Jeremiah 46:22,23 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The voice thereof shall go like a serpent “That is, her (Egypt's) voice shall be low and inarticulate through fear. This passage seems to be an imitation of Isaiah 29:4, where we find the same threat denounced against Jerusalem, namely, Thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground. The cause which is assigned is the same in both places, the irresistible attack of powerful enemies.” Dr. Durell. See note on Isaiah 29:4. For they shall march with an army For the Chaldeans shall come with powerful forces; with axes, as hewers of wood As if they came to fell timber in a wood. They shall cut down her forest Here Egypt is compared to a forest, either for the multitude of cities and their stately buildings, or of people in that country; and its destruction is described by the metaphor of cutting down the trees of a forest. Though it cannot be searched, &c. Though the forest be very thick, and the trees thereof innumerable. Because they are more than the grasshoppers Because the army of the Chaldeans shall be as numerous as the inhabitants of Egypt. In other words, though the cities and inhabitants of Egypt be never so numerous and large; yet the Chaldean army shall plunder and destroy them, because their number is proportionable to such an enterprise. Armies are often compared to grasshoppers and such like insects, both for their multitudes, and because they make a general consumption, grasshoppers devouring all before them, wherever they come: see Judges 6:5; Judges 7:12; Joel 2:4-5.