All her hired men [are] in the midst of her like fatted bullocks,.... Or, "bullocks of the stall" k; soldiers of other countries, that were hired into the service of Egypt, and lived so deliciously there, that they were unfit for war, and were like fatted beasts prepared for the slaughter. The Targum and Jarchi interpret it, her princes l; who had the care of this heifer, and of the feeding of it; these themselves were like that, nourished for the day of slaughter:
for they also are turned back, [and] are fled away together; they turned their backs upon the enemy in battle, and fled in great confusion and precipitancy; see Jeremiah 46:15;
they did not stand; and face the enemy, and light him, but fell or fled before him:
because the day of their calamity was come upon them, [and] the time of their visitation; the time appointed by the Lord to visit and punish them, and bring destruction on them for their sins.
k כעגלי מרבק "velut vituli saginae", Montanus, Cocceius, l So R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 50. 2.