Jeremiah 46:25,26 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Behold, I will punish the multitude of No Hebrew, מנא אמון, Amon of No, which, says Blaney, “is the literal translation, and we need seek for no other.” Amon, or Ammon, as the word is generally written, was the name by which the Egyptians called Jupiter, who had a celebrated temple at Thebes, famous for its hundred gates in Homer's time, and supposed to be the same city with No here mentioned. Here Jupiter was worshipped in a distinguished manner, on which account the place was called Diospolis, the city of Jupiter, which name the LXX. have put for No, Ezekiel 30:14-16. If therefore No be Thebes, or Diospolis, as it seems evident it is, then Amman of No signifies the deity of the place, the Theban Jupiter, as Herodotus styles him, lib. 2. cap. 42. As, on the other hand, נא אמון, No-ammon, Nahum 3:8, should be rendered, No of Amman, which exactly corresponds with the Greek Διοσπολις, or, city of Jupiter. But very different from these is the term, את המון נא, used Ezekiel 30:15, which indeed signifies the multitude, or numerous inhabitants of No; although, from the similitude of the words אמון and המון, Amon and Hamon, our translators, and others besides them, have confounded them together. Some have supposed No to mean Alexandria, the great emporium of Egypt; and the Chaldee and Vulgate have rendered it so. But Alexandria was not built till ages after the time when Jeremiah prophesied: and it does not appear that there had been before any city, at least any considerable one, standing upon the spot which the founder made the object of his choice. And Pharaoh and Egypt, with their gods and their kings The same divine vengeance, which falls upon the idol Ammon and his worshippers, shall reach the rest of Egypt with their respective idols and governors. “When an idolatrous nation,” says Blaney, “is doomed to destruction, God is said to execute vengeance upon the idols of the country: see Jeremiah 43:12-13. Accordingly, here Ammon of No, the principal deity, and Pharaoh, the principal man, among the Egyptians, are marked out in the first place as the primary objects of divine visitation; then follows, in the gross, Egypt with all her gods, and all her kings; which latter term is explained to include both Pharaoh himself, and those subordinate rulers who were dependant upon him for the rank and authority they held. And afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old At the end of forty years Egypt was to begin to recover itself, as Ezekiel foretels, Ezekiel 29:13.