2. by the River Euphrates at Carchemish. The battle at Carchemish would determine much of Near Eastern history for decades to come. Pharaoh Neco headed north in 609 B.C.E. in an effort to aid the Assyrians, who were waging a losing war against the Babylonians. The Judahite King Josiah tried to stand in his way and was killed in battle by Neco. In 605, the Egyptian and Babylonian armies clashed at Carchemish, and the Egyptians were routed, as this prophecy reports.

3. Ready the buckler and shield. All these words of military exhortation are best understood as addressed by God—“the word of the LORD”—to the Egyptian army, which is being urged to head into the battle where it will meet its destruction. “Buckler,” magen, is generally thought to be a small round shield and “shield,” tsinah, a larger rectangular one.

7. Who is this rising like the Nile, / like the streams his waters swell? The Nile does periodically overflow its banks. As the principal source of water for Egypt, it serves here as an apt image of the overweening Egyptian expeditionary force that aspires to “cover the earth.”

9. Rise up, O horses. The verb in this instance, playing back against the rising of the Nile, probably refers to the rearing up of the horses.

Cush and Put . . . / Ludim. Cush is Nubia, at one point a conqueror of Egypt. Put is probably Lybia and the Ludim are probably the Lydians, a people of Asia Minor. All these foreigners would be mercenaries fighting in the Egyptian ranks, and mercenaries (“hired troops”) are explicitly mentioned in verse 21.

the Ludim who bend the bow. The implication is that the Lydian contingent were skilled archers. “Bend the bow” is literally “trod the bow” because one foot was needed to pull back these large bows.

10. sacrifice. Much to the point of the present line, the Hebrew noun can also mean “slaughter.”

11. Go up to Gilead and get balm. The northern region of Gilead was famous for its medicinal herbs. The injunction for Egypt to go up there is obviously sarcastic, for as the next line spells out, she will not heal from the grievous wounds she has suffered at the hands of the Babylonians.

12. for warrior stumbled against warrior. This is an image of their panicked flight as they are routed on the battlefield.

13. the coming of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia to strike the land of Egypt. While Josephus and some other ancient sources report a Babylonian invasion of Egypt in the late 580s B.C.E., the historicity of this event is now widely doubted. It seems more likely that Jeremiah, after the Egyptian defeat at Carchemish, is projecting the prospect of a devastating Babylonian assault on the Egyptian homeland.

15. your heroes. The Hebrew ʾabirim can mean “bulls,” “steeds” (its sense in the Song of Deborah, Judges 5, and here in 47:3), or, because of the association of both animals with physical strength, something like “powerful warriors.” This last sense seems the most likely here especially because of the reference to not standing and being pushed down in the next line. Lundbom thinks the term refers to Apis, the Egyptian bull god, which is ingenious but not persuasive.

16. Rise up. The imperative verb, qumah, is particularly appropriate here because they—not their horses or their bull god—have been knocked down on the battlefield.

17. an uproar that missed the set time. Although the meaning of this phrase is in dispute, it is best understood as a mocking designation of the Pharaoh who has failed to defend his land: he makes a big noise, but he does not arrive at the right time and place to rescue his people.

18. the King / LORD of Armies. The monarchic epithet for God is purposefully chosen as a contrast to “Pharaoh king of Egypt” in the preceding line.

like Tabor . . . / like Carmel. Since neither of these mountains can move, the reference must not be to “he [the invader] shall come,” but to “the King, / LORD of Armies,” who stands lofty over all the nations like these two mountains over the surrounding landscape.

19. gear of exile. This would presumably be minimal changes of clothing, cooking utensils, and other wherewithal for everyday life on the move.

20. gadfly. The Hebrew qerets occurs only here, but it probably relates to a verbal stem that means to break off or pinch and is thus linked with the bite of the gadfly. That, in turn, is a metaphor for Nebuchadrezzar.

21. Her hired troops. See the second comment on verse 9.

like stall-fed calves. The fatted calves are led directly from the confining stall to be slaughtered, with no chance to escape.

22. Her voice like a snake as it goes. Crushed by defeat, the Egyptians can emit no more than the rustling sound of a snake crawling over the ground. This is an obvious antithesis to the “uproar” made by Pharaoh.

23. They have cut down her forest. Since Egypt has no forests, this is either an extension of the metaphor of woodcutting for destruction or possibly a reference to the wood-paneled interiors of Egypt’s palaces.

it cannot be fathomed. The “it” is in effect explained in the next line: the invading force is so vast that it cannot be fathomed.

25. with its kings. The slightly puzzling plural might refer to a succession of Egyptian monarchs destined to suffer under the yoke of foreign domination.

with Pharaoh. This replicates the phrase at the beginning of the series, so one of them may be a scribal duplication.

26. But afterward she shall dwell as in days of old. This final positive note may be based on the prophet’s realistic assessment of the geopolitical situation: Babylonia will not be able to sustain its conquest of Egypt indefinitely.

28. but of you I will not make an end, / yet I will chastise you in justice. This is a balancing act of prediction that the prophet performs elsewhere. Unlike other nations, which are destined to be utterly destroyed, Israel will survive; nevertheless, because of its repeated offenses against God, it must first be brought to judgment and pay the bitter price of defeat and captivity (“chastisement”) for what it has done.