale. And the subjects of the Divine kingdom have to be taught the real character and destiny of the powers into relation with which they are brought. God is seen as ruling, not only in a little corner, but in the whole earth.
II. UTTERED TOGETHER AT ONE TIME. There is a question as to which order ought to be observed in mentioning them.
1. But the selection is made upon an evident principle, viz. that of (nearly) contemporaneous relation to Israel. And whatever their relations amongst themselves or toward Israel at any given time, in general they are opposed to the kingdom of God, and represent the influences with which it has to do in its progress amongst men. They are “the world powers” as opposed to the “powers of the world to come.”
2. It is part of the scheme of Divine revelation to arraign from time to time the spirit of this world in its varying forms and phases. The world’s life and history thus cease to be complex and involved, and are seen to resolve themselves into the principles of good and evil, darkness and light. The turmoil and movement are really those of a great duelthat of the kingdom of God against the kingdom of this world.
III. UTTERED FINALLY AND ABSOLUTELY. It is destruction that is predicted, and as real historic powers we do not hear of them again. There is something very grand and solemn in this arraying and dismissal of the nations. Their political influence, military power, or commercial supremacy avails not against this imperative Word of the Most High. What is it but an anticipation of the judgment of the earth by the Son of man (Mat 25:31)? Has not our Saviour already ground for his claim, “I have overcome the world”? The gospel of the kingdom of God is, therefore, no little thing done in a comer, but the economy of a world, and the law of life and death throughout all ages.M.
Jer 46:27, Jer 46:28
(Vide on Jer 30:10, Jer 30:11.)M.
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY
Jer 46:1-28
Judgment going on from the house of God.
The former chapters have shown judgment beginning at the house of God. This and the following chapters show that judgment going on.
I. JUDGMENT BEGINS AT THE HOUSE OF GOD. This whole life here is more or less a time of trial. God never suffers his Church to be long at ease. But there are especial times of trial, as in persecutions, bereavements, uprisings of the power of sin. And sometimes, as in the former chapters is told, God sends his actual judgments and chastisements upon his people. Now, concerning this, note:
1. It is just that judgment should begin at, etc. For God has a right to the reverence and obedience of his own people. If a father be not obeyed in his own house, where else should he be? More of light, privilege, and grace are given to his Church, and more of ill follows from their sin; and hence no wonder that judgment begins, etc.
2. And it is fit and suitable. Who cares for the household as the father? I hear a child in the streets use profane or foul language, and I am shocked that any child should use language like that. But if it were my child, with what horror and indignation should I be filled! All the father’s affection clusters round and centres in his home, and hence he will spare no pains nor refuse any methodseven judgments when they are needed, as once and again they arewhereby the highest well being of his children may be secured.
3. And it is merciful likewise. It was not judgment, but mercy also, that “drove out the man” from Paradise. Some discipline sterner than Paradise afforded was needed now for the subdual of that evil nature which had become dominant in man. And that nature must be subdued and the better nature formed in us, or the high and holy purpose of God cannot be fulfilled in us.
II. BUT IT DOES NOT STOP THERE. To show this is the purport of this and the following chapters.
1. And how true this is generally! There is the sorrow of the world as well as that of the believer; and who would not rather have that of the believer than that of the world?
2. And how much greater is the sorrow of the world! “If they do these things in the green tree, what,” etc.? said our Saviour. “If the righteous scarcely “be multiplied be saved, where,” etc.? said St. Peter. And that “their sorrows shall” is inevitable. For they have no inward spring of consolation beneath them. There is so much more to be done in order to rescue them from their ways. The processes of agriculture are sometimes severe; but what are they compared to the stern work needed for bringing the land into cultivation. The police of a well ordered town cause some burden to the inhabitants; but what is that to martial law? They touch the all of the world, only the lesser good of the believer. And they stay so much longer time. There was no such restoration for the Gentile people told of here as there was and especially will be for the Jewish race. The Church of Christ has often been judged, but she has ever been restored, and will be yet more. But during her history, Rome, Venice, and political states within Christendom have risen, decayed, and disappeared.
3. How admonitory all this is!
(1) To the child of the house of God. It bids him be thankful because he knows the motive, the measure, and the sure end of what he has to bear. Submission that he may at once escape the heavy hand of God and shelter in his heart.
(2) To those not in the house of God. It says, “Come in, that judgment may be turned into chastisement, wrath into fatherly correction, and that the gates of death when they close upon you may shut out the further approach of sorrow, and not, as if there be no repentance they will, shut you in with it and with innumerable other sorrows more than the first. ‘Verily I say unto you,’ saith our Lord, ‘ye shall not come out thence until ye have paid the uttermost farthing.'”C.
Jer 46:8
Premature glorying.
In this verse and in others we have the vain vauntings of Egypt. Thus far the judgments of God have been declared against his people. Now, having begun at the house of God, judgment goes on to the Gentile nations, one after another of whom are told of in the chapters that succeed this, and ending with the judgment on Babylon. Egypt and Babylon were the two great empires between which unhappy Judaea was “like a nut between the forceps,” so that when these two drew together it went ill with the little kingdom that lay between. Now, in these chapters Egypt takes the lead and Babylon closes, the lesser nations occupying the central position. The invasion and conquest of Egypt is the subject of this forty-sixth chapter from the thirteenth verse. Its decisive defeat at Carchemish is told of in the previous portion. It was in anticipation of that disastrous battle that Egypt, persuading herself that it would issue so differently, is heard uttering the proud beastings of this eighth verse. At first it seemed as if these boastings were not vain, for at Megiddo, where King Josiah was slain, the Egyptian army did obtain a victory; but, three years after, when they had pushed on to the banks of the Euphrates, Nebuchadnezzar fell upon them there and completely vanquished them. Crestfallen and crushed, they had to make their weary way back to their own land; and shortly after we read (2Ki 24:7), “the King of Egypt came not again any more out of his land: for the King of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the King of Egypt.” That was what came of all their vauntings, and the history is a noticeable one on many grounds. Now, it recalls to our mind the wise exhortation, “Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off” (1Ki 20:11). Let us note
I. SOME MANIFESTATIONS OF THIS SPIRIT OF over confidence. The Bible is full of facts which illustrate this spirit. Pharaoh, in the days of Moses, asking, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?’ Goliath of Gath striding down the valley in furious pride to meet the stripling David. He swore by all his gods he would give those young limbs as a prey for the vultures to feed upon. Rabshakeh, again, general of the host Of the King of Assyria, terrifying and dismaying the devout Hezekiah with his fearful threatenings. And we know how the distress lasted until Hezekiah took the letter of the haughty heathen and laid it before the Lord. Then, serene and strong, his spirit rose up, and he was able to make fit answer. And we know how Jehovah avenged Judah, her king, and her people upon the vast multitude of their foes who in battle array lay around them. For
“Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strewn;
For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed.
“And the tents were all silent, the banners alone;
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Had melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.”
And we think, too, of Haman in his rage at Mordecai, vowing vengeance, and surely reckoning on wreaking it to the full. And Samson, imagining that nothing could deprive him of his great strength, so confident that at any moment he could break through every barrier, but at length enticed, betrayed, overcome, and ruined. And, passing to the region of spiritual things, we think of Israel pledging themselves, as they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, to perfect obedience. Of that rich “fool” of whom our Lord tells, and who made so sure of many years to enjoy his “much goods” laid up in store. And of the many who were candidates for discipleship, avowing themselves ready to follow him everywhere. And of Peter, boasting that, though all men should forsake the Lord, yet would not he. And Judas, who trembled not to take the office of apostleship though so incapable of sustaining it. And in common life how often we see this same spirit! Our Afghan disasters in 1879 were largely awing to it. But in spiritual life there is the same peril. There may not be the uttered words of vain vaunting, but the spirit may be there notwithstanding. For how little there is of the trembling, the watchful, the prayerful spirit lest we should be overcome! How far too much tampering with temptation! How few “pass the time of their sojourning here in fear” lest they should “seem to come short” of eternal life! How many are like the foolish virgins, who, all careless as to the unsupplied condition of their oil vessels, nevertheless contentedly lay down to sleep! How many are at ease in Zion, allowing themselves in a carnal security which too often is but the herald of a fearful awakening!
II. INQUIREWHAT LEADS TO THIS SPIRIT? Some are of a boastful disposition. These Egyptians evidently were. He concerning whom the cautionary words already quoted were used, “Let not him that girdeth on his harness,” etc; was another such habitual boaster. And this is human nature. Our pride dies hard, but is puffed up with wonderful ease. Then:
2. False estimates have a great deal to do with it. Underestimating our adversaries’, over estimating our own, resources and strength. Hence Benhadad, who thought such scorn of Israel, on the very eve of battle was, we are told, drinking himself drunk in his tent. Hence many are found dallying with danger, fluttering, mothlike, round the flame by which they are sure soon to perish miserably. The jocular way in which the devil is so generally spoken of proves that we do but little believe in him; for what men seriously believe they never joke about. And this false estimate is rendered more credible to us if we have obtained aught of success heretofore. Egypt had at Megiddo; Benhadad had. Hence their estimates.
3. Perversion of God’s truth. We encourage ourselves in this spirit of over confidence by dwelling too exclusively on promises of protection to the neglect of those which command all watchfulness and prayer. Men will read parts of the Bible onlythose which please them most; and without doubt many have dwelt so much on the promises of God’s upholding grace and his perfecting that which he begins, that they have laid ide their armourthat indispensable armour of God. But any reading of God’s Word which leads us thus practically to disobey his command is thereby proved to be a wrong reading. For, just as the chemist’s litmus paper, plunged into a solution containing acid, at once reveals by its turning red the presence of that acid, however invisible and imperceptible it may have been before, so any interpretation of the Scriptures which leads to false security, premature and presumptuous confidence, which makes us red with this sad sin, proves that that interpretation contains the acid of falsehood. It is a sure test. God help us to heed it as we should.
III. NOTE WHAT MISCHIEF IT WORKS. These are seen strewn over every pathway along which this spirit hath been; like the bleached bones in the desert show the track of the caravan.
IV. Consider, therefore, SOME SAFEGUARDS AGAINST IT. God himself at times undertakes its cure. He did so with Peter. He let him go his way and fall, and in that crash the spirit of boastfulness was forever crushed. But we shall be aided by remembering the words of Christ and his apostles and of all his most faithful servant. They all warn against this spirit, and urge the spirit of watchfulness and prayer. Remember, too, that better men than ourselves have fallen. The very fact that armour is provided shows that we need it. And note that there are chinks in your armour; and that some armour is of very worthless sort.
CONCLUSION. Whilst bidding you boast not, with equal emphasis we say, “Despond not.” “The gist of all this is, confide in God, but distrust yourselves. Have done with every glorying except glorying in the Lord There is nothing like full assurance for excellence, and nothing like presumption for worthlessness. Never mistake the one for the other. You cannot trust God too much nor yourself too little. I read a book one day called ‘Self-Made Men,’ and in its own sphere it was excellent; but spiritually I should not like to be a self-made man. I should think he would be an awful specimen of humanity. At any rate, a self-made Christian is one of a sort the devil very soon takes, as I have seen a child so take a bran doll and shake it all out. He likes to shake out self-made Christians till there is nothing left of them. But God-made men,these are they that do exploits; and God-made Christians, who fall back upon the eternal strength at all times and confide there,these are the men to hold on their way and to wax stronger and stronger” (Spurgeon).C.
Jer 46:10
The terror of sacrifice without its blessing.
The ancient sacrifices had much about them that was very repulsive. The slaughtering and dismemberment of the vast herds of animals that were year by year brought to the altar must have involved in it very much that was of a revolting nature. No doubt their sensitiveness to such scenes of blood was far less than ours; but at the best it must have been a most painful spectacle. Hence scoffers have called it the religion of the shambles. But the salvation and blessing that came through the sacrifices divested them of all that was painful or repulsive to the offerer. But there may be all that is terrible about sacrificeagony, blood, death, carnagewithout any corresponding blessing. Such is the meaning here. Slaughter, but no salvation. The same word for “sacrifice” is used as in those which were offered according to the Law on the altar in the temple. And so in the parallel passages in Isa 34:6 and Eze 39:17, which should be compared with this, and which are alluded to by St. John in the Revelation. In all these there is the terror of sacrifice, but none of its blessing. And there is that which corresponds to this now. Even Christ’s sacrifice may be a terror and not a salvation. It is so to:
1. Those who refuse it.
2. Those who apostatize from it, who count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, trampling underfoot the Son of God (Heb 10:1-39.).
3. Those who make it the minister of sin. Who “turn the grace of God into lasciviousness.” There is, then a twofold aspect, of the Lord’s sacrifice. Either it must be that by it we rise or fall. “This child is set for the fall and rising again.” The gospel is “a savour of life unto life, or,” etc. Christ is a Rock on which we may build, or which, falling on the impenitent, crushes him to powder. Which for ourselves?C.
Jer 46:15
The real cause of the decline of empires.
“Because the Lord did drive them.” If we read ordinary histories, the overthrow of any monarchy is traced to such an invasion or to the loss of such a battle, or to some other ordinary and well known cause. And no doubt it is true that, through and by these things, the said results have been brought about. But there is ever a moral cause which lies behind, and it is to that must be traced up the series of events which have followed. The history of most ancient empires, in their origin, progress, decline, and fall, has been very much the same. A hardy, temperate, courageous people, driven by necessity or attracted by the hope of gain, fall upon some decrepit power, destroy it, and on its ruins build their own fortunes. For a while the same courage and virtue which enabled them to gain possession of their prize are manifested in consolidating their power and in building up their rule. But after the lapse of years, they have gained secure foothold and are able to live less on their guard against enemies. Wealth and luxury increase and exert their enervating power. In this soil the vices, whatever they may be, to which as a people they are predisposed, grow rapidly and affect the national habit and character. Then their decay has begun. It hastens rapidly on until, in their turn, this once victorious people are vanquished, overthrown by a nation more bold and righteous and therefore more powerful than themselves. This law can be readily traced in the histories of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and in more modern instances as well. Were there no moral causes at work in the overthrow of the French empire under Napoleon I.? In all cases it will be seen that,, in one form or another, God’s love of righteousness has been outraged, and vengeance has speedily, or surely if not speedily, come. What was the Reformation but the revolt of men’s consciences against the abominable sins of the Catholic Church? But how came that Churchonce so fair, so beautiful, so gloriousto have sunk so low as to become hateful in men’s eyes? It was this same enervating influence of wealth, power, and other forms of earthly prosperity which sapped her spiritual strength until she became utterly unworthy of men’s confidence, and she was punished, and is so to this day, by the loss of well nigh all Northern Europe, the noblest half of her ancient domain. Therefore learn
I. WHAT ARE NOT A COUNTRY‘S SAFEGUARDS, THOUGH OFTEN THOUGHT TO BE. Not commerce, or Tyre would not have fallen. Not art, or Greece would never have perished. Not strong political organization, or Rome would have continued. Not religious profession, or Jerusalem and Catholic Rome would not have suffered the disasters that befell them. Not ancient renown, or Egypt would have stood fast. All these things have been relied on, and especially vast armies, but they have one and all been tested and have proved ropes of sand, battlements taken away because they are not the Lord’s. Therefore note
II. WHAT IS A COUNTRY‘S SAFEGUARD? There is but one answer, and that is righteousness. It, and it alone, exalteth a nation. The form of government, whether monarchical or republican, matters not, whether political power be in the hands of the many or the few, but the character of the peopletheir possession or not possession of the “fear of the Lord.” Whilst Israel possessed this she was impregnable. “A thousand fell at her side, and,” etc.
III. WHAT, THEREFORE, IS TRUE PATRIOTISM? Not alone adding to the material wealth or the intellectual force of the nation, not alone philanthropy or political energy,none of these things are to be held in light esteem; but the truest patriotism, and it is one which all can exhibit, is the cultivation of godly character, that fear of God which lies at the basis of all moral excellence whatsoever. Yes, not for our own salvation’s sake alone, but for our country’s sake, even as for Christ’s sake, let us seek to resemble him, breathe his Spirit, manifest his character, copy his example, and spread abroad those true principles of national well being which, by his life and death, he taught us.C.
Jer 46:26
Punishment not destruction but purification and preservation.
In Jer 46:28, in Jer 48:21, and in Jer 49:6, Jer 49:39, we have similar assurances that “afterwards,” when God’s judgments have done their work, the chastised and afflicted nations shall be restored. Such promise is here made to Egypt. It is repeated in Eze 29:8-14. And from this reiterated word concerning, not one people only, but so many, we gather the intent and purpose of God in regard to all his punishments which he sends upon menthat they are not for men’s destruction, but for their purification and preservation, Note
I. SOME OF THE BASES OF THIS BELIEF.
1. Such Scriptures as these now referred to.
2. The salutary results that have followed so much of human suffering. That suffering has shamed indolence, roused energy, stimulated invention, and the results have been safeguards to life and health and general well being, which would never have been thought of or sought after if suffering had not goaded men on. Hence we conclude that such results were intended and ever are by like causes.
3. The fact that God created man. It is incredible that he should create beings whose destiny is an eternity of sin and suffering. If it had been really better for any men that they had never been born, as in this case it undoubtedly would, and as for far less and altogether inadequate reasons we sometimes say it would concerning ourselves or others, then they never would have been born. Our Lord’s word concerning Judas is not to be literally pressed. It was a proverbial expression used concerning especially unhappy or ungodly men.
4. The very name of “Saviour.” Christ either is or is not the Saviour of the world. If he be not, but only fain would be, then the name of “Saviour” cannot be truly his. We do not give the names of “deliverer,” “saviour,” “benefactor,” to those who only desire to be such but are not such. We are forced to believeand with what thankfulness we would do so!that he who is called “the Lamb of God” does not merely in wish, but in fact, “take away the sins of the world.”
5. The value of the great sacrifice. If it do not reconcile the world unto God, as St. Paul affirms it does, then it is less precious than men have thought. But it is inconceivable that such a sacrifice should fail to accomplish that for which it was especially designed.
6. The express declaration that the Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. But are not sin and suffering his work? If, then, they be eternal, how can they have been destroyed?
7. The necessity involved in the first and great command, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” etc. Now, it is not in the power of the human heart to love any being that it does not conceive as lovable or worthy of love. But a God who created men, knowing that they would eternally sin and suffer, is not lovable by the human heart. What do we say of men who do deeds which they know can only issue in misery and wrong? But is that righteous in God which we should denounce in men? Abhorrendum sit.
II. CONCLUSION.
1. Not that there is no such thing as God’s punishment for sin.
2. Nor that that punishment is but a little thing. Ah, no! “It is a fearful thing” for an impenitent unbelieving man “to fall into the hands of the living God.” He is a consuming fire to such, and the fire will burn on until all the dross and evil be burnt out. Wellington said, “There is only one thing worse than a great victory, and that is a great defeat.” He knew at what cost victory is won. And so there may be only one thing worse than some men’s salvation, and that is that they should be eternally lost.
3. But that we should learn to “love and dread” God. Love him for his gracious purpose towards men, but dread lest we should compel him by our rejection of his gospel to lead us by sterner ways. For he will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.C.
Jer 46:28
Correction, but in measure.
C.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Jer 46:15
Why the valiant are swept away.
I. THEY ARE SWEPT AWAY. Notice the host described in previous verses of the chapterhorsemen and chariots and archers; the Ethiopian, the Libyan, the Lydian; an imposing host, whose magnificence could not but strike the eye. It was meant that they should produce a feeling of being irresistible. And thus in due time, when they were scattered and broken up, there came a complete contrast. The magnificence, the order, the force, were all somehow utterly vanished. The present overthrow became all the more noticeable because of the magnitude of what had been overthrown. And so God will ever make plain the sweeping away of all his foes. Their defeat is not left a doubtful thing. It may be very difficult to account for, but it cannot be questioned.
II. THE NEED FOR ASKING WHY THEY ARE SWEPT AWAY.
1. Because of their magnificent appearance. They look strong, and according to a certain standard they are strong. This Egyptian army had been gathered together to do a certain work. It was known that they had to meet no common, and easily conquered foe. Therefore there were strong men on strong horses, with powerful weapons and well defended. Yet after all this preparation there came, not merely defeat, but what is called a sweeping away. Assuredly this wants explaining.
2. Because of past victories. We cannot suppose they were an untried host. If they had won battles and campaigns before, why did they lose this? And why were they so utterly and lastingly defeated?
3. Because there is no obvious explanation. It is not to be looked for in the strength of their human opponents. It is not to be found in some difference between what they were in the hour of confusion and what they had been in previous hours of victory. There is no ground to say they were less brave, less disciplined, worse commanded. The reason for this sweeping away, whatever it be, passes ordinary human search.
III. THE SUFFICIENT REASON IS FOUND IN THE ACTION OF JEHOVAH. Jehovah drove them. All forces that find expression in matter are completely at God’s disposal. He can paralyze the mightiest army in a moment. The mighty man is not to glory in his might (Jer 9:23). True it is that God lets the strong man do generally all his strength permits him to do. The success military men look for is on the side of the strongest battalions. But then all strength of this sort fails against spiritual strength. Not all the armies of Rome and not all the wild beasts of the amphitheatre could persuade a single true Christian to forsake Christ. The strength of this world achieves great things in its own field, but directly it goes beyond and trieste interfere with conscience and spiritual aspirations, its weakness is made manifest.
Jer 46:27, Jer 46:28
God’s care of his own.
I. THE NEED OF THE FULLEST POSSIBLE ASSURANCE. Jehovah, who has visited Israel with many and great sufferings, will also visit other peoples. Egypt is spoken of in this chapter; and Philistia, Moab Ammon, and Babylon in following chapters. Hence the need of Divine words such as would keep the believing element in Israel calm and confident through all these disturbances, and so it ever is meant to be with the true Israel of God. God is ready with comforting words amid the necessary turmoil of external conditions.
II. THE SOLID GROUNDS OF THIS ASSURANCE. They lie in Jehovah’s continued connection with Israel, and his purposes for its safety, peace, and prosperity. We have no assurance in ourselves or our circumstances, but the moment we can feel that we are in God’s hands, that he has plans with respect to us, and a future preparing for us, then assurance is possible. God never tells man to take courage and put away fear without giving good reason for the exhortation, and showing that fear is rather the unreasonable feeling to allow. The moment we can take in the full force of that wonderful word, “I am with thee,” then we are freed from alarms and from dependence on the shifting phenomena of this present life.
III. THE DIFFERENCE GOD WILL MAKE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND OTHER NATIONS. A full end is to be made of them. And a full end has been made of them. Here, of course, the distinction must be borne in mind between nations and the individuals composing them. A nation is but a certain arrangement of human beings, and this arrangement may be productive of such wrong feelings and such danger to the world as to make it fitting that the nation should cease. But the people composing the nation remain, and their descendants pass into new and better combinations. So with regard to Israel; the people who are to return and be in rest and without fear, the people who are not to be made a full end of, are those of whom literal Israel is but the type. There are really but two nations in the worldthose who believe in God and in his Son, and show their faith by their works; and those who trust in themselves, in their power and their purposes. Of all these latter God must make a full end, if in no other way by bringing them to see their folly, so that they may turn to the ways of faith.
IV. JEHOVAH‘S CHASTISEMENT OF HIS OWN EVEN WHILE HE PROTECTS THEM. There is a purpose in all suffering, a real need for it. Men seem to be mixed up indiscriminately, and suffering looks as if it often fell irrespective of character, but this is only a seeming. The suffering of Israel, though it may look the same outwardly, is really as different as possible from the suffering of Egypt. There is a fire which ends in the destruction of what passes through it. It must be so, for the thing is destructible and shows its nature when the fire tries it. The same fire attacking indestructible things only separates destructible accretions from them, and consumes these accretions away. God’s intention is that the believer may be able to say, “I cannot be destroyed in this furnace of trials; I cannot go to pieces as others do. But still I must remain in is for a while; I must submit to God’s wise ordinances so that at last I may return to my true rest and fear no more forever.”Y.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Jer 46:1. The word, &c. This title belongs to the five following chapters, and refers to the general denunciation of God’s judgments upon the countries round about Judaea. These prophesies are evidently arranged out of the order of time; but those who collected the writings of Jeremiah judged proper, as it seems, without confining themselves to order of time, to join together those prophesies which were not so immediately connected with the affairs of the Jews. See Calmet, and Grotius.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
III. SECOND MAIN DIVISION
The Prophecies Against Foreign Nations
(Chapp. 4651)
The prophets of Israel could not avoid bringing the heathen nations also within the sphere of their predictions. They were compelled to this, partly even from their theocratic and particularistic point of view, in so far as the interests of the theocracy were essentially affected by the standing or falling of their heathen neighbors, and partly in a general view, as they represented the idea of the all-embracing divine love and providence. Hence we find declarations concerning heathen nations in most of the prophetic books. We find these prophecies relating to heathen nations, comprising larger groups, in Isaiah, chh. 1323., in Ezekiel chh. 2532., and here also in Jeremiah 46-51.
The main trunk of these prophecies is formed by a Sepher, which according to its principal part, owes its origin to the period immediately before the battle of Carchemish (comp. rems. on Jer 46:2). As Amos makes his way through a cycle of seven nations to his main goal, the kingdom of Israel (Jer 1:3 to Jer 2:5), and as Ezekiel predicts a judgment on seven nations, so our Sepher also contains declarations against seven nations: Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, and Elam. This arrangement is evidently intentional; proceeding from Egypt the prophet advances to the Philistines; from these he springs across to their eastern neighbors and concludes with Elam, as representing the distant East and North. It is evident that these seven utterances form the main trunk of the Sepher against the nations, from two circumstances. First, that in none of them is Nebuchadnezzar or the Chaldeans mentioned. This is the certain and constantly observed sign of composition before the battle of Carchemish. Secondly, that five of them (or six, comp. infra, rems. on Jer 49:34-39) have a similar commencement, viz. , , etc. This grammatical form is closely connected with the common superscription, The word of Jehovah which came to Jeremiah against the nations, Jer 46:1. The prefix , viz. expresses the comprehension of the following special prophecies under this general title (comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 112, 5, b). On this point, however, two things are to be remarked. 1. The prophecy against the Philistines (Jeremiah 47.) bears a superscription according to a different formula, and provided with a special date. We shall show, on Jer 47:1, that this prophecy is older than the six others of the Sepher against the Nations, that it is indeed the oldest of all the prophecies of Jeremiah against heathen nations. It was therefore already extant, when the Sepher was formed, and was therefore included in it, Just as it was. 2. The prophecy against Elam (Jer 49:34-38) likewise bears a title differing both in form and purport, by which the utterance is assigned to the fourth year of Zedekiah. With this superscription the case is quite peculiar. In the LXX., viz. Jeremiah 25. continues after Jer 46:13 : . Hereupon follows the prophecy which we read in the Hebrew text Jer 49:35-38. At the close of this, however, we find the words: . The prophecy against Elam in the LXX. thus has a superscription and a postscript, which is unexampled in Jeremiah. Now, however, the double circumstance comes in, that in the LXX. the superscription of Jeremiah 27. is wanting, the same which in the Hebrew text contains the evidently and admittedly false name Jehoiakim, and that in the Hebrew text the prophecy against Elam is in Jer 49:34 assigned to the fourth year of Zedekiah, though Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans are not mentioned, as they usually are in prophecies subsequent to the battle of Carchemish. From this state of the case I draw the following conclusions: 1. The prophecy against Elam must originally have had the superscription , in conformity to the superscriptions of the prophecies against Egypt I., Moab, Ammon, Edom and Damascus. For only thus is the abrupt in the superscription of the prophecy in the LXX. explicable. The article proceeds from the circumstance that they connected grammatically with , to which neither grammar nor criticism give any justification, for they arbitrarily separated , Jer 25:13, from the previous context, and made it the superscription, then arbitrarily placed as if in apposition to , and finally, with equal arbitrariness, transposed the whole prophecy hither, for it stood originally in another place. From the postscript, viz. we see that 2. the prophecy must originally have stood, as it still does in the Hebrew text, at the close of the Sepher against the nations, but immediately before Jeremiah 27., this postscript being evidently no other than the first verse of Jeremiah 27. (modified according to circumstances), which is entirely wanting in the LXX., and in the Hebrew contains the wrong name of a king. How did this prophecy come by a postscript, since no other prophecy in Jeremiah has such an one? Whence came it that Jer 27:1 is entirely wanting in the LXX.? To say nothing of the circumstance, that the date in the prophecy against Elam is as incorrect as Jer 27:1 is undoubtedly alone correct (comp. rems. on Jer 27:1 and Jer 49:34). But how now does verse 1 of Jeremiah 27. come to be the postscript, in the Hebrew the superscription to the prophecy against Elam? Evidently the prophecies against the nations must once have had their place after Jeremiah 25. and before Jer 27:1. They were, however, taken away from this place, and Jer 27:1 went with them, whether it was that it was really taken for the postscript of the prophecy, or by an unintentional error. If this view is correct it is thus determined that the Sepher against the nations then concluded with the prophecy against Elam. Whether the subsequently added prophecies against Egypt II., against the Arabians and against Babylon were then incorporated in the Sepher cannot be ascertained. Where, however, did the Sepher begin, or rather on what portion of our book did it follow? Chapter 25. cannot have preceded it, for it is quite out of the question, that it can ever have had place between chh. 26. and 27. Since that detached verse (Jer 27:1) is found at the close, or at the beginning of the prophecy against Elam, and not at the close of the passage Jer 25:15-38, it necessarily follows that this passage did not follow, but preceded the Sepher against the nations. Thus the Sepher cannot have been attached to Jer 25:14; Jer 25:13 or 12. It can, therefore, have had its place only between Jer 27:1 and Jer 25:38. Both the present form of the text in the LXX., and the purport of Jer 25:13 b, show that it must have been placed in the immediate neighborhood of this verse. For what reason? The verses 12, 13 and 14 of Jeremiah 25., are directed against Babylon. They treat of the ruin of Babylon with an emphasis and a detail, which do not correspond at all to the historical fact to which Jeremiah 25. owes its origin. The first half of Jer 25:13 decidedly presupposes the prophecy against Babylon, pertaining to the fourth year of Zedekiah (comp. Jer 51:59). From this it follows, that the Sepher against the nations can have been transposed from its original place between Jer 25:38 and Jer 27:1 to that before Jer 25:15, only with the prophecy against Babylon, therefore after its becoming known. We shall not err if we suppose that the words in Jer 25:11, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years, gave occasion both to the more extended portrayal of the visitation of Babylon only implicitly, intimated as we have it in the verses Jer 25:12-14, and also the transposition hither of the Sepher against the nations now extended by the prophecy against Babylon. The LXX. version flowed from a recension affording this form of the text. For omitting Jer 46:14, it is connected with Jer 46:13, and then gives, though in a different order from the Masoretic text, the prophecies against the nations and as a comprehensive conclusion follows the passage Jer 25:15-38 in Jeremiah 32. From Jeremiah 33. onward the remaining chapters follow in the same order as in the Masoretic text, only that a chapter is not devoted to the prophecy for Baruch, this appearing in the LXX. merely as the conclusion of Jeremiah 51. Another diaskenast (who it was it would be impossible to determine) now found it more to the purpose to separate the prophecies against the nations from the passages relating to the theocracy. And thus they were then, without making any alteration in Jer 25:12-14, transposed to the place, where we now find them in the Masoretic text.The prophecy against Babylon was, however, the only addition to the original Sepher against the nations. Two new portions were inserted at appropriate places between the original ones, viz.: 1, a second prophecy against Egypt (Jer 46:13-26) which expressly mentions the name Nebuchadnezzar, Jer 46:13-26; Jeremiah 2. a prophecy against the northern Arabian kingdom (Jer 49:28-33), in which at any rate Nebuchadnezzars name is mentioned in Jer 46:28-28. The insertion of the second prophecy against Egypt after the first, and that against the Arabians after that against Damascus, and before that against Elam, cannot be regarded as other than appropriate.
1. The Superscription
Jer 46:1
1The word of the Lord [Jehovah] which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles [The Nations].
This superscription extends over the whole of the prophecies here brought together and forming a . It thus forms the heading to chh. 4651., and introduces the second main division of the Book. The form is the same as in Jer 14:1; Jer 47:1; Jer 49:34. On the grammar, comp. rems. on Jer 14:1
2. The First Prophecy Against Egypt
Jer 46:2-12
2Against [concerning] Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah.
3Prepare ye the buckler and the shield,
And move ye on to the battle.
4Harness the horses, and mount ye horsemen,
And stand forth with your helmets,
Furbish1 the spears, put on coats of mail.2
5Why, (as) I see, are they dismayedretreat?
And their heroes are dashed to pieces;
They flee in haste, and turn not again?3
Fear round about!4 saith Jehovah.
6Let not the swift flee away;5
Nor let the mighty escape!
Northwards, by the margin of the river Euphrates, they totter, they fall.
7Who is he who riseth up like the Nile,
His waters roll along like the streams?6
8Egypt riseth up like the Nile,
His waters roll along like the streams;
And he said, I will up, cover the land,
Destroy7 the city and them that dwell therein.
9Mount ye8 the horses, and rage, ye chariots;
And let the mighty warriors go forth:
Cush and Phut, who handle the shield,
And Lydians, that handle and tread the bow.9
10And that day is a day of vengeance for the Lord, Jehovah Zebaoth,
That he may avenge himself on his enemies;
And the sword shall devour10 and be satiate,11
And be drunken with their blood:
For a slain offering has the Lord, Jehovah Zebaoth,
In the land of the North by the river Euphrates.
11Go up towards Gilead and fetch balm, Virgin daughter of Egypt!12
In vain takest thou many medicines;
There is no plaster13 for thee.
12Nations hear of thy shame,
And with thy crying the earth is filled,
For one warrior threw down another,
They are both of them fallen together14
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
After the double, viz., general and special title (Jer 46:1-2), two pictures are presented before us. The first (Jer 46:3-6) is the more general and indefinite; warriors are admonished to equip themselves for battle (Jer 46:3-4). Then, however, directly follows a description of the defeat and terrible flight, with a statement as to the place of the battle (Jer 46:5-6). In the second picture not only is Egypt mentioned as the army addressed by the prophet, but it is also portrayed in colors taken from specially Egyptian relations. That we have, moreover, two pictures before us, is seen from the circumstance, that in Jer 46:7-12 the whole course of the struggle from beginning to end is described in its main features: the prophet sees the Egyptian host approaching like the overflow of the Nile (Jer 46:7-8); he then summons horses, chariots and all warriors (among them the neighboring nations, forming part of the host), to the fight (Jer 46:9). But the fight does not end well for Egypt: it is a day of the vengeance of Jehovah on Egypt, a sacrificial feast, in which Egypt is the slaughtered victim (Jer 46:10). The consequences of the lost battle are so fatal to Egypt, that it cannot recover, and the report of its overthrow fills the world (Jer 46:11-12).Does this passage contain a prophecy of the battle, or does it presuppose the battle as already fought? I think the former. For according to Jer 46:10 ( ), the battle is evidently still future. But the prophet felt himself moved to this prophecy, not during the advance of the Egyptian host from its country, but when it had already taken up a position on the Euphrates and the decisive conflict was there to be expected. This follows clearly from Jer 46:2 in connection with Jer 46:6 b, and Jer 46:10 b, as will be further seen in the exposition of these passages. The prophetic and poetical prediction of the approaching battle comes into the foreground, but this does not exclude brief significant hints with respect to the consequences of the battle for the whole future of Egypt.
Jer 46:2. Against Egypt of Judah. , comp. Jer 23:9; Jer 48:1; Jer 49:1; Jer 49:7; Jer 49:23; Jer 49:28. The prefix restricts the general idea expressed in the main superscription to a special part. Comp. Jer 19:13; Eze 44:9; Lev 12:6-7. Pharaoh-necho (, 2Ki 23:29-35) was the sixth king of the twenty-sixth dynasty. He reigned after his father, the great Psammetichus, from B. C., 610595. Comp. Duncker, I., S. 817, 925; Herzog, R.-Enc. X., S. 257.He came from Egypt by sea, landed to the north of Carmel in the bay of Acco, and defeated Josiah at Megiddo (608). Jehoiakim was his creature (comp. 2Ki 23:34). He was thus at the time de facto ruler of Judah. After the battle at Megiddo, it must have been easy for him to subjugate Phnicia and Syria, for who was there to offer him any resistance? The power of the Assyrians, Medes and Babylonians, was concentrated in and around Nineveh. Nineveh fell B. C., 606. Now first did the Babylonian army advance under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar. It met the Egyptians at Carchemish. The city was situated at the confluence of the Chaboras [Chebar or Khaboor], and the Euphrates, on a peninsula formed by the two rivers. Here was the principal passage across the Euphrates (comp. Niebuhr, S. 205, 369; Herzog, Real-Enc. VII., S. 379), and here as the extreme line of defence of his new province (Niebuhr, S. 369), Necho took up his position. He must have lain here for some time, whether because the siege of the city occupied much time, or because it was a part of his plan not to advance further, but here in a favorable position to await the enemy. Observe in the text the double relative sentence which was, etc., and which Nebuchadnezzar, etc. It is doubtless not by accident that by the first of the two, the first mentioned stay of Necho at Carchemish is especially set forth. If the chief emphasis lay on the battle, that first sentence would have been quite superfluous. It would have been enough to say: which Nebuchadnezzar smote by the Euphrates in Carchemish. From the emphasis on the stay by the Euphrates it is clear to me that this, and not the battle, was the occasion of the prophecy. When Jeremiah learned that the Egyptian army had taken up a position at Carchemish, he recognized at once the importance of the situation. He knew, that now a collision between the southern and northern empires was inevitable, that there on the Euphrates the destinies of the world would be decided for the proximate future. Egypt on the Euphrates! This was the fatal juncture which summoned him to prophetic utterance. Observe, also, that in the prophecy itself he does not yet mention Nebuchadnezzar (he names him, as I have frequently shown, only after the battle), but he twice mentions in a significant manner the position on the Euphrates (Jer 46:6 and Jer 46:7); an evident proof that it was this, which led him to speak. He foresees that it would eventuate in a battle. And with equal definiteness, he sees what the result will be (Jer 46:5-6; Jer 46:10 sqq.). The entire superscription (Jer 46:2) was added subsequently by the prophet on the writing of the prophecy. In the first relative sentence he indicates the occasion, in the second he declares that the fulfilment followed very speedily in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (B. C. 6054) The date refers primarily to smote, but it does not follow that the prophecy may not have been made the same year, or sooner. The particulars here are not to be determined, but it is possible that the news of the establishment of the Egyptians on the Euphrates, did not reach Jerusalem before the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Niebuhr is of opinion that the battle had already taken place in the third year of Jehoiakim (Ass. u. Bab., S. 50, 86, 370), and that hence the date here refers to the composition of the poem, not to the historical event of the battle. The chronological relations are not to be investigated here, but exegetically it seems to me as impossible to put a point after smote (Niebuhr, S. 86, Anm.), as to refer in the fourth year to the word, etc., Jer 46:1, as Graf proposes. Apart from their being so far removed from each other, Jer 46:1 is a general title referring to all the following chapters, including Jeremiah 51. The construction too, would then be obscure and forced. We should then have to take as a more particular definition: with respect to Egypt, however, in the fourth year; which would give the sense that only this prophecy was uttered against Egypt, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, which is incorrect.
Jer 46:3-6. Prepare ye the fall. The first battle-picture commences with the call to the warriors to prepare buckler and shield (the Egyptian monuments show two kinds of shields, a larger [] and a smaller. Comp. Neumann, II., S. 383), to harness the horses (to the chariots) and to mount. designates the horses for riding in distinction from carriage-horses in 2Sa 1:6; 1Ki 5:6; Joe 2:4; Eze 27:14. This usage being established, and the parallelism favoring the meaning equi, I believe that is to be translated not in the vocative, but as in the text: and mount ye riders. Of the other expressions in Jer 46:4, the first, after horses and riders, must refer to the footmen, the rest, as in Jer 46:3, to all species of arms.In the second act of the first picture, the prophet sees the army defeated: Why, I see, are they dismayed? Comp. Jer 30:6. As (they) is the nominative and requires the accusative after it in a still higher degree than , our passage cannot, as Graf supposes, be explained by Eze 37:19 coll. Gen 6:17, but I see must be taken as a parenthetical sentence.The description closes significantly with two perfects, the prophet sees the tottering and falling as accomplished facts. Comp. Jer 46:12.
Jer 46:7-12. Who is he fallen together. The second battle picture is more in detail, more concrete, and as it were painted with specifically Egyptian colors. The prophet sees the Egyptian army approaching like the overflowing Nile. The immediate preparations for the battle are described in Jer 46:9, as in Jer 46:4, only still more concretely. Cavalry, chariots and footmen are equally distinguished. I am therefore of opinion that we must render here as in Jer 46:4 mount the horses.The chariots are to rage (comp. Nah 2:5), the mighty warriors to go forth on foot. Egypts neighboring nations accompany the expedition, and the Ethiopians and Lybians are described as shield-bearers, and therefore masters of close combat (cominus), the Lybians (comp. Gen 10:13 coll. 22; Isa 66:19; Eze 27:10) as archers. The three nations stand together, as here, as Egyptian auxiliaries in Eze 30:5 coll. Nah 3:9. On Lydians, comp. Arnold in Herzog, Real.-Enc., 8., S. 510.
All these preparations, however, do not ensure the victory, it being ordained that the day of battle shall be a day of vengeance for Jehovah, and a bloody sacrificial festival. Egypt both in ancient and more recent times has injured the theocracy, and now stands opposed to the chosen instrument of the Lord, Nebuchadnezzar, and mast therefore be subdued.Day of vengeance. Comp. Jer 51:6; Isa 34:8; Isa 61:2; Isa 63:4.Sacrifice. A slain offering, where the original meaning of the verb (comp. Num 22:40; 1Ki 1:19) comes into the foreground, but the word must not be taken in its literal signification. Comp. Isa 34:6; Zep 1:7. In the last two verses the consequences of the lost battle are described. Egypt is ironically called upon to fetch balm from Gilead (comp. rems. on Jer 8:22). But the blow was fatal. Therefore remedies are of no avail, to however great extent applied. The fearful defeat cannot of course remain hidden. The nations must learn the shame of Egypt, since the cry of the stricken ones fills the world (Jer 14:2 coll. Isa 42:11). Jer 46:12 b contains a step backwards, an additional statement of reason. This is occasioned by the evident endeavor to close the second picture in correspondence to the first.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
It is acknowledged that these words stand in the original and suitable connection in Jeremiah 30, as well as that they are not necessary to Jeremiah 46, and would not be missed if they were omitted. Still it may be said that every injury befalling the enemies of the theocracy is a corroboration of the latter, and that it cannot be unsuitable also to express in words this mutual relation founded in the nature of the case, the two going constantly hand in hand in chh. 50, 51. (Comp. Jer 50:4-6; Jer 50:17-19; Jer 50:28; Jer 50:33; Jer 51:5-6; Jer 51:10; Jer 51:35; Jer 51:45; Jer 51:50). But the overthrow of the Babylonian kingdom by Cyrus bore the deliverance of Judah immediately in its womb. This can be said of the conquest of Egypt no more than of that of the other small nations against which chh. 4749 are directed. Hence in these three chapters there is no trace of that mutual relation. Why then just here? And how does it agree with the fact that elsewhere in Egypt Jeremiah pronounces only the severest threatenings against the Israelites (chh. 4244)? There is much then that is opposed to the genuineness of the passage, while on the other hand it is easy to suppose that a later seer saw fit to oppose this light to the former shadow. Moreover, as we have said, the words are not absolutely unsuitable here, and we cannot therefore deny the possibility, that Jeremiah, who, as is well known, is very fond of quoting himself, himself felt the need of causing the light of Israel to shine brightly on the dark background of their ancient enemy, Egypt.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Frster states four reasons why the prophets had to proclaim judgment on the heathen nations also. The first is : it is to be known that the prosperity of the heathen is not lasting, but that heathendom has no basis of true prosperity. The second reason is : the pious are not to fear that the heathen will get the upper hand and suppress the church. The third is : Gods people are to guard against forming alliances with the heathen and trusting in their help. The fourth is : a conclusion is to be drawn a minori ad majus: if God does not spare the heathen who are deprived of His light, how much less will He spare His people, if they despise the light of His word.
2. Jeremiahs God is also the Lord of all the heathen and makes their destinies. They find it so according to their words and especially their posture towards the chosen people Israel. They haste to their destruction, for one nation only is eternal; this, however, is the nation which has been passed through a thousand sieves and in comparison with others is no nation. That which is in Israel, as in other nations, passes away, and only that which it has above other nations remains eternal. Jeremiah prophesies most against Egypt, Moab and Babylon, in which the wealth, the jealous, scoffing manner of the mean world, and the cavalier spirit of great states is rebuked. He who rightly understands this sees here not sermons addressed to generations long since passed away, but to the natural humanity streaming through this world, as it is continually presented with new names and yet always with the same carnal impulses and based on the same unreason. To him, who thus understands Jeremiah, he is again alive, and the Jewish legend is fulfilled, that Jeremiah must come again before the Messianic kingdom can bloom up again in glory. Yea, let Jeremiah rise truly for thee to mourn, and Christ, with the hosannas of His eternal hosts of disciples, will not longer be hidden from thee, and in Him thou wilt have all things. Diedrich.
3. On Jer 46:6. The race is not to the swift. Ecc 9:11. Therefore let not the strong man glory in his strength. Jer 9:22. Also are horses and chariots and such like things of no avail: for to those who have not God on their side, all is lost. Cramer.
4. On Jer 46:10. God may long delay His reckoning. This Pharaoh-necho had killed the pious Josiah, conquered his son Jehoahaz and laid the land of Judah under tribute. But guilt rusts not, however old, and though God comes slowly He comes surely. Cramer.
5. On Jer 46:10. Although the ungodly go free for a long time and rejoice with timbrel and harp and are glad with pipes and spend their days in wealth (Job 21:12), yet he lets them go free like sheep for the slaughter, and spares them for the day of slaughter (Jer 12:3). Cramer.
6. On Jer 46:25. Bonum confidere in Domino et non in principibus (Psalms 146). When their help is most needed they lie down and die. Frster.
7. On Jer 46:27-28. When God turns things upside down and takes care that neither root nor branch remains, His little flock must be preserved. The punishments which redound to the destruction of the ungodly redound to the amelioration of the godly. For from these He takes the eternal punishment, and the temporal must also redound to their advantage, but the ungodly drink it to the dregs. Cramer.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jer 46:1-12. The power of God in contrast to human power. 1. Human power confides in its strength; (a) in a qualitative (Jer 46:3-4; Jer 46:7); (b) in a quantitative respect (Jer 46:8). 2. The divine power strikes it down, whereby (a) arrogance is chastised (Jer 46:5-6; Jer 46:11); (b) the righteousness of God is satisfied (Jer 46:10).
Footnotes:
[1]Jer 46:4.. Comp. Lev 6:21; 2Ch 4:16. The meaning is to clean, polish by rubbing.
[2]Jer 46:4. only here and in Jer 51:3, for .
[3]Jer 46:5.. Comp. Mic 1:7 : Job 4:20; Olsh., 261. . Comp. Lev 26:36; Naegelsb. Gr., 93, d. Anm. Hiph. in direct causative significationmake a turn. Comp. Jer 46:21; Jer 47:3; Jer 49:24; Naegelsb. Gr., 18, 3.
[4]Jer 46:5. . Comp. Jer 6:25; Jer 20:3; Jer 20:10; Jer 49:29.
[5]Jer 46:6.. If it were not the unabbreviated form, the words might be taken as the divine command. As it is must be taken in the feebler sense . Comp. 2Ki 6:27; Psa 34:6; Psa 41:3; Job 5:22, etc.
[6]Jer 46:7., a word of Egyptian origin, signifies as an appellative ditch, canal, Isa 33:21; Job 28:10, as a proper name the Nile only, Amo 8:8; Amo 9:5; Isa 19:8; Isa 23:10, etc. is also an Egyptian reminiscence, in so far as it is used of the arms or canals of the Nile, Exo 7:19; Exo 8:1; Eze 32:2; Eze 32:14.
[7]Jer 46:8., comp. Gesen., 68, 2, Anm. 1; Olsh., 257 b. . Comp. Jer 8:16; Jer 47:2.
[8]Jer 46:9., vocative. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 71, 5, Anm. 4.
[9]Jer 46:9.On . Comp. , Psa 78:9; Naegelsb. Gr., 63, 4, e.
[10]Jer 46:10. . As was remarked on Jer 46:1, these perfects with the Van conversive can be taken in a future sense only. Nothing in the context transposes us into the past. All previous verbs relate to the future, and if the day were to be designated as past this would have to be done either disertis verbis, or by . Except on a false interpretation of Jer 46:2, we obtain the impression from Jer 46:7-9 that it is the future which is being described, and if the day (Jer 46:10) is recognized as future, the following verbs can only be so rendered. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 84, o.
[11]Jer 46:10. . Comp. Isa 34:5 sqq.
[12]Jer 46:11.On . Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 64, 4.
[13]Jer 46:11.. Comp. Jer 30:13. The word occurs only in these two passages in Jeremiah, and in these only with the meaning of something laid on, bandage, plaster.
[14]Jer 46:12. . The prefix is to be taken in its proper, instrumental signification: One stumbles by another, because one throws another over the heap. Comp. Lev 26:37.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
Egypt is here threatened, and Babylon is pointed to as her conqueror. In the close of the Chapter the Lord comforts his people.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
At this Chapter begins the judgments of God against the enemies of Israel. The Lord hath had a long controversy with his people; but now in the midst of it, he will reckon with their foes. And first for Egypt. This kingdom must come down, and the Lord will accomplish it by the king of Babylon: thus making one enemy of Israel to ruin another. Reader! mark some of the same things in the present hour. The Lord never wants a scourge to correct when his wisdom sees it fit.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Religious Judgments
Jer 46:17
This is not a sneer. If it were a sneer it would not be worth quotation. No mere sneer can live long, or be of any true weight and influence in human judgments and human progress. There are no contemptuous remarks in all literature, so far as we can discover, equal to the contemptuous criticisms that are to be found in Holy Scripture. Go to the Bible for specimens of contempt go to the Bible for everything. There is only one Book. It has been broken up into many volumes, but there is only one Book of true wisdom, true goodness, true life. How the Bible can torment its adversaries! mock them, contemn them, dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Yet it is never mere contempt. The contempt of the Bible is the penal side of a profound philosophy. Its contempt is as necessary as its gospel nay, more, its gospel renders its contempt necessary. Our God is a “consuming fire,” “God is love,” “the wrath of the Lamb.” These are contradictions in words contradictions which the little critic delights in. Poor soul! he feels as if granted a rare boon when he finds such contradictions as these. With what rude skill he handles them! How he shows them! lifts them up, sets them down, evokes laughter concerning them. Not knowing that under all there lies a spirit of reconciliation and unity which does not show itself to his impertinent vision.
So when Pharaoh-Necho mighty man is called by the contemptuous term of “noise” no mere sneer is employed. This is a righteous judgment, a moral estimate, a correct representation of things as they are in reality, not of things as they appear to be. In all judgments we must have regard to distance, proportion, perspective. A thing is not great simply because it is near. That is a commonplace which the preacher finds it almost impossible to drive into the consciousness of his hearers: they will have it that that which is nearest is biggest. You would say that they would instantly acknowledge the necessity of distance, proportion, and perspective as elements in true and copious judgments; but they do not in reality. Hence they have a base proverb it seems to be so wise and yet is so foolish “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” I know not of any vulgarer sophism or more patent lie than that. Yet it is quoted as if Solomon had written it in his most pious moments. Take a map of London. What a huge sheet is required for the display of this infinite labyrinth of thoroughfares and streets. Take a map of England where is London? There! a large spot of black ink like the body of a spider in a large network or webwork. That is not the London you showed me just now? Yes, the very same London. How can it be? In reality. But here in this map of England it is only a drop of ink, in the other sheet it was a great city. Take a map of Europe where is England? You have young eyes, come, find it. That must be it, I think that rough triangle there. Take your microscope and see if that be so. But that is not the England you showed me just now on a great sheet! That is the very same England. Where is London? Gone! Take a map of the globe where is Europe? Take a map of the solar system, and where is what the poet calls “the great globe itself”? In that moment he was inspired by size, and he called this earth that is only eight thousand miles through the very heart of it from edge to edge about eight thousand miles “the great globe itself.” Ask the nearest star where it is, and the nearest star never heard of it; and if it were blotted out, the nearest star would not know that a sparkle of light had been taken from the sum-total of things. So we must have regard to distance, proportion, perspective, colour, and relation, before we can settle the bulk, the value, and the influence of any quantity or any life. Pharaoh king of Egypt, with horses, chariots, swords, spears, hosts of men, is a terrific power; but to a man standing in the quiet of the divine sanctuary, “Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise” a waft of wind, a curl of smoke dying whilst it rises. If men would but consider this law of proportion the whole estimate of life would undergo an instantaneous and complete reversion.
The text brings before us the great subject of religious judgments by religious judgments I mean estimates. We must call religion into the house if we would take a true appraisement of what we possess. Only religion, as interpreted in Holy Scripture, can tell you what you are and what you are worth. They tell me that a man died not long ago worth three millions sterling. Nothing of the kind, it is impossible.
With regard to those religious estimates or judgments, note how fearless they are. They are not judgments about personal manners, social etiquette, little and variable customs; they challenge the whole world. We are moved by their heroism. Religious judgments do not fritter away our time and patience in discussing little questions and petty problems: they summon kings to their bar and call nations to stand back and be judged. The tone itself befits the purpose of the revelation. There is no timidity here. “Why do the heathen rage?” mark the challenge! “Why do the people imagine a vain thing?” observe the call to judgment! This is not a discussion of petty questions, small controversies, as to whether this should be done before the clock strikes or immediately after. There is a sound of eternity in the cry. The Book excites one with the noblest expectation, stirs the soul with the noblest emotion, challenges the mind to the loftiest intellectual tasks. The Bible is never afraid. It takes up the isles as a very little thing; the nations before it are as a drop of a bucket; verily, it is the voice of him who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and before whom the inhabitants thereof are but as grasshoppers. Get into the rhythm of the Bible; commit yourselves to its astronomical sweep and swing of thought and utterance, of gospel and judgment, and then tell me what man invented it. We must have in life the heroic judge; we must have a book somewhere that dare tackle nations. There is a national entity as well as a personal individuality. Blessed is the voice that fills a nation; grand is the gospel that spreads itself over the whole world. We cannot do without the heroic element, the heroic judgment, the broad estimate, the complete arbitrament, that takes within its purview and decision everything concerning individual life and general civilisation. So many of us can judge one another, so many of us are clever upon little points, who know exactly whether we should put a comma or a semicolon there; but the great scheme of things cannot be managed by that petty ingenuity. You must have the great call, the sublime challenge, the heroic appeal, the white throne that stretches itself from horizon to horizon, and before which kings are as little men and little men as kings the grand astronomical pomp and majesty before which all else settles into its right relation. That you have in the Bible, and nowhere else. There are times when we feel this profoundly; there are occasions when the Bible is the only book that can fill up the cavity. For a long time other books may serve us, other voices may be sufficient; we may say to our most ardent preachers, “You need not speak so loudly: we can hear you” as if the mere hearing were enough because hearing is degraded into a mechanical exercise. But there are other times when you want the trumpet and the thunder and all the host of heaven; there are times when truth must be crowned with adequate pomp and righteousness proclaimed with proportionate circumstance. In those hours the Bible takes the foremost place, and all competitors shrink behind it, saying, “Thou alone art worthy.”
The judgments of the Bible are rational as well as fearless. Under all contempt there is a rock of logic. Why does the Bible contemn things? Because of their proportion. It knows the exact proportion which everything bears to the sum-total of things and to the sovereign purpose of the divine government. The Bible stands at the centre and is not deceived by nearness or by distance. It knows precisely the relation of every living thing to the Life out of which it first sprang; therefore its judgments are rational. They are not the less rational that they sometimes appear to be excited and tempestuous. Excitement and tempest are words we do not understand in cold blood. Ice cannot understand Fire. It is only now and then in our highest moments of perception, when the mind becomes like a pointed spear that can force its way into the centre of things, that we really touch the sublimity and the poetry of those great hurricanes of judgment which seem to tear the firmament in twain and to deluge and drown the little earth. We are not always on the same height: we must allow for level; we must not drag things Biblical down to our coldness, but endeavour to excite ourselves, by religious ministries and exercises, to the temperature of things divine. Then the judgments of the Bible are rational because the matter or element of duration is continually present to the minds of the inspired writers. That which seems to be very large today will tomorrow be cut down and cast into the oven. There is a sad temptation to forget this element of durableness. What staying power is there in a man? That is the question we ought to ask. We have seen some men almost beyond competition in walking the first mile. They give quite a wrong impression to their fellow-traveller. How brisk they are! “Come on!” say they, with a kind of patronising contempt of your lame, crippled style of walking. I will watch the lame man; I will keep my eye upon the man who does not make much fuss during the first mile. He is a terrible competitor; I know him well. He seems, at first, as if he would be soon obliged to go home. Not he! The first mile is about done and so is the brisk walker! The lame man says, “Well, shall we go farther? I think we might try another;” and at the end of seven miles he is stronger than when he began. He is a fearful competitor! So with regard to all things: what about their staying power? What about their durableness? What have they behind? Do they bank in eternity? or do they move upon the spasm of a momentary excitement? Blessed the soul to heavenliness of joy that can say to God, “All my springs are in thee,” The Bible makes small work of our heavens and our earth. We are quite oppressed by them because we do not stand at the right centre. We call them very great and glorious; whereas the inspired fisherman says, “All these things shall be dissolved.” That never entered into any fisherman’s head of his own wit, or dream, or nightmare; that is not a fisherman’s idea to look at the bright sun and the countless stars and the green earth, and say, “All these things shall be dissolved.” The fishermen of that day have left no successors if they invented that stupendous dream. There are some thoughts to which we cannot lay any credit of our own. We speak them, and it requires Christ to tell us where they came from. They flash from our minds; but Christ said, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” So the Biblical writers are not so impressed, after all, with our palaces, and castles, and royalties, and pomps, and armies, and Caesars, and Pharaohs. The inspired writer has been locked up with God, and turning away from that glory all other things become as the baseless fabric of a vision. If we could see God we should be filled with contempt regarding all things, in so far as they affected to hinder us by their greatness or overpower us by their solidity.
Then the judgments of the Bible are fearless, rational, and they are also critical. They are very dainty in their expression: they take the right word with an inspired ingenuity. “Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise.” You cannot amend that comment. Try to amend anything Jesus Christ ever said. There are the parables, there are the reported discourses words picked up from his own lips, never written by his own fingers amend them! As well amend a dewdrop; as well paint the lily. And the nations, according to the Biblical estimate, are but “a wind” that cometh for a little time and then passeth away; and our life is but “a vapour,” dying in its very living. You are skilled in the use of words amend these expressions, put shorter words in their places. A shorter word than “noise”? Or wind? or smoke? You cannot reply. These are the condensations of Omniscience; these are the sharpened points whetted in eternity; these stand incapable of amendment.
But “fearless,” “rational,” “critical” is there no word that comes nearer to my own necessity? Yes, there is a word that touches us all today: these religious judgments are inspiring. Man wants inspiration every day. The Bible was not inspired once for all, in the sense of having its whole meaning shown in one disclosure. Inspiration comes with every dawn, distils in every dew-shower, breathes in every breeze; it is the daily gilt of God. How are these judgments inspiring? Because they enable a man who is right in his spirit and purpose to say, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” “It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?” “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” Then the positive declaration of safety and security, on the part of God’s people, is made the more positive by the statements which are uttered against the wicked: “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.” I went away and said, “What a great power he is,” and all our little missionaries, and preachers, and Sunday-school teachers, they must go down before that man great power, “spreading himself like a green bay tree.” What can our little Bible women and Bible readers do in the presence of so huge an antagonism? “Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him,” I had spade and mattock, and I sought him, “but he could not be found.” “The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the day of the hypocrite but for a moment…. He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.” “The arms of the wicked shall be broken.” Kind Book! condescending Book! It puts the case positively and negatively in relation to the righteous, in relation to the wicked; and its combined testimony amounts to this: they that fear the Lord need have no other fear. “Commit thy way to the Lord.” Would we could do that. It would be well with us if we could simply say, “Lord, the case is thine; I want to be right and to do right, and I am opposed by this mighty king, with all his horses, and armies, and helmets, and spears; and I know not what to do.” He would say, from his great heaven, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him”; “Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise.”
Prayer
Almighty God, Father of our spirits, thou knowest what we need. We need not plead with thee, because thy love doth anticipate all our want, yet it hath pleased our Father to bid us pray, as if he knew nothing, us if he would hear the tale of want and pain and sorrow from our own lips. Our life is one long need; today cannot stand for tomorrow; we cry unto thee hour by hour, yea, moment by moment, for there is no cessation to our want: but the river of God is full of water; the summer sun does not dry up that infinite stream. Thou givest, and behold thou hast as much as before; if thou wert to withhold it would not tend to thine enrichment Look upon us, then, and read our life, see our want, consider our estate, and out of the fulness of thy love send us answers of peace. We dare say all this because we say it at the Cross. Otherwhere we have no right, otherwhere we are dumb because we are guilty before God and have no defence; but at the Cross our guilt is answered, Jesus suffered the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God; he made an open way, a radiant road. In obedience to his welcoming love we come to our Father’s throne to seek our Father’s blessing. We rejoice that our life is of consequence to thee; we will not call ourselves by names of degradation when we know that thy love is fastened upon us even to the degree of dying for our redemption: in thy purpose we are great, in thine intent we are kings and priests and princes unto God: may we sometimes realise thy thought concerning us, and rise to all the responsibilities which that thought imposes. Lead us, guide us; wert thou to drive us we should be scourged to death: we pray therefore to be led, to be gently led, to be led by a way that we know not; then the way will not be long, for in thy companionship there is no monotony. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XI
THE PROPHECIES OF JEREMIAH CONCERNING THE NATIONS
Jeremiah 46-51
We now take up the prophecies of Jeremiah to the foreign nations, recorded in Jeremiah 46-51. We note first, by way of introduction, that when Jeremiah was called to be a prophet, it was said, Jer 1:5 : “I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations.” Note again in Jer 1:10 : “I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow.” Thus Jeremiah’s work was not to be confined to Israel, but to comprise the known world, at least all that part of it which had any relation to or connection with Israel. So, in Jer 25 , we see him exercising this function of prophet to the nations. Jehovah speaks to him and says) Jer 25:15 : “Take this cup of wine of wrath at my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send thee to drink it.”
We are not told that Jeremiah visited other nations. By this passage it seems that he did either visit them and deliver the prophecy, or that he wrote it and sent it to them by a messenger. Certain it is that he sent this message of destruction to all the nations that troubled Israel. He goes on, Jer 25:17 : “Then took I the cup at Jehovah’s hand and caused all nations to drink it unto whom Jehovah sent me.” In the next several verses we have all these nations named. There are twenty-one, altogether. And those nations which he names in Jer 25 constitute some of the very people to whom he is writing the messages in this section. Again in Jer 27 we have Jeremiah exercising the prophetic function to the nations. In verses 2, 4 he makes a yoke to be sent to the kings of the nations and addresses the ambassadors that have been assembled at Jerusalem to arrange a plan for rebellion against Babylon and devise methods by which they may throw off the Babylonian yoke. Jeremiah meets them and Zedekiah and says, as recorded in the latter part of Jer 27:12 : “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him arid live.” He gave them this advice because he had said, “All the nations shall serve the king of Babylon, and all those that do not serve him shall perish, or go into captivity, at the hands of the great Nebuchadnezzar. It is interesting to note that in the Septuagint Version, made in the third century before Christ, the prophecies found in chapters 46-51 are found immediately following Jer 25:13 , where their names are mentioned. That looks as if these were written and sent to the nations about the same time that Jeremiah gives his counsel to the messengers of the nations and to Zedekiah.
The dates of these chapters range from 604 B.C. to about 594 B.C. The critics put some of them much later. But there is ample evidence to lead to the conclusion that they occurred in that period in which Pharaoh-Necho suffered defeat at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, unto the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah. Notice that these various prophecies to the nations are grouped together as Isaiah and Ezekiel grouped them. See Isaiah 12-23 and Ezekiel 25-32.
The date of the prophecy concerning Egypt is about 604 B.C. Probably the latter portion of the chapter was written a little later, but certainly the first twelve verses were written about 604 B.C. Compare with this Isa 19 and Ezekiel 29-32 which deal with the same subject, the downfall and punishment of Egypt. Jer 46:1 is a general introduction to all these various prophecies.
We have an account of Egypt’s defeat at Carohemish (Jer 46:2-12 ). The second verse gives the date and the occasion of the prophecy. They occurred somewhere about tour years after the disastrous defeat and death of the good King Josiah at Megiddo. Pharaoh-Necho had pressed as far north and east as the fords of the Euphrates, seeking to swell his coffers and enlarge his territory. He was met there by the invincible Nebuchadnezzar. There was fought the great battle which was to decide the fate of one or the other of these two kings. Carchemish was a large city on the banks of the Euphrates, commanding the fords of that great river, which was the dividing line between the empires. Pharaoh-Necho was overwhelmed and driven back to Egypt. Jeremiah in the spirit of sarcasm addresses the great army of Pharaoh-Necho: “Prepare ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle. Harness the horses, and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail.”
Note the tone of verse Jer 46:5 : “Wherefore have I seen it? they are dismayed and are turned backward; and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: terror is on every side.” Then again with a note of sarcasm he raises this question, verse Jer 46:7 : “Who is this that riseth up like the Nile, whose waters toss themselves like the rivers?” That is Egypt. Again, with a note of stinging sarcasm he continues in verse Jer 46:9 : “Go up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men go forth: Gush and Put, that handle the shield; and the Ludim, that handle and bend the bow.” In Jer 46:10 he pictures the defeat: “For that day is a day of the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he many avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour and be satiate, and shall drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.” This magnificent picture is the description of the hand of God punishing Egypt. It is a sacrifice of Jehovah’s righteousness.
In Jer 46:13 he gives the occasion and the substance of the prophecy. Nebuchadnezzar would come and smite the land of Egypt. Then in Jer 46:14 he speaks of the cities of Egypt. He tells them to be ready and prepared. With a note of sarcasm he continues in Jer 46:15 by asking a question, “Why are thy strong ones [thy gods] swept away?” Then the answer follows in the same verse: “Because Jehovah did drive them.” That is the reason. In Jer 46:17 we have a striking prophecy: “Pharaoh) the king of Egypt, is but a noise.” He has no power; he is only a noise; all boast and brag and not to be feared.
In Jer 46:25 he prophesies that Pharaoh’s city, the city of Thebes, called “Noamon,” or “Amon of No,” shall perish. Of late years Egyptologists have discovered that city, and it is today just as Jeremiah described it in this prophecy. It is utterly destroyed. In the latter part of Jer 46:26 he makes a remarkable promise regarding the kingdom of Egypt. There shall not be made a full end of it; “afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old”; Egypt shall not be utterly destroyed. It shall live. But Egypt was never the same after her defeat and subjugation by Nebuchadnezzar. Profane history tells us that in the year 560 B.C. or thereabout, Nebuchadnezzar defeated and overthrew Egypt. Jeremiah is vindicated in his prophecy here, since what he wrote took place beyond any doubt.
There are words of reassurance and encouragement to Israel in Jer 46:27-28 : “Fear not thou, O Jacob my servant, saith Jehovah; for I am with thee: for I will make a full end of all nations whither I have driven thee; but I will not make a full end of thee, but I will correct thee in measure, and will in no wise leave thee unpunished.” That sounds much like the second part of Isaiah. In that prophecy this same promise is worked out in the great doctrine of the servant of God. The Philistines were the old, hereditary enemies of Israel. From the days of Samuel and the Judges, David and Solomon this nation had existed and was, all the time, an enemy and troubler of Israel and Judah.
The date of the prophecy (Jer 47:1-7 ) is a little uncertain. The latter part of the first verse says that this prophecy came before Pharaoh smote Gaza. Now that was the Pharaoh-Necho who defeated Josiah, some time previous to 604 B.C. He had laid siege to Gaza, the chief city of Philistia, and had utterly overwhelmed it. Previous to that Jeremiah uttered this prophecy against Philistia. He says in Jer 47:2 , “Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall become an overflowing stream, and shall overflow the land and all that is therein.” Thus he pictures the invading hosts of Nebuchadnezzar coming from the north like an overflowing river, down the plains of Tyre to this Philistine city. In Jer 47:4 he says that they shall all be overthrown.
Now, we have a remarkable question on this part of Jeremiah, Jer 47:6 . He sees this fearful shedding of blood, and raises the question, “O thou sword of Jehovah, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard; rest, and be still.” Evidently this implies that God ordered this bloodshed and that the nation was doing his will in thus punishing the wickedness of the Philistines.
What the relation of Moab to Israel and what the main points of the prophecy against her (Jer 48:1-47 )? It is interesting here to compare this passage with Isaiah 15-16, and also Eze 25:9-11 . Israel had come into very intimate relations with Moab. They passed through that land, and the tribe of Reuben had the territory which joined Moab. Between these two (Reuben and Moab) there were constant feuds with intermittent friendship. Finally Moab succeeded in throwing off the yoke of Israel and absorbing the tribe of Reuben. Moab was famous for her pride, her self-sufficiency. She was one of the proudest nations of the world. It was against this pride and self-sufficiency that this prophecy was directed. It contains a great many expressions that are identical with what we find in Isaiah 15-16. In this chapter the prophet gives us much of the geography of Moab. He mentions, altogether, about twenty-six cities. The principal thoughts are these:
1. Moab’s threatened destruction and exile by Babylon (Jer 48:1-10 ).
2. Moab’s disappointed hope, and the imminence of her calamity (Jer 48:11-25 ).
3. The humiliation of Moab, and her fate described (Jer 48:26-46 ).
4. A promise of return: “Yet will I bring back the captivity of Moab in the latter days, saith Jehovah” (Jer 48:47 ).
I call attention to two or three striking passages in this prophecy against Moab. In Jer 48:10 Jeremiah is speaking of the terrible work which Nebuchadnezzar will do to Moab and he wants that work thoroughly done, and says, “Cursed be he that doeth the work of Jehovah negligently.” Now that is a fine text. He continues, “Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.” The idea in it all is that Jehovah wants these Babylonians to do their work thoroughly. Also in Jer 48:11 we have a striking passage: “Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remaineth in him, and his scent is not changed.” The figure here is that of fresh wine left to stand. When it is left thus, sediment gathers in the bottom. It becomes thick and stagnant and the quality is injured. Something like that had happened in Moab. She had grown stagnant; had been quiet for years. It was not good for her to remain in this condition. Self-satisfaction is not a good thing.
We have the prophecy against Ammon (Jer 49:1-6 ). The country of Ammon bordered on the land of Moab and the territory of the tribe of Reuben. There was constant strife between Ammon and Reuben. When Tiglath-Pileser invaded the land and deported the inhabitants, Ammon came up and seized the country that belonged to Reuben. Because of that incident Jeremiah uttered these oracles: “Hath Israel no sons? hath he no heir? Why then doth Malcam possess Gad, and his people dwell in the cities thereof?” He had seized the property that belonged to Israel, and that is what Jeremiah is denouncing. They shall all go into exile. He then closes this prophecy with a promise of restoration: “But I will bring back the captivity of the children of Ammon.”
Compare with the prophecy against Edom the prophecy of Obadiah, which is almost identical. Jeremiah must have been familiar with the prophecy of Obadiah. Compare also Isa 34 . Edom was a kinsman of the house of Jacob. Edom dwelt in his mountain fastnesses and impregnable heights, and was something of a military power. He never lost the bitterness of Esau against Jacob because the latter got his birthright and blessing. They first dwelt in tents and were Bedouin, but at this time most of them dwelt in cities or towns. Edom watched from his fastnesses the career of Jacob and, as Obadiah says, looked on her destruction without pity. When she had opportunity she took some of the inhabitants of Israel, made them slaves and rejoiced over the downfall of Jerusalem. For such unbrotherly conduct Judah never forgave Edom. Sufficient is it to say that we have here the pronouncement of doom upon her and there is no promise of restoration. For several centuries Edom flourished to some extent, and in the time of the restoration she occupied considerable territory of Judah. In the time of Christ an Edomite sat upon the throne of Judah, but since then Edom has gone down and today nothing remains of her but a great wilderness of mountains and deserts.
In connection with the prophecy against Damascus (Jer 49:23-27 ) we have prophecies concerning two little countries, namely, Hamath and Arpad. Damascus is to have troubles, she is to be sad in her fate and she is to wax very feeble. Her city is to be, not utterly destroyed, but greatly humbled. There is no promise of restoration.
Kedar is the name of the wandering and marauding, warlike tribes that live in the deserts east of Palestine, between eastern Palestine and the river Euphrates. They are called the “Children of the East.” They have lived there from time immemorial. They were there before the days of Abraham and are there yet. The men of Kedar are to be overwhelmed by the Babylonian power. The city of Hazor is referred to as belonging to this people. The larger portion of these Arabians lived in tents and were Bedouin, but some of them lived in cities or villages. So the prophet addresses both classes, Kedar and Hazor, pronouncing destruction upon them.
We have the prophecy against Elam (Jer 49:34-39 ). In Abraham’s time there was a king of Elam, who was the overlord of Babylon, and the over-lord of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He came to the plains of Palestine and collected tribute from them. Elam was one of the principal forces that Abraham attacked and destroyed. A great many of the inhabitants were transported to northern Palestine when Samaria was destroyed by Sargon, so that Jeremiah is brought into touch with these Elamites because they lived in the northern part of the country. The fate of Elam is bound ‘up with the fate of Babylon and that of Israel. Elam is threatened with destruction, but in Jer 49:39 there is a promise of restoration. It is interesting to note that in the fulfilment of that promise of restoration, there were Elamites in the city of Jerusalem when Peter preached his great sermon at Pentecost. Doubtless there were Elamites converted at that time and brought into the fold of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The prophecy against Babylon (Jeremiah 50-51) is the longest of any of the prophecies concerning the foreign nations. Compare this with Isaiah 13-14; 40-48. The date of this prophecy is set forth in Jer 51:59 . It was in the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah, about 494 B.C. Jeremiah penned this long prophecy and sent it by a messenger to the king of Babylon, to be read by the exiles, and he says in Jer 51:63 , “When thou hast made an end of reading this book, thou shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates: and thou shall say, Thus shalt Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring upon her.” A copy of the prophecy was kept by the prophet. This action was symbolical. We cannot go into detail in the study of this prophecy. The situation is the same as that set forth in Isaiah 40-66. It presents many of the same ideas and the same problems. There are scores of similar expressions. The principal ideas are as follows:
1. The people of Israel were in exile in Babylon and the city of Jerusalem had been destroyed: Jer 50:6-7 ; Jer 50:17 ; Jer 50:28 ; Jer 50:33 ; Jer 51:11 ; Jer 51:34 ; Jer 51:51 .
2. Babylon was the instrument of Jehovah in punishing Israel and the nations, four times stated: Jer 50:7 ; Jer 50:17 ; Jer 51:7 ; Jer 51:20-23 .
3. Jehovah remains the deliverer of his people. This is stated by the prophet four times: Jer 50:34 ; Jer 51:5 ; Jer 51:15-19 ; Jer 51:36 .
4. Jehovah will execute his wrath upon Babylon and her gods and they shall be destroyed. Fully two-thirds of this entire prophecy is given to the discussion of this thought: Jer 50:2-3 ; Jer 50:10-16 ; Jer 50:18 ; Jer 50:21-27 ; Jer 51:1-4 ; Jer 51:8-9 ; Jer 51:11-19 .
5. The Modes and their allies are to break the Babylonian yoke. This is stated eight times altogether: Jer 50:3 ; Jer 50:9 ; Jer 50:41-42 ; Jer 50:44 ; Jer 51:11 ; Jer 51:27-28 .
6. Promise of release from Babylon and command to leave the city. Eleven times the prophet makes statements to that effect: Jer 50:4-5 ; Jer 50:8 ; Jer 50:19-20 ; Jer 50:28 ; and others.
7. Spiritual renewal of Israel shall follow the return from Babylon. This is stated by the prophet five times: Jer 50:4-5 ; Jer 51:10 ; Jer 51:50-51 .
In these seven divisions we have the substance of these chapters. Isaiah 40-48 contains the same thoughts, sometimes even in the same words.
Almost all the critics maintain that Jeremiah did not write these chanters. Even a Baptist professor produced a commentary that was published by a Baptist publishing house, in which it is plainly affirmed that Jeremiah did not write them. The arguments used against the Jeremiah-authorship are in substance, as follows:
1. The historical situation had not yet arrived. These chapters picture Israel in exile, the Temple destroyed and Jerusalem in ruins. If Jeremiah wrote these chapters in 594 B.C. (and it is plainly stated that he did) Jerusalem was still standing, the Temple intact, and the end of Babylon was yet seventy years more in the future. Therefore, the critics conclude that since the historical situation was not in harmony with these chapters, Jeremiah did not write them. That conclusion is undeniably based upon the assumption that Jeremiah could not see the future.
2. There is not the same point of view on the part of the prophet. The point of view of the prophet about this time was that Zedekiah and his people must submit to Babylon, and if they would submit, they would be saved. But now in these chapters the point of view of the prophet seems to be that these nations are to be destroyed and Judah triumph. Therefore, Jeremiah must have a different point of view. Did he? As in the other contention, it is based upon the assumption that Jeremiah could not see the future.
3. The temper which permeates these chapters was not that of Jeremiah. In other words, Jeremiah, during the reign of Zedekiah, had been friendly to Babylon in that he continually counseled submission to Babylon. He seems to be a friend to Babylon. Now, these two chapters were written by a man whose soul seemed to be on fire with denunciation of Babylon because of her ruthless and unrelenting cruelty to Israel. The critics cannot account for the change in the temper of Jeremiah, if it is conceded that he wrote these two chapters in question.
In reply, it may be asked, Does it follow that because he advised submission to a foreign power he loved that power and was not loyal to his own people? Jeremiah counseled submission to Babylon, not because he loved Babylon, but because he could see, in fact it was revealed to him, that Babylon was destined to prevail and that if his people would quietly submit, it would be better than to resist. By no means does it follow that he loved Babylon. He did not love Babylon; he was a patriotic Israelite and could not but have hated that savage nation that overwhelmed his own beloved kinsmen. It is easy to see how he could, with perfect consistency, thus write the doom that was coming upon this savage nation for its wickedness. Though it was a wicked heathen nation, God could overrule its cruelty to be the just punishment for Israel’s sins and wickedness.
4. It is full of repetitions and lacks logical development. And so it does. But is it not in that very fact, like the work of Jeremiah? Our critical friends have worked out a system of logical development and they make heaven and earth fit into the mold of their theory. I fear that in trying to get all heaven into their logical system, they have failed to get any of it into their hearts.
Here are five reasons for accepting the Jeremiah authorship of chapters Jeremiah 50-51:
1. It is expressly stated that Jeremiah did write it (Jer 51:59-64 ). That ought to settle the question.
2. The style is like that of Jeremiah, full of repetitions. We have called attention to that very thing over and over again in our studies of the book.
3. The prophecy is altogether appropriate. Jeremiah was a patriotic Israelite, and his feelings toward Babylon could not have been that of friendship. He must have been permeated with the spirit of denunciation.
4. Denial of his authorship is based upon a mechanical theory of prophecy and inspiration. That is, after all, the real source of these denials.
5. Granting inspiration, Jeremiah was thoroughly competent to write every word of these two chapters. We could not expect that Jeremiah, a prophet to the nations, would live and die without having something to say about Babylon.
QUESTIONS
1. What the theme of Jeremiah 46-51 and what the evidence elsewhere of Jeremiah’s call to this special function as a prophet?
2. What the dates of these several prophecies?
3. What the date of the prophecy concerning Egypt, what parallel prophecies in the other prophets and what the nature of Jer 46:1 ?
4. Give an account of Egypt’s defeat at Carchemish (Jer 46:2-12 ).
5. Give an account of the overthrow of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 46:13-26 ).
6. What the words of reassurance and encouragement to Israel in Jer 46:27-28 ?
7. Who were the Philistines, what the date of this prophecy (Jer 47:1-6 ) against them and what the prophecy itself, especially verse 6?
8. What the relation of Moab to Israel and what the main points of the prophecy against her? (Jer 48:1-47 .)
9. What things worthy of special note in this prophecy against Moab?
10. What the occasion of the prophecy against Ammon in Jer 49:1-6 and what the points of the prophecy?
11. What the relation of Edom to Israel and what the prophecy here (Jer 49:7-22 ) against her?
12. What the prophecy against Damascus? (Jer 49:23-27 .)
13. Who was Kedar and what the prophecy here against Kedar? (Jer 49:28-33 .)
14. Who were the Elamites and what the prophecy against Elam in Jer 49:34-39 ?
15. How does the prophecy against Babylon compare with the other prophecies here given, what the date and what the symbolical action in this connection, the meaning of it, and what the principal ideas?
16. What the arguments of the critics against the authenticity of this section and upon what is each based?
17. Give five reasons for accepting the Jeremiah authorship of Jeremiah 50-51.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Jer 46:1 The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles;
Ver. 1. The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah against the Gentiles. ] God had at first set him over the nations and over the kingdoms – as a plenipotentiary – “to root out and to pull down, and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.” Jer 1:10 This power of his the prophet had put forth and exercised against his own nation of the Jews, whom he had doomed to destruction, and lived to see execution done accordtngly. Now he takes their enemies, the neighbour nations, to do, telling them individually what they shall trust to. And this indeed the prophet had done before in part, and in fewer words, under the type of a cup of wine to be divided among and drunk up by the nations, Jer 25:15-33 but here to the end of Jer 51:1-64 . more plainly and plentifully. Isaiah had done the same in effect (Isa 13:1-22 ; Isa 14:1-32 ; Isa 15:1-9 ; Isa 16:1-14 ; Isa 17:1-14 ; Isa 18:1-7 ; Isa 19:1-25 ; Isa 20:1-6 ; Isa 21:1-17 ; Isa 22:1-25 ; Isa 23:1-18 ; Isa 24:1-23 ), Ezekiel also, from Eze 25:1-17 ; Eze 26:1-21 ; Eze 27:1-36 ; Eze 28:1-26 ; Eze 29:1-21 ; Eze 30:1-26 ; Eze 31:1-18 ; Eze 32:1-32 ; Eze 33:1-33 , that by the mouth of three such witnesses every word might stand, and this burden of the nations might be confirmed. Jeremiah beginneth fitly with the Egyptians, who besides the old enmity, had lately slain good King Josiah, with whom died all the prosperity of the Jewish people, who were thenceforth known, as the Thebans also were after the death of their Epaminondas, only by their overthrows and calamities.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jeremiah Chapter 46
We now enter on a series of prophetic threatenings against various nations, beginning with Egypt and going through with the neighbouring foes of the Jews, and ending with the utter destruction of Babylon; for the last chapter is an appendix, inspired but not Jeremiah’s, though (I doubt not) rightly winding all up with the ruin of Zedekiah, and of the temple, and of the poor captives of Judah, among whom we see the royal son of David the pensioner of Evil-merodach king of Babylon. It is a complete picture of the then woes on the guilty people of Jehovah with judgment on their enemies. Israel had as yet wrought no deliverance in the earth. I do not doubt that the order of the Hebrew, followed by the Authorized Version and most others, is put in moral order by God, and that a mere chronological sequence would defeat this intention. Our business is not to arrange but believe.
Our chapter consists of two parts which refer to transactions severed by a considerable interval. The opening verse is general, “the word of Jehovah which came to Jeremiah against the Gentiles,” and seems to introduce Jeremiah 46 – 51. Verses 2-12 comprise the first of the two denunciations of Egypt which fill the chapter; as verses 13-28 the second.
The first then runs, “Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah. Order ye the buckler and shield and draw near to battle. Harness the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, and put on the brigandines.” (Ver. 2-4.) It was the same energetic king whom Josiah attacked at Megiddo on his route to Carchemish but to his own ruin, not at all by any design of the Egyptian monarch who in vain begged the king of Judah to leave him alone. He subsequently deposed Jehoahaz and set up Eliakim as king, changing his name to Jehoiakim. But reverse was at hand. His army at Carchemish was utterly routed by Nebuchadnezzar, and the consequence was not merely the loss of all Asiatic possessions, but the shutting up of the king within his own land henceforth. “Wherefore have I seen them dismayed and turned away back? and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: for fear was round about, saith Jehovah. Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; they shall stumble, and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates. Who is this that cometh up as a flood, whose waters are moved as the rivers? Egypt riseth up like a flood, and his waters are moved like the rivers; and he saith, I will go up, and will cover the earth; I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof. Come up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians and the Libyans, that handle the shield; and the Lydians, that handle and bend the bow. For this is the day of Jehovah God of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he way avenge him of his adversaries; and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Jehovah of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates, Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt: in vain shalt thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be cured. The nations have heard of thy shame, and thy cry hath filled the land: for the mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty, and they are fallen both together.” (Ver. 5-12.)
The rest of the chapter is another word of Jehovah and relates to Pharaoh-hophra (the Apries of Herodotus and Uaphris of Manetho), who was attacked by Nebuchadnezzar in his own dominions, as we saw in Jer 44 . “The word that the Lord spake to Jeremiah the prophet, how Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon should come and smite the land of Egypt. Declare ye in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Noph, and in Tahpanhes: say ye, Stand fast and prepare thee; for the sword shall devour round about thee. Why are thy valiant men swept away? they stood not, because the Lord did drive them, He made many to fall, yea, one fell upon another: and they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword. They did cry there, Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise; he hath passed the time appointed. As I live, saith the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts, Surely as Tabor is among the mountains, and as Carmel by the sea, so shall he come.” (Ver. 13-18.) Nothing can be conceived more life-like. As proud as he was prosperous, he trusted chiefly to mercenaries. This is noticeable in the prophecy, verse 16; and it is repeated in verse 21. It is known indeed that his own subjects revolted, fought and defeated his foreign supports, as they also in the end put him to death. But whatever the disasters on Egypt: inflicted by the king of Babylon or his servants, “Afterwards it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith Jehovah.” (Ver. 26.)
The chapter ends with consolation to the chosen people who might have dreaded now at least utter extinction for their folly and self-will. “But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will save thee from afar of, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the Lord: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.” (Ver. 26, 27.) The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 46:1
1That which came as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations.
Jer 46:1 This is an introductory verse for the literary unit dealing with YHWH’s judgments against the surrounding nations (chapters 46-51).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
The Forty-First Prophecy of Jeremiah (see book comments for Jeremiah).
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
which came. For the most part in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (see App-86), and may have been included in the roll of Jer 36. This section may be compared with Isaiah’s “burdens” and “woes” (compare p. 930), and Ezekiel (Jer 25:32), and Amos (Jer 1:1, Jer 1:2).
against = concerning. Compare Jer 49:1.
the. Some codices, with six early printed editions (one Rabbinic), read “all the”.
Gentiles = nations.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Let’s turn now in our Bibles to Jer 46:1-28 .
Beginning with chapter 45 we came into the sixth part or section of the book of Jeremiah. And this sixth section is comprised of miscellaneous prophecies that are directed mainly to those nations that were around Israel. And so as we get into chapter 46, we find the introduction to these series of prophecies as he addresses them to the Gentiles, the Gentile kingdoms. And so God is going to address Himself to those Gentile nations now roundabout Israel.
The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles; Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaohnecho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah. Order the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle. Harness the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, and put on the brigandines. Wherefore have I seen them dismayed and turned away back? and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: for fear was round about, saith the LORD. Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; they shall stumble, and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates. Who is this that cometh up as a flood, whose waters are moved as the rivers? Egypt riseth up like a flood, and his waters are moved like the rivers; and he saith, I will go up, and will cover the earth; I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof. Come up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians and the Libyans, that handle the shield; and the Lydians, that handle and bend the bow. For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiated and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates. Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt: in vain shalt thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be cured. The nations have heard of thy shame, and thy cry hath filled the land: for the mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty, and they are fallen both together ( Jer 46:1-12 ).
And so God actually is speaking of the defeat of the Egyptians there by the river Euphrates at Carchemish and of the turning back of the Egyptians in this battle. The interesting thing, “Go up to Gilead, take the balm.” Gilead was known through the ancient world as the place of medicines. You remember the passage that Jeremiah earlier declared, “Is there no balm in Gilead? And is there no healer there?” ( Jer 8:22 ) But there is no healing for Egypt. They are to receive the judgment of God and God is going to use the Babylonian armies as His instrument of bringing His judgment against Egypt. This is basically why Jeremiah warned the people not to go down to Egypt to try to find safety there. He said, “If you go to Egypt to escape the sword, surely the sword will follow you in Egypt and the famine and the pestilence and you will die in Egypt. You won’t come back to the land.” But the people did not obey the voice of the Lord. They came back to Egypt. But here now he is just really bringing the whole issue of Egypt into prophetic focus.
Now, as he focuses upon the various nations, there are a lot of people who wonder why the United States isn’t brought forth into a prophetic focus in that the United States has become such an important nation in these days. But if you’ll read in the book of Revelation, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And really all prophecy centers around the person of Jesus and because the nation Israel was so important to the coming of Jesus, we find many prophecies relating to Israel and then to those nations that related to Israel in either a good or an evil sense in those days. But it isn’t God’s intention through prophecy to spell out the future of each nation that would arise in the world but only those nations that would bear directly upon the coming of Jesus Christ in either His first or second coming. And when you read that most of the prophecies against the nations are those of judgment and all, it’s probably a good thing that we don’t read about the United States, because surely I’m certain that the Lord would have some pretty stern words for us today.
The word that the LORD spake to Jeremiah the prophet [verse Jer 46:13 ], how Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon should come and smite the land of Egypt ( Jer 46:13 ).
Now, this is going now into the second part of the prophecy. The first part of it dealt with the battle up at Carchemish where the Pharaoh was defeated by Babylon. And now he is speaking about a coming invasion of Babylon on down into Egypt.
Declare ye in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Noph and in Tahpanhes: say ye, Stand fast, and prepare thee; for the sword shall devour all around you. Why are thy valiant men swept away? they stood not, because the LORD did drive them. He made many to fall, yea, one fell upon another: and they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword. They did cry there, Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise; he hath passed the time appointed. As I live, saith the King, whose name is The LORD of hosts, Surely as Tabor is among the mountains, and as Carmel by the sea, so shall it come. O thou daughter dwelling in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into captivity: for Noph shall be waste and desolate without an inhabitant. Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction is coming; it is coming out of the north [from Babylon]. Also her hired men are in the midst of her like fatted bullocks; for they are turned back, and are fled away together: they did not stand, because the day of their calamity was come upon them, and the time of their visitation. The voice thereof shall go like a serpent; for they shall march with an army, and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood. They shall cut down her forest, saith the LORD, though it cannot be searched; because they are more than the grasshoppers, and are innumerable. The daughter of Egypt shall be confounded; she shall be delivered into the hand of the people of the north. The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saith; Behold, I will punish the multitude of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with their gods, and their kings; even Pharaoh, and all them that trust in him: And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the LORD ( Jer 46:14-26 ).
So Egypt is to be invaded. It is to be defeated by Nebuchadnezzar, but yet they will yet inhabit the land.
Now God in the last couple of verses gives encouragement to His people.
But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD: for I am with thee; and I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished ( Jer 46:27-28 ).
So as is so often the case when you find God speaking of the judgment that is going to come, He sort of ends it with a bright light as He turns back toward the nation of Israel, the house of Jacob, “Don’t be afraid.” And He’s talking about the yet future time, the Kingdom Age, when God is going to visit with them again and bring them back into the land. And when God is going to punish the nations, whither they have been driven.
In the second coming of Jesus Christ there will be the gathering of the nations together. “Then shall He gather together the nations: as a shepherd, and separates the sheep from the goat.” And he will say unto those on His left hand, Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity. I was hungry, you did not feed Me. Thirsty you did not give Me to drink,” and so forth. “Lord, when did we see You this way?” “Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these My brethren” ( Mat 25:32-40 ). It is speaking of the treatment of the nations… of how the nations treated Israel. And the nations will be judged for their treatment of Israel. God said way back to Abraham, “I will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you” ( Gen 12:3 ).
Anti-Semitism is a horrible thing, and it is something that no child of God should be caught up in. Unfortunately, there is a lot of anti-Semitism even within many churches today. There are those who try to say that the modern day Jew isn’t truly a Jew. That he is an Ashkenazim and so forth, and they use that as an excuse for failure to support these people today. But the nations will be brought before the Lord and have to answer for their treatment of God’s people. And God declares that He will make a full end of all of the nations whether they’ve been driven, but He’ll not make a full end of the nation of Israel, but it will be a very central figure in the reign of Christ in the Kingdom Age.
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Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Jer 46:1-4
Jer 46:1-2
The word of Jehovah which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations. Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh-neco king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah.
There are two superscriptions here, the first pertaining to the subsequent chapters through Jeremiah 51, and the second pertaining to Egypt. We should have expected these prophecies against the Gentile nations, because in God’s call of Jeremiah, God placed him “over the nations” as the official prophet who would declare their fate (Jer 1:10). Several of God’s prophets pronounced doom against the nations, as did Isaiah, Amos, and others.
By the river Euphrates in Carchemish…
(Jer 46:2). The battle fought here about 605 B.C. was one of the decisive battles of history, for it spelled the end of Egyptian domination and heralded the arrival of Babylon as the new world power. It was fought at a strategic location several miles north of the Chebar’s junction with the Euphrates. The word Carchemish means Fort of Chemosh, the god of the Moabites (2Ki 23:13).
In the fourth year of Jehoiachim…
(Jer 46:2). A number of very significant names and dates cluster around this event.
Jeremiah was contemporary with the five final kings of Judah, from Josiah to the ruin of the nation, and with Nebuchadnezzar the greatest monarch of the neo-Chaldean empire, and with these four kings of Egypt: Psammetik I (664-609B.C.), Pharaoh-necho II (609-594 B.C.), Psammetik II (694-588 B.C.), and Pharaoh-Hophra (588-568 B.C.).
The king of Egypt in this battle of Carchemish was Pharaoh-necho who had killed Josiah at Megiddo in 609 B.C.; and, in a sense, the Jews would have considered this victory over Necho at Carchemish some four years later as a proper vengeance for the death of Josiah.
“The Babylonian Chronicle stated that Nebuchadnezzar marched against Egypt again in 601 B.C., with both sides suffering very heavy losses. This was probably the event that tempted Jehoiachim to revolt against Babylon (2Ki 24:1)
Jer 46:3-4
THE ADVANCE OF EGYPT AT CARCHEMISH
Prepare ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle. Harness the horses, and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail.
These words with their sharp, staccato commandments and brilliant descriptive power remind us of the glorying words in the prophecy of Nahum re: the overthrow of Nineveh.
The buckler and shield…
(Jer 46:3). The buckler was used by the lightly armed infantry, and the shield was handled by the heavier ranks of the soldiery who were generally the stronger of the two.
Put on the coats of mail…
(Jer 46:4). Those who are familiar with the KJV cannot fall to be astounded at a switch like this, for the KJV renders this passage, Put on the brigandines! Well, it happened like this. The word brigandines actually means coats of mail, worn by soldiers, and in time came to mean soldiers; and the conduct of many soldiers throughout history gradually changed the meaning of brigandines to rogues or scoundrels. The current word brigand derives from it and means a robber or a bandit, especially, one of a band of plundering outlaws or soldiers. This connection also resulted in such a title as Brigadier General, meaning the commander of a brigade! This appears to this writer as an item of intense interest.
NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND THE NATIONS
Jer 46:1 to Jer 49:39
With the exception of the Book of Hosea, every prophetic book of the Old Testament contains at least one oracle concerning a foreign nation. Rather large collections of such oracles can be found in the books of Isaiah (chaps. 13-23) and Ezekiel (chaps. 25-32) as well as here in Jeremiah (chaps. 46-51). The prophets of Israel could not avoid bringing heathen nations also with the sphere of their predictions. The vital interests of the theocracy were at stake in the standing and falling of neighboring nations. Furthermore the prophets emphasized the universal sovereignty of the Lord and this necessitated utterances concerning the destiny of the nations.
It is probable that of all parts of the Old Testament the oracles concerning the foreign nations are the least frequently read. Even among Old Testament scholars very little attention has been paid to these passages. One has only to observe in the standard commentaries the disproportionately small amount of space devoted to these oracles to realize that they have not aroused a great deal of scholarly interest. Whatever the reasons for this neglect may be, it is nevertheless a pity if for no other reason than that among these oracles is some of the finest poetry in the prophetic literature. Occasionally beautiful Messianic prophecies are embedded within these messages of doom. Furthermore, sayings of the type found in this section of the Book of Jeremiah represent a characteristic feature of prophetic preaching, and must be taken into account if one is to have a true picture of the prophetic ministry.
That there would be an international dimension to the ministry of Jeremiah is clearly indicated in his call. God had made him a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:5); he was appointed over the nations to pull up and tear down, to destroy and to rend, to build and to plant (Jer 1:1()). In chapter 25 Jeremiah was told to take the cup of Gods wrath and pass it among the nations of his day. They would drink from that cup, stagger and fall to their destruction. Last of all the king of Babylon would drink and perish. The foreign nations in chapters 46-51 are treated roughly in the same order in which they are treated in chapter 25. In chapter 27 Jeremiah confronts the ambassadors of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon with the divine demand that they capitulate to the rule of Nebuchadnezzar. These passages prepare the reader for the somewhat more comprehensive treatment of foreign nations in this present section of the book.
The foreign nation oracles in the Book of Jeremiah seem to be organized in a definite pattern. Jeremiah placed first in the collection the oracles against Egypt, the great and ancient archenemy of Israel to the south. Then he places together a number of oracles addressed to smaller nations of his day which, along with Israel, were somewhat like pawns in the struggle between the great powers. The climax of this part of the book is reached in chapters 50-51 when Jeremiah announces the judgment upon Babylon, the greatest power of that time.
The foreign nation oracles come from various periods of Jeremiahs ministry and it is not possible to assign a precise date to each oracle. Scholars are not entirely agreed as to the general chronological sequence of the oracles. The following chart indicates the approximate chronological placement of the various oracles of this section of the book.
THE FIRST ORACLE CONCERNING EGYPT Jer 46:1-12
Standing first in the collection of oracles against the nations are two utterances against Egypt. The first of these, found in Jer 46:1-12, is dated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (605 B.C.). The theme of this oracle is the Egyptian defeat at Carchemish. The author develops his theme in two graphic pictures.
The First Picture of Egyptian Defeat Jer 46:1-6
Jer 46:2 serves as a preface to the first oracle concerning Egypt. The oracle describes the defeat of Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in the fourth year of Jehoiakim i.e., 60f B.C. It is important to note that Jer 46:2 dates the battle of Carchemish, not the oracle which follows. The poetic oracle in Jer 46:3-12 may have been composed at any time during the early ministry of Jeremiah; but it probably was not written until a few months before the decisive showdown at Carchemish.
The first poetic description of the Egyptian defeat at Carchemish begins with a graphic picture of the preparations in the Egyptian camp on the eve of the great battle (Jer 46:3-4). One can feel the excitement here as the Egyptian officers bark orders to their men. Prepare the buckler and shield! Draw near to battle! The buckler was the small round shield carried by the light infantry; the shield covered the entire body and was borne by the heavy-armed. The chariotry and cavalry forces as well are directed to make ready for battle. Harness the horses shouts an officer, and the deadly chariots which were such an important part of the ancient army of Egypt are immediately made ready for action. Mount up, shouts the officer in charge of the cavalry unit. The weapons are polished; the armor or coat of mail (the word translated brigandines in KJV) is put on. Finally comes the command, Stand forth with your helmets. Since helmets were not worn except when actually in battle this command is equivalent to an order to engage the enemy. Confident of victory the mighty army of Egypt rushes forward. The battle that would decide the fate of the world and the destiny of nations has been launched.
The picture suddenly changes in Jer 46:5-6. The prophet himself is astonished at what he sees and expresses his amazement. How can it be that such a well-trained and disciplined army could be thrown into confusion and flight? It is beyond comprehension that such a magnificent army could be thoroughly defeated and routed. Jeremiah uses his favorite expression fear was round about to describe the terror that plunged those hardened soldiers into flight. Even the most swift and mighty among them will not be able to reach their homeland. They will stumble in exhaustion, stumble over the slain, stumble over one another in their haste to flee the scene of battle. They will fall in a foreign land, in the north, by the river Euphrates. Why does this happen, the prophet asked in the opening line of verse five. The answer is found in the saith the Lord (lit., oracle of the Lord) in the last line of the same verse. Egypt will meet with the defeat at Carchemish because God has so decreed it. It is His judgment against Egypt.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The third and last section of the division containing the account of the prophet’s ministry is occupied with his messages concerning the nations.
The first of these has to do with Egypt, and consists of two prophecies. The earlier one described the army of Egypt in its preparation and advance, and declared that this proud preparation of Egypt for battle was but the coming of the day of Jehovah’s vengeance against Egypt. In general terms he predicted her doom, declaring that there would be no healing for her, and that the nations would hear of her shame.
The second distinctly predicted the defeat of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, and yet affirmed that the king of Babylon would be but the instrument in the hand of Jehovah. In graphic and lofty language he described the coming of the foe and the discomfiture of Egypt, and carefully ascribed everything to the determinate counsel and activity of Jehovah. This prophecy ends with a message of comfort to Jacob, who, while afflicted, is yet not to be utterly destroyed, but to be corrected by judgment.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
JEHOVAH’S WORD AGAINST THE NATIONS
Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Syria, Arabia, Elam, and Babylon
(Chaps. 46-49)
Jeremiah’s ministry to the rebellious men of Judah is now over. He is commissioned to announce the judgment soon to fall upon the Gentiles. When called of GOD to the prophetic office, he was appointed to be a prophet unto the nations (Jer 1:5). Accordingly, the Word of the Lord is now given through him concerning the various peoples surrounding the land of Palestine. Nine different nations are brought before us: we take them up briefly in the order given.
EGYPT
The entire forty-sixth chapter, with the exception of the last two verses, is devoted to declaring the judgments foreseen by the prophet, which have fallen upon this once rich and populous country. In Scripture, Egypt is invariably a type of the world, either as the oppressor or the would-be patron of the people of GOD. As such, its judgment speaks of that which is yet to fall upon the present guilty order of things, which first crucified our Lord and persecuted His followers to the death, but now seeks to take them under its protecting wing; thus nullifying that separation from its vanities which should have characterized the Church while waiting for an absent Lord.
In the chapter before us we have two distinct prophecies, uttered about eighteen years apart. The occasion of the first was the attempt made by Pharaoh-necho to invade the provinces of the king of Babylon, and to break his rising power. This is set forth in Jer 46:2-12. It is a vivid apocalyptic description of the overthrow of the Egyptian forces by Nebuchadrezzar and his invincible armies. The date given is the same as for the preceding chapter. The Egyptians, “discouraged and turned away back,” were “beaten down, and fled apace,” not looking back, “for fear was round about” (Jer 46:4-5).
Like the waters of a raging flood, the forces of Cush, Put, and Lydia (the various provinces subject to Pharaoh), led by the trained Egyptian troops, had thought to overflow the land of the Chaldeans; but they knew not that the Lord had raised up Nebuchadrezzar, and that the day of His vengeance upon Egypt had come, when, as a great sacrifice, they were to be offered up on the banks of the Euphrates (Jer 46:6-10). Hope of relief was vain. “Many medicines” would fail to effect a cure. Egypt’s hour of doom had struck. Her manifold iniquities had called down the Lord’s vengeance (Jer 46:11-12). All this was literally fulfilled in the overthrow of Pharaoh-necho’s magnificent army.
The next section refers to a later judgment; and although no date is given, we gather, by a comparison with chaps. 43 and 44, that it was uttered by Jeremiah during the time when the remnant abode in Egypt, after the fall of Jerusalem. It sets forth prophetically the complete devastation of the land of Mizraim upon the defeat of Pharaoh-hophra, second after Pharaoh-necho, the last Pharaoh mentioned in the Bible.
He is known to have been a man of ignoble spirit, foolhardy and deceitful. In vain he sought to stand against the rising power of Nebuchadrezzar. His valiant men were to be swept away. “They stood not, because the Lord did drive them” (Jer 46:15). It should not be the might of Nebuchadrezzar that would insure him the victory, neither the pusillanimity of Pharaoh-hophra that would determine his defeat. The Lord of hosts, the GOD of battles, was about to destroy the Egyptians because of their impiety and idolatry. He it is who puts down one nation and exalts another. “The most high ruleth in the kingdoms of men.” (Dan 4:17) This the victorious Nebuchadrezzar had also to learn for himself in due time.
Hence for Egypt, her gods and her kings, there could be no quarter. They had defied the living and true GOD. They must be brought low till they learn His power. Such was the sentence; and it has been fulfilled to the letter, as the centuries witness. Egypt, however, has not fallen to rise no more. In the last days grace shall be shown to it. “Afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the Lord” (Jer 46:26).
In that day Judah also, together with the ten tribes denominated Israel, shall be delivered; and “Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid” (Jer 46:27). The Lord has never forgotten His chosen. He may make a full end of the nations whither He has driven them to correct them, but He will not utterly destroy them. They must be corrected; His holiness demands that they be not wholly unpunished, but His grace will yet secure their reestablishment in the land, and the enjoyment of His covenanted mercies.
Having pronounced the mind of the Lord as to Egypt, Jeremiah next gives His word in regard to
PHILISTIA
The Philistines dwelt on the western borders of the land of Canaan. They were originally of Egypt, and therefore, typically, would speak of unconverted men of the world taking a place as dwellers in the land of blessing and privilege – mere unsaved professors, who, while pretending to be children of GOD, are in reality the enemies of His truth and of His people.
Their temporal judgment predicted by Jeremiah, and literally fulfilled shortly afterwards, would set forth symbolically the more terrible judgment soon to fall upon the apostate class in Christendom of whom they are the type.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
IV. THE PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE GENTILE NATIONS
CHAPTER 46
Concerning Egypt
1. Prophecy about Pharaoh-Necho (Jer 46:1-12)
2. Nebuchadnezzars invasion of Egypt (Jer 46:13-26)
3. A message of comfort (Jer 46:27-28)
Jer 46:1-5. This Pharaoh made an attempt to invade the territory of the king of Babylon, but was defeated by Nebuchadrezzar in a battle on the river Euphrates at Carchemish. This prophecy was given about eighteen years before the fall of Jerusalem. All was literally fulfilled.
Jer 46:13-26. This was given after the fall of Jerusalem, when the remnant had gone to Egypt. (See chapters 43 and 44.) This also was fulfilled. Jer 46:26 promises a future restoration of Egypt. Compare this with Isaiahs prophecy (Isa 19:19-25) .
Jer 46:27-28. This blessed message of comfort also awaits its final great fulfillment in the coming days of promised blessing for Jacobs seed.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Gentiles
A near and a far fulfilment of these prophecies against Gentile powers are to be distinguished. In Chapter 46, the near vision is of a Babylonian invasion of Egypt, but verses Jer 46:27; Jer 46:28 look forward to the judgment of the nations. (See Scofield “Mat 25:32”), after Armageddon Rev 16:14, See Scofield “Rev 19:17” and the deliverance of Israel (“Israel,” Gen 12:2; Gen 12:3 See Scofield “Rom 11:26”). Jer 50:4-7 also looks forward to the last days.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
The word: This is a general title to the prophecies contained in this and the following chapters, concerning different nations which had less or more connexion with the Jews, either as enemies, neighbours, or allies. They were not delivered at the same time: to some the date is annexed; in others it is left uncertain.
against: Jer 1:10, Jer 4:7, Jer 25:15-29, Gen 10:5, Num 23:9, Zec 2:8, Rom 3:29
Reciprocal: Psa 79:6 – upon Isa 19:1 – Egypt Jer 9:26 – Egypt Jer 25:17 – and made Jer 43:11 – he shall smite Lam 1:21 – thou wilt Eze 28:26 – when I Eze 30:7 – General Eze 30:22 – and that Hab 1:17 – and
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 46:1. After the digression of the preceding chapter, Jeremiah resumed his writings against various nations. Gentiles is from oor and is defined by Strong as follows: “A foreign nation: hence a Gentile. In the King James version the word has been ren-dered Gentiles 30 times (always plural). heathen 143, nation 366, people 5. The verse means that the prophet was going to make some predictions against the heathen people of various classes and in the many places.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 46:1. The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah against the Gentiles This is a general title to the collection of prophecies contained in this and the five following chapters, and refers to the denunciation of Gods judgments upon the countries round about Judea, namely, those of whom all enumeration is made Jer 25:19-25. To some of these prophecies the date is annexed; in others it is left uncertain. It is evident they were not all delivered at the same time, and they seem to be here out of their proper place. In the Vatican and Alexandrian copies of the Septuagint, they follow immediately after Jer 25:13, where express mention is made of the book which Jeremiah had prophesied against all the nations; which book is contained in this and the following chapters. It seems those who collected Jeremiahs writings judged proper, without confining themselves to the order of time, to join together all those prophecies which respected the Gentile nations, and were not immediately connected with the affairs of the Jews.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 46:1. The Gentiles. The succeeding six chapters ought to have followed the twenty fifth chapter of this book, as they do in the Vatican and Alexandrian copies of the Septuagint.
Jer 46:6. They shall stumble and fallby the river Euphrates. In the great battle after king Josiah had been slain, the Egyptians claimed the victory; but now, after five years, the Egyptians were defeated, and could never meet the Assyrians with success. In this battle the swift flee away, as though their feet had been light as those of Achilles, who is celebrated in Homer, or those of Asahel in sacred literature.
Jer 46:7. Who is this that cometh up as a flood, with a vast line of horses? Immense armies, by their wants, and by disorder, have often received tremendous defeats.
Jer 46:9. The Ethiopiansthe Libyansand the Lydians. The Hebrew, which calls all countries after the families who first inhabited them, has here, Cush, Phut, and Lud. The two first were sons of Ham and brothers of Mitzraim, father of the Egyptians. The Ethiopians, says Herodotus, had bows four cubits long, for they were men of great stature, and lived to a hundred and twenty years of age; but the Persians only eighty years. Poole and Lowth think, that Phut signifies Mauritania, and Lud the people of Mero. They were distinct allies of the Egyptians. Nah 3:9.
Jer 46:11. Take balm, oh virgin daughter of Egypt. A keen arrow of satire, indicating that Egypt should never regain the glory she once enjoyed. Pathros, the old name of Theboid, of which Thebes was the capital, shall be the basest of kingdoms. Eze 29:15. The nations over whom thou hast thrown thy bloody yoke, and whose kings thou hast led away in chains, have heard of thy shameful flight before the armies of Assyria.
Jer 46:15. Why are thy valiant men swept away. This is not true of the Egyptian soldiers; they still were with Pharaoh. The LXX read, why has Apis [thy god] forsaken thee? Thy chosen calf has not stood true. The Lord drove him away. Words of the keenest satire to the Egyptians, and to their gods.
Jer 46:19. Noph, the Memphis of the Greeks, shall be waste and desolate without an inhabitant. This city was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in the twenty third year of his reign. Cairo, the new capital, is built nearer to the Nile; which demonstrates that the words of Isaiah were literally accomplished: chap. 19.
Jer 46:20. A very fair heifer, fat and beautiful. Grotius thinks the nation of Egypt is so called, in allusion to Apis, a bull of beautiful shape and colour, which was an object of national worship.
Jer 46:23. They shall cut down her forests. Though history is silent about the forests of Egypt, yet Herodotus says, they once had twenty thousand villages well populated, and one thousand and twenty cities. They must therefore have had great resources of timber for their buildings, and for naval architecture.
Jer 46:25. I will punish the multitude of No. Memphis, the ancient Noph, is meant here. No Ammon, the ancient Thebes, with its hundred fortified gates, is apparently of more ancient date. The LXX read, Diospolis. See on Eze 30:15.
REFLECTIONS.
Though Jeremiah was a man of cool mind, and of plain address, yet here, admitted to the visions of the future, he indulges in the sublime of thought, the richest beauties of language, and exuberance of figures. Where can we find a passage more replete with effusions of posy? By this prophecy we see the vast preparations for war, and how God suffered the multitude of Egypt to sweep and punish the nations to the south of the Jordan; and then to cause them nearly all to perish in the place which had bounded their former conquests. Thus God can lower the insolence of a proud army, as he sinks the mighty swells of the ocean when the gale is high. Thus also the wicked conquer in a victorious career, and cover themselves with the bloody laurels of a glorious campaign. The vanquished taking heart, make the victors retire to their country, as a mighty wave which has wasted its fury on the beach recoils on the ocean by its own weight. Thus narrow- sighted nations boast that heaven is on their side, while in reality heaven is so managing their avarice and pride as to make them one to another the worst of scourges. This prophecy closes in the usual strain of sunshine on Zion, when the stormy clouds of war are blown away; joy to the Jews on their return from Babylon, and lasting glory to the true Zion, the church of the living God.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jeremiah 46-51. The Foreign Prophecies.These form the third principal division of the Book of Jeremiah. As already seen (Jer 1:5; Jer 1:10, Jer 25:15), Jeremiahs prophetic horizon naturally included the surrounding nations; how far the prophecies that follow are his can be decided only by detailed criticism in each case. They refer, though in somewhat different order, to the several nations enumerated in Jer 25:19-26 (which may be regarded as an introduction to them), except that an oracle on Damascus here replaces the reference to Tyre, Sidon, and the Mediterranean. (The LXX, which places this group of prophecies after Jer 25:13, follows a third order.) It is generally admitted that the long prophecy on Babylon (Jeremiah 50 f.) is not by Jeremiah (see prefatory note). As to Jeremiah 46-49, there is considerable difference of opinion, ranging from Duhms rejection of the whole, through Giesebrechts acceptance of Jeremiah 47 (except towards end), with the nucleus of Jer 46:2-12, Jer 49:7-11, up to Cornills acceptance of most of Jeremiah 46-49 (so also Peake). It is in any case natural to suppose that there are genuine prophecies by Jeremiah which underlie these chapters, though they have been worked over, or incorporated with other non-Jeremianic prophecies (e.g. Jeremiah 48) by later writers. For details, the larger commentaries must be consulted.
Jeremiah 46. Egypt.(a) Jer 46:2-12, the defeat of Pharaoh Necho (610594) in 605 at Carchemish (NW. Mesopotamia, near junction of Sagur with Euphrates) by Nebuchadrezzar (who became formally king of Babylon in 604). The prophet summons Egypt to battle array (Jer 46:3 f.), and dramatically describes its defeat (Jer 46:5 f.). He compares Egypts efforts with an inundation of the Nile (Jer 46:7; cf. Isa 8:7, of the Euphrates), and introduces Pharaoh (Jer 46:8) as boasting of his strength, and calling his warriors to the fray (Jer 46:9; the contingents here named are those of the Ethiopians, the Libyans, and some unknown peoples of NE. Africa, respectively; cf. Eze 30:5). The prophet declares (Jer 46:10) that the Babylonian sword is executing the vengeance of Yahweh, and (Jer 46:11) ironically bids Egypt (famed for its skill in medicine) seek a plaster for its wounds (Jer 8:22, Jer 30:13).
Jer 46:4. get up, ye horsemen: rather mount the chargers.
Jer 46:5. Begin, with LXX, Wherefore are they dismayed, etc.; for the characteristic phrase, terror is on every side, see Jer 6:25, Jer 20:10, Jer 49:29.
Jer 46:10. Cf. Isa 34:6, and note the defeat of Israel by this Pharaoh at Megiddo, three years before the date of this prophecy.
Jer 46:12. Cf. Lev 26:37.
(b) Jer 46:13-26, the coming invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadrezzar, either as sequel to its defeat at Carchemish, or with reference to Jer 43:8-13. The Egyptians are summoned to withstand the invaders, and their utter overthrow is described (Jer 46:14-17; see critical notes). Nebuchadrezzar comes in towering strength (Jer 46:18), and Egypt must prepare for exile (Jer 46:19, mg.2; cf. Eze 12:3), since the capital, Noph (Memphis) is to be destroyed. She is like a graceful heifer, stung by a gad-fly (Jer 46:20, both mgg.), but her mercenary soldiers (e.g., the Ionians and Carians) are like fatted calves, useless to defend her (Jer 46:21). The foe is irresistible (Jer 46:22-24). Yahweh is punishing Amon the god of No (Thebes, Nah 3:8) and Pharaoh, but promises ultimate restoration of the Egyptians to their land (Jer 46:25 f.). A promise of comfort for Israel (found elsewhere as mg.) has been attached to this prophecy (Jer 46:27 f.).
Jer 46:14. Omit, with LXX, in Egypt and publish, also and in Tahpanhes; cf. Jer 2:16, Jer 44:1.
Jer 46:15. Read with LXX (cf. mgg.), Why is Apis fled? Thy strong one (i.e. Apis, the sacred bull of EgyptLXX, thy choice calf) stood not, because Yahweh did thrust him down.
Jer 46:16. Read, after LXX, Thy mixed people (i.e. trading foreigners) have stumbled and fallen, and they said one to another, etc.
Jer 46:17. The Hebrew consonants should be read, Call ye the name of Pharaoh, king of Egypt (so far LXX) shn heebr hammd. This mocking title (see on Isa 30:7) might be freely rendered, Irretrievable Ruin (lit. a Crash, he has let pass the fixed time). The middle word, heebr, perhaps contains a play on the Egyptian name of Hophra (Uah-ab-ra), 589564, cf. Jer 44:30; this would fix the period of the prophecy (so Cornill).
Jer 46:22. As mg., except that the serpent as it goeth should probably be a hissing serpent, with LXX; Egypt withdraws as a serpent into its forest (so Isa 10:18, of Assyria), whilst the invaders are like men advancing to hew the trackless forest down (Jer 46:23 mg.).
Jer 46:25. Omit, with LXX, Pharaoh and Egypt with her gods and her kings even.
Jer 46:26. Eze 29:13 f. promises restoration to Egypt after forty years (from 587).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
46:1 The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the {a} Gentiles;
(a) That is, nine nations which are around the land of Egypt.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
1. Egypt’s defeat in Syria 46:1-12
The first prophecy announced Egypt’s defeat at Carchemish in 605 B.C.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
This verse serves as a title for the whole section to follow (i.e., chs. 46-51; cf. Jer 1:2; Jer 14:1; Jer 40:1; Jer 47:1; Jer 49:34), as well as for this prophecy.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER XVII
EGYPT
Jer 43:8-13, Jer 44:30, Jer 46:1-28
“I will visit Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with their gods and their kings: even Pharaoh and all them that trust in him.” Jer 46:25
THE kings of Egypt with whom Jeremiah was contemporary-Psammetichus II, Pharaoh Necho, and Pharaoh Hophra-belonged to the twenty-sixth dynasty. When growing distress at home compelled Assyria to loose her hold on her distant dependencies, Egypt still retained something of her former vigorous elasticity. In the rebound from subjection under the heavy hand of Sennacherib, she resumed her ancient forms of life and government. She regained her unity and independence, and posed afresh as an equal rival with Chaldea for the supremacy of Western Asia. At home there was a renascence of art and literature, and, as of old, the wealth and devotion of powerful monarchs restored the ancient temples and erected new shrines of their own.
But this revival was no new growth springing up with a fresh and original life from the seeds of the past; it cannot rank with the European Renascence of the fifteenth century. It is rather to be compared with the reorganisations by which Diocletian and Constantine prolonged the decline of the Roman Empire, the rally of a strong constitution in the grip of mortal disease. These latter-day Pharaohs failed ignominiously in their attempts to recover the Syrian dominion of the Thothmes and Rameses; and, like the Roman Empire in its last centuries, the Egypt of the twenty-sixth dynasty surrendered itself to Greek influence and hired foreign mercenaries to fight its battles. The new art and literature were tainted by pedantic archaism. According to Brugsch, “Even to the newly created dignities and titles, the return to ancient times had become the general watchword. The stone door posts of this age reveal the old Memphian style of art, mirrored in its modern reflection after the lapse of four thousand years.” Similarly Meyer tells us that apparently the Egyptian state was reconstituted on the basis of a religious revival, somewhat in the fashion of the establishment of Deuteronomy by Josiah.
Inscriptions after the time of Psammetichus are written in archaic Egyptian of a very ancient past; it is often difficult to determine at first sight whether inscriptions belong to the earliest or latest period of Egyptian history.
The superstition that sought safety in an exact reproduction of a remote antiquity could not, however, resist the fascination of Eastern demonology. According to Brugsch, (2:293) in the age called the Egyptian Renascence the old Egyptian theology was adulterated with Graeco-Asiatic elements – demons and genii of whom the older faith and its purer doctrine had scarcely an idea; exorcisms became a special science, and are favourite themes for the inscriptions of this period. Thus, amid many differences, there are also to be found striking resemblances between the religious movements of the period in Egypt and amongst the Jews, and corresponding difficulties in determining the dates of Egyptian inscriptions and of sections of the Old Testament.
This enthusiasm for ancient custom and tradition was not likely to commend the Egypt of Jeremiahs age to any student of Hebrew history. He would be reminded that the dealings of the Pharaohs with Israel had almost always been to its hurt; he would remember the Oppression and the Exodus-how, in the time of Solomon, friendly intercourse with Egypt taught that monarch lessons in magnificent tyranny, how Shishak plundered the Temple, how Isaiah had denounced the Egyptian alliance as a continual snare to Judah. A Jewish prophet would be prompt to discern the omens of coming ruin in the midst of renewed prosperity on the Nile.
Accordingly at the first great crisis of the new international system; in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, either just before or just after the battle of Carchemish-it matters little which-Jeremiah takes up his prophecy against Egypt. First of all, with an ostensible friendliness which only masks his bitter sarcasm, he invites the Egyptians to take the field:-
“Prepare buckler and shield, and draw near to battle.
Harness the horses to the chariots, mount the chargers,
Stand forth armed cap-a-pie for battle;
Furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail.”
This great host with its splendid equipment must surely conquer. The prophet professes to await its triumphant return; but he sees instead a breathless mob of panic-stricken fugitives, and pours upon them the torrent of his irony:-
“How is it that I behold this?
These heroes are dismayed and have turned their backs;
Their warriors have been beaten down;
They flee apace, and do not look behind them:
Terror on every side-is the utterance of Jehovah.”
Then irony passes into explicit malediction:-
“Let not the swift flee away, nor the warrior escape;
Away northward, they stumble and fall by the river Euphrates.”
Then, in a new strophe, Jeremiah again recurs in imagination to the proud march of the countless hosts of Egypt:
“Who is this that riseth up like the Nile,
Whose waters toss themselves like the rivers?
Egypt riseth up like the Nile,
His waters toss themselves like the rivers.
And he saith, I will go up and cover the land”
(like the Nile in flood);
“I will destroy the cities and their inhabitants”
(and, above all other cities, Babylon).
Again the prophet urges them on with ironical encouragement:-
“Go up, ye horses; rage, ye chariots;
Ethiopians and Libyans that handle the shield,
Lydians that handle and bend the bow”
(the tributaries and mercenaries of Egypt).
Then, as before, he speaks plainly of coming disaster:
“That day is a day of vengeance for the Lord Jehovah Sabaoth, whereon He will avenge Him of His adversaries”
(a day of vengeance upon Pharaoh Necho for Megiddo and Josiah).
“The sword shall devour and be sated, and drink its fill of their blood:
For the Lord Jehovah Sabaoth hath a sacrifice in the northern land, by the river Euphrates.”
In a final strophe, the prophet turns to the land left bereaved and defenceless by the defeat at Carchemish:-
“Go up to Gilead and get thee balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt:
In vain dost thou multiply medicines; thou canst not be healed.
The nations have heard of thy shame, the earth is full of thy cry:
For warrior stumbles against warrior; they fall both together.”
Nevertheless the end was not yet. Egypt was wounded to death, but she was to linger on for many a long year to be a snare to Judah and to vex the righteous soul of Jeremiah. The reed was broken, but it still retained an appearance of soundness, which more than once tempted the Jewish princes to lean upon it and find their hands pierced for their pains. Hence, as we have seen already, Jeremiah repeatedly found occasion to reiterate the doom of Egypt, of Nechos successor, Pharaoh Hophra, and of the Jewish refugees who had sought safety under his protection. In the concluding part of chapter 46, a prophecy of uncertain date sets forth the ruin of Egypt with rather more literary finish than in the parallel passages.
This word of Jehovah was to be proclaimed in Egypt, and especially in the frontier cities, which would have to bear the first brunt of invasion:-
“Declare in Egypt, proclaim in Migdol, proclaim in Noph and Tahpanhes:
Say ye, Take thy stand and be ready, for the sword hath devoured round about thee.
Why hath Apis fled and thy calf not stood?
Because Jehovah overthrew it.”
Memphis was devoted to the worship of Apis, incarnate in the sacred bull; but now Apis must succumb to the mightier divinity of Jehovah, and his sacred city become a prey to the invaders.
“He maketh many to stumble; they fall one against another.
Then they say, Arise, and let us return to our own people
And to our native land, before the oppressing sword.”
We must remember that the Egyptian armies were largely composed of foreign mercenaries. In the hour of disaster and defeat these hirelings would desert their employers and go home.
“Give unto Pharaoh king of Egypt the name. Crash; he hath let the appointed time pass by.”
The form of this enigmatic sentence is probably due to a play upon Egyptian names and titles. When the allusions are forgotten, such paronomasia naturally results in hopeless obscurity. The “appointed time” has been explained as the period during which Jehovah gave Pharaoh the opportunity of repentance, or as that within which he might have submitted to Nebuchadnezzar on favourable terms.
“As I live, is the utterance of the King, whose name is Jehovah Sabaoth,
One shall come like Tabor among the mountains and like Carmel by the sea.”
It was not necessary to name this terrible invader; it could be no other than Nebuchadnezzar.
“Get thee gear for captivity, O daughter of Egypt, that dwellest in thine own land:
For Noph shall become a desolation, and shall be burnt up and left without inhabitants.
Egypt is a very fair heifer, but destruction is come upon her from the north.”
This tempest shattered the Greek phalanx in which Pharaoh trusted:-
“Even her mercenaries in the midst of her are like calves of the stall;
Even they have turned and fled together, they have not stood:
For their day of calamity hath come upon them, their day of reckoning.”
We do not look for chronological sequence in such a poem, so that this picture of the flight and destruction of the mercenaries is not necessarily later in time than their overthrow and contemplated desertion in Jer 46:15. The prophet is depicting a scene of bewildered confusion; the disasters that fell thick upon Egypt crowd into Giesebrecht, his vision without order or even coherence. Now he turns again to Egypt herself:-
“Her voice goeth forth like the (low hissing of) the serpent;
For they come upon her with a mighty army, and with axes like woodcutters.”
A like fate is predicted in Isa 29:4 for “Ariel, the city where David dwelt”:-
“Thou shalt be brought low and speak from the ground;
Thou shalt speak with a low voice out of the dust;
Thy voice shall come from the ground, like that of a familiar spirit,
And thou shalt speak in a whisper from the dust.”
Thus too Egypt would seek to writhe herself from under the heel of the invader: hissing out the while her impotent fury, she would seek to glide away into some safe refuge amongst the underwood. Her dominions, stretching far up the Nile, were surely vast enough to afford her shelter somewhere: but no! the “woodcutters” are too many and too mighty for her:-
“They cut down her forest-it is the utterance of Jehovah for it is impenetrable;
For they are more than the locusts, and are innumerable.”
The whole of Egypt is overrun and subjugated; no district holds out against the invader, and remains unsubjugated to form the nucleus of a new and independent empire.
“The daughter of Egypt is put to shame; she is delivered into the hand of the northern people.”
Her gods share her fate; Apis had succumbed at Memphis, but Egypt had countless other stately shrines whose denizens must own the overmastering might of Jehovah:-
“Thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel:
Behold, I will visit Amon of No,
And Pharaoh, and Egypt, and all her gods and kings,
Even Pharaoh and all who trust in him.”
Amon of No, or Thebes, known to the Greeks as Ammon and called by his own worshippers Amen, or “the hidden one,” is apparently mentioned with Apis as sharing the primacy of the Egyptian divine hierarchy. On the fall of the twentieth dynasty, the high priest of the Theban Amen became king of Egypt, and centuries afterwards Alexander the Great made a special pilgrimage to the temple in the oasis of Ammon and was much gratified at being there hailed son of the deity.
Probably the prophecy originally ended with this general threat of “visitation” of Egypt and its human and divine rulers. An editor, however, has added, from parallel passages, the more definite but sufficiently obvious statement that Nebuchadnezzar and his servants were to be the instruments of the Divine visitation.
A further addition is in striking contrast to the sweeping statements of Jeremiah:-
“Afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old.”
Similarly, Ezekiel foretold a restoration for Egypt:-
“At the end of forty years, I will gather the Egyptians, and will cause them to returnto their native land: and they shall be there a base kingdom: it shall be the basest of the kingdoms.” {Eze 29:13-15}
And elsewhere we read yet more gracious promises to Egypt:-
“Israel shall be a third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land: whom Jehovah Sabaoth shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance.” {Isa 19:25}
Probably few would claim to discover in history any literal fulfilment of this last prophecy. Perhaps it might have been appropriated for the Christian Church in the days of Clement and Origen. We may take Egypt and Assyria as types of heathendom, which shall one day receive the blessings of the Lords people and of the work of His hands. Of political revivals and restorations Egypt has had her share. But less interest attaches to these general prophecies than to more definite and detailed predictions; and there is much curiosity as to any evidence which monuments and other profane witnesses may furnish as to a conquest of Egypt and capture of Pharaoh Hophra by Nebuchadnezzar.
According to Herodotus, Apries (Hophra) was defeated and imprisoned by his successor Amasis, afterwards delivered up by him to the people of Egypt, who forthwith strangled their former king. This event would be an exact fulfilment of the words, “I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life,” {Jer 44:30} if it were not evident from parallel passages {Jer 46:25} that the Book of Jeremiah intends Nebuchadnezzar to be the enemy into whose hands Pharaoh is to be delivered. But Herodotus is entirely silent as to the relations of Egypt and Babylon during this period; for instance, he mentions the victory of Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo-which he miscalls Magdolium-but not his defeat at Carehemish. Hence his silence as to Chaldean conquests in Egypt has little weight. Even the historians explicit statement as to the death of Apries might be reconciled with his defeat and capture by Nebuchadnezzar, if we knew all the facts. At present, however, the inscriptions do little to fill the gap left by the Greek historian; there are, however, references which seem to establish two invasions of Egypt by the Chaldean king, one of which fell in the reign of Pharaoh Hophra. But the spiritual lessons of this and the following prophecies concerning the nations are not dependent on the spade of the excavator or the skill of the decipherers of hieroglyphics and cuneiform script; whatever their relation may be to the details of subsequent historical events, they remain as monuments of the inspired insight of the prophet into the character and destiny alike of great empires and petty states. They assert the Divine government of the nations, and the subordination of all history to the coming of the Kingdom of God.