(16) Arise, and let us go again to our own people.--The case contemplated is that of the settlers in Egypt, the Lydians, Ionians, and Carians (see Note on Jeremiah 46:9) whom Psammetichus had encouraged, or the fugitives from Judaea of Jeremiah 43:5-7. These should find that it was no longer a safe home for them. The "oppressing sword" is beyond question the right rendering, but it is curious that both the LXX. and Vulgate have taken the adjective in different senses: the former giving "from the Greek sword," as if the word for oppressing (Ionah) meant Ionian; and the latter, the apparently strange version, a facie gladii columb? ("from before the sword of the dove"). See, however, as giving a possible explanation of the words as referring to the dove as a symbol of the Chaldaean power, the Note on Jeremiah 25:38.

Verse 16. - To fall; rather, to stumble. The fugitives are in such a wild confusion that they stumble over each other. The parallel passage in the earlier prophecy (ver. 12) suggests that the Egyptian warriors are here referred to, the most trustworthy portion of which, since the time of Psammetichus, was composed of mercenaries, the native troops having lost that military ardour for which they had been anciently renowned (see Herod., 2:152, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson's note ap. Rawlinson). Being devoid of patriotic feeling, it was natural that these hired soldiers should hasten from the doomed country, exclaiming, as the prophet puts it, Arise, and let us go again to our own people. Greeks were probably among the speakers, at any rate, Ionians and Carians formed the mercenary troops of Psammetiehus, according to Herodotus (2:152).

46:13-28 Those who encroached on others, shall now be themselves encroached on. Egypt is now like a very fair heifer, not accustomed to the yoke of subjection; but destruction comes out of the north: the Chaldeans shall come. Comfort and peace are spoken to the Israel of God, designed to encourage them when the judgments of God were abroad among the nations. He will be with them, and only correct them in measure; and will not punish them with everlasting destruction from his presence.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" (k), 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.

(k) Apud Gregory's Posthuma, p. 236.