Jeremiah 46:22

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

voice: Isaiah 29:4, Micah 1:8, Micah 7:16

and come: Jeremiah 51:20-23, Isaiah 10:15, Isaiah 10:33, Isaiah 10:34, Isaiah 14:8, Isaiah 37:24, Zechariah 11:2

Reciprocal: Psalms 74:5 - General

Gill's Notes on the Bible

The voice thereof shall go like a serpent,.... That is, the voice of Egypt, before compared to a heifer, when in its glory; but now it shall not bellow like a heifer in fat pasture, bat hiss like a serpent, when drove out of its hole, and pursued; signifying, that their voice should be low and submissive, and should not speak one big or murmuring word to their conquerors. The voice of the serpent is, by Aristotle m said to be small and weak; so Aelianus n. Though Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abarbinel, understand it of the voice of serpents heard afar off; and so it may respect the dreadful lamentation the Egyptians should make, when they should see the Chaldeans come upon them to destroy them; just as serpents in woods make a horrible noise, when they are set on fire, or are cut down, to which there is an allusion in some following clauses. The Targum seems to interpret this of the Chaldean army thus,

"the voice of the clashing of their arms as serpents creeping;''

and of them the following words are certainly meant:

for they shall march with an army; the Targum adds, against you; the meaning is, that the Chaldeans should come with a great army, and march against the Egyptians with great strength, force, and fury:

and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood; with battle axes, as if they came to cut down trees; nor would they spare the Egyptians any more than such hewers do the trees; nor would they be able any more to resist them than trees can resist hewers of wood.

m Hist. Animal. l. 4. c. 9. n De Animal. l. 15. c. 13.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The voice thereof - Her voice, i. e., the voice of Egypt. The word here probably means the busy sound of life and activity in the towns of Egypt, the tramping of her hosts, and the turmoil of camp and city. All this at the approach of the Chaldaean army shall depart, as the snake flees away when disturbed in its haunts by the wood-cutters.

March with an army - Advance with might.

With axes - The comparison of the Chaldaean warriors to woodcutters arose from their being armed with axes. As the Israelites did not use the battle-axe, their imagination would be the more forcibly struck by this weapon.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 46:22. The voice - shall go like a serpent — See Isaiah 29:4, and the note there.