Jeremiah 25:18-21 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

To wit, Jerusalem and the cities thereof The Jews are mentioned first, because Jeremiah, as well as the rest of the prophets, was in the first place sent to them, and they were to have the greatest share in the judgments denounced. As it is this day This clause speaks of the desolation of Judah and Jerusalem; when all that Jeremiah had foretold against them was fulfilled; and therefore must have been added either by Baruch, his amanuensis, or else by Ezra: or whoever it was that collected Jeremiah's prophecies into one volume, who, it is likely, added the fifty- second chapter. Pharaoh king of Egypt Whose army Nebuchadnezzar overcame before he took Jerusalem. And all the mingled people Or, intermingled, as Blaney translates הערב, joining the expression with the preceding verse, and understanding thereby all the foreigners resident in Egypt, who had, by intermarriages, formed connections with the Egyptians. St. Jerome takes the word in the same sense. Our translators, however, seem to have understood by it a mixture of several nations, dwelling either upon the coasts of the Mediterranean, or of the Red sea. And all the kings of the land of Uz This was the country of Job; but concerning its situation different opinions are entertained. It was most probably on the confines of Idumea, if not a part of it. The daughter of Edom is said to dwell in the land of Uz, Lamentations 4:21: see note on Job 1:1. Those who were leaders, or governors of different tribes or families, seem to have had the name of kings: they are now called emirs. And all the kings of the Philistines The princes of the different districts, or cities, into which Philistia was divided, namely, Ashkelon and Azzah, &c. And the remnant of Ashdod Or Azotus, which had been very much ruined by two sieges in which it was taken, the one by Tartan, the Assyrian general, mentioned Isaiah 20:1; the other by Psammitichus, king of Egypt, who retook it after the longest siege that had even been known in those times: Herodot. lib. 2. c. 157. The prophecy respecting the Philistines is contained in chap. 47. Edom Or rather, And Edom As the LXX., Syr., and Vul. read, with seven MSS. For the prophecies concerning Edom, Moab, and the Ammonites, see chap. 48. and Jeremiah 49:1-22.