Jeremiah 46:15 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

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 Psalms 22:12; Psalms 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).