Jeremiah 46

This is the message from the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet about the nations.

1The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles;

Note"The nations" (KJV "the Gentiles") means simply the peoples other than Israel. This verse opens a block of messages about foreign nations that runs through chapter 51. Where LORD appears in capitals it stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, which the KJV translators avoided pronouncing.

2It concerns Egypt, and the army of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt, which was at Carchemish by the Euphrates River. Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon defeated that army in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah.

2Against 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.

NotePharaoh Neco ruled Egypt and had marched north through Judah a few years earlier, killing King Josiah. Carchemish was a city on the upper Euphrates in what is now southern Turkey; the battle there, in about 605 BC, broke Egypt's control of Syria and left Babylon dominant. "Nebuchadrezzar" is a spelling closer to the Babylonian form of the name usually written Nebuchadnezzar; it is the same king.

3Get your shields ready, the small ones and the large ones, and move up for battle.

3Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle.

4Harness the horses. Mount up, you riders. Take your places with your helmets on. Polish the spears; put on your coats of armor.

4Harness the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, and put on the brigandines.

5Why do I see this? They are terrified. They are backing away. Their strongest fighters are beaten down. They run off in a hurry and never look back. Terror is on every side, says the LORD.

5Wherefore 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.

Note"Terror on every side" is a stock phrase of Jeremiah's, used elsewhere in the book as a cry of alarm and even as a nickname.

6The fast runner cannot get away, and the strong fighter cannot escape. In the north, by the Euphrates River, they stumble and fall.

6Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; they shall stumble, and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates.

NoteCarchemish lay far to the north of both Egypt and Judah, so an Egyptian army fighting there was fleeing northward, away from home, when it broke.

7Who is this, rising up like a flooding river, whose waters churn like rivers in flood?

7Who is this that cometh up as a flood, whose waters are moved as the rivers?

NoteThe image is the Nile, which floods every year and covers the land, the picture of Egypt swelling out beyond its borders.

8Egypt rises like a flooding river, and her waters churn like rivers. She says, "I will rise up and cover the earth. I will destroy the city and the people living in it."

8Egypt 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.

9Charge, you horses! Drive wildly, you chariots! Let the fighting men march out: the Ethiopians and the Libyans who carry shields, and the Lydians who draw the bow.

9Come 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.

NoteThese are the foreign troops Egypt hired or drafted: Cush (the KJV's "Ethiopians"), the region south of Egypt in modern Sudan; Put ("Libyans"), a people west of Egypt in North Africa; and Lud ("Lydians"), archers, either from western Asia Minor or from a North African people of the same name.

10That day belongs to the Lord GOD who commands armies. It is a day of payback, when he pays back his enemies. The sword will eat until it has had enough, until it is drunk with their blood. For the Lord GOD who commands armies has a sacrifice in the northern land, by the Euphrates River.

10For 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.

Note"Lord GOD of hosts" means the Lord who commands armies, heavenly ones as well as earthly. A "sacrifice" here is battlefield imagery: the slaughter of an army is described as if it were animals killed at an altar, with the sword doing the killing and drinking the blood.

11Go up to Gilead and get healing ointment, you young daughter of Egypt. You use many medicines for nothing; there is no cure for you.

11Go 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.

NoteGilead, east of the Jordan, was known for a resin used as a medicine and traded widely. Calling a nation a "virgin daughter" is standard prophetic speech for a country or city pictured as a young woman, "virgin" meaning never yet taken by an enemy.

12The nations have heard how you were shamed. Your crying fills the land. One fighter stumbles over another, and both of them fall together.

12The 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.

13This is the message the LORD spoke to Jeremiah the prophet about how Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon would come and strike the land of Egypt.

13The word that the LORD spake to Jeremiah the prophet, how Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon should come and smite the land of Egypt.

14Announce it in Egypt. Proclaim it in Migdol. Proclaim it in Noph and in Tahpanhes. Say, "Take your positions and get ready, for the sword is eating up everyone around you."

14Declare 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.

NoteMigdol and Tahpanhes were frontier towns on Egypt's north-eastern edge; Noph is Memphis, the old capital near modern Cairo. Judean refugees had settled in all three (see chapters 43-44), so the announcement reaches them as well as the Egyptians.

15Why have your best fighters been swept away? They could not stand, because the LORD shoved them down.

15Why are thy valiant men swept away? they stood not, because the LORD did drive them.

16He made many of them stumble; they fell over one another. They said, "Get up! Let us go back to our own people, back to the land where we were born, away from the sword of the one who crushes us."

16He 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.

17There they cried out, "Pharaoh king of Egypt is nothing but noise. He let the right moment pass him by."

17They did cry there, Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise; he hath passed the time appointed.

NoteThe Hebrew of this taunt is obscure and has been read in several ways: as calling Pharaoh mere noise or empty boasting, and possibly as a mocking play on a royal title. "He hath passed the time appointed" means he let his moment to act slip by.

18As surely as I live, says the King, whose name is the LORD who commands armies, one will come who stands out like Mount Tabor among the mountains, like Mount Carmel beside the sea.

18As 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.

NoteMount Tabor is a rounded hill that rises abruptly and alone out of the plain in northern Israel; Mount Carmel is a ridge running out into the Mediterranean. Both stand out unmistakably from their surroundings, which is the point of the comparison, the invader will loom like that.

19You who live in Egypt, pack your bags for exile, because Noph will be laid waste, left in ruins with no one living there.

19O thou daughter dwelling in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into captivity: for Noph shall be waste and desolate without an inhabitant.

20Egypt is like a fine young cow, but destruction is coming against her, and it comes from the north.

20Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north.

NoteCattle imagery suited Egypt, where bulls and cows were sacred animals. The Hebrew word for what comes from the north is disputed: it can mean a stinging gadfly, the kind that torments cattle, or simply destruction. The KJV took the second sense.

21Even the hired soldiers inside her are like fattened calves. They too turn back and run away together. They do not stand their ground, because the day of their disaster has come upon them, the time when they are called to account.

21Also her hired men are in the midst of her like fatted bullocks; for they also 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.

NoteEgypt's army relied heavily on paid foreign soldiers. "Fatted bullocks" are calves being fed up for slaughter, so the comparison is not a compliment. "The time of their visitation" is the KJV's phrase for the moment when accounts are called in and punishment falls.

22The sound Egypt makes will be like a snake slipping away, for the enemy will march against her in force. They will come at her with axes, like men chopping down trees.

22The voice thereof shall go like a serpent; for they shall march with an army, and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood.

NoteThe sense here is disputed. The KJV reads the sound Egypt makes as the hiss of a snake gliding away; the picture then shifts to woodcutters, with Egypt's people as trees to be felled.

23They will cut down her forest, says the LORD, thick as it is, because they are more than locusts and too many to count.

23They shall cut down her forest, saith the LORD, though it cannot be searched; because they are more than the grasshoppers, and are innumerable.

Note"Grasshoppers" here means locusts, which swarmed in numbers beyond counting and stripped whole regions bare, the standard biblical image for an army too large to number.

24The daughter of Egypt will be put to shame. She will be handed over to the people of the north.

24The daughter of Egypt shall be confounded; she shall be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.

25The LORD who commands armies, the God of Israel, says: I am about to punish the crowds of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt along with her gods and her kings, that is, Pharaoh and everyone who trusts in him.

25The 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:

NoteNo is Thebes, the great southern Egyptian city. The Hebrew word the KJV renders "multitude" is the same string of letters as Amon, the chief god of Thebes, so the line can be read either as "the crowds of Thebes" or as "Amon, god of Thebes." Modern translations usually take the second.

26I will hand them over to those who want to kill them, to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and to his officers. But afterward Egypt will be lived in again, as it was long ago, says the LORD.

26And 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.

Note"Those that seek their lives" means those out to kill them. Conquest here is not final: the promise is that Egypt will be settled and populated again afterwards.

27But you, Jacob my servant, do not be afraid. Israel, do not lose heart. I am going to save you from far away, and your children from the land where they are held captive. Jacob will come back and live quietly and at ease, and no one will make him afraid.

27But 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.

NoteJacob and Israel are two names for the same people, descended from the man called both. "Thy seed" in the KJV means descendants. The scene shifts abruptly from Egypt to Judah's own exiles.

28Do not be afraid, Jacob my servant, says the LORD, for I am with you. I will completely finish off all the nations where I have driven you, but I will not completely finish you off. I will correct you, but only in the right measure, and I will not leave you entirely unpunished.

28Fear 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.

Note"Correct thee in measure" means discipline that is proportioned and limited, as opposed to the "full end", total destruction, announced for the other nations.