15 Why are your strong ones swept away? they didn't stand, because Yahweh did drive them.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
By these words the Prophet expresses more clearly what I have just referred to, that the Egyptians would not be able to resist, though they might have gathered auxiliaries on every side, because God would carry on war against them. In astonishment he asks, "How has it happened, or, how is it, that thy valiant men have been thus scattered?" The verb, indeed, means to sweep, but here it means to scatter. He immediately answers, Because God has driven them, they could not stand The reason for such a question we explained yesterday, even because the unbelieving regarded as a fable whatever they heard from the Prophets; and as long as things went on prosperously, they slept, in a manner, over their good fortune, and became inebriated with it, so that they feared nothing, and did not think themselves exposed to any adversities. As then ungodly men proudly disregarded God, the Prophets, appealing to common sense, asked them, How comes this? For Jeremiah spoke of things as yet hidden, and which had not fallen under the observation of men. We hence see why this wonder was expressed, How have thy valiant fallen? Then he says, Because Jehovah has driven them, they could not stand Here, again, we must bear in mind, what we briefly referred to yesterday, that ungodly men deceive themselves by a false confidence, when they set up in opposition to God's power their earthly helps and subsidies, and think that they are well secured when they possess many forces and strongholds, and when they can procure auxiliaries for themselves from every quarter. Let us know that nothing is more fatal than to confide in earthly helps, when God declares that he is our adversary. Hence the Prophet says, that they did not stand, because Jehovah drove them; as though he had said, that Egyptians would have to do not only with the king of Babylon, but with God himself, whom they had provoked. It follows, --
Translate it: "Why is thy mighty one cast down? He stood not, because Yahweh thrust him down." The "mighty one" is explained by the Septuagint to be the bull Apis. Thus:
(1) the chief deity of Egypt Jeremiah 46:15;
(2) the army of mercenaries Jeremiah 46:16;
(3) the king, Pharaoh Jeremiah 46:17, are the three upon whom the Egyptians trusted.
They stood not, because the Lord did drive them - The Lord panic-struck them, and drove them back.
Why are thy valiant men swept away?.... As with a mighty torrent, or a sweeping rain; so the word is used in Proverbs 28:3; to which the Chaldean army may be compared; which came with such irresistible force as to drive the Egyptians from their posts, so that they could not stand their ground. The Septuagint renders it,
"why does Apis flee from thee? thy choice ox does not continue.''
Which was the god of the Egyptians, they worshipped in the form of an ox; this could not protect them, though thought by them to be very mighty and powerful; so Aelianus (i) says Apis with the Egyptians is believed to be a most powerful deity; yet could not save them; but the word signifies their nobles, their mighty men of war, their generals and officers, at least their valiant soldiers; who yet were not able to stand the tide of power that came against them. The reason was,
because the Lord did drive them; by means of the Chaldeans; he dispirited them; he put them into a panic, and they fled from their posts; there is no standing against the Lord.
(i) De Animal. l. 11. c. 10.
thy valiant men--manuscripts, the Septuagint, and Vulgate read, "thy valiant one," Apis, the bull-shaped Egyptian idol worshipped at Noph or Memphis. The contrast thus is between the palpable impotence of the idol and the might attributed to it by the worshippers. The Hebrew term, "strong," or "valiant," is applied to bulls (Psalm 22:12). Cambyses in his invasion of Egypt destroyed the sacred bull.
drive them--(Compare Jeremiah 46:5). The Hebrew word is used of a sweeping rain (Proverbs 28:3).
The prophet in spirit looks on the power of Egypt as already broken. This is shown by the question of astonishment, מדּוּע נסחף אבּיריך, which has been variously rendered. אבּירים .deredner ylsuoirav neeb sa, "strong ones," is used in Jeremiah 8:16; Jeremiah 47:3, and Jeremiah 50:11, of stallions, but elsewhere as an epithet of bulls, especially the strong bulls of Bashan; see on Jeremiah 8:16. In the present passage the reference may be to the mighty men of war, who do not maintain their position (Chald. and most of the old interpreters); the verb in the singular forms no sufficient objection to this view, the irregularity being due to the fact that the verb precedes its subject see Ewald, 316, t; Gesenius, 147]. It is more difficult to combine with this the singulars of the verbs עמד and הדפו which follow; these, and especially the suffix in the singular, appear to indicate that אבּידיך really refers to a noun in the singular. But the form of this noun seems against such a view; for the words adduced in support of the position that singular nouns sometimes assume plural suffixes, are insufficient for the purpose: thus, תּהלּתיך, Psalm 9:15, and שׂנאתיך, Ezekiel 35:11, are plainly nouns in the singular. And in support of the averment that, in pausal forms with Segol, the י is a mere mater lectionis, only כּפּיך, Proverbs 6:1, can be adduced: the other instances brought forward by Hitzig fail to establish his position. For איביך, Deuteronomy 28:48, may be plural; בּיני, Genesis 16:5, is far from being a case in point, for the preposition often takes plural suffixes; and even in the case of חסידיך, Psalm 16:10, the י is marked in the Qeri as superfluous; most codices, too, rather give the form חסידך. But even in the verse now before us, many codices, according to Kennicott and de Rossi, read אבּירך, so that the word should perhaps be taken as a singular. The singulars, however, which occur in the following clauses do not form conclusive proofs of this, since they may be taken in a distributive sense; and more generally the address often suddenly changes from the plural to the singular. In connection with the possibility of taking אבּיריך as a singular, the paraphrase of the lxx deserves mention and consideration, ὁ μόσχος ὁ ἔκλετός σου, to which a gloss adds ὁ But we cannot agree with Kennicott, J. D. Michaelis, Ewald, Hitzig, Graf, and Nδgelsbach, in holding this as certainly the correct rendering; nor can we give to אבּיר the sense of "bull," for this meaning is not made out for the singular simply because the plural is used of strong bulls: this holds especially in Jeremiah, who constantly applies the plural to strong steeds. Still less ground is there for appealing to the fact that Jahveh is repeatedly called אבּיר ישׂראל or אבּיר יעקוב, Genesis 49:24, Isaiah 1:24; Isaiah 39:1-8 :26 etc.; for this epithet of Jahveh (who shows Himself in or towards Israel as the Mighty One) cannot be applied to the helpless images of Apis. In Psalm 68:31, אבּירים means "strong ones" - bulls as emblems of kings. If the word be used here with such a reference, it may be singular or plural. In the former case it would mean the king; in the latter, the king with his princes and magnates. Against the application of the word to the images of Apis, there is the fact that Apis, a symbol of Osiris, was neither the only nor the chief god of Egypt, but was worshipped nowhere except in Memphis (Herodotus, ii. 153); hence it was not suited to be the representative of the gods or the power of Egypt, as the context of the present passage requires.
*More commentary available at chapter level.