Jeremiah 46:17

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹²The nations have heard of your shame, and your outcry fills the earth, because warrior stumbles over warrior and both of them have fallen together." ¹³This is the word that the LORD spoke to Jeremiah the prophet about the coming of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to strike the land of Egypt: ¹⁴"Announce it in Egypt, and proclaim it in Migdol; proclaim it in Memphis and Tahpanhes: 'Take your positions and prepare yourself, for the sword devours those around you.' ¹⁵Why have your warriors been laid low? They cannot stand, for the LORD has thrust them down. ¹⁶They continue to stumble. Indeed, they have fallen over one another. They say, 'Get up! Let us return to our people and to the land of our birth, away from the sword of the oppressor.' ¹⁷There they will proclaim, 'Pharaoh king of Egypt was all noise; he has let the appointed time pass him by.'¹⁸As surely as I live, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of Hosts, will come one like Tabor among the mountains and like Carmel by the sea. ¹⁹Pack your bags for exile, O daughter dwelling in Egypt! For Memphis will be laid waste, destroyed and uninhabited. ²⁰Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but a gadfly from the north is coming against her. ²¹Even the mercenaries among her are like fattened calves. They too will turn back; together they will flee; they will not stand their ground, for the day of their calamity is coming upon them-the time of their punishment.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Pharaoh: Exodus 15:9, 1 Kings 20:10, 1 Kings 20:18, Isaiah 19:11-16, Isaiah 31:3, Isaiah 37:27-29, Ezekiel 29:3, Ezekiel 31:18

Reciprocal: Genesis 12:15 - princes 2 Kings 18:21 - so is Pharaoh

Cross-References

Genesis 30:13
Leah said, "How happy I am, for the women will call me happy." So she named him Asher.

Genesis 35:26
And the sons of Leah's maidservant Zilpah were Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paddan-aram.

Genesis 46:30
Then Israel said to Joseph, "Finally I can die, now that I have seen your face and know that you are still alive!"

Genesis 49:20
Asher's food will be rich; he shall provide royal delicacies.

Numbers 1:13
from Asher, Pagiel son of Ocran;

Deuteronomy 33:24
Concerning Asher he said: "May Asher be the most blessed of sons; may he be the most favored among his brothers and dip his foot in oil.

1 Chronicles 2:2
Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

They did cry there,.... Not the Chaldeans, deriding Pharaoh and his army, and mocking them, saying the following words, as some; nor the Egyptians in Egypt, as Kimchi, complaining of their king; much less in Carchemish, as others; since this prophecy refers to another event, time, and place; but the auxiliaries of Egypt in the field of battle; these did cry out aloud, as follows:

Pharaoh king of Egypt [is but] a noise; he boasted and bragged of great things he would do, and does nothing; he promised to bring a large army into the field, and talked big of attacking the enemy with great ardour and fury, and hectored and blustered as if he feared him not, and was sure of victory; but when it came to the push, his courage failed him; and it may be said of him what the man said of his nightingale, "vox et praeterea nihil", a voice, and nothing else. This was not Pharaohnecho, as the Septuagint have wrongly inserted, but Pharaohhophra, Jeremiah 44:30; or it may be supplied thus, "Pharaoh king of Egypt [is a king of] noise" l; a noisy, big, and blusterous king in words, but in deeds nothing:

he hath passed the time appointed; to join his auxiliaries, in order to give the enemy battle; and so left them in the lurch, of which they complain; or through his dilatoriness lost the proper opportunity of attacking him. Some indeed understand it, not of the king of Egypt, but of the king of Babylon; as if the sense was this, the Egyptians cried aloud, and encouraged themselves and their allies against the king of Babylon; saying, what Jeremiah the prophet said concerning Pharaoh king of Egypt and his destruction is all mere noise; there is nothing in it; for the time set by him for that event is passed and over: others, because the word has sometimes the signification of a solemn meeting or festival, take the meaning to be, that Pharaoh king of Egypt being brought to utter destruction, as the word for noise may signify, or being a noisy tumultuous prince, who brought ruin on himself and others, has thereby caused the solemn feasts to pass away m, or the festivals to cease; whether in a civil or a religious way; but the first sense seems best.

l מלך מצרים שאון "rex Aegypti, [rex] tumultus", Munster, Vatablus; "rex perturbationis", Calvin; so Ben Melech; "rex Aegypti, [vir] strepertus est", Piscator, Junius & Tremellius. m העביר המועד "transire fecit solennitatem", De Dieu.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Translate it with the versions: “They have called (or, Call ye) the name of Pharaoh king of Egypt - A noise: he hath overstepped the appointed time.” For this custom of giving prophetic names see Jeremiah 20:3; Isaiah 8:3, ... The words mean that Pharaoh is a mere empty sound, and that he has allowed the years of prosperity, which he enjoyed at the beginning of his reign, to pass by; having misused them, nothing now remains but his ruin.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 46:17. They did cry there — Dr. Blayney translates this cry thus: -

_______ "O Pharaoh, king of Egypt,

A tumult hath frustrated the appointed meeting."

These allies sent their excuse to Pharaoh, that the disasters they had met with had prevented them from joining him as they had intended.