to the second prophecy against Egypt (xlvi. M 28), and to that against the Philistines (chap, xlvii.), except the last-quoted passage, xlvi. 16, in which the expression n:i'n rtn agrees with xxv. 38, if in the latter passage we read rjn for P~~. But this expression is also repeated in the orach- against Babylon, 1. 16; so that no proof can be drawn, from a consideration of the language employed, to show that the prophecies against Egypt (xlvi. 14-28) and against the Philistines (chap, xlvii.) belong to the same time, as has been supposed. And the assertion that the prophecy against Elam forms an appendix to those which precede, could have been made only by a mind in a state of perplexity. Its position, after that against the Arabian tril and before that against Babylon, exactly agrees with the place occupied by Elam in xxv. 5.1
1 From the above statement, the propriety and correctness of arrangementamong these oracles in the Hebrewtexl will both beappareni On the other hand, the transposition made in the Greek text of the LX\ (already referred to in the not. on p. 33 of vol. i.) is characterized, even by Ewaldand Hitzig,as"arbitrary"andJlincorrect." Ewald remarks: "We cannot find thai any other principle was acted upon in their arrangement than that the Jar.., portion about Babylon, chap, l.ff., should be made as prominent as possiblethe small piece about the Elamites which precedes it. xlix. 34-39 was put the very first, probably because it was thought desirable that, seeing they were then under Persian rule, what plainly referred to Persia should be made conspicuous; the portion directed against the Babylonians was then placed immediately after that referring to Egypt; that referring to the Philistines was then put in its place, but that referring to Edom, as being longer, was inserted after it; then the three small pieces on Amnion Kedar and Damascus were put together, while the large one about Mcab con' eluded this much-distorted series.1' But the assertion of Movers and Hitzig
When we examine the contents of these nine oracles, we find that the one against Babylon differs from all the preceding in this, that it announces not merely the ruin of Babylon, but also the salvation of Israel; but this peculiarity is the very point in which it agrees with the prophecies against Egypt, of which the second ends with a promise in Israel's favour (xlvi. 27, 28). This correspondence shows us that we cannot separate the prophecy regarding Babylon from the others, or even place it in contrast with them. Egypt and Babylon were, at that time, the two great powers of this world which sought to oppress and destroy the kingdom of God. The fall of one or the other of these powers was thus for Israel a pledge that they would be preserved and saved. Iu the remaining oracles, the reference to the theocracy is quite placed in the background. Only in that against Amnion do we meet with the complaint that it had taken possession of the cities of Israel, as if Israel had no heir (xlix. 1). In the others there is no mention made of offence against the theocracy, but only of pride, arrogance, and carnal reliance on their earthly power, for which they shall be humbled and punished. Further, it is to be observed that the oracles against Egypt, Moab, Amnion, and Klain conclude with the promise of restoration at the end of the days, i.e. in the Mes>ianic future (cf. xlvi. 26, xlviii. 47, xlix. 6 and 39). All these things plainly show that these oracles against the people merely repeat, in greater detail, the sentence already pronounced, chap, xxv., against all nations: God the Lord has appointed the king of Babylon to execute this sentence, and for this end will give him, in the immediate future, and till his appointed time shall end, supremacy over the nations; after that, Babylon also shall
—that this arrangement in the Greek text did not originate with the translator, but was found in the original, and that, too (according to Movers), at the time of Alexander's campaign against Persia— rests on critical conjectures regarding chap. xlvi. 27, 28, which are decidedly erroneous. Moreover, the insertion of these oracles into the middle of chap, xxv., between vers. 13 and 15, in the LXX. text, is due to the arbitrary conduct of the Alexandrine translator, as even Hitzig allows that whoever arranged the chapter did not find it in a fragmentary condition, but had himself dismembered it. Yet Hitzig is of opinion that these oracles originally belonged to somewhere about chap, xxv.,— a view that rests on grounds which, in the note on p. 376 ff. of vol. i., we have already shown to be untenable.
•uiul) to the Bentence of rum passed mi it; and for [srael, with the deliverance from Babylon, there will;in^' a state of prosperity in which all nations will afterwards participate. In ing details with regard t<> these announcements of judgment, Jeremiah throughout tails back on the expressions of the older prophets, just as he does in his prophecies regarding Israel ami
[ah; these expressions ho reproduces in a manner suited to the circumstances of his time, and still further developes. Cf.
Vers. 1 ami 2. Superscriptions. — Ver, 1 contains the title for the whole collection of prophecies regarding the nations (D^3i1j as contrasted with Israel, mean the heathen nations), chap. xlvi.-li. As to the formula, u What came as the word of Jahveh to Jeremiah," etc., cf. the remarks on xiv. 1. — In ver. 2, the special heading of this chapter begins with the word D*"}*"-^ DyTCB is subordinated by b to the general title, — properly, kw with regard to Egypt:" cf. 3«iD^, etc., xlviii. 1, xlix. 1, 7, 23, 28, also xxiii. 9, This chapter contains two prophecies regarding Egypt, vers. 2-12, and vers. 13-28. V?y*d> refers to both. After this there follows an account of the occasion for the first of these two prophecies, in the words, u Concerning the army of Pharaoh-Necho, the king of Egypt, which was at the river Euphrates, near Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah." toJ, as in 2 Chron. xxxv. 20, or H33, as in 2 Kings xxiii. 20, in LXX. Ne^aco\ Egyptian, according to Brugsch {Hist. (FEgypte, i. p. 252), Nekdou; in Herodotus Nekgqs, — is said by Manetho to have been the sixth king of the twenty-sixth (Saite) dynasty, the second Pharaoh of this name, the son of Psarametichus I., and grandson of Necho I. Brugsch says he reigned from 611 to 595 B.C. See on 2 Chron. xxiii. 29. The two relative clauses are co-ordinate, i.e. "i^K in each case depends on ^n. The first clause merely states where Pharaoh's army was, the second tells what befell it at the Euphrates. It is to this that the following prophecy refers.
Pharaoh -Necho, soon after ascending the throne, in the last year of Josiah's reign (610 B.C.), had landed in Palestine, at the bay of Acre, with the view of subjugating Hither Ami as far as the Euphrates, and had defeated and slain King Josiah, who marched out against him. He next deposed Jehoahaz, whom the people had raised to the throne as Josiah's successor, and carried him to Egypt, after having substituted Eliakim, the elder brother of Jehoahaz, and mule him his vassal-king, under the name of Jehoiakim. When he had thus laid Judah under city at the junction of the Chebar with the Euphrates, built on the peninsula formed by the two rivers (Ammian. Marc xxiii. 5, Procop. bell. Pers, ii. 5, and Marasc. under Karkesija). All that now remains of it are ruins, called by the modern Arabs Abu Psora, and situated on the Mesopotamian side of the Euphrates, where that river is joined by the Chebar (Aualand, 1864, S. 1058). This fortress was either taken, or at least besieged, by Necho. The statement, " in the fourth year of Jehoiakim," can be referred exegetically only to the time of the defeat of the Egyptians at Carchemish, or the year of the battle, and is actually so understood by most interpreters. No one but Kiebuhr (Gesch. Ass. u. Bob. S. 6, 370 ff.) alt' the date of the battle, which he places in the third year of Jehoiakim, partly from consideration of Dan. i. L, partly from other chronological calculations; he would refer the date giv n in our verse to the time when the following song was comp< or published. But Dan. i. 1 does not necessarily require us to make any such assumption (see on that pas. and the other chronological computations are quite uncertain. Exegetically, it is as impossible to insert a period after u which Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon smote" (Nieb. p. $0, note.3), as to connect the date uin the fourth year <>f Jehoiakim" with u which word came to Jeremiah M (ver. 1). The title in ver. 1 rtainly does not refer specially to the prophecy about Egypt, but to D^3n~?p, But it" we wished to make the whole of ver. 2 dependent on 'W tai n\i "vj\s, which would, at all events, be a \m!, unnatural construction, then, Prom the combination of the title in ver. 1 with the specification of time at the end of. 2, it would follow that all the prophecies regarding the nations had come to Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, — which would contradict what is Baid in the heading to the oracle against Elam (xlix. 3 I). not to mention the oracle against Babylon. Moreover, there is nothing to prevent us from assuming that the first prophecy against Egypt was revealed to Jeremiah, and uttered by him, in the same fourth year of Jehoiakim in which Necho was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar. In this way, the argument brought forward by Niebuhr in support of his forced Interpretation, viz. that all specifications of time in the addresses of Jeremiah refer to the period of composition, loses all its force. In xlv. 1 also, and in li.!), the time when the event occurred coincides with the time when the utterance rerrardini: it was pronounced. Although we assume this to hold in the case before us, vet it by no means follows that what succeeds, in vers. 3—12, is not a prophecy, but a song or lyric celebrating so important a battle, "the picture of an event that had already occurred," as Niebuhr, Ewald, and llitzig assume. This neither follows from the statement in the title, u which Nebuchadnezzar in the fourth year of Jehoiakim smote," nor from the contents of the succeeding address. The superscription does not naturally belong to wdiat Jeremiah has said or uttered, but must have been prefixed, for the first time, only when the address was committed to writing and inserted in the collection, and this not till after the battle had been fought; but it is evident that the address is to be viewed as substantially a prophecy (see vers. 6b and 10b), although Jeremiah depicts, in the most lively and dramatic way, not merely the preparation of the mighty host, ver. 3, and its formidable advance, vers. 7-9, but also its flight and annihilation, in ver. 5 and vers. 10-12.
Ver. 3. " Prepare shield and target, and advance to the battle. Ver. 4. Yoke the' horses [to the chariots]; mount the steeds, and stand with helmets on; polish the spears, put on the armour. Ver. 5. Why do I see? they are terrified and turned back, and their heroes are beaten, and flee in flight, and do not turn: terror is round about, saith Jahveh. Ver. 6. Let not the swift one flee, nor let the hero escape; towards the north, by the side of the river Euphrates, they stumble and fall. Ver. 7. Who is this that cometh up like the Nile? his waters wave like the rivers. Ver. 8. Egypt cometh up like the Nile, [his] waters are moved like the rivers; and he saith, I will go up, I will cover the earth; I will destroy the city, and those who dwell in it. Ver. 9. Go up, ye horses; and drive furiously, ye chariots; and let the heroes go forth; Cushites and Phutites, bearing the shield; and Lydians, handling [and] bending the bow. Ver. 10. But that day [belongs] to the Lord Jahveh of hosts, a day of vengeance for avenging Himself on His enemies: and the sword shall devour and be satisfied, and shall drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord Jahveh of hosts holdeth a slaying of sacrifices in the land of the north at the river Euphrates. Ver. 11. Go up to Gilead, and take balsam, O virgin, daughter of Egypt: in vain hast thou multiplied medicines; cure there is none for thee. Ver. 12. The nations have heard of thine ignominy, and thy cry hath filled the earth: for heroes stumble against heroes, both of them fall together."
This address falls into two strophes, vers. 3-6 and 7-12. In both are depicted in a lively manner, first the advance of the Egyptian host to the battle, then their flight and destruction. The whole has been arranged so as to form a climax: in the first strophe, the admirable equipment of the armies, and their sudden flight and defeat, are set forth in brief sentences; in the second, there is fully described not merely the powerful advance of the host that covers the earth, but also the judgment of inevitable destruction passed on them by God: the reason for the whole is also assigned. Ver. 3 f. In order to represent the matter in a lively way, the description begins with the call addressed to the army, to make ready for the battle. "Make ready shield and target," the two main pieces of defensive armour, i^ was the small [round] shield; n:^ scutum, the large shield, covering the whole body. "Advance to the fight," i.e. go forward into the battle. Then the address turns to the Beveral portions of the army: first to those who fight from chariots, who are to yoke the horses; then to the horsemen, to mount the steeds. u'L"'" are not horsemen, but riding-horses, as in 1 Kiiirs v. 6, \. 26, Ezek. xwii. 11. tt?U is construed with the accus.. as in Gen. xlix. 4. The rendering given by Dahler and Umbreit, u Mount, ye horsemen/1 and that of Hitzig, M Advance, ve horsemen/1 are against the parallelism; and the remark of the last-named writer, that M Mount the steeds'1 would be *—n, does not accord with 1 Sam. xxx. 17. Next, the address is directed to the foot - soldiers, who formed the main portion of the army. These are to take up their position with helmets on, to polish the spears, i.e. to sharpen them, and to put on the pieces of armour, in order to be arrayed for battle. p^< to rub, polish, remove rust from the spear, and thereby sharpen it. |^"}D, here and iu li. 3 for ii'">\ a coat of mail, pieces of armour. — Vers. 5, G. Thus well arrayed, the host advances to the fight; but suddenly the seer perceives the magnificent army terror-stricken, retreating, and breaking out into a disorderly flight. The question, " Why (wherefore) do I see? " points to the unexpected and incomprehensible turn in the progress of events. D'nn n*2H is not an accus. dependent on WlOj but an independent clause: u What do I see! They are terror-stricken" (2^n? terrified, brokenspirited through terror). Vl3^ Hoph. from nn37 to be broken, here and in Job iv. 20 applied to persons. Di:E> is added to the verb instead of the inf. abs., to give emphasis to the idea contained in the word; cf. Ewald, § 281, a. MBO ^0, u horror, terror around " (cf. vi. 25), is taken by Ewald as the reply of Jahveh to the question, " Wherefore is this? On every side there is danger; " and this is appropriately followed by the imperatives in ver. 6, " Let no one, then, attempt to flee; not one shall escape to Egypt, but they must fall at the Euphrates." The perfects */BJ1 CV3 are prophetic; the stumbling and falling are as certain as if they had already happened. The second strophe commences at ver. 7. The description begins anew, and that with a question of astonishment at the mighty host advancing like the Nile when it bursts its banks and inundates the whole country, *i^ is the name of the Nile, taken from the Egyptian into the Hebrew language; cf. Gen. xli. ff., Ex. i. 22 etc. ^i,?,!,;?j dash about (v. 22), wave backwards and forwards: the Hithpa. is here interchanged with the Ilithpo. without any difference of meaning. — Ver. 8 brings the answer to the question of astonishment: " Egypt approaches, its hosts cover the land like the waves of the Nile, to destroy cities and men." On the form HT2X (with K contracted from NN%), cf. Ewald, § 192, d; Gesenius, § 68, Kern. 1. T? is used in an indefinite general sense, "cities," as in viii. 16. — In ver. 9, the imperat. stands as in ver. 3 f.: " Le1 the formidable army approach, — cavalry, chariots, and infantry, with all their splendidly equipped auxiliaries, — nevertheless it shall perish." D'p^lDn V?V does not here mean " Mount the steeds,'' which is uvainst the parallelism, but " Get up (i.e. prance), ye hora this meaning is guaranteed by the Hiphil r^'-, as used in Xah. iii. 3. -«*? ^pnrin is an imitation of Xah. ii. 5. As auxiliaries, and very braves one too ("*~"i: |, are mentioned " Cush," i,e. the Ethiopians; "Phut," the Libyans; and u Ludim," Le. Hamitic, African Lydians, as in E/.rk. x.w. 5. On the double construct in "-? '5"P *C'Bhj u holding, bending bows," cf. bw. § 280, c. — Ver. 10. This formidable army shall perish; for the day of the battle is the day of the Lord of hosts, on which He will take vengeance upon [lis enemies. Among these enemies are the Egyptians, who have grievously sinned against Israel, the people of the Lord, not merely of late, by making war upon anl killing King Josiah, by carrying away Jehoahaz, and making Jehoiakira his vassal, but also from the earliest times. For this, Egypt is now to be brought low. The sword shad devour and be refreshed by drinking the blood of the Egyptians. For the Lord is preparing for a.slaying of sacrifices (R-*) in the north, at the Euphrates. Isa. xxxiv. 6 forms the basis of these words. — Ver. 11. The blow which shall there come on the Egyptians is one from which they shall never recover, and the wound shall be one not to be healed by any balm. As to the balm of Gilead, see on viii. 22; on nixm and TOFi see xxx. 13. " Virgin daughter of Egypt" is equivalent to virgin-like people of Egypt, i.e. not hitherto forced, but now ravished, violated, so that all nations shall hear of the dishonour done them, and their cry shall fill the whole earth, for (as at the conclusion, the threat la added by way of confirmation) all the heroes of Egypt Btumble and fall, "toa ~n~, '< hero against hero," i.e. one against another, or over the others, as usually happens in a flight where confusion reigns; cf. Jer. xxvi. 37.
\ era. 13 28. Ttie second prophecy regarding Egypty with a met Israel attached to it, was uttered after the preceding. This is evident even from the superscription, ver. 13: u The word which Jahveh spake to Jeremiah the prophet of the coming of Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon to smite the land of Egypt." The formula, " The word which," etc., agrees with that in 1. 1; and Wl. in contrast with Wl, the word usually met with in headings, perhaps moans that this prophecy, like that concerning Babylon, was not uttered in public by Jeremiah, but only written down, fifa? is used in reference to the coming of Nebuchadrezzar to smite the land. Gfraf puts down this heading as an addition, not made till a late edition of the prophecies was brought out, and even then added through a mistake on the part of the compiler. In support of this, he urges that the announcement in mis. L4-26 docs not form an independent prophecy, but merely constitutes the second portion of the description given in vers. 3-12 of the defeat of the Egyptians. But the ground assigned for this view, viz. that if this prophecy formed a separate and distinct piece, written at another time, then Jeremiah would have predicted the conquest of the other countries, Philistia, Moab, Amnion, etc., in consequence of the battle of Carchemish; and as regards Egypt, would have contented himself with a triumphal song over its fall— which is in itself unlikely: this argument is utterly null. It has no meaning whatever; for vers. 3-12 contain, not a triumphal song over a defeat that had already taken place, but a prophecy regarding the defeat about to take place. To this the prophet added a second prophecy, in which he once more announces beforehand to Enypt that it shall be conquered. In this way, more is foretold regarding Egypt than the neighbouring countries, because Egypt was of much greater consequence, in relation to the theocracy, than Philistia, Moab, etc. According to the superscription, this second prophecy refers to the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar. According to xxxvii. 5, this did^not take place so long as Zedekiah was king; and according to xliii. 8 ff., it was foretold by Jeremiah, after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the Jews were fleeing to Egypt after the murder of Gedaliah. From this, one might conclude, with Niigelsbach, that the piece now before us is contemporaneous with xliii. 8 ff. But this inference is not a valid one. The threat uttered in xliii. 8 ff. of a conquest to befall Egypt had a special occasion of its own, and we cannot well regard it in any other light than as a repetition of the prophecy now before us, for the Jews; for its contents seem to show that it was composed not long after that in vers. 3-12, or soon after the defeat of the Egyptians at Carchemish. Thia address also falls into two strophes, vers. 14-19 and vers. 20-26, while vers. 27, 28 form an additional message for Israel. The line of thought is this: Egypt may arm herself as she chooses, but her power shall fall, and her auxiliaries shall flee (vers. 14-10). Pharaoh's fall is certain; the enemy shall come in force, and turn all Egypt into a desert (vers. 17-19). The destroyer comes from the north, the mercenaries flee, and the enemy hews down countless hosts of men like trees in a forest (vers. 20 Egypt will he given into the hand of the people out of the north; for Jahveh will punish g<nls, princes, and people, and deliver up Egypt to the king of Babylon. Bat afterwards, Egypt will again be inhabited as it was before (vers, l'1-26). On the other hand, Israel need fear nothing, for their God will lead them back out of their captivity (vers. 27, 28).
Ver. 14. "Tell ye it in Egypt, and make it to be heard in Migdol, and make it be heard in Noph and Talipanhes: say, Stand firm, and prepare thee; for the sword hath devoured around thee. Ver. 15. Why hath thy strong one been swept away? he stood not, for Jahveh pushed him down. Ver. ll). He made many stumble, yea, one fell on another; and they said, Arise, and let us return to our own people, and to the land of our birth, from before the oppressing sword. Ver. 17. They cried there, Pharaoh the king of Egypt is undone; he hath let the appointed time pass. Ver. 18. As I live, saith the King, whose name is Jahveh of hosts, Surely as Tabor among the mountains, and as Carmel by the sea, shall he come. Ver. 19. Prepare thee things for exile, O daughter dwelling in
E -vpt: for Noph will become ■ desolation, and be destroyed by fire, without an inhabitant."
Like the last prophecy, this one also begins with the summons to arms (\vr. 14), in order to prepare the way for the description given immediately afterwards of the defeat (ver. L5ff.). The summons to make the proclamation is addres to some persons not named, who are to announce through the country, particularly in the frontier towns and in the northern capital of Egypt, that the foe, in his devastating career, has advanced to the herders of the land. This is evident from the clause which states the reason: "The sword hath devoured what lay round thee." Regarding Migdol, i.e. MagdoloB, ami Tahpanhes, i.e. Daphne, the two frontier towns in the north, and Noph, i.e. Memphis, the northern capital of the kingdom, see on ii. 16 and xliv. 1. 2rnn? to take up one's position for the fight; cf. ver. 4.?TCD, « thy surroundings," are the frontier countries, but especially those on the north, — Judah, Philistia, Edom, — since the enemy comes from the north. However, we cannot with certainty infer from this, that by that time the kingdom of Judah had already fallen, and Jerusalem been laid waste. Immediately after Necho had been vanquished at the Euphrates, Nebuchadnezzar marched after the fugitive foe, pursuing him as far as the borders of Egypt; hence we read, in 2 Kings xxiv. 7, " The king of Egypt went no more out of his land; for the king of Babylon had taken all that had belonged to the king of Egypt, from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates." Even at that time, in the fourth and fifth years of Jehoiakim, it could be said, " His sword hath devoured the countries contiguous to Egypt." And Nebuchadnezzar was prevented on that occasion from advancing farther, and penetrating into Egypt itself, only by hearing of his father's death at Babylon, in consequence of which he was compelled to return to Babylon as speedily as possible, for the purpose of assuming the reins of government, and to let his army with the prisoners follow him at their leisure (Berosus in Josephus, contra Ap. i. 19).— Ver. 15. The prophet in spirit looks on the power of Egypt as already broken. This is shown by the question of astonishment, V?21K *\??) WW? which has been variously rendered. D*T3« "strong ones" is used in Jer. viii. 16, xlvii. 3, and 1. 11, of stallions, but elsewhere as an epithet of bulls, especially the strong bulls of Bashan; see on viii. 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,.; Gesenius, § 147]. It is more difficult to combine with this the singulars of the verbs y> and ttfm which follow; these, and especially the suffix in the s.ngular, appear to indicate that V?** really refers to a noun m the singular. But the form of this noun seems against such i view • for the words adduced in support of the position that singular nouns sometimes assume plural suffixes, are insufficient for the purpose: thus, Tr6nn, Ps. ix. L5, and T^, Eaek. xxxv. 11, are plainly nouns in the singular. And in support of the averment that, in pausal forms with Segol, the, ifl a mere mater lectionis, only T^, Prov. vi. 1, can be adduced: the other instances brought forward by Hitzig fail to establish his position. For T?*, Dent xxviii. 48, may be plural; Va Gen. xvi. 5, is far from being a case in point, for the preposition often takes plural suffixes; and even in the case of suTDn, Ps. xvi. 10, the * is marked in the Qeri as superfluous; most codices, too, rather give the form T^". Bui even in the verse now before us, many codices, according to Kennicott and de Rossi, read 1??*, so that the word should perhaps be taken as a singular.' The singulars, however, which occur in the following clauses do not form conclusive proofs of this, since they may be taken in a distributive sense; and more generally the address often suddenly changes from the plural to the singular. In connection with the possibility of taking V?3« as a&singular, the paraphrase of the LXX. deserves mention and consideration, 6 /xocj^o? 6 eVXe/cro? gov, to which a gloss adds 6 "Aim. But we cannot agree with Kennicott, J. D. Michaelis, Ewald, Hitzig, Graf, and Niigelsbach, in holding this as certainly the correct rendering; nor can we give to "V3K the sense of " bull," for this meaning is not made out for the singular simply because the plural is used of strong bulls: this holds especially in Jeremiah, who constantly applies the plural strong steeds. Still leas ground la there for appealing to the feet that Jahveh is repeatedly called binlp V3N or TON 3ip£, (i-'n. \Ii\. 24, [aa. i. 24, \li\. 26, etc.; for thia epithet of Jahveh (who bIiowa Himself in or towards [srael aa the Mighty One) cannot be applied to the helpless im Apis. In
Ps. Iwiii. 31, D*V3N means "strong ones"— bulls as emblems of kings. If the word be used herewith such a reference.it may be singular or plural. In the former case il would mean the king; in the latter, the king with his princes and magnates, dnst the application of the word to the images of Apis, there is the fact that Apis a symbol of Osiris, was neither the only nor the chief god of Egypt, but was worshipped nowhere except in Memphis (Herodotus, ii. 153); hence it was not suited to be the representative of the gods or the power of Egypt, as the context, of the present passage requires. — Ver. 16. As the mighty one of Egypt does not stand, but is thrust down by God, so Jahveh makes many stumble and fall over one another, so that the strangers return to their own home in order to escape the violence of the sword. The subject of np$01 is indefinite; the speakers, however, are not merely the hired soldiers or mercenaries (ver. 11), or the allied nations ( Ezek. xxx. 5), but strangers generally, who had been living in Egypt partly for the sake of commerce, partly for other reasons (llitzig, Graf). As to rofrn 2in? see on xxv. 38. — In ver. 17, "they cry there" is not to be referred to those who tied to their native land; the subject is undefined, and "there" refers to the place where one falls over the other, viz. Egypt. " There they cry, l Pharaoh the king of Egypt is tfWP, desolation, destruction, ruin: ' " for this meaning, cf. xxv. 31, Ps. xl. 3; the signification " noise, bustle," is unsuitable here.1
1 The word Dt^ has been read by the LXX. and the Vulgate as if it had been D£N ouotux, nomen; accordingly the LXX. render, Kcc'hiactTi to ovo^a.
<l>xoctu N^ota), fixGiteug Aiyv7nov, lotuu 'Eafisi '~E/x,av;0 (or 'Eafiste Mayo); Vulgate, vocate nomen Pharaonis regis AZgypti: Tumultum adduxit tempus. This reading is preferred by J. D. Michaelis, Ewald, Hitzig, and Graf, with this difference, that Hitzig and Graf take only psi^ as a name.
Hence Ewald translates, "They call Pharaoh's name ' Noise-which-a-winkcan-hush.' " This rendering is decidedly false, for Tjfio nowhere has the sense of "wink, nod," not even in Judg. xx. 38, where it means an agreement
The meaning of 1J?i©n T?#!3 a^s0 1S disputed; it* is quite inadmissible, however, to join the words with PNK>, as Ewald does, for the purpose of making out a name. No suitable meaning can be extracted from them. Neither P«^ nor l^ton can be the subject of TOgjJ; the translation given by Schnurrer, " devastation that goes beyond all bounds," is still more arbitrary than that of Ewald given in the note. Since the Hiphil "i^Vfl is never used except with a transitive meaning, the subject can be none else than Pharaoh; and the words lyton T3yn must be intended to give the reason for his becoming a desolation: they are thus to be rendered, " he has allowed "WE? to pass by," not " the precise place," as Rosenmiiller explains it (" he did not stop in his flight at the place where the army could be gathered again, on the return"), but " the precise time." The reference, however, is not to the suitable time for action, for self-defence and for driving off the enemy (Grotius, C. B. Michaelis, Maurer, Umbreit), because the word does not mean suitable, convenient time, but appointed time. As Hitzig rightly perceived, the time meant is that within which the desolation might still be averted, and after which the judgment of God fell on him (Isa. x. 25, xxx. 18), — the time of grace which God had vouchsafed to him, so that Nebuchadnezzar did not at once, after the victory at Carchemish, invade and conquer Egypt. Pharaoh let this time pass by; because, instead of seeing in that defeat a judgment from God, he provoked the anger of Nebuchadnezzar by his repeated attacks on the Chaldean power, and brought on the invasion of Egypt by the king of Babylon (see above, p. 155).
made. For the reading DK> instead of Uty there are no sufficient grounds, although such passages as xx. 3 and Isa. xxx. 7 may be adduced in support of the idea obtained by such a change in the word. The translation of the LXX. is merely a reproduction of the Hebrew words by Greek letters, and shows that the translator did not know how to interpret them. The Vulgate rendering, tumultum adduxit tempus, is also devoid of meaning. Moreover, these translators have read ^xip as the imperative MOp 5 if we reject this reading, as all moderns do, then we may also lay no weight on q*j; instead of DC\ Besides, the meaning is not materially affected by this reading, for the giving of a name to a person merely expresses what he is or will be.
— In vcr. 18 f. there is laid down a more positive foundation for the threat uttered in ver. 17. With an oath, the Lord announces the coming of the destroyer into Egypt. Like Tabor, which overtops all the mountains round about, and like Cannel, which looks out over the sea as if it were a watch-tower, so will he come, viz. he from whom proceeds the devastation of Egypt, the king of Babylon. The power of Nebuchadnezzar, in respect of its overshadowing all other kings, forms the point of comparison. Tabor has the form of a truncated cone. Its height is given at 1805 feet above the level of the sea, or 1350 from the surface of the plain below; it far surpasses in height all the hills in the vicinity, and affords a wide prospect on every side; cf. lvobinson's Vhys. Gcogr. of 1'alestine, p. 26 f. Cannel stretches out in the form of a long ridge more than three miles wide, till it terminates on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, as a bold, lofty promontory, which rises in an imposing manner at least 500 feet above the sea; cf. Robinson, p. 20 f. Then the inhabitants of Egypt will be driven into exile. njfa ^3, st vessels of wandering;" outfit for an exile, as in Ezek. xii. 3. " Daughter of Egypt " is not a personification of the country, whose inhabitants are the people, but of the population, which is viewed as the daughter of the country; it stands in apposition to rnirv, like D?TO? na rfena, ver. 11. For Noph, i.e. Memphis, the capital, is laid waste and burned, so as to lose its inhabitants. With ver. 20 begins the second strophe, in which the fate impending on Egypt is still more plainly predicted.
Ver. 20. "Egypt is a very beautiful young heifer; a gadfly from the north comes — comes. Ver. 21. Her mercenaries, too, in her midst, are like fatted calves; for they also turn their backs, they flee together: they do not stand, for the day of her destruction is come on her, the time of her visitation. Ver. 22. Its sound is like [that of] the serpent [as it] goes; for they go with an army, and come against her with axes, like hewers of trees. Ver. 23. They cut down her forest, saith Jahveh, for it is not to be searched; for they are more numerous than locusts, and they cannot be numbered. Ver. 24. The daughter of Egypt is disgraced; she is given into the hand of the people of the north. Ver. 25. Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel, saith, Behold, I will visit Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, her gods, and her kin«s; Pharaoh, and all those who trust in him Ver 26. And I wil give them into the hand of those who seek their life, t n into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the kmg of Babylon and into the hand of his servants; but afterwards,t shall be inhabited, as in the davs of old, saith Jahveh.
In v r.20 the address begins afresh, in order to carry out further, under new images, the description **ff~? already threatened. Egypt is a very beautiful ijfl?, tins feminine is chosen with a regard to « the daughter of Egypt. X* is an adjective formed from the Peal of J, "very beautiful," not "coquetting" (Hitzig, who fo lows the ««aX- X^whn, of the LXX.). A very beautiful heifer.8 the people when carefully and abundantly fed m their beautiful and fertile land (Hitzig). Upon this heifer there comes from the north PP. This Stt. Xey. is variously rendered. H> means, in the Hebrew, to pinch, nip (Job xxxiii 6) to compress together, as in winking (Pa. xxxv. 19), to bring the hps closely together (Prov. xvi. 30), and to nip off; cf. J.J to pinch, nip, cut off. Hence A. Schultens (Ong. lhb. ii. 34 aqq.), after Cocceius,and with a reference to Virgil, Gcorg. m. 117 has rendered PP by morsus vellieans oestri. Hitzig (with whom Roediger, in his additions to Gesenius' Thesaurus, agrees) takes ^ li intectum cimici simile as his warrant for rendering it by oestrus, " the gadfly," which gives a more suitable meaning. Ewald, on the contrary, compares pp with Jfr and translates it " whale," a huge sea-monster; but this is quite arbitrary, for YV does not correspond to the Arabic Jj, and the whale or shark does not afford any figure that would be suitable for the context: e.g. ver. 21, "her mercenaries also flee," shows that the subject treated of is not the devouring or destruction, but the expulsion of the Egyptians out of their land; this is put as an addition to what is said about exile in ver. 19. Still less suitable is the general rendering excidium, destruction (Rabbins, Gesenius, Umbreit); and there is no lexical foundation for the Vulgate translation stimulator, nor for " taskmaster," the renderina of J. D. Michaelis and Rosenmuller. The old translators have onlv made guesses from the context. The figure of the gadfly corresponds to the bee in the land of Assyria, Isa. vii. 18. The repetition of fc« gives emphasis, and points either to the certainty of the coming, or its continuance. Ver. 21 The mercenaries, also, of the daughter of Egypt, well fed, like Fatted calves, betake themselves to flight. Dnafe are "mercenaries," as distinguished from the allies mentioned in ver. 9. It was Oarians and Ion.ans through whom Psammetichus attained the supremacy over all Egypt: these had settled down in arparoTT^a of their own, between Bubastis and I Ylusium, on both banks of the eastern arm of the Nile (Herodotus, ii. 152, 154), and were very well eared for, since the king relied on them (Herod, ii. 152, 11)3). Hence the comparison with fatted calves, which, moreover, are co-ordinated with the subject, as is shown by the resumption of the subject in mi M. '3 stands in the middle of the sentence, with an asseverative meaning • 'lea, these also turn their back, they flee together, do not stand; for the day of their destruction is come." « The day of their destruction" is used as in xviii. 17. On « the time of their visitation" (which stands in apposition to the preceding expression), cf. xi. 28, xxiii. 12: it is not an accusative of time (Crraf), for tins always expresses the idea of continuance during a space of time. In vers. 22, 23, the annihilation of the power of Egypt is portrayed under another figure. A difficult expression is « vnu nbip, « her (viz. that of the daughter of Ec'ypt) voice is like (the voice of) the serpent (which) goes." & must be taken as part of a relative sentence, since this verb is nowhere used of a voice or sound; hence it cannot be so joined here kwald, following the avpifyvTo^ of the LXX, would read |nW Mussing," instead of?fo and translates, "it makes a noise like the hissing serpent." He more fully defines the meaning thus: Even though Egypt were hidden like a serpent in a thicket vet it would be heard in its flight, like a nasty serpent hissing fiercely, while it hurries away from the axe of the woodcutter." But, apart from the arbitrary change of & into W (the former word is used in Gen. iii. 14 of the going, i.e crawling, of a serpent), Ewald puts into the words an idea altogether foreign to them. The nasty, fierce hissing of the serpent that is forced to flee, is quite unsuitable: for there is no further mention made of the flight of the Egyptians, but Egypt is hewn down like a forest by woodcutters. Moreover, as Graf has already well remarked, Egypt is not compared to a serpent but only its voice to the voice or hiss of a serpent. For V signifies not merely the voice, but any sound, even the rustling and rattling of leaves (cf. Gen. iii. 8, Lev. xxvi. 36, 2 Sam v. 24); hence it may denote the noise caused by a serpent crawling on its belly in the thicket. The comparison, as Graf has correctly observed, is like that in Isa. xxix. 4. There it is the daughter of Zion, but here it is the daughter of Egypt that lies on the oround, deeply humbled; weeping softly and moaning, making a sound like that of a serpent in a moss among fallen leaves, fleeing before the woodcutters.1 Thus she lies on the ground, for the enemy comes in force, with axes like woodcutters, to hew down the forest of men in Egypt. The mention of the axes is occasioned by the comparison of the foe to woodcutters; we are not to think of battle-axes as weapons of the Massagetae, Scythians, Persians, and other nations (Herodotus, i. 21.), IV. 70, vii. 64; Xenophon, Cyroped. I 2, 9). Axes here form the type of murderous weapons generally. On the comparison of a multitude of people to a forest, cf. xxi. 14, Isa. x. 18 If., 33 f. The clause 1£IT n^ '3 is referred by L. de Dieu, J. D. Michaehs, Hitzig, Nagelsbach, etc., to the wood, " for it cannot be explored i The old translators have quit- misunderstood these- words, and attempted to apply them, each one according to his -»wn fancy, to the enemy. Thus the LXX. translate: *«* *i*Z> (D*P -"-"»- *>fK"t*\ (jTl " *****
!,•/ sicut voxserpentum repentium; and similarly the Syriac. The Vulgate is: vox ejus <r<asl aens {n^: for t'TV) sonabit, quoniam cum exerettu properahtnt et cum securibus venient. The translator of the Vulgate has thus read pfap, and referred the suffix i pg which he renders stunulator. Luther'follows the Vulgate: " E her, das der Harnisch brasselt, und kommen mil Heeres KranV1 Hitzig also a eks to change the text, after the LXX., turning pfop into D^j>, and bra into —. But this alteration disturbs the order of the sentence. Not only in vers. 20 and 21, but also in vers 23, 24, the first clause always 1 1 pt, and what befalls her is only stated in the clauses which folio* it m ver. 22. Thus the alteration made affords a very trivial result, viz. that the enemy advancing on Egypt march through the very sandy desert between Gaza and Egypt, and make slow progress, like serp mts, because they wade through the sand; so that they make their appearance suddenly and unexpectedly.
or penetrated; M thus a road must be made in order to get through it. However, the question is not about the enemy going or marching through Egypt, but about the destruction of Egypt and her powers. Rosenmiiller and Graf, with Raschi, are more correct in referring the clause to the hostile army, "for it cannot be investigated/1 i.e. it is impossible to learn the number of them. It is no great objection to this interpretation that the verb occurs in the singular: this musl be retained as it is, since it is not the individual enemies that cannot be searched out, but it is the number of the whole army that cannot be koned. On the employment of "ipn in the Niphal in connection with the impossibility of counting a multitude, cf. 1 Kings vii. 47, and the expression ^jjn ^ in Job v. 9, ix. 10, xxxvi. 36. The clauses which follow, and conclude ver. 23, explain the thought further: "more numerous than grasshoppers," i.e. innumerable.
In ver. 24 f. the result of the overthrow of Egypt, which has hitherto been set forth in figurative language, is stated in words which describe the exact realities: Egypt will be given up to ignominy, delivered into the power of a people from the north, i.e. the Chaldeans. The Lord of hosts, the Almighty God of Israel, punishes it for its sins. He visits, i.e. punishes, Amon of No, the chief idol of Egypt; Pharaoh, and the land, with all its gods and its kings, and with Pharaoh, all those who place their trust in his power. Words are accumulated for the purpose of showing that the judgment will be one which shall befall the whole land, together with its gods, its rulers, and its inhabitants. First of all is mentioned Anion of Noy as in Ezek. xxx. 14 f. &o is an abbreviation of ptDfcJ K3, i.e. dwelling of Amon, the sacred name of the royal city in Upper Egypt, famous in antiquity, which the Greeks called Aios 7roXt?, or 0?;'/3^, or 0f;,3at, it is supposed, after the vulgar Egyptian name Tapet or Tape (liirone or Seat); see on Nah. iii. 8. Amon — in Greek 'Afifiovv (Herodotus, ii. 42), 'A/jlovv (Plutarch, de Is. chap. 9), 'Aficap (Jamblichus, demyst.5, 8) — was a sungod (Amon-Ra), probably a symbol of the sun as it appears in the spring, in the sign of the Ram; hence he was represented with rams' horns. By the Greeks he was compared to Jupiter, or Zeus, and named Jupiter Amnion. The chief seat of his worship was Thebes, where he had a temple, with a numerous learned priesthood and a famous oracle (cf. Strabo,xvii. 1. 43; Justin, xi. 11), which Cambyses destroyed (Diodorus Siculus, Fragm. Lib. x.). Under the expression " kings of Egypt" we are not to include governors or vassal-kings, but all the kings whoever ruled Egypt; for in the judgment now falling on Egypt, all the kings it ever had, together with all its gods, are punished. In the last part of the verse the name of Pharaoh is once more given, for the purpose of attaching to it the words " and all who trust in him; " these are intended for the Jews who expected help from Egypt. The punishment consists in their being all given into the hand of their enemies, namely (1 explic.) into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar and his servants. This defeat, however, is not to be the end of the Egyptian kingdom. The threat of judgment concludes, in ver. 266, with a promise for the future. ''Afterwards, it shall be inhabited, as in the days of yore." i-V W Med in a neuter sense, as in xvii. 6, xxxiii. L6, etc. Since this verb also signifies to settle down, be encamped (Num. xxiv. 2), and to lie quiet, to rest, or keep oneself quiet, inactive (Judg.Y. 17; Prov. vii. 11), Hitzig and Graf, with Kimchi, give the explanation: "because the power of Egypt shall be broken, it will keep quiet, and remain at home in its own country, instead of marching forth and fighting other nations, as it has lately begun again to do (ver. 7) after centuries of pete Bat although, in support of this view, we are pointed to Esek. xxix. 13, where the restoration of Egypt is predicted, with the further remark, " it will be an abject kingdom," yet this idea is not contained in the words of our verse. To ren 2 " by " to keep quiet, be inactive," does not suit the words " as in the davs of old." Li former days, Egypt was neither inactive nor remained at home in peace in its own land. From the remotest antiquity, the Pharaohs made wars, and sought to enlarge their dominions by conquest. Add to this, that we must view the concluding portion of this prophecy in a manner analogous to the closing thought of the prophecies regarding Moab (xlviii. 47), Ammon (xlix. 6), and Elam (xlix. 39), where the turning of the captivity in the last times is given in prospect to these nations, and" afterwards," in xlix. 6, alternates with "in the latter davs" found in xlviii. 47
I \\\. 39. From this it follows that, in the yerse now before as also, it is oot the future In general, but the lasl time, the Messianic future, that is pointed out; hence l-'f does not express the peaceful condition of the land, but its being inhabited, in contrast with its depopulation in the immediate future, in consequence of its inhabitants being killed or carried away. (hi the fulfilment of this threatening, Bee p. 1 51 ff.
s. 27, 28. -1 promise/or Israel — Ver.27. "But fear not thou, 0 my servant Jacob, nor be dismayed: for, behold, I will Bave thee from alar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, ami be at rest and secure, and no one shall make him afraid. \Yr. l'n. Pear thou not, my servant Jacob, saith Jahveh, fori am with thee: for I will make complete destruction of all the nations whither I have driven thee, but of thee will I not make complete destruction: yet I will correct thee in a proper manner, and I will not leave thee wholly unpunished.'1 These verses certainly form no integral portion of the prophecy, but an epilogue; yet they are closely connected with the preceding, and are occasioned by the declaration in ver. 26, that the Lord, when lie visits Pharaoh, shall also visit all those who trust in Him. This word, which is directed to Judah, might be understood to declare that it is Judah chiefly which will share the fate of Egypt. In order to prevent such a misconception, Jeremiah adds a word for Israel, which shows how the true Israel has another destiny to hope for. Their deliverer is Jahveh, their God, who certainly punishes them for their sins, gives them up to the power of the heathen, but will also gather them again after their dispersion, and then grant them uninterrupted prosperity. This promise of salvation at the close of the announcement of judgment on Egypt is similar to the promise of salvation for Israel inserted in the threat of judgment against Babylon, 1. 4-7 and 19, 20, li. 5, 6, 10, 35, 36, 45, 46, 50; and this similarity furnishes a proof in behalf of the genuineness of the verse, which is denied by modern critics. For, although what Nagelsbach remarks is quite correct, viz. that the fall of the kingdom of Babylon, through its conquest by Cyrus, directly brought about the deliverance of Israel, while the same cannot be said regarding the conquest of Egypt, yet even Egypt had a much greater importance, in relation to Judah, than the smaller neighbouring nations, against which the oracles in chap, xlvii.-xhx. are directed; hence there is no ground for the inference that, because there is nothing said in these three chapters of such a connection between Egypt and Israel, it did not really exist. But when Nagelsbach further asks, « How does this agree with the fact that Jeremiah, on other occasions, while in Egypt, utters only the strongest threats against the Israelites— chap.
xlii.-xliv.?" there is the ready answer, that the expressions in chap, xlii.-xliv. do not apply to the whole covenant people, but only to the rabble of Judah that was ripe for the sentence of destruction, that had fled to Egypt against the will of God. What Hitzig and Graf have further urged in another place against the genuineness of the verses now before us, is scarcely worth mention. The assertion that the verses do not accord with the time of the foregoing prophecy, and rather presuppose the exile, can have weight only with those who <> priori deny that the prophet could make any prediction. But if Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, distinctly announc not merely the carrying away of Judah to Babylon, but also fixes the duration of the exile at seventy years, then he might well speak at the same time, or later, of the restoration of Israel from their captivity.
But there are two other considerations which support the genuineness of these verses: (1) The fact that Ilitzig and Graf are obliged to confess it remains a problem how they came to form a part of the oracle against Egypt The attempt made by the former writer to solve this problem partly rests on the assumption, already refuted by Graf, that the verses were written by the second Isaiah (on this point, see our remarks at p. 7, note), and partly on a combination of results obtained by criticism, in which even their author has little confidence. But (2) we must also bear in mind the nature of the verses in question. They form a repetition of what we find in xxx. 10, 11, and a repetition, too, quite in the style of Jeremiah, who makes variations in expression. Thus here, in ver. 27, HW DIC is omitted after 3ip£, perhaps simply because ver. 26 concludes with niiV DX3 • attain, in ver. 20, 3% TO KW^K nm is repeated with njrp DX3, which is wanting in xxx. 11. On the other hand, -•.,l-~^ in xx\. 11a, and W in xxx. lift, hare been dropped; Dtf VflftPW <N-\x- 11) has been exchanged for,—::•• -\ i. Hence Hitzig has taken the text here to be the hotter and the original one; and on this he founds the supposition that the verses were first placed here in the text, and were only afterwards, and from this passage, inserted in chap. xxx. 10, 11, where, however, they stand in the best connection, and even for that could not be ■ gloss inserted there. Such are some of the contradictions in which critical scepticism involves itself. We have already given an explanation of these verses under chap. xxx.
1 hap. xlvii. Concerning the Philistin
Ver. 1. Title. — The word of the Lord against the Philistines came to Jeremiah k* before Pharaoh smote Gaza." If we understand this time-definition in such a way that " the prophecy would refer to the conquest of Gaza by Pharaoh," as Graf thinks, and as Hitzig also is inclined to suppose, then this portion of the title does not accord with the contents of the following prophecy; for, according to ver. 2, the devastator of Philistia approaches from the north, and the desolation comes not merely on Gaza, but on all Philistia, and even Tyre and Sidon (vers. 4, 5). Hence Graf thinks that, if any one is inclined to consider the title as utterly incorrect, only two hypotheses are possible: either the author of the title overlooked the statement in ver. 2, that the hostile army was to come from the north; in which case this conquest might have taken place at any time during the wearisome struggles, fraught with such changes of fortune, between the Chaldeans and the Egyptians for the possession of the border fortresses, during the reign of Jehoiakim (which is Ewald's opinion): or he may possibly have noticed the statement, but found no difficulty in it; in which case, in spite of all opposing considerations (see M. von Niebuhr, Gesch. Assyr. und Bab. p. 369), it must be assumed that the conquest was effected by the defeated army as it was returning from the Euphrates, when Necho, on his march home, reduced Gaza (Hitzig), and by taking this fortress from the enemy, barred the way to Egypt. Of these two alternatives, we can accept neither as probable. The neglect, on the part of the author of the title, to observe the statement that the enemy is to come from the north, would show too great carelessness for us to trust him. But if he did notice the remark, then it merely follows that Pharaoh must have reduced Gaza on his return, after being defeated at Carchemish. Nor is it legitimate to conclude, as Ewald does, from the statement in 2 Kings xxiv. 7 (" The king of Egypt went no more out of his land; for the king of Babylon had taken all that had belonged to the king of Eirypt, from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates v), that the wars between the Chaldean* and the Egyptians for the possession of the border fortresses, such as ( I 12 i. were tedious, and attended with frequent changes of fortune. In the connection in which it stands, this statement merely shows that, after Nebuchadnezzar had made Jehoiakim hi I, the latter could not receive any help from Egypt in his rebellion, after he had ruled three years, because Pharaoh did not venture to march out of his own territory any more. Bat it plainly follows from this, that Pharaoh cannot have taken the fortress of Gaza while retreating before Nebuchadnezzar. For, in this case, Nebuchadnezzar would have been obliged t<> drive him thence before ever he could have reduced King Jehoiakim again to subjection. The assumption is difficult to reconcile with what B rosus B regarding the campaign of Nebuchadnezzar, viz. that he continued in the field till he heard of the death of his father. Add to this, that, as M. von Niebuhr very rightly Bays, "there is every military probability against it1' (/>. against the assumption that Gaza was reduced by Necho en his retreat). " If this fortress had stood out till the battle of Carchemish, then it is inconceivable that a routed eastern army should have taken the city during its retreat, even though there were, on the line of march, the strongest positions on the Orontes, in Lebanon, etc., where it might have taken its stand." Hence Niebuhr thinks it " infinitely more improbable either that Gaza was conquered before the battle of Carchemish, about the same time as Ashdod, and that Jeremiah, in chap, xlvii., predicts the approach of the army which was still engaged in the neighbourhood of Nineveh; or that the capture of the fortress did not take place till later, when Nebuchadnezzar was again engaged in Babylon, and that the prophet announces his return, not his first approach."
senmOller and H&gelsbach have declared in favour of the first of these suppositions. Both of them place the capture of Gaze in the time of Necho's march against the Assyrians under Josiah; Rosenmiiller before the battle of Megiddoj Nagelsbach after that engagement, because he assumes, with all modern expositors, that Necho had landed with his army at the Bay of Acre. He endeavours to support this view by the ervation that Necho, before marching farther north, Bought to keep the way clear for a retreat to Egypt, Bince he would otherwise have been lost after the battle of Carchemish, if he did not previously reduce Gaza, the key of the high road to Egypt In this, Nagelsbach rightly assumes that the heading, "before Pharaoh smote Gaza/1 was not intended to show the fulfilment of the prophecy in the conquest of Gaza by Necho soon afterwards but merely states that Jeremiah predicts to the Philistines that they will be destroyed by a foe from the north, at a time when conquest by a foe from the north was impending over them. Rightly, too, does Niebuhr remark that, in support of the view that Gaza was taken after the battle at Carchemish, there is nothing more than the announcement of the attack from the north, and the arrangement of the prophecies in Jeremiah, in which that against the Philistines is placed after that about the battle at Carchemish. Hitzig and Graf lay great weight upon this order and arrangement, and thence conclude that all the prophecies against the nations in chap, xlvi.- xlix., with the exception of that regarding Elam, were uttered in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. There are no sufficient grounds for this conclusion. The agreement between this prophecy now before us and that in chap, xlvi., as regards particular figures and expressions (Graf), is too insignificant to afford a proofthat the two belong to the same time; nor is much to be made out of the point so strongly insisted on by Hitzig, that after the Egyptians, as the chief nation, had been treated of, the author properly brings forward those who, from the situation of their country, must be visited by war immediately before it is sent on the Egyptians. The main foundation for this view is taken from the notice by Herodotus (ii. 159), that Necho, after the battle at Magdolos, took the large Syrian city KdSvrts. Magdolos is here taken as a variation of Megiddo, and Kadytis of
Gaza. But neither Hitzig nor Stark have proved the identity of Kadytis with Gaza, as we have already remarked on 2 Kings xxiii 33 • so that we cannot safely draw any conclusion, regarding the time when Gaza was taken, from that statement of Herodotus. In consequence of the want of evidence from other sources, the date of this event cannot be more exactly
From the contents of this prophecy and its position among the oracles against the nations, we can draw no more than a very probable inference that it was not published before the fourth year of Jehoiakim, inasmuch as it is evidently but a further amplification of the sentence pronounced in that year ao-ainst all the nations, and recorded in chap. xxv. Thus all conjectures as to the capture of Gaza by Necho on his march to the Euphrates, before the battle at Carchemish, become very precarious. But the assumption is utterly improbable also, that Necho at a later period, whether in his Bight before the Chaldeans, or afterwards, while Nebuchadnezzar was occupied in Babylon, undertook an expedition against riiilistia: such a hypothesis is irreconcilable with the statement given in 2 Kings xxiv. 7. There is thus no course left open for us, but to understand, by the Pharaoh of the title here, not Necho, but his successor Hophra: this has been i ted by Raschi, who refers to Jer. xxxvii. 5, 11, and by Perizonius, in his Origg. JEgypt p. 459, who founds on the notices of Herodotus (ii. 261) and of Diodorus Siculus, i. 68, regarding the naval battle between Apries on the one hand and the Cyprians and Phoenicians on the other. From these notices, it appears pretty certain that Pharaoh-IIophra sought to avenge the defeat of Necho on the Chaldeans, and to extend the power of Egypt in Asia. Hence it is also very probable that he took Gaza, with the view of getting into his hands this key of the highway to Egypt. This assumption we regard as the most probable, since nothing has been made out against it; there are no sufficient grounds for the opinion that this prophecy belongs to the same time as that in chap. xlvi.
Contents of the Prophecy.— From the north there pours forth a river, inundating fields and cities, whereupon lamentation begins. Every one flees in haste before the sound of the hostile Army, for the day of desolation is come on all Philistia and Phoenicia (vers. 2 I). The cities of Philistia mourn, for the sword of the Lord is incessantly active among them (vers.
7). This brief prophecy thus falls into two strophes: in the tir.v: -J 1), tluv ruin that is breaking over Philistia is described; in the second (vers. 5 7), its operation on the country and on the people.
Ver, 2. "Thus saith Jahveh: Behold, waters shall rise up out of the north, and shall become an inundating stream, and they shall inundate the land and its fulness, cities and those who dwell in them; and men shall cry, ami all the inhabitants of the land shall how 1. Ver, '<). Because of the sound of the trampling of the hoofs of his Btrong horses, because of the din of his chariots, the noise of his wheels, fathers do not look back to their children from weakness of hands; Ver. 4. Because of the day that cometh to destroy all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Zidon every one remaining as a helper; for Jahveh destroyeth the Philistines, the remnant of the coast of Caphtor. Ver. 5. Baldness is come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is destroyed, the rest of their plain. How long wilt thou cut thyself? Ver. 6. O sword of Jahveh, how long wilt thou not rest? Draw thyself back into thy sheath; rest, and be still. Ver. 7. How canst thou be quiet, when Jahveh hath commanded thee? Against Ashkelon and against the sea-coast, there hath He appointed it."
The address opens with a figure. The hostile army that is to devastate Philistia is represented as a stream of water, breaking forth from the north, and swelling to an overflowing winter-torrent, that inundates the country and cities with their inhabitants. The figure is often used: cf. xlvi. 7, 8, where the Egyptian host is compared to the waves of the Nile; and Isa. viii. 7, where the Assyrian army is likened to the floods of the Euphrates. The simile is applied here in- another way. The figure is taken from a strong spring of water, coming forth in streams out of the ground, in the north, and swelling to an overflowing wdnter-torrent, that pours out its floods over Philistia, laying it waste. " From the north " is used here as in xlvi. 20, and points back to i. 13, 14. " An inundating stream " is here employed as in Isa. xxx. 20; u earth and its fulness, a city and those who dwell in it," as in viii. 16. In ver 3 follows the application of the figure. It is a martial hositha overflows the land, and with its mighty noise puts he Lib tints in such terror that they think only of a hasty flight; even fathers do not turn back to save the* children. l-flf, «r. Xe7., Syriac ^Lm, incedere, gradi, hence probably the. 0f j,00fs D*V3K, strong horses, as in vin. 16. K>fteadof the construct state, has perhaps been chosen only for the sake of introducing a variation; cf Ewahl §290, a n"En, to turn the back, as in xlvi. 5. « Slackness o f hands, U utter loss of courage through terror; cf. v.. 24 (the form #01 only occurs here). In ver. 4 the deeper source of fear H mentioned; "because of the day," i.e. became the day has come to destroy all the Philistines, namely, the day of the iudcrment determined by the Lord; cf. xlvi. 10. " In order to ffiy every remnant 'helping Tyre and Zidon." * T* are the Philistines, who could afford help to the Phoenicians m the struck against the Chaldean power. This implies that the Phoenicians also shall perish without any one to help them. This indirect mention of the Phoenician* appears striking, but it is to be explained partly on the ground that Jeremiah has uttered special prophecies only against the chief enemies of Judah, and partlv also perhaps from the historical relations, i.e. from the fact that the Philistines might have afforded help to the Phoenicians in the struggles against the great powers of the world. Hitzig unnecessarily seeks to take |rWfia 1» as the object, and to expunge TtJ> T*rfe as a gloss. The objections which he raises against the construction are groundless, as is shown by such passages as xliv. 7, Isa. xiv. 22, 1 Kings xiv. 10 etc. "The remaining helper" is the expression used, because the other nations that could help the Egyptians, viz. the Syrians and Phoenicians, had already succumbed to the Chaldean power. The destruction will be so great as this, because it is Jahveh who destroys the Philistines, the remnant of the coast of Caphtor. According to Amos ix. 7, Deut. ii. 23, the Philistines came from Caphtor; hence iin== * tVJff can oniy mean " what still remains of. the people of Phihstia who come from the coast of Caphtor," like " the remnant of the Philistines " in Amos i. 8. Opinions are divided as to
The prevailing view is that of Lakemacher, that Caphtor is the Dame of the island of Crete; bat \'*>i' this there are do tenable grounds: Bee on Zeph. ii. 5; and Delitzsch on S.248,Aufl.4. Dietrich (in Met '.!, Au>.i.S.313 ff.) and Ebera (./.' u. die BUcher M, i. S. L30ff.) agree in thinking that Caphtor 18 the Bhore of the Delta, but they explain the name differently. Dietrich derives it from the Egyptian Kah-p< -II (district of Hor), which he takes to he the environs of the city of Buto, and the lake called after it (the modern Burlos), not far from the S -hennytie mouth of the Nile; Ebers, followingthe tablet of Canopus, in which the yptian name Kfa (Kaf) is given as that of Phoenicia, derives the name from Kcif-trUr^ i.<\ /!/>> gn ' A • as the ancient seat of the Phoenicians on the shore of the Delta must have been called. But both explanations are still very doubtful, though there is no question about the migration of the Philistines from Egypt into Canaan. — Vers. 5-7. The prophet sees, in the spirit, the threatened desolation as already come upon Philistia, and portrays it in its effects upon the people and the country. "Baldness (a sign of the deepest and most painful sorrow) has come upon Gaza; " cf. Mic. i. 16. ™7-"!? is rendered by the Vulgate conticuit. After this Graf and Xiigelsbach take the meaning of being " speechless through pain and sorrow; " cf. Lam. ii. 10. Others translate " to be destroyed." Both renderings are lexically permissible, for HOT and C^i have both meanings. In support of the first, the parallelism of the members has been adduced; but this is not decisive, for figurative and literal representations are often interchanged. On the whole, it is impossible to reach any definite conclusion; for both renderings give suitable ideas, and these not fundamentally different in reality the one from the other. DjJDJf nns*J;, "the rest of their valley" (the suffix referring to Gaza and Ashkelon), is the low country round about Gaza and Ashkelon, which are specially mentioned from their being the two chief fortresses of Philistia. pftV is suitably applied to the low -lying belt of country, elsewhere called nfetPj u the low country/' as distinguished from the hill-country; for P»y does not always denote a deep valley, but is also sometimes used, as in Josh. xvii. 16, etc., of the plain of Jezreel, and of other plains which are far from being deeply-sunk valleys. Thus there is no valid reason for follow- W the arbitrary translation of the LXX, «al rh *araWa 'EvoKefo and changing D£R into Df^ as Hitzig and Graf do- more especially is it utterly improbable that in the Chaldean period Anakim were still to be found in Philistia. The mention of them, moreover, is out of place here; and still less can we follow Graf in his belief that the inhabitants of Gath are the " rest of the Anakim." In the last clause of ver. 5, Philistia is set forth as a woman, who tears her body (with her nails) in despair, makes incisions on her body; cf. xvi. 6, xli. 5. The question, " How long dost thou tear thyself!M forms a transition to the plaintive request, " Gather thyself," i.e. draw thyself back into thy scabbard. But the seer replies, "How can it rest? for Jahveh hath given it a commission against Ashkelon and the Philistine sea-oK^t." For n?!**?, in ver. 7, we must read the 3d pen. fern. t:pv;m, as the following?6 shows. The form probably got into the text from an oversight, through looking at *D|*fol in ver. 6. c;n 1;>n, " the sea-coast," a designation of Philistia, as in Ezek. XXV. 16.
The prophecy concludes without a glance at the Messianic future. The threatened destruction of the Philistines has actually begun with the conquest of Philistia by Nebuchadnezzar, but has not yet culminated in the extermination of the people. The extermination and complete extirpation are thus not merely repeated by Ezekiel, xxv. 15 ff., but after the exile the threats are once more repeated against the Philistines by Zechariah (ix. 5): they only reached their complete fulfilment when, as Zechariah announces, in the addition made to Isa. xiv. 30 ff., their idolatry also was removed from them, and their incorporation into the Church of God was accomplished through judgment. Cf. the remarks on Zeph. ii. 10.
The Moabites had spread themselves on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, where the Emims dwelt in former times (Deut. ii. 10). But previous to the immigration of the Israelites into Canaan, the Amorites, under King Sihon, had already taken forcible possession of the northern portion of this territory as far as the Anion (Num. xxi. 13). The Israelites, on their march through the desert, were not to treat the Moabites:is enemies, nor touch their territory (Deut ii. 9; cf. Judg. li. l.">, L8). But when Sihon, king of the Amorites, had been ii by the Israelites, and his kingdom subdued, the Israelii ii i>( the territory north of the Anion, thai had formerly belonged to the Moabites, but had been conquered by Sihon: this was given to the tribe of Reuben for an inheritance (Num. xxi. -1 ft'.: Deut. ii. 32 36; Josh. xiii. 1,") ff.). Th< M il ites could not got over this loss of the northern half of their country. The victory of the Israelites over the powerful kings of the Amorifc Sihon in Heshbon ai f Bashan, inspired them with terror for the power of this people; so that their king Balak, while the Israelites were encamped in the steppes of Moab opposite.Jericho, fetched Balaam the sorcerer from Mesopotamia, with the design of destroying Israel through the power of his anathema. And when this plan did D ' iu!, since Balaam was obliged, against his will, to ble 1 tel instead of cursing them, the Moabites sought to weaken thorn, and to render them powerless to do any injury, by seducing them to idolatry (cf. Num. xxii.- xxv.). Such malicious conduct was shown repeatedly afterwards. N t lon£T after the deatli of Joshua, Eglon the kin£ of Moab, aided by the Ammonites and Amalekites, crossed the Jordan and took Jericho, which he made the centre of operations for keeping the Israelites under subjection: these were thus oppressed for eighteen years, until they succeeded in defeating the Moabites and driving them back into their own land, after Ehud had assassinated King Eglon (Judg. iii. 12 ff.). At a later period, Saul made war on them (1 Sam. xiv. 47); and David completely subdued them, severely chastised them, and made them tributary (2 Sam. viii. 2). But after the death of Ahab, to wThom King Mesha had paid a very considerable yearly tribute (2 Kings iii. 4), they revolted from Israel (2 Kings i. 1, iii. 5). In the time of Jehoshaphat, in conjunction with the Ammonites and a portion of the Edomites, they even invaded Judah, with the design of taking Jerusalem; but they ruined themselves through mutual discords, so that Jehoshaphat obtained a glorious victory over them (2 Chron. xx.).
It was possibly also with the view of taking revenge for this exhibition of malicious spirit that the king of Judah afterwards, in conjunction with Joram king of Israel, carried war into their country, and defeated them (2 Kings iii. 6-27). Still later, mention is made of an invasion of Israel by Moabite hosts during the reign of Joash (2 Kings xiii. 20); and in the time of Hezekiah, we find them once more in possession of their ancient territory to the north of the Anion, at a time when the trans-Jordanic tribes of Israel had been carried away by the Assyrians into exile.
Judging from these aphoristic notices, the Moabites, on the division of the kingdom after Solomon's death, seem to have remained tributary to the kingdom of the ten tribes until the death of Ahab; then they revolted, but soon afterwards were once more reduced to subjection by Joram and Jehoshaphat. Still later, they certainly made several invasions into Israel, but without permanent result; nor was it till the carrying away of the trans-Jordanic tribes by the Assyrians that they succeeded in regaining permanent possession of the depopulated land of Reuben, their former territory. This account, however, has been modified in several important respects by the recent discovery of an inscription on a monument raised by King Mesha after a victory he had gained; this " Moabite stone n was found in the neighbourhood of the ancient Dibon. The deciphering of the long inscription of thirty-four lines on this memorial stone, so far as success has followed the attempts hitherto made, has issued in its giving important disclosures concerning the relation of Moab to Israel.1 From these we gather that Omri,
1 On the discovery of this memorial stone, of which Count de \'<>^rui: gave the first^ account in a paper entitled " / dt M a: Lettn a Mr. le
Comte de Vogile par Ch. Clermont-Ganneau" Paris 1870, cf. the detailed notice by Petermann in the Zeitschr. dt r Ih uttch n Morg. <'•< m II xxiv. (for 1870), S. 640 ff. The stone was broken to pieces by the Arabs; thus, unfortunately, the whole of the inscription has not been preserved. So much, however, of the fragments has been saved, that from these the contents of the inscription may be substantially obtained with tolerable certainty. The work of deciphering has been undertaken by Konst. Schlottmann ( Ueberdie Siegessciule Mesa's, Konigs der Moabiter, Hall. Osterprogr. 1870, with these additions: "Die Inschrijt Mesa's; Transcription u. Uebersetzung reuidirt," in the Zeitschr. der Morg. Gesell. xxiv. S. 253 ff.; " Additamenta " in the same periodical, S. 415 ff., 438 ff., 645 ff.; and " Der Moabiterkonig king of brad, had taken poaaeaaion of the district of Medeba, and that the Moabites were heavily oppressed by him and his successor for forty years, until King Mesha succeeded, through the help oi his god Chemoah, in regaining the territory that had been seized by the Israelites. We may further with certainty conclude, from various statements in this inscription that the Moabites were by do means exterminated by the Israelites, when they took possession of the country to the north ot ti.o Anion, which had been aeized by the Amorites; they atinued to live beside and among the Israelites. Moreoi since the tribe of Reuben was chiefly engaged in the rearing ot cattle, and thus appropriated the pastoral districts of the country, the Moabites were not utterly, at least not permanently subdued, but rather took every opportunity of weakening the Israehtes, in order not merely to reclaim their old possessions but also to make themselves independent of Israel. This object they seem to have actually attained, even so soon as immediately after the death of Solomon. They continued independent until the powerful Omri restored the supremacy of Israel in the territory of Ileuben; and Moab continued subject for forty years, at the end of which King Mesha again succeeded in breaking the yoke of Israel after the death of Ahab. Thenceforward, Israel never again got the upper hand, though Jeroboam ii. (as we are entitled to conclude from 2 Kings xiv. 25) may have disputed the supremacy with the Moabites for a time.
Mesanach seiner Insehrifl und nach den bibl. Berichten," in the Tkeol. Stud.
worknfD r^T' EDgliSh: ^ FreDCh P^odiealBj/'cin addition fo the work of Dr. Ginsburg, ment.oned above, the English reader may consult an abearUele by Professor Wright in the North. British Revieu 4 October Inoth'erTv P T" A ^"rf V^ BmMeCa W« °f the »™ **» i and before Jeremiah, threatened Moab with destruction, because of the acts of hostility against Israel of which they have been guilty. "We have no historical notice concerning the fulfilment of these threatenings. Inasmuch as the power of the Assyrians in Eastern Asia was broken through the defeat of Sennacherib before Jerusalem, the Moabites may possibly have asserted their independence against the Assyrians. Certainly it seems to follow, from the remark in 1 Chron. v. 17 (that the families of Gad were reckoned by genealogies in the days of Jotham king of Judah), that some of the Israelites on the east of Jordan came for a time under the sway of Judah. But even though this were allowed to hold true of the tribe of Reuben also, such a mastery could not have lasted long, since even towards the end of Jotham's reign, Pekah the king of Israel joined with Hazael king of Syria in war against Judah (2 Kings xv. 37); and during the reign of Ahaz, Rezin invaded Gilead, and penetrating as far as the seaport of Elath, took it from Judah (2 Kings xvi. 6). At all events, up till the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the threats of Amos and Isaiah had attained only the feeblest beginnings of fulfilment; and (as is abundantly evident from the prophecy in this chapter) the Moabites were then more powerful than ever they had been before, and in undisturbed possession also of that portion of their ancient territory lying north of the Arnon, which had been taken from them by Sihon the Amorite; and after his defeat, the victorious Israelites had again apportioned it to the tribe of Reuben.
This prophecy of Jeremiah concerning Moab is to be explained on the ground of these historical relations. The day of ruin was to begin with the appearance of the Chaldeans in Palestine; this day had been predicted not merely by Amos and Isaiah, but even by Balaam, on the occasion of the first conflict of the Moabites with Israel. Jeremiah accordingly takes up anew the utterances of the old prophets regarding Moab which had not yet been fulfilled, but were now about to receive their accomplishment: these he reproduces in his own peculiar manner, taking as his foundation the oracular sentences of Isaiah concerning Moab, and combining these by means of the utterances of Amos and Balaam, not only regard- Qg Moab, but also regarding the whole heathen world now ripe for judgment; and oat of all this he frames a comprehensive announcement of tin- ruin to fall on this people, so haughty, and filled with hatred against [srael.1
Tht> contents of this announcement are as follow: — The chief cities of Moab are perished, and with them their fame, r ins are being concocted for their destruction. On all sides there is a crying over the devastation, and wailing, and flight; Chemosh, with his priests and princes, wanders into exile, and country and city are laid waste (vers. 1 8). Let Moab escape with wings, in cider to avoid the destruction; for although they have, in all time past, lived securely in their own land, they shall now be driven out of their dwellings, and come to dishonour with their god Chemosh, in spite of the bravery of their heroes (vers. 9-15). The destruction of Moab draws near, their glory perishes, the whole country and all its towns are laid waste, and the power of Moab is broken (vers. 10-25). All this befalls them for their pride and loftiness of spirit; because of this they are punished, with the destruction of their glorious vines and their harvest; and the whole land becomes filled with sorrow and lamentation over the desolation, and the extermination of all those who make offerings to idols (vers. 2b-35). Meanwhile the prophet mourns with the hapless people, who are broken like a despised vessel (vers. 3b'-38). Moab becomes the laughingstock and the horror of all around: the enemy captures all their fortresses, and none shall escape the ruin (vers. 39-44). Fire goes out from Heshbon and destroys the whole land, and the
1 This reproduction Gesenius (on Isaiah, p. 511) characterizes as " a feeble imitation, by which the text of the older author is made quite diffuse and watery, frequently mixed through in a wonderful manner, made into a kind of patchwork, and enlivened now and again by a snff turn." Movers and Ilitzig have spoken still more depreciatingly of this chapter, and excised a great number of verses, on the ground of their having been introduced later by way of touching up; in this manner, Hitzig rejects as spurious verses which Movers recognises as exhibiting marks of Jeremiah's peculiar style, — a method of procedure which Graf has already denounced as arbitrary criticism. We hope to show in the commentary the total want of foundation for this pseudo-critical mode of dealing; we only make the further remark here by anticipation, that Kueper (on Jeremiah, p. 83 sqq.) has very clearly accounted for and vindicated the conduct of Jeremiah in making use of the expressions of previous prophets, while Movers and Hitzig have paid no regard to this thorough kind of work.
people must go into captivity; but at the end of the days, the Lord will turn the captivity of Moab (vers. 45-47). According to this view of the whole, this prophecy falls into seven strophes of unequal length, of which every one concludes either with "1CN PlirP or HiiT DXJ. The middle one, which is also the Ion®
(vers. 26-35), forms an apparent exception, inasmuch as DN3 ni!T does not stand at the end, but in the middle of ver. 35: T. » while in the second last strophe (vers, 39- 11 I, the last two verses (43 and 44) end with this formula.
Vers. 1-8. Calamities to c<>me on Moah. — Ver. 1. ''Thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel, Woe to Xebo, for it is laid waste! Kiriathaim is come to dishonour, it is taken: the fortress is come to dishonour and broken down. Y ». J Moab's glory is no more. In Heshbon they have devised evil against her, [saying], Come, and let us cut her off from [being] a nation: thou alM>, () Madmen, art brought to silence; the sword shall go after thee. Ver. 3. A sound of crying from Horonaim, desolation and great destruction. Ver. 1. Moab is destroyed; her little ones have caused a cry to be heard. Ver. 5. For they ascend the ascent of Lohith with weeping, — weeping: for on the descent of Horonaim tl mies have heard a cry of destruction. Ver. 6. Fl i your life! and be like one destitute in the wilderne Ver. 7. For, because thy trust [was] in thy works, and in thy treasures, thou also shalt be taken; and Chemosh shall go into captivity, his priestl and his princes together. Ver. 8. The destroyer shall come to every city, and no city shall escape: and the valley shall perish, and the plain shall be laid waste, as Jahveh hath said."
With the exclamation " Wo Jeremiah transports the hearers of the word of God at once into the midst of the catastrophe which is to come on Moab; this is with the view of humbling the pride of this people, and chastening them for their sins. The woe is uttered over Xebo, but holds also of the towns named afterwards. Neho is not the mountain of that name (Deut. xxxii. 49, xxxiv. 1), but the city, which probably did not lie far from the peak in the mountain-range of Abarim, which bore the same name (Num. xxxii. 3, 38; Isa. xv. 2), although in the Onomasticon, s.v. Nafiav, the situation of the mountain is given as being six Roman miles from Heshbon, towards the
\ aiul s.r. M op} that of the city, eight Roman miles south bbon, for both accounts point to a situation in the south-west, r le name Uu is still applied to some ruins; cf,
.site of this town, mentioned as early as (Jen. xiv. 5, has been fixed, since the time of Burckhardt, as that of a mass of ruins called • | about five miles Bouth of Heshbon; but Dietrich, in Merx Archiv. i. S. 337 ff., has shown that this is incorrect. \.— • ling to Eusebius, in his Onomasticon, Kiriathaim lay ten Roman miles to the west of Med. 'ha: this suits not merely the position of et Tfet'm, but also the ruins of Kereyat south-west from Medeba, on the ridge of Mount Attarus, a little to the.south of M'kaur (Much. ami of Baara in the Wady Zerka in, where also is the plain mentioned in Gen. xiv. 5, either in the plain stretching direct east from Kereyat between Wady Zerka Maein and Wady Wal, or south-east in the beautiful plain el Kura, described by Burckhardt, p. 371ff., between the Wal and the Mojeb. Nebo and Kiriathaim lay on the eastern border of the high ranee of mountains, and seem to he comprehended under -r*-"-?, " the height, the high fortress," in the third clause of ver. 1, as the representatives of the mountain country of Moab. Various expositors, certainly, take the word as a proper name designating an elevated region; Graf and Nagelsbach take it to be a name of Kir-Moab (Kir-her s, Kir-haresheth, vers. 31, 3G), the chief fortress in the country, the modern Kerch in the southern part of Moab; but no valid proof has been adduced. By "the height" Hitzig understands the highlands, which learn of the fall of these towns in the lowlands, and feel this disgrace that has come on Moab, but have not yet themselves been taken. But this view is untenable, because the towns of Nebo and Kiriathaim are not situated in the level country. Again, since nc'^in is common to the two clauses, the distinction between »TJ3?3 and nrin could hardly be pressed so far as to make the latter the opposite of the former, in the sense of being still unconquered. The meaning rather is, that through Nebo's being laid waste, and the capture of Kiriathaim, the fortress on which the Moabites trusted is no more. And to this ver. 3 appropriately adds, " the boasting of Moab is gone," i.e. Moab has no more ground for boasting. "In Heshbon they (the enemy, or the conquerors) plot evil against Moab." Heshbon was formerly the capital of the Amorite kingdom of Sihon (Num. xxi. 26; Deut. ii. 24, etc.), and was assigned to the tribe of Reuben (Josh. xiii. 17); but because it lay on the boundary of the territory belonging to the tribe, it was given up to the Gadites, and set apart as a Levitical city (Josh. xxi. 37). It lay ten Roman miles east from the Jordan, opposite Jericho, almost intermediate between the Anion and the Jabbok, and is still pointed out, though in ruins, under the old name Heshhdn (see on Num. xxxii. 37). At the time of Jeremiah it was taken possession of by the Ammonites (Jer. xlix. 3), consequently it was the frontier town of the Moabite territory at that time; and being such, it is here named as the town where the enemy, coming from the north, deliberate regarding the conquest of Moab — "meditate evil." i.e. deride upon conquest and devastation. The suffix of n\ y refers to Moab as a country. and hence is feminine; cf. ver. 1. \\V will destroy it
(Moab) "to, so that it shall no longer be a nation." Just as in *3BTI lizrns there is a play on the words, BO is there also in the expression ^iri JC"1E which follow Tin- very circumstance forms an argument for taking Madmen as a proper name, instead of an appellative, as Venema and Hitzig have done, after the example of the LXX.: k- Yea, thou shalt be destroyed (and made into) a dunghill." In support of this rendering they point to 2 Kings x. 27. Ezra vi. 11. But the verb DIM, in its meaning, ill accords with |tno in the B4: a dung-heap, and in this case there would be no foundation for a play upon the words (Graf). It is no proof of the non-existence of a place called Madmen in Moab, that it is not mentioned elsewhere; Madmena in the tribe of Benjamin (Isa. x. 31), and Madmanna in Judah (Josh. xv. 31), are also mentioned but once. These passages rather show that the name Madmen was not uncommon; and it was perhaps with reference to this name that Isaiah (xxv. 10) chose the figure of the dunghill. CC"!, to be silent, means, in the Niphal, to be brought to silence, be exterminated, perish; cf. xlix. 26, xxv. 37. viii. 14, etc. As to the form *BVI instead of n?"nri, cf. Ewald, § 140. h; Gesenius, § 07, Rem. 5. The following clause refers to Madmen: u after thee shall the sword
."' cf. be. L5.— Ver. 3. A cry is heard from Horonaim against violence and destruction. The words Tftl iaeh "il,; arc to be taken a^ the crv itself; cf. iv. 20, x\. 8. The city of Horonaira, mentioned both here and in [sa. iv..r> in connection with Luhith, lav on s slope, it would seem, not far from Luhith. Regarding this latter place we find it remarked in the Onom I usque refuses to understand the country or its inhabitants] but rather the ancient capital of the country, Ar-M Num. xxi. 28; [sa.
shown (S. 329 ^'.), the arguments adduced in support of tl view are insufficient to prove the point.1 ">-'r", to break, — of a nation or a city (xix. 11: [sa, \iv. 25, etc.), as it were, to ruin, — is here used of the country or kingdom. v'T'^'f is for '7T>>\ as in xiv..". The little ones of Moab, that raise a cry, are neither the children (Vulgate, Dahler, Maurer), nor the small towns (Hitzig), nor the people of humble condition, but cives Moabi ad statum mieerum dejecti (Kueper). The LXX. have rendered ek Zoyopa (i.e. n^>^'), which reading is preferred by J. D. Michaelis, Ewald, Umbreit, Graf, Xagelsbach, but without sufficient reason; for neither the occurrence of Zoar in combination with Horonaim in ver. 34, nor the parallel passage Isa. xv. 5, will prove the point. Isa. xv. 5 is not a parallel to this verse, but to ver. 34; however, the train of thought is diffe-
1 The mention of Moab among names of cities in ver. 4, and in connection with Kir-heres in vers. 31 and 36, proves nothing; for in ver. 4 Moab is not named among towns, and the expression in vers. 31 and 36 is analogous to the phrase " Judah and Jerusalem." Nor can any proof be derived from the fact that Rabbath-Moab is merely called u Moab " in the Onomasticon of Eusebius, and Mab in Abulfeda, and Rabbath-Ammon, now merely " Amman;" because this mode of speaking will not admit of being applied for purposes of proof to mrtters pertaining to Old Testament times, since it o:iginated only in the Christian ages, — at a time, too, when Rabbath had become the capital of the country, and when Rabbath-Moab could easily be shortened by the common people into " Moab." Rabbath (of Moab), however, is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament.
rent from that before us here. Besides, Jeremiah writes the name of the town "U'V (not *Vftt), cf. ver. 34, as in Isa. xv. 5, Deut. xxxiv. 3, Gen. xiii. 10 ("»|ft occurs only in Gen. xix. 22, 30); hence it is unlikely that T)>i has been written by mistake for "ijnv-
In ver. 5 this idea is further elucidated. The inhabitants flee, weeping as they go, towards the south, before the conquering enemy advancing from the north, up the ascent of Luhith, and down the descent of Horonaim. The idea is taken from Isa. xv. 5, but applied by Jeremiah in his own peculiar manner; ta Pl^£ is changed into *33 ~^V\ and the notion of weeping is thereby intensified. Wo take *32 as an adverbial accusative, but in fact it is to be rendered like the preceding ^33; and njjn stands with an indefinite nominative: "one ascends = they ascend/1 not "weeping rises over weeping," as Hitzig, Graf, and others take it. For, in the latter case, *333 could not be separated from srz. nor stand first; cf. the instances adduced by Graf. '-' "- ~:-* and PP3 PP. The form mnpn for JVr.?n is either an error of transcription or an optional form, and there is no ground for taking the word as appellative, as Hitzig does, "the ascent of boards. boards tower one above another, bo dors weeping rise," — an unnatural figure, and one devoid of all taste. The last words of the second member of the verse present some difficulty, chiefly on account of si>', which the LXX. have omitted, and which Ewald and Umbreit set down as spurious, although (as Graf rightly remarks) they do not thereby explain how it came into the text. To suppose, with the Rabbinical writers, that the construct state nx stands for the absolute, is not only inadmissible, as being against the principles of grammar, but also contrary to the whole scope of the passage. The context shows that the clamour cannot proceed from the enemy, but only from the fugitive Moabites. Only two explanations are possible: either *5? must be taken in the sense of angustuBj and in connection with^n^ "straits, distress of crying," a cry of distress, as De Wette does; or, " oppressors of the cry of distress," as Nagelsbach takes it. We prefer the former, in spite of the objection of Graf, that the expression " distress of crying," for " a cry of distress," would be a strange one: for this objection may be made against \\'\< own explanation, that *y£ means the bursting open of the mouth in making a loud cry; and npyi *"W is a load outcry for help. V.:■. 6. Only by a precipil flight into the desert can the Moabites save even their lives. The summons to flee is merely a rhetorical expression for the thought that there is no safety to be had in the country. To in ver. 6 we must supply rrtjpw as the subject: "your souls shall be." Ewald would change cr:-:: into C-""^; but this proposal has against it the fact that the plural form D*t is found in hut a single case, Ezek. xiii. 20, and rrtfciM everywhere else: besides, B*W is often nsed in the singular of several persons, as in '2 Sam. xix. 6, and may further he easily taken here in a distributive sense; cf. to B^K ^D, li. 6. The assumption of (J. 1>. Michael is, Elosenm tiller, Maurer, [and of the translators of our tt Authorized " English Version], that fiJ£U? is the second person, and refers to the cities, i.e. their inhabitants, is against the context. ^rr'> cannot here he the name of a town, because neither Aroer in the tribe of Reuben, which was situated on the Anion, nor Aroer of the tribe of Gad, which was before Kabbath-Ammon, lav in the wilderness; the comparison, too, of the fugitives to a city is unsuitable. The clause reminds us of xvii. 6, and "W">V = the 1VW of that passage; the form found here is either an error of transcription caused by thinking of Aroer, or a play upon the name of the city, for the purpose of pointing out the fate impending over it. — Ver. 7. Moab will not be saved from destruction by any trust on their works or on their treasures. The LXX., Vulgate, and Syriac render TOTp by fortresses, hence Ewald would read T^yp instead; but there is no ground for the change, since the peculiar rendering alluded to has evidently originated from nbTD having been confounded with TTO. Others, as Dahler, refer the word to idols; but these are always designated as T nPX». Graf translates " property," and points to 1 Sam. xxv. 2, Ex. xxiii. 16; but this meaning also has really nothing to support it, for n&yn in these passages denotes only agriculture and its produce, and the combination of the word with nnvix in this passage does not require such a rendering. We abide by the common, meaning of " doings" or "-works," not evil deeds specially (Hitzig), but
"all that Moab undertakes." Neither their efforts to maintain and increase their power, nor their wealth, will avail them in any way. They shall be overcome. Moab is addressed as a country or kingdom. "TO, to seize, capture; of a land, to take, conquer. Chemosh, with his priests and princes, shall go into exile. B^p3 is perhaps a mere error of the copyist for BfiD3, Chemosh, the chief deity of the Moabites and Ammonites, worshipped as a king and the war-god of his people; see on Num. xxi. 29. As in the last-named passage the Moabites are called the people of Chemosh, so here, not merely the priests, but also the princes of Moab, are called his priests and his princes. The Kethib W is not to be changed, although Jeremiah elsewhere always uses XWV} which is substituted in the Qeri; cf. xlix. 3. In confirmation of this, it is added, in ver. 8, that all the cities of Moab, without exception, shall be laid waste, and the whole country, valley and plain, shall be brought to ruin. "tiB^en, "the level," is the table-laud stretching from the Arnon to Ileshbon, and north-eastwards as far as Rabbath-Ammon, and which originally belonged to the Moabites, hence called "the fields of Moab" in Num. xxi. 10; but it was taken from them by the Amorites, and after the conquest of the latter was taken possession of by the Israelites (Dent iii. 10, iv. 43; Josh. xiii. 9), but at that time had been taken back once more by the Moabil ">,:vi is the vallev of the
Jordan, commonly called n^Vr|, as in Josh. xiii. 27 and 19; here it is that portion of the valley towards the west which bounds the table-land. ~-"n* can only be taken in a causal signification, "because," as in xvi. 13, or in a relative meaning, quod, or " as."
Vers. 9-15. Moab is laid waste, and its inhabitants carried captive. — Ver. 9. "Give pinions to Moab, for he will flee and get away, and his cities shall become a waste, with no one dwelling in them. Ver. 10. Cursed is he that doeth the work of Jahveh negligently, and cursed is he that restraineth his sword from blood. Ver. 11. Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and lay still upon his lees; he was not poured out from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity, therefore his taste hath remained in him, and his smell hath not changed. Ver. 12. Therefore, behold, days come, saith Jahveh, when I will send to him those who pour out, and they shall pour him out; and they shall empty his vessels, and break their buttle-. Ver. L3.
M >ab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of
iel was ashamed of B the] their confidence. Ver. 11. Bow ipe it, uses wings for enabling him to flee from it. The is not ironical, but a mere rhetorical employment of the idea that wings would be n< f in order to and in the Rabbinical writings. RVj, written with n for the sake of obtaining similarity of sound, stands for nitt= PM, to flee. — Ver. 10. The devastation is a- work of the Lord, and those who execute it must carry out the divine decree, so that they may not bring the curse upon themselves. The first clause is taken quite generally: the more exact specification of the work of the Lord follows in the second clause; it is the employment of the sword against Moab. "His sword" does not mean Jahveh's, but the sword carried by the devastator. •Wl is used adverbially, but not in the sense of " deceitfully," rather ''carelessly, negligently;" cf. HOT 613, Prov. x. 4, xii. 24. In ver. 11 follows the reason vvhv the judgment has necessarily come on Moab. Moab is compared to old wine that has lain long on its lees, and thereby preserved its flavour and smell unchanged. The taste and odour of Moab signify his disposition towards other nations, particularly towards Israel, the people of God. Good wine becomes stronger and more juicy by lying pretty long on its lees (see on Isa. xxv. 6); inferior wine, however, becomes thereby more harsh and thick. The figure is used here in the latter sense, after Zeph. i. 12. Moab's disposition towards Israel was harsh and bitter; the people were arrogant and proud (ver. 29 f.; Isa. xvi. 6), and so hostile towards Israel, that they sought every opportunity of injuring them (see above, p. 205 f., and the comments on 2 Sam. viii. 2). From his youth, i.e. from the time when