Jeremiah 43 Study Notes

43:1-3 After Jeremiah finished telling the message God had given him, the leaders accused him of speaking a lie. They reversed the charge Jeremiah had brought against Judah’s false prophets and charged him with speaking falsely (23:14,25-26; 27:10; 28:15; 29:21). They charged that Baruch (Jeremiah’s secretary) was inciting him against them to deport them to Babylon.

43:4-7 These verses are bookended in a paragraph that has at its beginning and end the words “they did not obey the Lord” (see vv. 4,7). The rebellious group arrived in Egypt at Tahpanhes, a fortified city on the northern border of Lower Egypt where one of Pharaoh’s palaces was situated. It was probably modern Tell el-Dafenneh. Ironically, the remnant of Jews fled back to the land they had escaped from about nine hundred years earlier.

43:8-11 The Lord told Jeremiah to pick up some large stones and set them in the mortar of the brick pavement at the opening of Pharaoh’s palace. Then Jeremiah was to announce to the remnant of Judah that Nebuchadnezzar would place his throne on these stones (v. 10). Egypt would experience the same thing that Judah had been through. Nebuchadnezzar did invade Egypt in the twenty-seventh year of his reign (568-567 BC; cp. Ezk 29:17-20), as Jeremiah predicted. What happened to Jeremiah and Baruch remains a mystery.

43:12 The Babylonian conqueror would pick Egypt clean, just as a shepherd picks lice off his clothes. This delousing imagery does not seem to depict any resistance from the Egyptians.

43:13 The sun temple is a reference to Heliopolis (Hb On), known for its temple to the sun god Re. This city, five miles northeast of Cairo, was noted for its obelisks (sacred pillars). Besides those that were smashed, these obelisks were later carted off to New York, Rome, London, Istanbul, and Alexandria, leaving only one at On. Originally two rows of pillars lined the approach to Re’s temple.