hes: say ye, Stand fast, and prepare thee; for the sword shall devour round about
JOHN CALVIN he had spoken of the slaughter of the army, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. And it is probable, though the time is not pointed out here, that the destruction of Egypt had then been predicted; for before Jeremiah began to discharge his prophetic office, Isaiah had spoken against Egypt. Ezekiel, also, when an exile in Chaldea, at the same time confirmed the prophecies of Jeremiah, and said many more things against
Egypt. We must however remark, that Jeremiah had not once only prophesied of the ruin of Egypt; for after he was forcibly led there, he confirmed, as we have before seen, what he had said previously.
Jeremiah then had predicted what we read here many years before the taking of the city. But as the Jews disregarded what he had said before, he again confirmed it, when he was in Egypt, though it was not without great danger to his life, for he spared neither the king nor the nation.
He then says, that the word came to him respecting the coming of Nebuchadnezzar to smite the land of Egypt Hitherto he has spoken of the punishment which
God inflicted on the Egyptians, beyond their own kingdom, on the bank of the Euphrates; but, now he records the punishment of Egypt itself, when Nebuchadnezzar not only went to meet the Egyptians, to drive them from his own borders, but when he made an irruption into their kingdom, and plundered many cities, and so afflicted the whole kingdom, that the Egyptian king afterwards reigned only, as it were, by his permission. It follows, ---
Jeremiah 46:14
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.
14. Annuntiate in Aegypto, et promulgate in Migdol, promulgate in Noph et in
Taphnees, dicite, Sta, et para te; quia voravit (vel, consumpsit) gladius circuitus tuos.
He pursues the same mode of speaking as we observed yesterday; and the reason was explained, even because, as men are very inattentive to God's judgments, the message of Jeremiah would have been ineffectual, had he spoken plainly, and in an ordinary way. It was therefore necessary to adopt an elevated style, and to speak, as he does, in a manner striking and forcible. Public speakers affect fine speaking, but only to catch applause, or to fill men with empty fear or joy: but the Prophets had in view another thing, even to teach, to exhort, to reprove, to threaten, in a way calculated to be effectual.
He says, Declare ye in Egypt, as though he pronounced a sentence from a tribunal, being endowed with divine authority. He then bids this message to be brought to the
Egyptians. He afterwards mentions some cities, Migdol, Noph, and Tahpanhes. Some think Noph to be Alexandria; but it was probably Memphis, and this appears evident from other parts of Scripture. But they are mistaken who think that the same was
Migdol, for the Prophet here refers to them as different places. Of Tahpanhes we have spoken elsewhere. Now these were celebrated cities and known to the Jews, as they were not far from them.
We know that Memphis was a renowned city; but this was much more known to