Jeremiah 46:21

21. Hired men Mercenary soldiers.

Fatted bullocks The soldiers mentioned in Jeremiah 46:9, the Ethiopians, Libyans, and Lydians, were allies; but after their destruction in the battle of Carchemish mercenaries were engaged from Asia Minor Carians and Ionians. As we learn from Herodotus, Pharaoh-hophra took these into his pay to the number of thirty thousand, and they were settled in the fertile lands of the Delta between Bubastis and Pelusium. So pampered were they, that in the war against Cyrene he would not expose them, but sent native soldiers instead, and this cost him his crown. In describing, then, these mercenaries as “fatted bullocks” we have an extraordinary and minute faithfulness to history.