Jeremiah 47: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD gives Jeremiah a message about the Philistines, dated before Pharaoh attacked Gaza. Waters rise from the north and flood the land. The fathers' hands hang limp, and they do not turn back for their own children. The message names Gaza, Ashkelon, Tyre and Sidon, and speaks of the sword of the LORD, which cannot rest because he has ordered it against Ashkelon and the seacoast.

Claim by Claim

1. 47:1
   • The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet.
   • Jeremiah is a prophet.
   • This word was directed against the Philistines.
   • This word came before Pharaoh struck Gaza.
   • Pharaoh struck Gaza.
2. 47:2
   • The LORD says the following.
   • Waters are rising up out of the north.
   • The waters will become an overflowing torrent.
   • The waters will overflow the land and everything that fills it.
   • The waters will overflow the city and those who dwell in it.
   • The people will cry out.
   • Every inhabitant of the land will wail.
3. 47:3
   • There will be a sound of the stamping hooves of his stallions.
   • There will be a shaking from his chariots.
   • There will be a rumbling of his wheels.
   • The fathers will not turn back to their children.
   • The fathers will not turn back because their hands hang limp.
4. 47:4
   • A day is coming to destroy all the Philistines.
   • That day will cut off from Tyre and Sidon every surviving helper.
   • The LORD is destroying the Philistines.
   • The Philistines are the remnant of the coastland of Caphtor.
5. 47:5
   • Baldness has come upon Gaza.
   • Ashkelon has been silenced, or destroyed; the word carries both senses.
   • Ashkelon is called the remnant of their valley.
   • Someone is asked how long she will keep gashing herself.
6. 47:6
   • A cry of woe is raised to the sword of the LORD.
   • The sword is asked how long it will be until it is quiet.
   • The sword is told to gather itself into its sheath.
   • The sword is told to rest.
   • The sword is told to be still.
7. 47:7
   • The sword cannot be quiet.
   • The LORD has given the sword a command.
   • The LORD has directed the sword against Ashkelon.
   • The LORD has directed the sword against the seashore.
   • The LORD has appointed the sword there.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

47:1

The Philistines were a people living in five cities along the coastal plain southwest of Judah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath. They were not Israelites and spoke a different language; they had been Israel's rivals for centuries. "Pharaoh" is not a personal name but the title of the king of Egypt, like "Caesar" or "Tsar". Gaza was the southernmost Philistine city and the first one an army marching up from Egypt would reach.

47:2

Rising water coming "out of the north" is a standard prophetic image for an invading army. Invaders from Mesopotamia, here the Babylonians, could not cross the desert directly, so they swung up and around it and entered the land from the north; "the north" therefore meant "the enemy" to Jeremiah's hearers. The flood language is a comparison, not a prediction of literal water.

47:3

Chariots were the fastest and most feared weapon of the age, light two-wheeled carts pulled by horses, carrying a driver and an archer or spearman. Hands hanging limp is an ancient idiom for helplessness and terror; the picture is of fathers so paralyzed by fear that they run without even glancing back at their own children.

47:4

Tyre and Sidon were wealthy Phoenician port cities on the coast north of Israel, in what is now Lebanon. They and the Philistine cities depended on one another for ships, trade and troops, so the fall of the Philistines cut off Tyre and Sidon's remaining allies. Caphtor is generally understood to be Crete or the Aegean region more widely; other passages say the Philistines originally came from there by sea, so calling them "what is left of Caphtor" identifies them by their distant homeland.

47:5

Shaving the head and cutting one's own skin were recognized public mourning customs among Israel's neighbors, visible, physical signs of grief and desperation, done in the streets rather than in private. Israelite law forbade both practices, which is part of why the prophet describes the Philistines doing them. Ashkelon was another of the five Philistine cities, on the coast north of Gaza. "Silenced" here means destroyed and left without inhabitants, not merely quiet.

47:6

A sheath (the King James word is "scabbard") is the case a sword is carried in; putting the sword back in it means the fighting has stopped. The words in quotation marks are the cry of the people under attack, addressing the sword itself as if it could hear, a common figure in Hebrew poetry.

47:7

"The shore of the sea" is the Philistine coastal plain, the strip of land along the Mediterranean where all five of their cities stood; naming it is another way of naming the whole Philistine territory.