Jeremiah 47:2

2 This is what the Lord says: Look, waters are rising from the north and becoming an overflowing wadi. They will overflow the land and everything in it,^[a] the cities and their inhabitants. The people will cry out, and every inhabitant of the land will wail.

Jeremiah 47:2 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 47:2

Thus saith the Lord, behold, waters rise up out of the north,
&c.] Meaning an army of men, which should come in great numbers, and with great force and rapidity, like an overflowing flood. So the Targum,

``behold, people shall come from the north;''

that is, from Chaldea, which lay north of Palestine: and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land, and all
that is therein;
or, "the fulness of it" ^F21; the land of the Philistines, and carry off the men and cattle, and all the riches thereof; the city, and them that dwell therein;
not any particular or single city, as Gaza; but the several cities of Palestine, and the inhabitants of them: then the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl;
not being able to do anything else; not to defend themselves, their families, and property; and seeing nothing but ruin and destruction before their eyes.

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FOOTNOTES:

F21 (hawlmw) "et plenitudinem ejus", Schmidt

Jeremiah 47:2 In-Context

1 [This is] the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet about the Philistines before Pharaoh defeated Gaza.

2 This is what the Lord says: Look, waters are rising from the north and becoming an overflowing wadi. They will overflow the land and everything in it, the cities and their inhabitants. The people will cry out, and every inhabitant of the land will wail.

3 At the sound of the stomping hooves of his stallions, the rumbling of his chariots, and the clatter of their wheels, fathers will not turn back for their sons, because they will be utterly helpless

4 on account of the day that is coming to destroy all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Sidon every remaining ally. Indeed, the Lord is about to destroy the Philistines, the remnant of the islands of Caphtor.

5 Baldness is coming to Gaza. Ashkelon will become silent, a remnant of their valley. How long will you gash yourself?

Footnotes

• [a]. Isa 8:7-8