Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on Jeremiah 46:16
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
He made many to fall, etc.] That is, the Lord, by the hand of the Chaldeans, by whose sword multitudes fell in battle: yea, one fell upon another; they fell in heaps, denoting the multitude of the slain; or rather they fell in flight one upon another; one fell, and then another upon him, as usually they do, when men are frightened and flee precipitantly, as in (<244612>Jeremiah 46:12); and they said, arise: not those that fell, which may seem at first sight; but either the strangers in the land of Egypt, as Kimchi, such as the Jews were; who, perceiving the destruction that was coming on Egypt, exhort one another to arise, and get out of it; or rather the auxiliaries of the Egyptians, as the Ethiopians, Lybians, and Lydians, (<244609>Jeremiah 46:9); who finding the enemy too strong for them, and they themselves deserted or unsupported by Pharaoh’s army, advise one another to quit his service, and provide for their own safety: and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity; their own country, where they were born, and their friends and relations lived; that so they might be safe from the oppressing sword; the sword of the Chaldeans. The Septuagint version is a very bad one, followed by the Arabic, which renders it, “from the Grecian sword”; and so is the Vulgate Latin version, “from the face of the dove”; to countenance which it is said, that the Chaldeans and Assyrians had a dove in their ensigns; (see Gill on “<242538>Jeremiah 25:38”); and so a most ancient Saxon translation in the library of Christ’s Church in Oxford, “from the face of the sword of the culver”f827, or “dove”; that is, from their sword, who display their banners in the field with the ensign of a dove; meaning the Chaldeans. The Targum is, “from the sword of the enemy, which is as wine inebriating;” which sense is followed by Jarchi.
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