Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah.
Inscription of the first prophecy.
Pharaoh-necho. He, when going against Carchemish (Cerusium, near the Euphrates), encountered Josiah king of Judah (the ally of Assyria) at Megiddo, and killed him there (2 Kings 23:29; 2 Chronicles 35:20-24); but was four years subsequently overcome at Carchemish by Nebuchadnezzar, as is foretold here, and lost all the territory which had been subject to the Pharaohs west of the Euphrates, and between it and the Nile. The prediction would 'mitigate the Jews' grief for Josiah, and show his death was not to be unavenged (2 Kings 24:7). He is famed as having fitted out a fleet of discovery from the Red Sea, which doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and returned to Egypt by the Mediterranean.