Egypt Broken at Carchemish
1 Yahweh’s word which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations. 2 Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah. 3 “Prepare the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle! 4 Harness the horses, and get up, you horsemen, and stand up with your helmets. Polish the spears, put on the coats of mail. 5 Why have I seen it? They are dismayed and are turned backward. Their mighty ones are beaten down, have fled in haste, and don’t look back. Terror is on every side,” says Yahweh. 6 “Don’t let the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape. In the north by the river Euphrates they have stumbled and fallen. 7 “Who is this who rises up like the Nile, like rivers whose waters surge? 8 Egypt rises up like the Nile, like rivers whose waters surge. He says, ‘I will rise up. I will cover the earth. I will destroy cities and its inhabitants.’ 9 Go up, you horses! Rage, you chariots! Let the mighty men go out: Cush and Put, who handle the shield; and the Ludim, who handle and bend the bow. 10 For that day is of the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge himself of his adversaries. The sword will devour and be satiated, and will drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates. 11 Go up into Gilead, and take balm, virgin daughter of Egypt. You use many medicines in vain. There is no healing for you. 12 The nations have heard of your shame, and the earth is full of your cry; for the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty, they both fall together.”
The battle that decided the century is reported as a mobilization that turns into a rout in the middle of a sentence.
The oracle opens with the orders barked at an army getting ready: prepare the buckler and shield, harness the horses, stand up in your helmets, polish the spears, put on the coats of mail. Six imperatives, all confident, and then the line breaks: Why have I seen it? They are dismayed and are turned backward. The preparation and the collapse are set side by side with nothing in between, because at Carchemish there was nothing in between. And the phrase attached to the panic is the one Jeremiah had coined for his own city — terror on every side.
Egypt's self-image is then quoted and dismantled with its own river. Who is this who rises like the Nile? Egypt says I will rise up. I will cover the earth. I will destroy cities and its inhabitants. The annual flood was the country's life and its emblem of inevitability, and the oracle grants the picture in order to point out that a flood also goes down. The allied contingents named — from Cush, Put and the Ludim — are the mark of an empire that fights with hired shields.
What the day actually is gets stated in cultic language that would have shocked the participants: a day of vengeance for the Lord, and a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates. An imperial battle between two great powers, in which Judah had no part and over which it had no influence, is described as an act of worship being conducted by God with the armies as the offering. That is the claim the whole section on the nations rests on.
And the closing image is one the book has used before, turned around. Go up into Gilead, and take balm, virgin daughter of Egypt. You use many medicines in vain. There is no healing for you. The question of whether there was balm in Gilead had been asked over Judah's own untreated wound Jeremiah 8:22. Here it is put to Egypt, and the answer is given rather than left open. The remedy that Judah had and would not use is one that Egypt is told does not exist for her.
settled What this mark means