Jeremiah 46:15

46:13-28 Those who encroached on others, shall now be themselves encroached on. Egypt is now like a very fair heifer, not accustomed to the yoke of subjection; but destruction comes out of the north: the Chaldeans shall come. Comfort and peace are spoken to the Israel of God, designed to encourage them when the judgments of God were abroad among the nations. He will be with them, and only correct them in measure; and will not punish them with everlasting destruction from his presence.

Why are thy valiant men swept away?.... As with a mighty torrent, or a sweeping rain; so the word is used in Proverbs 28:3 ; to which the Chaldean army may be compared; which came with such irresistible force as to drive the Egyptians from their posts, so that they could not stand their ground. The Septuagint renders it, "why does Apis flee from thee? thy choice ox does not continue.'' Which was the god of the Egyptians, they worshipped in the form of an ox; this could not protect them, though thought by them to be very mighty and powerful; so Aelianus (i) says Apis with the Egyptians is believed to be a most powerful deity; yet could not save them; but the word signifies their nobles, their mighty men of war, their generals and officers, at least their valiant soldiers; who yet were not able to stand the tide of power that came against them. The reason was, because the Lord did drive them; by means of the Chaldeans; he dispirited them; he put them into a panic, and they fled from their posts; there is no standing against the Lord. (i) De Animal. l. 11. c. 10.

Verse 15. - Why are thy valiant men, etc.? The literal rendering of the received text is, Why is thy strong ones (plural) swept sway (or, ca s t 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 ( Jeremiah 8:16 ; Jeremiah 47:3 ; Jeremiah 1:11 ); but there is no necessity to bind ourselves to this acceptation. Other possible meanings are (1) strong man, e.g. Judges 5:22 and Lamentations 1:15 ; (2) steer, bull, e.g. Psalm 22:13 and Psalm 50:13, and (metaphorically of princes) Psalm 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" (Pierrot). 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. Isaiah 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 language - it 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.

15 . Why … swept away ?] The mg. is to be preferred. The adjective in the Hebrew is plural, while both the verb connected with it and the pronouns that follow are in the singular. Hence we conclude that the singular is right. But probably we should, with LXX, divide the Hebrew verb rendered “swept away” into two words, translating with them, “Why is Apis fled? Thy mighty one stood not, because, etc.” The sacred bull Apis worshipped at Memphis is called the mighty one (the word in MT. being often used of bulls), i.e. the deity of Egypt, ‘just as Jehovah is named the Mighty One of Jacob or of Israel in Genesis 49:24 ; Isaiah 1:24 ; Isaiah 49:26 , etc. “The authority of the Egyptian-Jewish version in a prophecy relative to Egypt is not slight” (Cheyne, ad loc .). A failure to understand this application of the word may have early induced a Hebrew copyist to alter it to the plural (which was effected by the insertion of the smallest Hebrew letter). For the thought of the Egyptian gods as overthrown before the Eastern power cp. Isaiah 19:1 ; Isaiah 46:1 f. drive them ] rather, as mg. thrust them down .

(15) Why are thy valiant men swept away? —Better, Why is thy strong bull dragged away! The Hebrew verbs are in the singular, and the adjective is given in the same number both in the LXX. and Vulgate. The former gives the rendering “Why did Apis flee from thee, and thy chosen calf abode not” as if referring to the bull Apis as the representative of Osiris, the chief deity of Egypt; and this version receives some support from the use of the Hebrew words for “oxen,” “bulls,” “beasts,” in Isaiah 34:7 and Psalm 22:12 ; Psalm 68:30 , and from the fact that the same word is used in Isaiah 1:24 ; Isaiah 49:26 as a Divine name “the mighty one of Israel.” So understood, the prophet’s words contemplate the triumph of the God of Israel over the theriomorphic deity of Egypt. We may find a literal fulfilment of the words in the slaughter of the sacred bull by Cambyses (Herod. iii. 29).

Translate it: "Why is thy mighty one cast down? He stood not, because Yahweh thrust him down." The "mighty one" is explained by the Septuagint to be the bull Apis. Thus: (1) the chief deity of Egypt Jeremiah 46:15; (2) the army of mercenaries Jeremiah 46:16; (3) the king, Pharaoh Jeremiah 46:17, are the three upon whom the Egyptians trusted.

The prophet first propoundeth a question, then returneth answer to himself. Egypt was full of valiant men, yet, saith the prophet, they shall be swept away, or broken down, as fruit or grass is beaten down with a violent storm of hail (so the word is used, Proverbs 28:3 ). How comes this to pass? (saith the prophet). He answereth himself; Because it was of God to destroy Egypt, who worketh, and none can let him; when he strikes, none can stand before him; none can stand up against him.

15. thy valiant men—manuscripts, the Septuagint, and Vulgate read, "thy valiant one," Apis, the bull-shaped Egyptian idol worshipped at Noph or Memphis. The contrast thus is between the palpable impotence of the idol and the might attributed to it by the worshippers. The Hebrew term, "strong," or "valiant," is applied to bulls (Ps 22:12). Cambyses in his invasion of Egypt destroyed the sacred bull. drive them—(Compare Jer 46:5). The Hebrew word is used of a sweeping rain (Pr 28:3).

The prophet in spirit looks on the power of Egypt as already broken. This is shown by the question of astonishment, מדּוּע נסחף אבּיריך, which has been variously rendered. אבּירים .deredner ylsuoirav neeb sa, "strong ones," is used in Jeremiah 8:16 ; Jeremiah 47:3 , and Jeremiah 50:11 , of stallions, but elsewhere as an epithet of bulls, especially the strong bulls of Bashan; see on Jeremiah 8:16 . In the present passage the reference may be to the mighty men of war, who do not maintain their position (Chald. and most of the old interpreters); the verb in the singular forms no sufficient objection to this view, the irregularity being due to the fact that the verb precedes its subject see Ewald, 316, t; Gesenius, 147]. It is more difficult to combine with this the singulars of the verbs עמד and הדפו which follow; these, and especially the suffix in the singular, appear to indicate that אבּידיך really refers to a noun in the singular. But the form of this noun seems against such a view; for the words adduced in support of the position that singular nouns sometimes assume plural suffixes, are insufficient for the purpose: thus, תּהלּתיך, Psalm 9:15 , and שׂנאתיך, Ezekiel 35:11 , are plainly nouns in the singular. And in support of the averment that, in pausal forms with Segol, the י is a mere mater lectionis, only כּפּיך, Proverbs 6:1 , can be adduced: the other instances brought forward by Hitzig fail to establish his position.