sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah,
JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS order to speak more emphatically, he uses different words, They shall be consumed by famine, they shall fall by the sword, they shall all be consumed, and then he says, from the least to the greatest.
At length he adds, And they shall be a curse. We have said elsewhere that the word {,}אלהale, sometimes means a curse, though it properly signifies an oath; and the reason is, because men in swearing often introduce a curse, ``Let God curse me,'' --- ``Let me perish.'' Then he says, that the Jews would become an example of a curse; for in making an oath this would be the common form, ``Let God destroy me as he destroyed the Jews.'' He afterwards adds, an astonishment, because all would be horrified at the very sight of their calamity. It follows in the last place, a curse and a reproach, of which we have spoken before. Let us now proceed, ---
Jeremiah 44:13
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:
13. Et visitabo super eos qui habitant in terra Aegypti, quemadmodum visitavi super Jerusalem, in gladio et fame et peste (hic exprimitur tertia species.)
He confirms in this verse what he had said in the last, that he would again take vengeance on impiety, as he had done previously. The Jews were before visited with a very grievous calamity, when inebriated with prosperity; but now, when God would have shaken from off them their torpor, the Prophet justly reminds them of the calamities which they had suffered: As, then, I visited Jerusalem, so will I visit those who dwell in Egypt But the argument is also from the greater to the less; for if
God had not spared the holy city, in which he had chosen a habitation, how should he spare Egypt? for Egypt was not worthy that God should regard it. We know that it was a profane and an accursed land. It was, then, the greatest madness for the
Jews to hope to be safe in Egypt, when they could not have been so in the holy land, which was God's sanctuary, which was their heritage, which was even God's rest.
We now see the object of the Prophet; for he set before · them the ruin of the city and of the land of Judah, that they might know that they could not escape the hand of God while they dwelt in Egypt contrary to his command, for God would be a severer judge to them there than he had been before in the land of Judah. It follows,
---
Jeremiah 44:14
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 which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return but such as shall escape.
14. Et non erit qui evadat (qui sit residuus) inter reliquias Jehudah quae venerunt ad peregrinandum hic (nam erat Propheta in Aegypto) nempe in terra Aegypti, et ad revertendum in terram Jehudah, ad quam ipsi elevant animam suam (vel, elevant animas suas) ad revertendum ut habitent illic, quia non revertentur nisi qui evaserint.
The Prophet seems to be inconsistent with himself; for at the beginning of the verse he says that there would be no residue, but at the end he adds an exception, that there would be few alive, who would flee, and, by some miracle, escape from