Jeremiah 49:19

C. CONSEQUENCES OF GOD'S JUDGMENT ON EDOM (Jeremiah 49:19-22)

"Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of the Jordan against the strong habitation: for I will suddenly make them run away from it; and whoso is chosen, him will I appoint over it: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd that will stand before me? Therefore hear ye the counsel of Jehovah, that he hath taken against Edom; and his purposes, that he hath purposed against Teman: Surely they shall drag them away, even the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate over them. The earth trembleth at the noise of their fall; there is a noise whereof is heard in the Red Sea. Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle and spread out his wings against Bozrah: and the heart of the mighty men of Edom at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs."

"Like a lion from the pride of the Jordan ..." (Jeremiah 49:19).

This is a prophecy of the coming of Babylon upon Edom. The "pride of the Jordan" refers to the heavy timber and vegetable growth along the banks if the lower river, productive breeding ground for lions in ancient times.

Did Nebuchadnezzar really come against Edom? Indeed yes. Josephus has this.

"In the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the twenty-third of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, he made an expedition against Coele-syria; and when he had possessed himself of it, he made war against the Ammonites and the Moabites; and when he had brought all these nations under subjection, he fell upon Egypt and overthrew it, slew their king, and set up another in his place, and took those Jews that were there (the ones who were led away after the death of Gedaliah) captive."[6]

Despite the fact of Josephus' having not mentioned Edom specifically here, the nations all around him were mentioned; and the words all these nations undoubtedly included Edom also.

However, the complete fulfillment of the prophecy against Edom did not take place immediately. It began with the activity of the Chaldeans five years after the destruction of Jerusalem. Keil stated that that destruction "is unquestionably inferred from Jeremiah 49:7ff; Ezekiel 35; Jeremiah 25:9,21, and Malachi 1:3."[7]

Edom's destruction continued when Alexander the Great conquered the world in the fourth century B.C.; Hyrcanus conquered them in 129 B.C., compelling them to accept circumcision and the Mosaic law. They continued until the first century A.D. as a prominent element among the Jews. The dynasty of Herod (an Edomite) perpetrated (1) the slaughter of the innocents, (2) the mockery of Christ, (3) the murder of John the Baptist, (4) the murder of the apostle James, (5) the imprisonment of Peter and of all the apostles, and (6) in the person of Bernice and Drusilla were factors in the persecution and imprisonment of the apostle Paul. The Herods precipitated the final and total judgment against Edom in the Jewish war that resulted in their being exterminated by Vespasian and Titus in 70 A.D. following the sack of Jerusalem.

"Noise heard in the Red Sea ..." (Jeremiah 49:21). Donald Wiseman commented on this: "Better, Reed Sea (The Hebrew has [~yam] [~cuwp]), that is, `marshes by the Bitter Lakes.' "[8] The word has not yet reached many scholars; but the old critical hog wash about [~yam] [~cuwp] meaning Reed Sea has been scientifically disproved and emphatically rejected. The rendition `Reed Sea' was never anything but a crutch of unbelievers who would not believe that Israel crossed the Red Sea. As a matter of fact, the proper meaning of [~yam] [~cuwp] is "End Sea," meaning the Indian Ocean, viewed by ancients as the end of the world. Thus it was actually an arm of the Indian Ocean which Israel really crossed by the miraculous power of God.

(See my full discussion of this (with documented proof) on pp. 177-179 of Vol. 2 (Exodus) in the series of commentaries on the Pentateuch.)