JEREMIAH
46
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2003 James Melough
46:1. “The word
of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles;”
This begins a new section in
which God reveals to His servant that judgments are to be poured out upon the
Gentiles.
46:2. “Against
Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt, which was by the river
Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon smote in the
fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah.”
In the fourth year of
Jehoiakim, i.e., 605 BC, the Egyptians engaged the Babylonians in battle at
Carchemish, a city in the northwest of Babylon, but were completely routed by
the Babylonians.
46:3. “Order ye
the buckler (breastplate) and shield, and draw near to battle.”
46:4. “Harness
the horses; and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets;
furbish (polish: sharpen) the spears, and put on the brigandines (coats of
mail).”
Egypt
was to go forth to the battle so fully equipped that success seemed certain.
46:5. “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.
46:6. “Let not
the swift flee away, nor the mighty men escape; they shall stumble, and fall
toward the north by the river
Euphrates.”
In spite of all their
equipment and elaborate preparations, the Egyptians were completely routed by
the Babylonians, history having recorded the grim fact that not one soldier
returned to Egypt.
46:7. “Who is
this that cometh up as a flood, whose waters are moved as the rivers?”
46:8. “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.”
It was the expectation of
Egypt,
that her army, irresistible as the Nile raging in flood, would sweep across
the earth, conquering all the nations.
46:9. “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.”
The Egyptian army included
mercenaries from Ethiopia, Libya, and Lydia (western Asia Minor).
46:10. “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.”
There was much associated
with Egypt
that had made it an adversary of God, including the enslavement of the
Israelites, but that had been avenged long before on the night of the
Passover, and in the destruction of Egypt’s army in the Red Sea as they
pursued the freed Israelites. What God was going to avenge “in the north
country by the river Euphrates” at Carchemish, isn’t stated, but it may have
been Egypt’s idolatry.
46:11. “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.”
“Virgin” is used here, not
as a description of purity, but as a symbol of separation, in the sense that
Egypt, by virtue of her might, had been separate from the nations, they being
too weak to oppose her will. But the days of her glory were numbered. God
was about to smite her with an incurable wound: there would be no healing, no
recovery of her former glory.
46:12. “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.”
The certainty of the
pronounced doom is declared here in that God speaks of it as already
accomplished; and the fall of Egypt’s soldiers occurred exactly as described
here: in their panic- stricken flight they stumbled over one another so that
the piled up bodies made escape impossible.
46:13. “The word
that the Lord spake to Jeremiah the prophet, how Nebuchadrezzar king of
Babylon should come and smite the land of Egypt.”
This refers to Babylon’s
incursion into Egypt after the battle at Carchemish, and was what God had
warned the Judeans about when He had told them to remain in the land of Judah
rather than going down into Egypt as they foolishly did, see chapters 42-43,
46:14. “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.”
These three cities designate
the whole land
of Egypt. There would be no place of safety within its borders.
46:15. “Why are
thy valiant men swept away? they stood not, because the Lord did drive them.”
Scholarly opinion is divided
as to whether the reference here is to the failure of Apis the bull god of
Egypt to save them, or to the failure of their soldiers. Settlement of that
point is of little importance. The fact remains that it was God who wrought
the destruction of Egypt. It was He Who had swept away their valiant men.
46:16. “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.”
The first part of the verse
continues the description of the slaughter of the Egyptians at the hand of the
Babylonians, but the “Arise, and let us go again to our own people, etc.,” is
the expressed decision of the Jews in Egypt to leave that land, and return to
the land of Judah.
46:17. “They did
cry there, Pharaoh, king of Egypt is but a noise; he hath passed the time
appointed.”
This continues the words of
the Jews in Egypt. They had learned to their sorrow that Pharaoh-Hophra had
been an idle boaster; and relative to the words “he hath passed the time
appointed,” The Amplified Bible rendering is, “... he has let the
appointed time (in which God had him on probation) pass by!”
46:18. “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.”
As it is certain that God is
eternal, so also was it just as certain that He would bring against Egypt one,
who metaphorically speaking, was as great among the nations as were Tabor and
Carmel among the mountains, i.e., Nebuchadnezzar.
46:19. “O thou
daughter dwelling in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into captivity: for Noph
shall be waste and desolate without an inhabitant.”
The term “daughter” applies
primarily to the Judeans dwelling in Egypt, but many understand it to include
also the Egyptians. Egypt was about to fall before Babylon, Noph (Memphis)
being used here synecdochically (a part is used for a whole, or a whole for a
part) of all Egypt. The whole land was to become a virtual uninhabited
desert.
46:20. “Egypt is
like a very fair heifer, but destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north.”
The word “destruction” in
the present context is from a root which means gadfly: horsefly, a
large insect whose bite draws blood. Egypt, likened here to a sleek young
cow, would be invaded by the Babylonians descending from the north upon the
land like swarms of horseflies lighting on a young cow, and biting her till
she died.
46:21. “Also 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.”
There were many mercenaries
in Egypt’s
army, and at the approach of the Babylonians, they too would flee. It is
unclear whether, in the present context, “the day of their calamity (doom:
reckoning)” refers specifically to that of the mercenaries or of the
Egyptians, but unquestionably the day of reckoning had come for both.
46:22. “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.”
The first clause is the
figurative description of the flight of the Egyptians, and is also translated,
“The sound (of Egypt fleeing from the enemy) is like the rustling of an
escaping serpent,” The Amplified Bible; another translation being, “She
sounds like a retreating reptile,” The New American Bible.
The remainder of the verse
describes the advance of the Babylonian army, the mention of axes and hewing
of wood indicating that the Egyptians would be like trees in the presence of
the lumberjack: they would be utterly helpless to save themselves from being
cut down.
46:23. “They
shall cut down her forest, saith the Lord, though it cannot be searched;
because they are more than the grasshoppers, and are innumerable.”
It seems that the reference
is to the phenomenal number of the Egyptians, though some understand it to be
to the hordes of the Babylonians.
46:24. “The
daughter of Egypt
shall be confounded (shamed: disgraced); she shall be delivered into the hand
of the people of the north (the Babylonians).”
46:25. “The Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel, saith; Behold, I will punish (hurt: execute
judgment against) the multitude of No (Thebes), and Pharaoh, and Egypt with
their gods, and their kings; even Pharaoh, and all them that trust in him:”
This continues to declare
the judgments with which God would visit Egypt; the principal god mentioned
here being Amon the god of Thebes. They were to learn the worthlessness of
the so-called gods they had worshiped, and in which they had placed their
trust.
46:26. “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.”
The others into whose hand
God would deliver them, were those nations who formed the coalition headed up
by Babylon; and as noted already, Nebuchadrezzar approximates more closely to
the Chaldean spelling than does Nebuchadnezzar.
In spite of the judgments He
would inflict upon Egypt, God here gives the assurance of restoration; and
while she has obviously recovered from that past judgment, her ultimate
restoration will be in the Millennium.
46:27. “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.”
Israel’s
ultimate restoration will also be in the Millennium, because even though she
was restored to the land from the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, she was
scattered again amongst the nations in AD 70; and apart from the remnant that
continues to return since the restoration of Jewish autonomy in 1948, she
remains dispersed over the face of the earth.
We have already discussed
the prophetic significance of the restoration of her autonomy in 1948. That
return is the clear evidence that we are living in the closing days of the
age, everything now pointing to the imminence, first of the Rapture, and then
of the Tribulation, that will be followed by the Millennium, and the
regathering of Israel “from afar off” referred to in this verse.
That this regathering will
be literal, not spiritual, of living Jews, is certified by the use of the two
names by which that nation is best known: Jacob and Israel: Jacob being
related to her actual physical state; and Israel, to her spiritual state.
The Jews regathered at the
end of the Tribulation will be living believing Jews, their conversion having
occurred during, and as a result of, the Tribulation judgments, those
judgments having produced repentant faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as their
Savior Messiah.
It seems necessary to make a
comment here relative to the popular so-called gospel that is preached today,
and which requires nothing more of the “convert” than verbal assent to the
historicity of Christ. Belief of that “gospel” will take you to hell, not
heaven. One may believe all the historical facts relative to Christ, but
unless that belief is held in the context of its relationship to my sin
personally, it is worthless. The belief that saves the soul from hell, and
fits it for heaven, is that which is impelled by fear, resulting from the
conviction of the Holy Spirit, that in my natural state I am on the way to
hell, and can be saved only when I admit that I am a sinner without a shred of
righteousness, and then believe that the Lord Jesus Christ loved me enough to
die in my stead for my sins, and that in response to that confession and
faith, God pardons all my sins, past, present, and future, and will receive me
into heaven.
The “conversion” that has
not been preceded by at least some measure of fear similar to that which
impelled the trembling Philippian jailer to cry out, “Sirs, What must I do to
be saved?” Ac 16:30, doesn’t meet the Scriptural criteria, or match the
conversions recorded in Scripture, and is therefore suspect.
46:28. “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.”
Though the nation is
addressed here by the name Jacob, which is associated with its earthly
character, rather than by the name Israel, which speaks of its spiritual
nature, it is assured of God’s presence with it; and accompanying the pledge
of His destruction of all the nations amongst which they had been scattered,
is the promise that He will not destroy them. However, because He knows that
they will act according to their Jacob nature, He has to warn them also that
He will not fail to punish them when they sin; but clearly it will be the
punishment administered by a Father to His child for its ultimate blessing.
History has preserved the
sad record of Israel’s
rebellion, with its concomitant chastisement, and it might have been expected
that she would have learned her lesson, but she hasn’t. Her school days are
not yet ended, for in the impending Tribulation she will worship the Beast,
and it will take the terrible chastisement of the Tribulation judgments to end
her rebellion, and make her obedience complete. As a result of those
judgments there will finally emerge a chastened, repentant remnant, believing
in the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior Messiah, that remnant being the new
converted Israel that will then enter the Millennium to enjoy its phenomenal
blessings, before entering into the enjoyment of eternal blessing in the new
heaven and earth that will replace those which now exist.
The instruction, however,
isn’t limited to Israel, for in her history God bids us see the symbolic
prewritten history of the Church. She is, in fact, the mirror in which He
bids us who are the Church, see ourselves; and it is only as we read her
history in the light of that knowledge, that it will be of any profit to us.
As has been noted already,
Egypt represents the godless world of business and pleasure, as Babylon does
the equally godless world of mere religion, and
Israel’s
bondage in both is to remind us of the folly of permitting ourselves to be
brought into the bondage which accompanies dalliance with this world’s
business or its religion.
[Jeremiah
47]