Jeremiah 43:5

THE RETURN OF JUDAH TO EGYPT

"But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all the nations whither they had been driven, to sojourn in the land of Judah; the men, and the women, and the children, and the king's daughters, and every person that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan; and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah. And they came into the land of Egypt; for they obeyed not the voice of Jehovah: and they came unto Tahpanhes."

"Johanan... took all the remnant ... and Jeremiah... and Baruch... and came into the land of Egypt ..." (Jeremiah 43:5-7). From this, it is certain that both Jeremiah and his amanuensis Baruch were unwilling participants in this migration back to Egypt.

Tragic as this pitiful maneuver actually was, "It resulted in the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy that Jerusalem would be uninhabited (Jeremiah 24:8-10). This migration to Egypt accomplished the utter de-population of the land; and the sole hope of the nation was then (and afterward) centered in the Babylonian exiles."[3] In the light of the unbelieving arrogance and conceit of that whole generation of apostates, there was nothing whatever that God could have done with them, unless it had been preceded by the sincere repentance and reformation of the people, that being, according to all indications, an utterly impossible thing to have anticipated.

"Tahpanhes ..." (Jeremiah 43:7). This was an important fortified city on the eastern Delta of the Nile, where Pharaoh had a summer home and some kind of an administrative center. It seems to be the same place which Herodotus called Daphnai, now thought to be the modern Tell-Defenneh, some 27 miles south-southwest of Port Said.[4]

The immigrants probably stopped here in order to procure permission of Pharaoh to enter Egypt, and to explore possible ways of making a living.