Jeremiah 43:4-7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

So Johanan and all the captains, &c., obeyed not, &c. That is, they resolved not to obey the message God had sent them by Jeremiah; but took all the remnant of Judah that were returned, &c. The resolution which they had formed they presently put in practice. Though Jeremiah and Baruch, and probably many of the people, were not willing to go along with them, yet these rebellious captains forced them to go; so that the prophet and his pious friends were now a kind of prisoners to their own countrymen. So they came into the land of Egypt Their great inclination to go into Egypt arose, as has been intimated, from a supposition that they should be safer there from the Babylonians, who, they thought, might injure them at any time while they stayed in Judea; but would not venture to attack Egypt, on account of its strongly fortified cities, which commanded the passes into the country, and the various channels of the Nile, which were great obstructions to the march of an army. Thus they came even to Tahpanhes One of the principal cities of Egypt, and a place of residence for their kings. The word is contracted to Hanes, Isaiah 30:4, and joined with Zoan, the chief city of the kingdom. Tahpanhes gave a name to a queen of Egypt, (1 Kings 11:19,) and is supposed by many to be the same city which was afterward called Daphnæ Pelusiacæ. In this behaviour of the Jews we have an instance of great impiety joined to hypocrisy. They had promised with an oath to follow the advice of the prophet; but, because his counsel was not agreeable to their inclinations, they went down into Egypt, and even charged the prophet with speaking falsely in the name of the Lord. In these Jews we see a picture of those persons who, upon some occasions, express their zeal and good intentions, but reject the most wholesome counsels when those counsels thwart their passions, and are in opposition to what they have secretly purposed. With respect to Jeremiah, it may be observed, God suffered him to be carried to Egypt, that he might there denounce the ruin of the Egyptians as well as of the Jews, who had put their trust in them. Wherever the wicked are, the hand of God finds them out; and those who think, by disobeying him, to avoid the evils which they dread, and to that end make use of unlawful means, fall by those very means into the evils they expect to shun, and are confounded in their hope.