Jeremiah 46:22
22. The voice thereof shall go like a serpent; for they shall march with an army, and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood.
22. Vox ejus tanquam serpentis incedet, quia in potentia incedent; et cum securibus venient contra eam, sicuti caesores lignorum.
To study elegance was not so much the object of the Prophet, as to confirm what he had taught. The figures, then, which he now uses, were not intended as ornaments of speech, but rather for the purpose of giving force and power to what he had said; for, as it has been said, prophecies had no credit with stupid men, unless stimulants were added to them.
He says now, that the voice of Egypt would go forth like that…
Keil & Delitzsch on Jeremiah 46:13–end
The second prophecy regarding Egypt, with a message for Israel attached to it, was uttered after the preceding. This is evident even from the superscription, Jer 46:13 : "The word which Jahveh spake to Jeremiah the prophet of the coming of Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon to smite the land of Egypt." The formula, "The word which," etc., agrees with that in Jer 50:1; and דּבר, in contrast with היה, the word usually met with in headings, perhaps means that this prophecy, like that concerning Babylon, was not uttered in public by Jeremiah, but only written down. לבוא is used in reference to the coming of Nebuchadrezzar to smite the land. Graf puts down this heading as an addition, not made ti…
Read the whole note in the consoleRashi on Jeremiah 46:22
Its voice shall go like [that of] the snake The “snake” comes to teach us about Egypt but ends by learning. For we learn from here that when the Holy One, blessed be He, said to the serpent, “You shall walk on your belly” (Gen. 3:14), He severed his feet, and his voice went to the end of the world. So we learned in the ‘Thirty-two Methods of Rabbi Eliezer the son of Rabbi Jose the Galilean’ (Method 12).
for they will march with an army against her.
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
