Jeremiah 46:2
Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah. Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah.
The verse is the opening of a prophecy against Egypt, set within Jeremiah's prophecies against the kingdoms surrounding Israel. Those prophecies belong to the closing portion of the book dealing with personal experiences and the going into Egypt, in a series in which Babylon is especially prominent and which also concerns Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus and Elam. It identifies the army of Pharaoh-necho, or Necho II, king of Egypt, at Carchemish by the river Euphrates. There that army was smitten by Nebuchadrezzar, or Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah.
That dating to the fourth year of Jehoiakim places the battle at Carchemish after the siege of Jerusalem in the third year of Jehoiakim. The battle is dated to 607 B.C. Those who date it to 604 B.C. identify it as the defeat of Pharaoh Necho II's Egyptian army by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in that year.
The battle ended in a disastrous Egyptian retreat and marked the beginning of Babylonian control over Necho's former possessions. The victory drove Necho back to Egypt and ended his further advance beyond his own land. The defeat shattered Egypt's challenge to Babylon and marked Babylon's rise as the dominant world power. The victory over Egypt is counted among Nebuchadnezzar's triumphs.
The verse means that Egypt, then one of the most ancient and powerful and most defensible kingdoms in the world, would be invaded and subdued by Nebuchadrezzar. That conquest began Egypt's lasting spoiling and fall into the hand of strangers, afterward the Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Saracens, Mamelukes and Turks. So Egypt became the basest of the kingdoms, no more ruling over the nations, with no more a native prince, with its idols and images ceasing from Noph and its rivers drying. More than twenty-four centuries of history fulfill the word and prove it true. The verse also shows that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, was also sometimes called king of Assyria, reflecting the union of the two nations under his rule.