Jeremiah 46:1

Beginning here and through Jeremiah 51, we have a collection of Jeremiah's prophecies against various Gentile nations, "Arranged geographically, beginning with Egypt, and then moving to Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Syria, Elam, and Babylon."[1]

The Septuagint (LXX) has a different arrangement, but that cannot possibly raise any question about the arrangement here. The Septuagint (LXX) is notoriously undependable in many particulars, nor is the question of "which is the original?" a valid inquiry. Jeremiah wrote the prophecies here; and the arrangement of them was either that of Jeremiah himself, or that of his dependable secretary Baruch. The arbitrary, unscientific, and subjective changes found in the LXX, often cited in the works of Keil, require no particular attention.

Many critics debate the Jeremiahic authorship of these prophecies; but, "There is no substantive evidence"[2] whatever to support a denial of Jeremiah's authorship. As Keil expressed it, regarding some of the adverse arguments, "They can have weight only with those who a priori deny that the prophet could have made any prediction."[3] As we approach the end of the century, the death of the whole system of radical criticism of the Bible is inevitably approaching. As Thompson (writing in the eighth decade of this century) stated it, "Nineteenth and early twentieth century critical scholars were prepared to reject much of these final chapters of Jeremiah; but such a position is no longer possible." [4] Indeed it is not. This writer has encountered no argument whatever against the integrity and authenticity of this final section of Jeremiah that is worthy of any special attention whatever.

What went wrong with radical criticism? We do not question the sincerity of some of the critics, nor do we deny that they have, in certain instances, contributed to Biblical knowledge; but, in spite of this, the great corpus of radical criticism is totally worthless, not because of the critics' lack of skill in following their rules of criticism, but because the rules and axioms which they have adopted are not merely unscientific but absolutely false. We shall not discuss this here.

See pages 264-272 in Vol. 11 of the New Testament Series for a study of the false rules of New Testament critics; and to those mentioned there, we must add the a priori denial of radical critics that predictive prophecy is even a possibility. Such a rule announces the outcome before the study even starts! Who could allow a referee of a sports contest to announce the score before the game started?

Nevertheless, that is the stock in trade used by radical critics, allowing one of them to describe the prophecy of Micah that the Messiah, "whose goings forth are known from of old, even from everlasting" would be born in Bethlehem, eight centuries before it happened (Micah 5:2), as a reference, "To the time when David was being called to the kingship." (Note that a radical critic here applied this prophecy to an event that had already happened centuries earlier). See pp. 341-346, in Vol. 2, of the Minor Prophets Series for a full discussion of the critical rule regarding predictive prophecy, and for many specific reasons why it is impossible to believe such a rule.

The chapter division in this chapter are: (1) the two superscriptions (Jeremiah 46:1-2); (2) the advance of the magnificent Egyptian army (Jeremiah 46:3-4); (3) the route of that army (Jeremiah 46:5-12); (4) Babylon to punish Egypt (Jeremiah 46:13-17); (5) a leader like Tabor and Cannel (Jeremiah 46:18-19); (6) gliding away like a snake (Jeremiah 46:20-24); (7) No-Amon to be destroyed (Jeremiah 46:25-26); (8) prophecy for Israel (Jeremiah 46:27,28).

Jeremiah 46:1-2

"The word of Jehovah which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations. Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of the Jehoiachim the son of Josiah, king of Judah."

There are two superscriptions here, the first pertaining to the subsequent chapters through Jeremiah 51, and the second pertaining to Egypt. We should have expected these prophecies against the Gentile nations, because in God's call of Jeremiah, God placed him "over the nations" as the official prophet who would declare their fate (Jeremiah 1:10). Several of God's prophets pronounced doom against the nations, as did Isaiah, Amos, and others.

"By the river Euphrates in Carchemish ..." (Jeremiah 46:2). The battle fought here about 605 B.C.[5] was one of the decisive battles of history, for it spelled the end of Egyptian domination and heralded the arrival of Babylon as the new world power. It was fought at a strategic location several miles north of the Chebar's junction with the Euphrates. The word "Carchemish" means "Fort of Chemosh," the god of the Moabites (2 Kings 23:13).[6]

"In the fourth year of Jehoiachim ..." (Jeremiah 46:2). A number of very significant names and dates cluster around this event.

Jeremiah was contemporary with the five final kings of Judah, from Josiah to the ruin of the nation, and with Nebuchadnezzar the greatest monarch of the neo-Chaldean empire, and with these four kings of Egypt: Psammetik I (664-609B.C.), Pharaoh-necho II (609-594 B.C.), Psammetik II (694-588 B.C.), and Pharaoh-Hophra (588-568 B.C.).[7]

The king of Egypt in this battle of Carchemish was Pharaoh-necho who had killed Josiah at Megiddo in 609 B.C.; and, in a sense, the Jews would have considered this victory over Necho at Carchemish some four years later as a proper vengeance for the death of Josiah.

"The Babylonian Chronicle stated that Nebuchadnezzar marched against Egypt again in 601 B.C., with both sides suffering very heavy losses. This was probably the event that tempted Jehoiachim to revolt against Babylon (2 Kings 24:1)[8]