Jeremiah 46:15
New International Version
Why will your warriors be laid low? They cannot stand, for the LORD will push them down.

New Living Translation
Why have your warriors fallen? They cannot stand, for the LORD has knocked them down.

English Standard Version
Why are your mighty ones face down? They do not stand because the LORD thrust them down.

Berean Standard Bible
Why have your warriors been laid low? They cannot stand, for the LORD has thrust them down.

King James Bible
Why are thy valiant men swept away? they stood not, because the LORD did drive them.

New King James Version
Why are your valiant men swept away? They did not stand Because the LORD drove them away.

New American Standard Bible
“Why have your powerful ones been cut down? They do not stand because the LORD has thrust them away.

NASB 1995
“Why have your mighty ones become prostrate? They do not stand because the LORD has thrust them down.

NASB 1977
“Why have your mighty ones become prostrate? They do not stand because the LORD has thrust them down.

Legacy Standard Bible
Why are your mighty ones thrown down? They do not stand because Yahweh has thrust them down.

Amplified Bible
“Why have your strong ones been cut down? They do not stand because the LORD drove them away.

Christian Standard Bible
Why have your strong ones been swept away? Each has not stood, for the LORD has thrust him down.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Why have your strong ones been swept away? Each has not stood, for the LORD has thrust him down.

American Standard Version
Why are thy strong ones swept away? they stood not, because Jehovah did drive them.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Why did your mighty ones stumble and fall and did not get up? Because LORD JEHOVAH has cast them down!

Brenton Septuagint Translation
Wherefore has Apis fled from thee? thy choice calf has not remained; for the Lord has utterly weakened him.

Contemporary English Version
I have struck down your mighty god Apis and chased him away.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Why are thy valiant men come to nothing? they stood not: because the Lord hath overthrown them.

English Revised Version
Why are thy strong ones swept away? they stood not, because the LORD did drive them.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Why should your soldiers be cut down? They can't stand because the LORD will push them down.

Good News Translation
Why has your mighty god Apis fallen? The LORD has struck him down!'

International Standard Version
Why are your warriors prostrate? They don't stand because the LORD has brought them down.

JPS Tanakh 1917
Why is thy strong one overthrown? He stood not, because the LORD did thrust him down.

Literal Standard Version
Why has your bull been swept away? He has not stood, because YHWH thrust him away.

Majority Standard Bible
Why have your warriors been laid low? They cannot stand, for the LORD has thrust them down.

New American Bible
Why has Apis fled? Your champion did not stand, Because the LORD thrust him down;

NET Bible
Why will your soldiers be defeated? They will not stand because I, the LORD, will thrust them down.

New Revised Standard Version
Why has Apis fled? Why did your bull not stand? —because the LORD thrust him down.

New Heart English Bible
Why are your strong ones swept away? They did not stand, because the LORD pushed them.

Webster's Bible Translation
Why are thy valiant men swept away? they stood not, because the LORD did drive them.

World English Bible
Why are your strong ones swept away? They didn’t stand, because Yahweh pushed them.

Young's Literal Translation
Wherefore hath thy bull been swept away? He hath not stood, because Jehovah thrust him away.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
The Judgment on Egypt
14“Announce it in Egypt, and proclaim it in Migdol; proclaim it in Memphis and Tahpanhes: ‘Take your positions and prepare yourself, for the sword devours those around you.’ 15Why have your warriors been laid low? They cannot stand, for the LORD has thrust them down. 16They continue to stumble; indeed, they have fallen over one another. They say, ‘Get up! Let us return to our people and to the land of our birth, away from the sword of the oppressor.’…

Cross References
Psalm 18:14
He shot His arrows and scattered the foes; He hurled lightning and routed them.

Psalm 18:39
You have armed me with strength for battle; You have subdued my foes beneath me.

Psalm 68:1
God arises. His enemies are scattered, and those who hate Him flee His presence.

Psalm 68:2
As smoke is blown away, You will drive them out; as wax melts before the fire, the wicked will perish in the presence of God.

Isaiah 66:15
For behold, the LORD will come with fire--His chariots are like a whirlwind--to execute His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire.

Isaiah 66:16
For by fire and by His sword, the LORD will execute judgment on all flesh, and many will be slain by the LORD.

Jeremiah 46:5
Why am I seeing this? They are terrified, they are retreating; their warriors are defeated, they flee in haste without looking back; terror is on every side!" declares the LORD.


Treasury of Scripture

Why are your valiant men swept away? they stood not, because the LORD did drive them.

thy

Jeremiah 46:5,21
Wherefore have I seen them dismayed and turned away back? and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: for fear was round about, saith the LORD…

Judges 5:20,21
They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera…

Isaiah 66:15,16
For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire…

the Lord

Exodus 6:1
Then the LORD said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land.

Deuteronomy 11:23
Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.

Psalm 18:14,39
Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them…

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Able Bull Drive Fled Flight Laid Mighty Ones Overthrown Prostrate Stand Stood Strength Strong Swept Thrust Valiant Warriors Wherefore
Jeremiah 46
1. Jeremiah prophesies the overthrow of Pharaoh's army at Euphrates
13. and the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar
27. He comforts Jacob in his chastisement














(15) Why are thy valiant men swept away?--Better, Why is thy strong bull dragged away! The Hebrew verbs are in the singular, and the adjective is given in the same number both in the LXX. and Vulgate. The former gives the rendering "Why did Apis flee from thee, and thy chosen calf abode not" as if referring to the bull Apis as the representative of Osiris, the chief deity of Egypt; and this version receives some support from the use of the Hebrew words for "oxen," "bulls," "beasts," in Isaiah 34:7 and Psalm 22:12; Psalm 68:30, and from the fact that the same word is used in Isaiah 1:24; Isaiah 49:26 as a Divine name "the mighty one of Israel." So understood, the prophet's words contemplate the triumph of the God of Israel over the theriomorphic deity of Egypt. We may find a literal fulfilment of the words in the slaughter of the sacred bull by Cambyses (Herod. iii. 29).

Verse 15. - Why are thy valiant men, etc.? The literal rendering of the received text is, Why is thy strong ones (plural) swept sway (or, cast down)? He stood not, because Jehovah thrust him! It is true that the first half of the verse might, consistently with grammar, be rendered, "Why are thy strong ones swept away?" But the following singulars prove that the subject of the verb in the first verse half must itself be a singular. We must, therefore, follow the reading of the Septuagint, Vulgate, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and many of the extant Hebrew manuscripts, and change the plural "strong ones" into the singular "strong one." The word so rendered is elsewhere in Jeremiah one used (in the plural) of strong horses (Jeremiah 8:16; Jeremiah 47:3; Jeremiah 1:11); but there is no necessity to bind ourselves to this acceptation. Other possible meanings are

(1) strong man, e.g. Judges 5:22 and Lamentations 1:15;

(2) steer, bull, e.g. Psalm 22:13 and Psalm 50:13, and (metaphorically of princes) Psalm 68:31. It is a tenable view that "thy strong one" is to be understood distributively as equivalent to "every strong one of thine." But it is certainly more plausible to regard the phrase as a synonym for Apis, the sacred bull in which the supreme god Osiris was believed by the Egyptians to be incarnate. This was a superstition (strange, no doubt, but not so ignoble as some have thought) as deeply ingrained in the Egyptian mind as any in their complicated religion. "In fact, they believed that the supreme God was with them when they possessed a bull bearing certain hieratic marks, the signs of the incarnation of the divinity" (Pierrot). His death was the signal for a mourning as general as for a Pharaoh, and the funeral ceremonies (accounts of which are given in the inscriptions) were equally splendid. M. Mariette has discovered, in the neighbourhood of Memphis, a necropolis in which the Apis bulls were successively interred from the eighteenth dynasty to the close of the period of the Ptolemies. For the Apis to be "swept away" like ordinary plunder, or "cast down" in the slaughtering trough (comp. Isaiah 34:7), was indeed a token that the glory of Egypt had departed. It is a singular coincidence that the very word here employed by Jeremiah for "bull" (abbir) was adopted (like many other words) into the Egyptian language - it received the slightly modified form aber. The Septuagint, it should be added, is in favour of the general view of the verse thus obtained, and the authority of the Egyptian-Jewish version in a prophecy relative to Egypt is not slight. Its rendering of the first half is, "Why hath Apis, thy chosen calf, fled?" But the probability is that it read the Hebrew differently, "Why hath Khaph ( = Apis), thy chosen one, fled?" This merely involves grouping some letters otherwise, and reading one word a little differently.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
Why
מַדּ֖וּעַ (mad·dū·a‘)
Interrogative
Strong's 4069: Why? for what reason?

have your warriors
אַבִּירֶ֑יךָ (’ab·bî·re·ḵā)
Adjective - masculine plural construct | second person masculine singular
Strong's 47: Mighty, valiant

been laid low?
נִסְחַ֣ף (nis·ḥap̄)
Verb - Nifal - Perfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 5502: To scrape off

They cannot
לֹ֣א (lō)
Adverb - Negative particle
Strong's 3808: Not, no

stand,
עָמַ֔ד (‘ā·maḏ)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 5975: To stand, in various relations

for
כִּ֥י (kî)
Conjunction
Strong's 3588: A relative conjunction

the LORD
יְהוָ֖ה (Yah·weh)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3068: LORD -- the proper name of the God of Israel

has thrust them down.
הֲדָפֽוֹ׃ (hă·ḏā·p̄ōw)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
Strong's 1920: To thrust, drive, push


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OT Prophets: Jeremiah 46:15 Why are your strong ones swept away? (Jer.)
Jeremiah 46:14
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