Jeremiah 46:21

21 Even her hired soldiers are helpless as calves. They did not stand and fight; all of them turned and ran. The day of their doom had arrived, the time of their destruction.

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 ready to be taken prisoner, you people of Egypt! Memphis will be made a desert, a ruin where no one lives.

20 Egypt is like a splendid cow, attacked by a stinging fly from the north.

21 Even her hired soldiers are helpless as calves. They did not stand and fight; all of them turned and ran. The day of their doom had arrived, the time of their destruction.

22 Egypt runs away, hissing like a snake, as the enemy's army approaches. They attack her with axes, like people cutting down trees

23 and destroying a thick forest. Their soldiers are too many to count; they outnumber the locusts.