Jeremiah 46:25, commentary and pictures

This is one of the prophecies pronouncing judgment and doom on Egypt and on the foreign kingdoms surrounding Israel, found in chapters 46 to 51 of Jeremiah, which give prophecies against foreign nations, especially Babylon. It is Jeremiah's prophecy concerning Egypt, and it stands in the closing chapters of Jeremiah covering his personal experiences and his going into Egypt. In it the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, declares that He will punish Egypt and Pharaoh, with their gods and their kings, even Pharaoh and all them that trust in him.

The multitude of No is Thebes. To punish it was for God to set Himself against Egypt's idols and idol temples at Thebes and Memphis, where worship was given to the sun-god, the crocodile, the sacred beetle, Baal, Molech, and Ashtaroth, and where immorality deified lust. That punishment was to bring about Egypt's defeat, invasion, subduing, and fall before the mighty conqueror Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.

Its fulfillment came in fire and sword from the delta to Ethiopia. Through devotion to her idols Egypt fell from glory to dishonor and from wealth to beggary, and was made the basest of kingdoms, never again exalting itself above the nations or ruling over nations. After Babylon it successively fell into the hands of strangers — Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Saracens, Mamelukes and Turks — with its idols and images cut off, its land wasted and filled with the slain, and no native prince ruling it. The ruins of Thebes and its temples, dedicated to sun worship, testify to the fulfillment of that judgment.