Jeremiah 47:2 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Calamities and afflictions are often in Scripture set out under the notion of waters; and as the miseries of Egypt were set out by the overflowings of their great river Nilus, so the calamities of the Philistines are expressed by the overflowings of the great river Euphrates; these miseries coming upon them by the Chaldeans, which were a northern people, their waters are said to rise up out of the north. It is said to be an overflowing flood that should overflow the land, because it was to be a sweeping judgment, which like a flood should carry all before it, which should produce amongst the inhabitants of Gaza a great howling and lamentation.