Chapter 46

The relationship between the Jews and Egypt during the Old Testament period has always been rather curious to me.

On the one hand you have the memory of the time of slavery and the Exodus. So you could be forgiven for thinking that the Egyptians weren’t the Jews’ favourite people (and for that matter vice versa!).

Yet when the chips are down (several times!) the Israelites and the Jews seem to rely on Egypt for aid.

During Jeremiah’s ministry is just one of those times.

It’s tragic, really. All the time of his ministry (an unknown period of time, but possibly many years), Jeremiah has been calling the people of Israel to repent and turn back to God. Yet they are willing to do almost anything but – including relying on the empire that once held them as slaves!

Politics and diplomacy make for strange bedfellows . . .

In any case, Jeremiah starts directly by describing the enormous armies of Egypt. Then he makes the prophecy on what will happen to Egypt.

He does this a few times – a pattern of describing the army and predicting its ultimate downfall.

Then Jeremiah moves on to describing the same events, but giving us a few specifics. He explains that it will be Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonians who bring about Egypt’s downfall. He describes in detail how complete will be the loss of Egypt.

Finally he finishes off by once more reassuring Judah, that God is indeed on their side. And once again, when Judah has been completely scattered, once more God will bring them back together.

That was then and this is now. So how can we see this passage being relevant today?

Well, for starters, Egypt of today is actually an outpost of Arabic peoples, whereas it used to be a country of darker-skinned people. The Egypt that once was is completely gone now, and replaced. So it is self-evident that this prophecy came true – we can trust God’s promises (positive AND negative). So far so good. But I believe there is more to it than this.

What do we really rely on?

If it is anything other than God Himself, we could be in for trouble. God is reliable, but anything else is going to ultimately fail.

God wants us to rely on Him first, anything else second. In this case, God wants His people to remember that – so He takes away anything else.

To us God is unlikely to be so harsh. But we still need to remember what God has done in the past before we move along. God is sovereign – and cannot be mocked.