Jeremiah 46:16

16 They stumble and fall over each other and say among themselves, ‘Come, let’s go back to our people, to the land of our birth. Let’s get away from the sword of the enemy!’

Jeremiah 46:16 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 46:16

He made many to fall
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 ( 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, ( 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 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" F11, 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.
FOOTNOTES:

F11 Apud Gregory's Posthuma, p. 236.

Jeremiah 46:16 In-Context

14 “Shout it out in Egypt! Publish it in the cities of Migdol, Memphis, and Tahpanhes! Mobilize for battle, for the sword will devour everyone around you.
15 Why have your warriors fallen? They cannot stand, for the LORD has knocked them down.
16 They stumble and fall over each other and say among themselves, ‘Come, let’s go back to our people, to the land of our birth. Let’s get away from the sword of the enemy!’
17 There they will say, ‘Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is a loudmouth who missed his opportunity!’
18 “As surely as I live,” says the King, whose name is the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, “one is coming against Egypt who is as tall as Mount Tabor, or as Mount Carmel by the sea!
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