Jeremiah 25:20 - Exposition

The mingled people ; Septuagint, καὶ πάντας τοὺς συμμίκτους : Vulgate, et universes generaliter . The Hebrew ‛erebh probably means, not "mingled [i.e. 'motley'] people," as the Authorized Version, but "foreign people," i.e. a body of men belonging to some particular nation intermixed or interspersed among those belonging to another. This explanation will account for the use of the word in all the passages in which it occurs (here and in Jeremiah 25:24 ; also Exodus 12:38 ; Nehemiah 13:3 ; ‹je-1›, 1 Kings 10:15 ; Jeremiah 1:1-19 :37; Ezekiel 30:5 ; and perhaps 2 Chronicles 9:14 ). The context here and in 1 Kings 10:15 seems to imply that the name was given especially to the tribes (probably Bedawin tribes) on the frontier of Judah towards the desert, though in Ezekiel 30:5 it is evidently applied to a people which in some sense belonged to Egypt. In Exodus 12:38 it may be doubted whether the phrase is used from the point of view of Egypt or of the Israelites; in Jeremiah 50:37 it is used of the foreigners in Babylon in 2 Chronicles 9:14 the Massoretic critics have pointed the consonants of the text wrongly ( ‛arabh , Arabia, instead of ‛erebh ), but without injury to the sense; the Vulgate and Syriac have done the same in 1 Kings 10:15 . The notion that the word means ' auxiliary troops" arises (as Thenius on 1 Kings 10:15 remarks) from the free rendering of the Targum at 1 Kings 10:15 and Jeremiah 1:1-19 :37. Uz . The land associated with the name of Job, and probably east or south-east of Palestine, and adjacent to the Edomites of Mount Seir ( Lamentations 4:21 ). Of the Philistines . Observe, Gath is alone omitted of the five Philistine towns ( Joshua 13:3 ; 1 Samuel 6:17 ). It had been reduced to complete insignificance ( Amos 6:2 ), through Uzziah's having "broken down" its walls ( 2 Chronicles 26:6 ), and is equally passed over in Amos ( Amos 1:6-8 ), Zephaniah ( Zephaniah 2:4 ), and Zechariah ( Zechariah 9:5 , Zechariah 9:6 ). Azzah ; i.e. Gaza, the Septuagint form (the G representing the initial ayin ), which is everywhere else adopted by the Authorized Version. The remnant of Ashdod . A significant phrase, which can be explained from Herodotus (2.157): For twenty-nine years Psamnutichus "pressed the siege of Azotus without intermission." We can imagine that he would not be disposed to lenient dealings with the town upon its capture. (An earlier and shorter siege of Ashdod is mentioned in Isaiah 20:1-6 .)