Post by alon on Jan 16, 2016 8:35:21 GMT -8
Haftara for par’shah Bo, Jeremiah 46:13-28
In the 
portion for this week we read about the final three plagues that God inflicts on the Egyptians before the Exodus: locusts, darkness, and the deaths of the firstborn. Similarly, the haftarah describes the Egyptians being punished and falling before their enemies. This prophecy was given at the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s attempted invasion of Egypt in 601-600 BCE.
Israel’s promise of redemption from Jeremiah is much like the promise that they received from Moses.
Jeremiah 46:28 (ESV) Fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the Lord, for I am with you. I will make a full end of all the nations to which I have driven you, but of you I will not make a full end. I will discipline you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished.”
In Exodus, as in Jeremiah, the Israelites do not escape punishment. Jeremiah foretells an attack on Egypt by Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylonia. This time, Egypt was being punished for going to war against Judah(Jeremiah 46:2-28). Melech Josiah had delayed the Egyptians at Meggido long enough for Nebuchadnezzar to defeat the Assyrians at Carchemish, but he was killed in the battle which Judah lost. After his death (2 Kings 23:28-37), Neco of Egypt removed Josiah’s son Jehoahaz from the throne of Judah, replacing him with his pro-Egyptian brother Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim rebelled against Babylon, but Egypt failed to come to his aid. The prophet Jeremiah prophesized that Egypt would soon fall into the hands of Babylon and her people exiled there.
Egypt thought they were like the Nile, which yearly rises up and floods their delta. Similarly, they would rise up and overwhelm their enemies.
Jeremiah 46:7 (NASB) Who is this that rises like the Nile, Like the rivers whose waters surge about?
However Jeremiah taunts the Egyptians, reminding them that their gods would not withstand the power of the one true God.
Jeremiah 46:15-16 (ESV) Why are your mighty ones face down? They do not stand because the Lord thrust them down. He made many stumble, and they fell, and they said one to another, Arise, and let us go back to our own people and to the land of our birth, because of the sword of the oppressor.’
After the Egyptians and their mercenaries flee from the Babylonians, Jeremiah promises, they will call their own Pharaoh “Braggart Who Let the Hour Go By.”
Jeremiah 46:17 (NASB) “They cried there, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a big noise; He has let the appointed time pass by!’
The repeated reference to an army from the north recalls Jeremiah’s earlier warning of an enemy invading Egypt from the north (chs. 4-6).
He told them, “Pack your bags for exile, you who live in Egypt” and “Take up positions, get yourselves ready, for the sword devours those around you.”
Jeremiah 46:14, 19 (NASB) “Declare in Egypt and proclaim in Migdol, Proclaim also in Memphis and Tahpanhes; Say, ‘Take your stand and get yourself ready, For the sword has devoured those around you.’ … “Make your baggage ready for exile, O daughter dwelling in Egypt, For Memphis will become a desolation; It will even be burned down and bereft of inhabitants.
Egypt was headed for judgment.
Jeremiah 46:24-25 (NASB) “The daughter of Egypt has been put to 
, Given over to the power of the people of the north.” The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I am going to punish Amon of Thebes, and Pharaoh, and Egypt along with her gods and her kings, even Pharaoh and those who trust in him.
Amon is Egypt’s sun god, whose temple was in No (the Hebrew name for Thebes). The God of Israel, looking at the Egyptians did not see a mighty river. He saw a bovine people, like a cow too young and stupid to understand all the ways of Hashem and about to be bitten by a horsefly.
Jeremiah 46:20 (NASB) “Egypt is a pretty heifer, But a horsefly is coming from the north—it is coming!
Her allies were like fat bullocks ready for slaughter.
Jeremiah 46:21 (NASB) “Also her mercenaries in her midst Are like fattened calves, For even they too have turned back and have fled away together; They did not stand their ground. For the day of their calamity has come upon them, The time of their punishment.
Though Egypt is like a forest of mighty trees, more numerous than locusts, they are about to be bitten by a serpent which single-mindedly tracks its prey; and army of woodcutters to lay waste with their axes.
Jeremiah 46:22-23 (NASB) “Its sound moves along like a serpent; For they move on like an army And come to her as woodcutters with axes. “They have cut down her forest,” declares the Lord; “Surely it will no more be found, Even though they are now more numerous than locusts And are without number.
In the last three verses Jeremiah is less condemnatory, saying that though Egypt is soon to be destroyed, she will once again be inhabited.
Jeremiah 46:26 (NASB) I shall give them over to the power of those who are seeking their lives, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of his officers. Afterwards, however, it will be inhabited as in the days of old,” declares the Lord.
This was small consolation for the people of Judah because they were to suffer a similar fate, already having been warned that they would be captured by the Babylonians. They, too, had sinned and were deserving of punishment. This is why the prophet ended with God’s words of comfort for Israel:
Jeremiah 46:27-28 (KJV) But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the Lord: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.
This is God’s eternal promise to the Jewish people – He will never completely destroy them. The nations around Israel will be destroyed, and the Hebrews will be exiled, but they will be redeemed. God will deliver them back to their land. Logically, a small nation which was dispersed out of its own lands two times in history and severely persecuted for centuries should no longer exist, yet the nation of Israel lives. The fact that the nation of Israel continues to exists is proof of God and the veracity of the Bible.
Mark Twain wrote: “The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of their immortality?”
It is no secret, it’s El Shaddai, God Almighty. He corrects in love, but His own He does not utterly destroy. The miracle of the continued existence of Israel is a reminder that God is El Olam, the Everlasting God; and El Elyon, God Most High- higher than all the gods of Egypt and the rest of the world combined. He keeps His promises- all of them.
Dan C
sources: JPS Study TNK, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, Warren Wiersby, my father and others
