Jeremiah 46:21

21 Even her mercenaries are like well-fed calves; they too will retreat and run for cover; they won't survive. The day of disaster has come to haunt them, the time of their punishment.

Jeremiah 46:21 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 46:21

All her hired men [are] in the midst of her like fatted
bullocks
Or, "bullocks of the stall" ^F11; soldiers of other countries, that were hired into the service of Egypt, and lived so deliciously there, that they were unfit for war, and were like fatted beasts prepared for the slaughter. The Targum and Jarchi interpret it, her princes ^F12; who had the care of this heifer, and of the feeding of it; these themselves were like that, nourished for the day of slaughter: for they also are turned back, [and] are fled away together;
they turned their backs upon the enemy in battle, and fled in great confusion and precipitancy; see ( Jeremiah 46:15 Jeremiah 46:16 ) ; they did not stand;
and face the enemy, and light him, but fell or fled before him: because the day of their calamity was come upon them, [and] the time of
their visitation;
the time appointed by the Lord to visit and punish them, and bring destruction on them for their sins.

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FOOTNOTES:

F11 (qbrm ylgek) "velut vituli saginae", Montanus, Cocceius,
F12 So R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 50. 2.

Jeremiah 46:21 In-Context

19 Get what you need for deportation, you inhabitants of Egypt. Memphis will be reduced to a wasteland, a ruin with no one left.

20 Egypt is a beautiful, yes, beautiful heifer, but a horsefly from the north is coming to bite her.

21 Even her mercenaries are like well-fed calves; they too will retreat and run for cover; they won't survive. The day of disaster has come to haunt them, the time of their punishment.

22 Like the sound of a snake hissing as it slithers away is Egypt as armies approach in force; they come against her with axes, like woodcutters.

23 They destroy her dense forest, though it is vast, because they outnumber locusts and can't be counted, declares the LORD.