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JEREMIAH XLVI. VER. 13, TO THE END 3.

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

14 Declare ye in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Noph and in Tahpanhes: say ye, Stand fast, and prepare thee; for the sword shall devour round about thee.

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

A. C. 587.

plied the faller.

16 He made many to fall, yea, one fell upon another: * Heh, multiand they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword.

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

18 As I live, saith the king, whose name is the LORD of hosts, Surely as Tabor is among the mountains, and as Carmel by the sea, so shall he come.

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

31 The several passages from Jeremiah which are inserted in this third chapter, are placed here on the authority of their internal evidence. This passage (Jer. xlvi. 13, to the end,) is added to the preceding from comparing Jer. xlvi. 14. with Jer. xliii. 7. The prophet was forcibly brought by his rebellious countrymen to Tahpanhes in Egypt.

Egypt having been the ally of Judea, many of the Jews, long before Johanan took refuge there, had escaped to this country from the king of Babylon. Jeremiah, after predicting the conquest and captivity of the Egyptians by Nebuchadnezzar, addresses himself to the Jews, who were with him, and calls upon them to furnish themselves for a similar fate. The prophecy concludes with promises of mercy and restoration to those Jews who were already captives in Babylon.

The expressions in ver. 28. “I will make a full end of all the nations," yet "I will not make a full end of thee," seem to refer to a period when the Jews were not only captives, but so miserably reduced that there was every reason to apprehend their extinction as a nation: and as they appear to have been, at this time, at the height of their affliction and distress, it is probable this powerful consolation was offered to them. Bishop Horne beautifully remarks on ver. 28. "Even to our day, this wonderful prophecy is fulfilled before us. The oppressors of the Jews, the mighty monarchies of Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome, are vanished, like the shadows of the evening. Nothing remains of them but their names: while this persecuted, despised, and hated people, without a friend or a protector, amidst the wreck of nations, oppressed and harassed, by edicts and executioners, by murders and massacres, hath outlived the ruins of them all and will continue till the appointed day of their conversion and their restoration come."

Heb. make ments of cap

thee instru

tivity.

A.C. 587.

Heb. bullocks of the stall.

+ Or, nourisher.

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

21 Also her hired men are in the midst of her like * fatted bullocks; for they also are turned back, and are fled away together: they did not stand, because the day of their calamity was come upon them, and the time of their

visitation.

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

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

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

25 The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saith; Behold, I will punish the ++ multitude of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, Heb. Amon. with their gods, and their kings; even Pharaoh, and all them that trust in him:

f Is. xli. 13. & xliii. 5. & xliv.

26 And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the LORD.

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27 ¶ But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not 2. ch. xxx. 10. dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid.

xxx. ll.

28 Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the na

g ch. x. 24. & tions whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a Or, not ut. full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I § not leave thee wholly unpunished.

terly cut thee off.

SECTION VI.

Final Predictions of Jeremiah against the idolatrous Jews, and

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1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwell in the land of Egypt, which dwell at

32 The Jews who went into Egypt with Johanan, and had taken Jeremiah with them, gave themselves up in that country to idolatry. The prophet for the last time denounces the judgments of God against them. As we hear no more of Jeremiah, it is most likely that he died soon after the delivery of this

Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country A. C. 587. of Pathros, saying,

2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah; and, behold, this day they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein,

3 Because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, and to serve other gods, whom they knew not, neither they, ye, nor your fathers.

4 Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.

5 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to burn no incense unto other gods.

6 Wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as at this day.

7 Therefore now thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel; Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, *out of Judah, to leave you none to re- Heb. out of main ;

8 In that ye provoke me unto wrath with the works of your hands, burning incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye be gone to dwell, that ye might cut yourselves off, and that ye might be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth?

the midst of Judah.

ednesses, or,

&c.

9 Have ye forgotten the + wickedness of your fathers, and + Heb. wickthe wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of punishments, their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives, which they have committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem?

trile.

10 They are not humbled even unto this day, neither ‡ Heb. conhave they feared, nor walked in my law, nor in my statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers.

11 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, and ↳ Amos ix. 4. to cut off all Judah.

12 And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set

prophecy in Egypt, being now much advanced in age, and having prophesied forty-one years from the thirteenth of Josiah. Some have asserted that he was put to death by Pharaoh-Hophra. Others, among whom are Tertullian, Jerome, and Epiphanius, assert that he was stoned to death by the Jews for preaching against their idolatry: and they suppose that Heb. xi. 37. "they were stoned," refers to the death of Jeremiah.-Prideaux, vol. i. p. 722; Hales', vol. ii. p. 492.

A.C. 587, their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed, and fall in the land of Egypt; they shall even be consumed by the sword and by the famine: they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine: and they shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.

13 For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence:

14 So that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to the *Heb. lift up which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return but such as shall escape.

their soul.

heaven.

i ch. vii. 18.

15 ¶Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying,

16 As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee.

17 But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth +Or, frame of out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.

jch. vii. 18.

↑ Or, husbands.

18 But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.

19 And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?

20 ¶ Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, and to all the people which had given him that answer, saying,

21 The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD remember them, and came it not into his mind?

22 So that the LORD could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day.

23. Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have A.C. 587. sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as at this day.

24 Moreover Jeremiah said unto all the people, and to all the women, Hear the word of the LORD, all Judah that are in the land of Egypt:

25 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your

Vows.

26 Therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt; Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the LORD, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, The Lord Go D. liveth.

27 Behold, I will watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until there be an end of them.

28 Yet a small number that escape the sword shall return. out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose words shall stand, *mine, Heb. from or their's.

29¶And this shall be a sign unto you, saith the LORD, that I will punish you in this place, that ye may know that my words shall surely stand against you for evil:

30 Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will give Pharaohhophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, and that sought his life.

SECTION VII.

Brief Recapitulation of the Captivities of the Jews by
Nebuchadrezzar.

JEREMIAH LII. VER. 28-31.

28 This is the people whom Nebuchadrezzar carried away captive in the seventh year three thousand Jews and three and twenty:

*

me, or them.

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