Verse 6
The Command To Let None Escape (Jeremiah 46:6 ).
The Babylonians are commanded to ensure that their victory is complete and that due judgment is visited on the Egyptians. All is under God’s control.
‘Do not let the swift flee away,
Nor the mighty man escape!
In the north by the river Euphrates,
Have they stumbled and fallen.’
The victorious army is seen as under YHWH’s direction. They are commanded to prevent the elite of the Egyptian army from escaping. They are to prevent the swift from fleeing way, and to prevent the mighty men from making their escape. The victory, and the judgment, must be complete. There must be no opportunity for them to reform and fight again. And so it was. For in the North, by the River Euphrates, the Egyptian army stumbled and fell.
A Description Of The Preceding Arrogance Of The Egyptian Army (46-7-8).
It was not what proud Egypt had expected. They had come up from Egypt with all confidence, a confidence seemingly justified by their establishment of their (brief) empire.
‘Who is this who rises up like the Nile,
Whose waters toss themselves like the rivers?’
Egypt rises up like the Nile,
And his waters toss themselves like the rivers,
And he says, “I will rise up, I will cover the earth,
I will destroy cities and their inhabitants.”
This consequence was far from what the Egyptians had foreseen. They had seen themselves in terms of the all-conquering Nile. When the Nile flooded its banks everything gave way before it, and it formed rivers which swept all before them. Thus the Egyptian army saw themselves in a similar way. They too would cross their borders triumphantly, and all would give way before them. And their Pharaoh’s boast was that he and his army would cover the earth, and would destroy cities with their inhabitants. None would stand before them.
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