Jeremiah 46:6
Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; they shall stumble, and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates. Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; they shall stumble, and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates.
Jeremiah 46:6 belongs to Jeremiah's prophecy concerning Egypt foretelling its fall before the mighty conqueror Nebuchadnezzar, standing among the closing chapters of Jeremiah that cover his personal experiences and his going into Egypt. It falls within Jeremiah 46 to 51, prophecies pronouncing the doom of the foreign nations and kingdoms surrounding Israel, with Babylon prominent. That Babylon also serves as a type of mystical Babylon.
The river, flood, and waters in the context describe Egypt and its people, with Egypt rising like a flood and its waters meaning its national power. This illustrates the common biblical practice of naming a country or nation by its great river. The swift cannot flee away nor the mighty man escape, but they stumble and fall toward the north by the Euphrates. The north is presented as the direction in which a defeated army falls while trying to flee.
The verse means that Egypt, though ancient, powerful and defensible, would be invaded, conquered and spoiled, stumbling and falling into the hands of strangers and remaining there. It would become the basest of the kingdoms and never again exalt itself or rule over the nations, with its idols and images ceasing. This was fulfilled when Egypt was invaded and subdued by Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon. It was afterward subjected by the Persians under Cambyses and by the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, then ruled by the Ptolemies and the Romans and successively by Saracens, Mamelukes and Turks, deprived of its natural proprietors and kept in slavery and tyranny for more than twenty-four centuries.
The verse shows that the north country is by the river Euphrates, identifying the north country with the Euphrates. The Euphrates designates the Ottoman Turkish empire or sultan's dominion, so the north country and the king of the north also designate Turkey. In this passage the verse helps identify the prophetic king of the north as the dominant power north of Palestine, the successor to Babylon, rather than as a ruler defined by possession of Thrace or other European territory. In this application the language about stumbling and falling toward the north by the Euphrates points to that dominion and its eventual removal from European soil. The stumbling and falling toward the north by the Euphrates belongs to the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance, which is the end of the world.