Jeremiah 46
Butler46:1 THE word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations.
2. 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. 3, 4 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, put on the coats of 5 mail. Wherefore have I seen it? they are dismayed and are turned backward; and their 6 mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: terror is on every side, saith the LORD. Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; in the north by the 7 river Euphrates have they stumbled and fallen. Who is this that riseth up like the Nile, whose 8 waters toss themselves like the rivers? Egypt riseth up like the Nile, and his waters toss themselves like the rivers: and he saith, I will rise up, I will cover the earth; I will destroy the city 9 and the inhabitants thereof. Go up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men go forth: Cush and Put, that handle the shield; and the Ludim, that handle and bend 10 the bow. For that day is a day of the Lord, the LORD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour and be satiate, and shall drink its fill of their blood: for the Lord, the LORD of hosts, hath a sacrifice in the north 11 country by the river Euphrates. Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of 12 Egypt: in vain dost thou use many medicines; there is no healing for thee. The nations have heard of thy shame, and the earth is full of thy cry: for the mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty, they are fallen both of them together. 13 The word that the LORD spake to Jeremiah the prophet, how that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon should come and smite the land of Egypt. 14 Declare ye in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Noph and in Tahpanhes: say ye, 15 Stand forth, and prepare thee; for the sword hath devoured round about thee. Why are thy 16 strong ones swept away? they stood not, because the LORD did drive them. He made many to stumble, yea, they fell one upon another: and they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own 17 people, and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword. They cried there, Pharaoh 18 king of Egypt is but a noise; he hath let the appointed time pass by. As I live, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts, surely like Tabor among the mountains, and like Carmel 19 by the sea, so shall he come. O thou daughter that dwellest in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into captivity: for Noph shall become a desolation, and shall be burnt up, without inhabi 20 tant. Egypt is a very fair heifer; but destruction out of the north is come, it is come. 21 Also her hired men in the midst of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back, they are fled away together, they did not stand: for the day of their calamity is come upon 22 them, the time of their visitation. The sound thereof shall go like the serpent; for they shall 23 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 24 the locusts, and are innumerable. The daughter of Egypt shall be put to shame; she shall 25 be delivered into the hand of the people of the north. The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saith: Behold, I will punish Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with her gods, and her 26 kings; even Pharaoh, and 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 afterwards it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the 27 LORD. But fear not thou, O Jacob my servant, neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, 28 and shall be quiet and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. Fear not thou, 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 I will correct thee with judgement, and will in no wise leave thee unpunished.
47:1 The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines, before that Pharaoh smote Gaza.
2. Thus saith the LORD: Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall become an overflowing stream, and shall overflow the land and all that is therein, the city and them that 3 dwell therein: and the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl. At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers look not back to their children for feebleness of hands; 4 because of the day that cometh to spoil all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Zidon every helper that remaineth: for the LORD will spoil the Philistines, the remnant of the isle 5 of Caphtor. Baldness is come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nought, the remnant of 6 their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself? O thou sword of the LORD, how long will it 7 be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard; rest, and be still. How canst thou be quiet, seeing the LORD hath given thee a charge? against Ashkelon, and against the sea shore, there hath he appointed it.
Chaps. 46-51. Compare these prophecies against Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazor, Elam, Babylon, with similar prophecies of Isa. 13-23; Ezek. 25-32; Amos 1:3-2:3. W. J. B.
Chap. 46. In this chapter are two distinct prophecies concerning Egypt. The first (verses 1-12) appears to have been delivered at the time that the Egyptian army lay along the banks of the Euphrates, waiting to oppose the entrance of Nebuchadnezzar into Syria, in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. The two armies came to an engagement near the city of Carchemish, the same which Pharaoh-necho was going against when he was opposed by King Josiah (2 Chron. 35:20). The event of the battle proved very unfortunate to the Egyptians, who were routed with a prodigious slaughter, as is here foretold by the prophet in a very animated style, and with great poetic energy and liveliness of coloring. In the third and fourth verses, the mighty preparations of the Egyptians for war are described, which occasions the prophet, who foresees the defeat, to express his astonishment at an event so contrary to what might have been expected; but he accounts for it by ascribing it to the disposition of the Almighty, who had spread terror all around, and had decreed that neither swiftness nor strength should avail the owners, so as to save them from the impending overthrow (verses 5, 6). In the verses that follow next, the king of Egypt is represented as beginning his march with all the ostentation and insolence of presumed success. He is compared to a mighty river, the Nile or the Euphrates, when it swells above its banks, and threatens to overwhelm the country with ruin and desolation (verses 7, 8). He is heard calling aloud to the nations of which his army is composed, giving them the signal for action, and rousing them to deeds of desperate valor (verse 9). But all in vain; the time is come for God to avenge Himself of His ancient foes; they are doomed to slaughter, to fall a bloody sacrifice on the plains of the north (verse 10). The whole concludes with an apostrophe to the daughter of Egypt, whose wound is pronounced incurable, and her disgrace universally known; forasmuch as the number of her warriors have served only to augment the general disorder, and more effectually to destroy each other.
1. The word of the Lord, etc. This verse is a general title to the collection of prophecies contained in this and the five following chapters. The nations spoken of are the same as those of which an enumeration is made (chap. 25:19-26). These prophecies were not delivered all at the same time. To some the date is annexed; in others it is left uncertain. Blayney.
1-12. In this passage we have the fullest account that has come down to us of one of the most important among the “decisive battles of the world.” The contending powers are Egypt and Babylon, the contending princes Neko (Pharaoh-necho), the son of Psamatik I., and Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar—the founder of the second empire of the Chaldeans. Neko, having (in B.C. 608) defeated Josiah, king of Judah, at Megiddo, on the border of the great plain of Esdraelon, pressed forward to meet the “house with which he had war at Carchemish by Euphrates” (2 Chron. 35:20). Complete success for the time attended his expedition. He made himself master of the whole tract of territory intervening between the “river of Egypt” (Wady-el-Arish) on the one hand and the river Euphrates on the other (2 K. 24:7). Syria in its widest extent, Phoenicia, Philistia and Judea submitted to him. It seemed as if the days of the Thothmeses and Amenhoteps were about to return, and Egypt to be once more the predominant power in the Eastern world, the “lady of nations,” the sovereign at one and the same time of Africa and of Asia. Had Babylon acquiesced in the loss of territory, her prestige would have been gone, and her empire would probably have soon crumbled into dust. Egypt and Media would have stood face to face as the two rivals for supremacy; and possibly the entire course of the world’s later history might have been changed.
But Nabopolassar appreciated aright the importance of the crisis, and before Egypt had had time to consolidate her power in the newly conquered provinces, resolved on making a great effort to recover them. In the year B.C. 605—three years after Neko’s great success—having collected his troops and made his preparations, he sent his son and heir, Nebuchadnezzar, at the head of a large army, to reconquer the lost territory. Nebuchadnezzar marched upon Carchemish, the strong frontier fortress near the Euphrates, which had originally been the capital of the early Hittite kingdom, and the site of which is now marked by the ruins called “Jerablus” or “Jerabus.” Here he found Neko encamped at the head of a considerable force, in part, no doubt, Egyptians, but mainly Ethiopians, Libyans and Greco-Carians from Asia Minor, perhaps the “Lydians” of Jeremiah (verse 9). The battle poetically described by Jeremiah was fought. The Egyptian force of foot, horse and chariots was completely defeated; a great carnage took place (verse 10); and the few survivors fled away in dismay (verse 5), evacuating province after province, and retiring within their own frontier. Nebuchadnezzar followed on their traces, at least as far south as Jerusalem, where he received the submission of Jehoiakim (2 K. 24 : 1), and from which he carried off a portion of the Temple treasures (Dan. 1 : 1). He would probably have gone further and invaded Egypt had not the news reached him (late in B.C. 605) of his father’s decease, which necessitated his own immediate return to his capital. Accompanied by a small force lightly equipped, he crossed the desert by way of Damascus and Tadmor, while the heavy-armed troops, the baggage, and the prisoners made their way to Babylon by the usual but circuitous route, down the valley of the Orontes, across Northern Syria to Carchemish, and then along the banks of the Euphrates.
We have one profane account of this expedition, entering far less into details than Jeremiah, but in complete accord with his statements, and supplying various points of interest, which have been worked into the above narrative. The Babylonian historian, Berosus, as quoted by Josephus, says, speaking of Nebuchadnezzar: “When his father, Nabopolassar, heard that the satrap appointed to govern Egypt, and the districts of Cœlesyria and Phœnicia, had revolted from him, as he was not himself able any longer to endure hardships, he assigned a certain portion of his army to his son, Nebuchadnezzar, who was in the flower of his youth, and sent him against the rebel. And when Nebuchadnezzar had fallen in with him, and engaged him in battle, he defeated him, and from this beginning proceeded to bring the country under his own rule. Now it chanced that his father, Nabopolassar, just at this time fell sick, and departed this life, having reigned one-and-twenty years. Nebuchadnezzar shortly after heard of his father’s decease, and, having arranged the affairs of Egypt and the other countries, and appointed certain of his friends to conduct to Babylon the captives which he had taken from the Jews, the Phœnicians, the Syrians and the parts about Egypt, together with the heavy-armed troops and the baggage, started himself with a very small escort, and, travelling by the way of the wilderness, reached Babylon.” G. R.
2. Carchemish.** This great battle was the first decisive exploit of the young prince, Nebuchadnezzar. The latter followed up his great victory with energy; drove the vanquished Egyptians back to Egypt; himself subdued Syria and indeed most of the powers of Western Asia; came upon Jerusalem and subjugated it in this very year, the fourth of Jehoiakim; and then returning home, ascended the throne recently made vacant by the death of his father. The entire political aspect of Asia was suddenly changed.
11,12. The fatal blow has fallen on Egypt! You may see it in the changed tone of the prophet’s graphic touches: “Let Egypt go to Gilead and take balm thence to heal her deep and deadly wounds!” But all Gilead can avail her nothing! All the nations hear of her hopeless defeat.
13-15. Suddenly the scene changes. We are no longer at Carchemish on the Euphrates, but in Egypt itself. The victor there is the invader and conqueror here. At no long interval Nebuchadnezzar follows his smitten foe to his own cities to chastise and subjugate him more thoroughly. In the usual manner of the prophets when predicting an invasion, Jeremiah summons Egypt to be in readiness for the devouring sword, and but too plainly intimates that her valiant men will be swept away. God is against them; how can they stand? H. C.
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 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. P. C.
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 (chap. 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 tries to interhere with conscience and spiritual aspirations, its weakness is made manifest. Y.
18. The great King, Jehovah of hosts, solemnly affirms that thy destroyer, O Egypt, shall come with supposing majesty and power, as Tabor stands pre-eminently glorious among the mountains and Carmel by the sea; therefore prepare for going into captivity. The point of the comparison is Nebuchadnezzar, in pre-eminence and power like Tabor and Carmel. Tabor lifts its summit seventeen hundred and fifty-five feet, and Carmel fifteen hundred above the level of the Mediterranean. With majesty befitting the subject, God assumes here the descriptive epithet, “The King, whose name is Jehovah of hosts.” Being King of the hosts of heaven, why should He not also be recognized as King of nations in this lower world? So also chaps. 48: 15; 51: 57.
25,26. This poetic and boldly descriptive prophecy closes here with a very plain statement of the main facts of the case. God will bring terrible judgments upon the great and idolatrous cities of Egypt; upon all those idologs and “upon all who put their trust in her”—which last clause refers plainly to the Jews, and especially to that last feeble remnant whose history we followed in chaps. 41-44. The passage closes with an intimation that the control of the Chaldeans over Egypt would ultimately cease and better days return. H. C.
26. Punishment not destruction, but purification and preservation. In verse 28, in chap. 48: 21, and in chap. 49: 6, 39, we have similar assurances that “afterward,” 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 Ezek. 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 men—that they are not for men’s destruction, but for their purification and preservation. C.
27, 28. God’s care of His own. 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.
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.
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 world—those 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.
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 it 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.
The preservation of the Jews through so many ages, and the total destruction of their enemies, are wonderful events; and are made still more wonderful by being signified beforehand by the spirit of prophecy, as particularly in the passage before us. Their preservation is really one of the most illustrious acts of Divine providence. They are dispersed among all nations, yet not confounded with any. The drops of rain which fall, nay the great rivers which flow into the ocean, are soon mingled with and lost in that immense body of waters. And the same, in all human probability, would have been the fate of the Jews; they would have been mingled and lost in the common mass of mankind; but, on the contrary, they flow into all parts of the world, mix with all nations, and yet keep separate from all. They still live as a distinct people; and yet they nowhere live according to their own laws, nowhere elect their own magistrates, nowhere enjoy the full exercise of their religion. Their solemn feasts and sacrifices are limited to one certain place; and that hath been now for many ages in the hands of strangers and aliens, who will not suffer them to come thither. No people have continued unmixed so long as they have done; not only of those who have sent colonies into foreign countries, but even of those who have abided in their own country. The northern nations have come in swarms into the more southern parts of Europe; but where are they now to be discerned and distinguished? The Gauls went forth in great bodies to seek their fortune in foreign parts; but what traces or footsteps of them are now remaining anywhere? In France, who can separate the race of the ancient Gauls from the various other people who from time to time have settled there? In Spain, who can distinguish between the first possessors, the Spaniards, and the Goths and Moors, who conquered and kept possession of the country for some ages? In England, who can pretend to say certainly which families are derived from the ancient Britons, and which from the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans? The most ancient and honorable pedigrees can be traced up only to a certain period; and beyond that there is nothing but conjecture and uncertainty, obscurity and ignorance. But the Jews can go up higher than any nation; they can even deduce their pedigree from the
beginning of the world. They may not know from what particular tribe or family they are descended; but they know certainly that they all sprung from the stock of Abraham. And yet the contempt with which they have been treated, and the hardships they have undergone in almost all countries, should, one would think, have made them desirous to forget or renounce their original; but they profess it; they glory in it; and after so many wars, massacres and persecutions, they still subsist; they are still very numerous. And what but a supernatural power could have preserved them in such a manner, as no other nation upon earth has been preserved? Nor is the providence of God less remarkable in the destruction of their enemies than in their own preservation. For, from the beginning, who have been the great enemies and oppressors of the Jewish nation, removed them from their own land and compelled them into captivity and slavery? The Egyptians afflicted them much, and detained them in bondage several years. The Assyrians carried away captive the Ten Tribes of Israel; and the Babylonians afterward the two remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The Syro-Macedonians, especially Antiochus Epiphanes, cruelly persecuted them; and the Romans utterly dissolved the Jewish state, and dispersed the people so as that they have never been able to recover their city and country again. And where are now these great and famous monarchies, which in their turn subdued and oppressed the people of God? Are they not vanished as a dream; and not only their power, but their very names, lost in the earth? The Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians were overthrown and entirely subjugated by the Persians; and the Persians, it is remarkable, were the restorers of the Jews as well as the destroyers of their enemies. The Syro-Macedonians were swallowed up by the Romans; and the Roman Empire, great and powerful as it was, was broken into pieces by the incursions of the northern nations; while the Jews are subsisting as a distinct people at this day. And what a wonder of Providence is it, that the vanquished should so many ages survive the victors; and the former be spread all over the world, while the latter are no more? Bp. Newton.