Jeremiah 47

Waters Out of the North

A short oracle against the Philistines pictures a flood from the north and a sword that cannot rest, and ends with no promise of return.

Undated. The heading says only that it came “before that Pharaoh smote Gaza,” and names neither the Pharaoh nor the year. The oracle on Egypt just before it concerns the battle of Carchemish in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (605 B.C.). Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Background

Chapters 46–51 are a run of oracles against foreign nations: Egypt, then the Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazor, Elam, and last Babylon.

Chapters 46–51 are a run of oracles against foreign nations: Egypt, then the Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazor, Elam, and last Babylon. Chapter 47 is the shortest. Its seven verses are addressed to the Philistines, the coastal neighbors on Judah's southwest, whose five cities (among them Gaza and Ashkelon) lay on the coastal plain from Joppa to the Egyptian desert.

The chapter gives its own date, and it is a puzzle: the word came “before that Pharaoh smote Gaza.” Nothing in the verse says which Pharaoh or which year (see the note on verse 1). Chapter 46, just before it, deals with Pharaoh-necho's defeat by Babylon at Carchemish in 605 B.C.

Jeremiah had already seen the Philistines among the nations that must drink the cup of the Lord's wrath (Jer. 25:15–20). Here the cup is poured. The Church's chapter heading says only that Jeremiah “foretells desolation and destruction upon the Philistines.” Judah is not mentioned in the chapter at all.

The thread through the chapter

The chapter is one picture, told in three moves. First, an overwhelming flood from the north (verses 2–4).

The chapter is one picture, told in three moves. First, an overwhelming flood from the north (verses 2–4). Second, the grief of the people it drowns, in the shorn heads of Gaza and Ashkelon (verse 5). Third, a short exchange about the sword that does the work (verses 6–7): someone asks it to rest, and the answer is that it cannot, because the Lord has given it a charge “against Ashkelon, and against the sea shore.”

The thread is who commands the army. The flood, the horses, and the chariots are Babylon's, but the verses credit them to the Lord: “the LORD will spoil the Philistines” (verse 4), and the sword is “the sword of the LORD” (verse 6). The same is true of the northern enemy that Jeremiah first saw in his call, in the vision of the seething pot (Jer. 1:13–15). And unlike the oracles on either side of it, this one promises these people no return.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verse 1

The word against the Philistines

In plain words

This is the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Philistines, before Pharaoh struck Gaza.

1 The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Philistines, before that Pharaoh smote Gaza.

Context #

Before Pharaoh smote Gaza

The heading dates the oracle by an event it does not describe, and it names neither the Pharaoh nor the year.

The heading dates the oracle by an event it does not describe, and it names neither the Pharaoh nor the year. Jeremiah names two Pharaohs: Pharaoh-necho, who killed Josiah at Megiddo and was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish (Jer. 46:2), and Pharaoh-hophra, whose fate the Lord sets beside Zedekiah's (Jer. 44:30).

The oracle itself sends the destroyer from the north, not from Egypt, so Pharaoh's blow at Gaza is not what it foretells. On one reading, the heading only fixes when Jeremiah spoke: he warned the Philistines of a foe from the north “at a time when conquest by a foe from the north was impending over them.” Which Pharaoh struck Gaza is uncertain. Once Babylon had taken everything from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates, “the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land” (2 Kgs. 24:7), which tells against Necho taking Gaza while retreating from Babylon; the same reading therefore prefers Hophra, the Pharaoh whose army came out of Egypt during the siege of Jerusalem (Jer. 37:5), though no text names him here. The chapter's message does not depend on the answer.

Sources: “Necho”, Bible Dictionary. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Context #

Who the Philistines were

The Philistines were a confederation of five coastal cities (Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron), each ruled by its own “lord,” on the lowland between Joppa and the Egyptian desert.

The Philistines were a confederation of five coastal cities (Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron), each ruled by its own “lord,” on the lowland between Joppa and the Egyptian desert. They had struggled with Israel “for many years,” and their power was at its height when Saul died and fell away under David.

Gaza and Ashkelon, the two cities this chapter names, were two of the five. The Philistines are among the nations on Jeremiah's list for the cup of wrath (Jer. 25:20), and Gaza is the subject of prophecies in Amos, Zephaniah, and Zechariah as well as here.

Sources: “Philistines”, Bible Dictionary. “Gaza”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 2–5

The flood and the mourning

In plain words

The Lord says: Waters are rising out of the north. They will become a flooding torrent and sweep over the land and everything in it, the cities and the people. The people will cry out and everyone in the land will wail. At the sound of stamping horses, rushing chariots, and rumbling wheels, fathers will not turn back for their children, because their hands have gone limp. The day is coming to destroy all the Philistines and to cut off from Tyre and Sidon every helper who is left, because the Lord is destroying the Philistines, the remnant from the land of Caphtor. Gaza has shaved her head. Ashkelon is cut off, with the rest of their valley. How long will you gash yourselves?

2 Thus saith the LORD; Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land, and all that is therein; the city, and them that dwell therein: then the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl.

Imagery #

A flood from the north

The rising “waters” are an army: “a multitude of people coming from Chaldea,” which is to say Babylon.

The rising “waters” are an army: “a multitude of people coming from Chaldea,” which is to say Babylon. Isaiah had used the same picture of Assyria, the Lord bringing up “the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria” (Isa. 8:7–8), so a flood is a familiar way for the prophets to describe an invasion that cannot be turned aside.

“North” is not a random direction. It is where Jeremiah's first vision pointed: “Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land” (Jer. 1:13–15). Jeremiah says the same of Egypt, “destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north” (Jer. 46:20), and in Jer. 25:9 the Lord says He will “send and take all the families of the north,” and Nebuchadrezzar “my servant.” The point the text itself makes is that the Lord is the one sending them.

3 At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong horses, at the rushing of his chariots, and at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers shall not look back to their children for feebleness of hands;

Imagery #

Fathers who do not look back

The line describes terror so complete that a father cannot turn to save his own children.

The line describes terror so complete that a father cannot turn to save his own children. The hoofs, chariots, and wheels of the verse “describe a war.” Hands gone limp (“feebleness of hands”) is a picture of fear Jeremiah uses elsewhere too; the people of Jerusalem say the same when they hear of the northern army: “our hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us” (Jer. 6:24).

The picture is of a country that has stopped trying to resist. It tells the reader how total the flood of verse 2 is.

4 Because of the day that cometh to spoil all the Philistines, and to cut off from Tyrus and Zidon every helper that remaineth: for the LORD will spoil the Philistines, the remnant of the country of Caphtor.

Context #

Why Tyre and Sidon appear

An oracle about the Philistines also reaches Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenician cities up the coast, because cutting off the Philistines leaves those cities without a helper.

An oracle about the Philistines also reaches Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenician cities up the coast, because cutting off the Philistines leaves those cities without a helper. Zidon (Sidon) was “the most important city of Phoenicia,” and the Old Testament often calls the Phoenicians Zidonians. The verse says the Lord will “cut off from Tyrus and Zidon every helper that remaineth,” and on one reading that means the Philistines, who might have helped the Phoenicians against Babylon: if the helper falls, so does the one who depended on him.

The two Phoenician cities are not left out of Jeremiah's book. They stand with the Philistines in the cup of wrath (Jer. 25:20–22), and Ezekiel says the same Nebuchadrezzar will come against Tyre “from the north, with horses, and with chariots” (Ezek. 26:7).

Sources: “Zidon”, Bible Dictionary. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Language #

Caphtor

Caphtor is the homeland from which the Philistines came, but where it lay is not certain.

Caphtor is the homeland from which the Philistines came, but where it lay is not certain. The Bible Dictionary gives it as “Crete, or perhaps part of Egypt.” The Lord Himself speaks of having brought up “the Philistines from Caphtor” (Amos 9:7), and Deuteronomy says that the Caphtorim “came forth out of Caphtor” and settled as far as Azzah, another spelling of Gaza (Deut. 2:23). “The remnant of the country of Caphtor” is what is left of that people, as when Amos says “the remnant of the Philistines shall perish” (Amos 1:8).

5 Baldness is come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is cut off with the remnant of their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself?

Imagery #

Shaved heads and cut flesh

Shaving the head and cutting the body were mourning customs, and verse 5 uses them to show grief at its height.

Shaving the head and cutting the body were mourning customs, and verse 5 uses them to show grief at its height. “Baldness is come upon Gaza” means the city is in mourning; the question that follows, “how long wilt thou cut thyself?”, pictures the people gashing themselves in grief.

Israel was told not to do this: “ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead” (Deut. 14:1; compare Lev. 19:28). Yet the custom is described in Judah and Israel too, as an expected sign of grief (Jer. 16:6), and after Jerusalem's fall, eighty men from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria came to the house of the Lord with “their beards shaven, and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves” (Jer. 41:5). Micah uses baldness the same way for grief at captivity: “enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee” (Micah 1:16). The verse speaks of the overthrow as though it had already come, and shows a whole people in mourning for it.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 6–7

The sword that cannot rest

In plain words

“Sword of the Lord, how long until you rest? Go back into your sheath, be still!” But how can it rest when the Lord has given it orders? He has appointed it against Ashkelon and the seacoast.

6 O thou sword of the LORD, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still.

Imagery #

The sword of the Lord

The sword is the Lord's, and Babylon's army is the hand that holds it.

The sword is the Lord's, and Babylon's army is the hand that holds it. “The destruction is attributed to the Lord, who allows wicked nations to do such things against those who have become ripe in iniquity.” The same sword runs through the book: in the cup of wrath the nations drink “because of the sword that I will send among them” (Jer. 25:15–16).

Verses 6–7 read like a short exchange. On one reading, verse 6 is a plaintive plea for the sword to go back into its scabbard, and the prophet answers in verse 7, “How can it be quiet,” since the Lord has given it its assignment. The speakers are not marked in the text, so that division is one reading.

Sources: Chapter 25: Prophecies of a Latter-day Gathering (Jeremiah 23; 30–31; 33; 46–51; Obadiah), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

7 How can it be quiet, seeing the LORD hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea shore? there hath he appointed it.

Related Scriptures #

Other prophets on the Philistine coast

Other prophets name the same cities and the same fate. Amos has the Lord send “a fire on the wall of Gaza” and says that “the remnant of the Philistines shall perish” (Amos 1:6–8).

Other prophets name the same cities and the same fate. Amos has the Lord send “a fire on the wall of Gaza” and says that “the remnant of the Philistines shall perish” (Amos 1:6–8). Zephaniah says “Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation” (Zeph. 2:4). Ezekiel names the cause: “the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with a despiteful heart, to destroy it for the old hatred” (Ezek. 25:15–17).

Two other prophets end differently from Jeremiah's chapter. Zephaniah says “the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah” (Zeph. 2:7), and Zechariah says of what is left among the Philistines, “he that remaineth, even he, shall be for our God” (Zech. 9:5–7). Jeremiah's own words stop at the sword.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Related Scriptures #

No promised return

Chapter 47 stops where the sword stops, with no word of return, while the oracles on either side of it add one.

Chapter 47 stops where the sword stops, with no word of return, while the oracles on either side of it add one. Egypt “shall be inhabited, as in the days of old” (Jer. 46:26). The Lord promises to “bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days” (Jer. 48:47), and likewise of Ammon (Jer. 49:6) and Elam (Jer. 49:39). The Moab promise “could mean the conversion of the remnants of these people to the gospel in the last days,” and the Elam promise is understood the same way.

The Philistine chapter has no line like these, and neither do the oracles on Edom, Damascus, and Kedar and Hazor in chapter 49. Reading a promise into Jeremiah's silence would go beyond what the verse says; the chapter simply leaves the Philistines under the sword, and the word about a remnant that “shall be for our God” comes from Zechariah (see the note above).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chapter 25: Prophecies of a Latter-day Gathering (Jeremiah 23; 30–31; 33; 46–51; Obadiah), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

Seeing Christ in Jeremiah 47

This chapter shows the Lord as the one who judges the nations: the army from the north is the Lord's instrument, Nebuchadrezzar is His “servant” (Jer. 25:9), and the sword is “the sword of the LORD.” The chapter itself has no promise of Christ, but another prophet looks past the sword at the same coast and says that of the Philistines “he that remaineth, even he, shall be for our God” (Zech. 9:7).

Worth exploring next

The cup of the Lord’s fury and the nations that drink it: Jer. 25:15–29.
The oracles on either side of this one, which end with promises of return: Jer. 46:26–28 and Jer. 48:47.
The northern foe from the first vision: Jer. 1:13–15, and Isaiah’s flood of Assyria in Isa. 8:7–8.
The other prophets against the Philistine cities: Amos 1:6–8, Zeph. 2:4–7, Zech. 9:5–7.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Necho”, Bible Dictionary.
“Philistines”, Bible Dictionary.
“Gaza”, Bible Dictionary.
“Zidon”, Bible Dictionary.
Chapter 25: Prophecies of a Latter-day Gathering (Jeremiah 23; 30–31; 33; 46–51; Obadiah), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).
Enrichment G: Babylonia and the Conquest of Judah, Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).
Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

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