Jeremiah 47

ירמיהו פרק מ״ז

Section: נביאים · נביאים אחרונים | Book: Jeremiah | Chapter: 47 of 52 | Day: 260 of 742

Date: October 29, 2026

קלאוד על הנ״ך

Chapter 47 is the second of the oracles against the nations (46-51) and by far the shortest of them. After the long double prophecy against Egypt in chapter 46, with its battle at Carchemish and its invasion by Nevuchadnetzar, the prophet turns to Egypt’s neighbor on the coastal road, the Pelishtim. In seven verses he sketches an entire catastrophe: a flood rising from the north, the thunder of hooves and chariot wheels, fathers who cannot turn back for their children, the cities of Aza and Ashkelon shorn and silenced, and finally a dialogue with the sword of the LORD itself, which is begged to return to its sheath and answers that it cannot. The brevity is part of the effect. There is no indictment here, no list of sins, no call to repentance; the oracle simply describes the day that is coming (היום הבא), as though the prophet were already standing on the coast watching it arrive.

The superscription in verse 1 raises the chapter’s chief historical question. The word came to Yirmiyahu concerning the Pelishtim ‘before Pharaoh struck Aza’ (בטרם יכה פרעה את עזה). Which Pharaoh, and when? All three commentators loaded on the verse answer from Seder Olam. Rashi explains that when Nevuchadnetzar besieged Yerushalayim in the tenth year of Tzidkiyahu, Pharaoh’s army came out of Egypt and the Kasdim withdrew from the city — the episode narrated in 37:5-11 — and Pharaoh, having heard this, swept over Aza and returned to his own land. Metzudat David adds the pointed detail that Pharaoh struck Aza on his way home, after he had set out ostensibly to help Israel against the Kasdim. Radak gives the fullest account and draws the conclusion: at that very time the word came to Yirmiyahu that the armies of the Kasdim would come and strike the land of the Pelishtim. On this reading the chapter is precisely placed. Egypt makes a gesture toward Yehudah, retreats, and on its way back plunders a Philistine city; the prophet announces that the Egyptian raid is only the beginning, and that the real devastation will come from the north. Radak also notes the grammatical point that אל פלשתים means ‘concerning the Pelishtim,’ as in ‘he did not eat upon (אל) the mountains’ (Yechezkel 18), a usage that recurs throughout the oracles to the nations.

The flood image of verse 2 is a classic piece of prophetic poetry: behold, waters are rising from the north (הנה מים עלים מצפון), becoming a sweeping torrent (נחל שוטף) that will overwhelm the land and all that fills it, the city and those who dwell in it. Metzudat David and Radak both decode the image at once: the waters are the Kasdim, who come from the north. Radak connects the verb ‘rising’ to the rising of a battle, as in ‘the battle rose’ (ותעל המלחמה), and the word ‘north’ links this oracle to the very first vision of the book, the boiling pot facing from the north (1:13-14), and to the foe from the north that runs through Yirmiyahu’s early prophecies against Yehudah. Egypt rose like the Nile in the previous chapter (46:7-8); now the true flood comes from the opposite direction. Radak makes the historical contrast explicit: Pharaoh struck Aza, but Nevuchadnetzar will destroy everything.

Verse 3 slows the scene to sound. The prophet does not describe the enemy’s appearance but what the Pelishtim hear: the stamping (שעטת) of the hooves of his mighty ones, the clatter of his chariots, the rumbling of his wheels. Rashi observes that שעטת has no parallel anywhere in Scripture and cites Targum Yonatan’s rendering ‘from the steps,’ while Radak defines it as the beating of a horse’s hooves on the ground and explains that ‘his mighty ones’ (אביריו) are his powerful horses. The translation printed here attributes the stallions to Pharaoh, but the commentators read the verse as continuing the northern flood of verse 2, the army of the Kasdim. Then comes the most terrible line in the chapter: fathers did not turn back to their children, from weakness of hands (מרפיון ידים). Rashi adds ‘to save them’; Metzudat David explains that a trembling will seize them until they despair of rescue; and Radak draws out the pathos — even fathers, whose compassion for their children is natural, will not turn to them when the disaster strikes, because they will have no strength to stand before their enemies. The breakdown of the most basic human bond is the measure of the catastrophe.

Verse 4 widens the circle. The day is coming to plunder all the Pelishtim and to cut off from Tzor and Tzidon every remaining helper (כל שריד עוזר). The commentators disagree about who was helping whom. Rashi says the Pelishtim had been aiding Tzor and Tzidon against their enemies, so their fall leaves the Phoenician cities without allies. Radak reverses the relationship: Tzor and Tzidon helped the Pelishtim, for they are counted together with ‘all the regions of Peleshet’ in Yoel 4:4. Metzudat David treats Tzor and Tzidon as themselves belonging to the land of the Pelishtim and explains that no one capable of helping in war will remain, only women and children. The verse ends with an ethnographic note: the LORD is plundering the Pelishtim, the remnant of the island of Kaftor (שארית אי כפתור). Radak recalls the Torah’s table of nations, where the Pelishtim and the Kaftorim are listed together (Bereshit 10:14), and cites Rav Saadyah’s identification of Kaftor; Amos 9:7 likewise says that God brought up the Pelishtim from Kaftor. Rashi glosses ‘island’ with the Old French for isles. Radak also notes a fine textual point: ‘all’ (כל) appears with ‘to plunder all the Pelishtim’ but not with ‘the LORD is plundering the Pelishtim,’ and he reads ‘remnant’ as meaning that no remnant will survive. The origins of the people are invoked at the moment of their end.

Verse 5 turns to lament. Baldness (קרחה) has come to Aza; Ashkelon has been cut off (נדמתה); remnant of their valley, how long will you gash yourself (תתגודדי)? Shaving the head and cutting the flesh were mourning practices of the nations, forbidden to Israel (Devarim 14:1), and Rashi and Radak both explain תתגודדי as scratching the flesh in grief, Radak citing Targum Onkelos’ rendering of ‘you shall not gash yourselves.’ Radak and Metzudat David give ‘baldness’ a historical edge: Pharaoh struck Aza first, and then Nevuchadnetzar came and stripped it bare, so that nothing was left. Metzudat David hears the question ‘how long’ in the same way — you mourned once at Pharaoh’s blow and now a second time at Nevuchadnetzar’s; how long will you go on mourning? For שארית עמקם Radak offers two readings, the remnant of their wealth and strength (deepness as abundance) or simply the inhabitants of the valley, the coastal lowland of the Shefelah.

The chapter closes with a short dramatic dialogue (verses 6-7). A voice cries out: Woe, sword of the LORD (הוי חרב לה’), how long will you not be quiet? Gather yourself into your sheath, rest and be still. Rashi explains that it is the sword which the Holy One brings upon the world; Radak identifies the speaker as one who groans over the Pelishtim, and the reply in verse 7 as spoken by another voice: how can you be quiet, when the LORD has commanded it against Ashkelon and the seacoast, and has appointed it there? Metzudat David reads the exchange as the prophet answering himself. The structure recalls the Torah’s image of God’s sword in the song of Haazinu (Devarim 32:41-42) and anticipates the sword of 50:35-37, but its tone is unusual. The plea for the sword to rest is not mocking; it is genuinely weary, as if even the prophet who announces judgment feels its weight. The answer is that the sword is not autonomous. It has a commission (צוה לה), and, as Radak puts it, it cannot be still until it has completed its mission.

The oracle against the Pelishtim thus distills the theology of the whole section on the nations. History’s great powers — Egypt with its raid on Aza, Bavel with its flood from the north — are instruments, and even the sword of conquest is an agent sent and recalled by God. The Pelishtim, Israel’s ancient enemies from the days of Shimshon, Shaul and David, are not accused of any specific crime in these verses; the oracle simply places them, like Egypt before them and Moav after them, under the same sovereignty that has just passed judgment on Yerushalayim. For a Judean reader in exile, that was a bitter consolation but a real one: the catastrophe that had fallen on Yehudah was not a sign that the LORD had been defeated, but part of a single divine plan reaching every shore of the region.

פרק מ״ז · Chapter 47

פסוק א׳ · Verse 1

Hebrew:

אֲשֶׁ֨ר הָיָ֧ה דְבַר־יְהֹוָ֛ה אֶל־יִרְמְיָ֥הוּ הַנָּבִ֖יא אֶל־פְּלִשְׁתִּ֑ים בְּטֶ֛רֶם יַכֶּ֥ה פַרְעֹ֖ה אֶת־עַזָּֽה׃

English:

The word of GOD that came to the prophet Jeremiah concerning the Philistines, before Pharaoh conquered Gaza.

פסוק ב׳ · Verse 2

Hebrew:

כֹּ֣ה ׀ אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֗ה הִנֵּה־מַ֜יִם עֹלִ֤ים מִצָּפוֹן֙ וְהָיוּ֙ לְנַ֣חַל שׁוֹטֵ֔ף וְיִשְׁטְפוּ֙ אֶ֣רֶץ וּמְלוֹאָ֔הּ עִ֖יר וְיֹ֣שְׁבֵי בָ֑הּ וְזָעֲקוּ֙ הָאָדָ֔ם וְהֵילִ֕ל כֹּ֖ל יוֹשֵׁ֥ב הָאָֽרֶץ׃

English:

Thus said GOD: See, waters are rising from the north, They shall become a raging torrent, They shall flood the land and its creatures, The towns and their inhabitants. People shall cry out, All the inhabitants of the land shall howl,

פסוק ג׳ · Verse 3

Hebrew:

מִקּ֗וֹל שַֽׁעֲטַת֙ פַּרְס֣וֹת אַבִּירָ֔יו מֵרַ֣עַשׁ לְרִכְבּ֔וֹ הֲמ֖וֹן גַּלְגִּלָּ֑יו לֹא־הִפְנ֤וּ אָבוֹת֙ אֶל־בָּנִ֔ים מֵרִפְי֖וֹן יָדָֽיִם׃

English:

At the clatter of the stamping hoofs of Pharaoh’s stallions, At the noise of his chariots, The rumbling of their wheels, Parents shall not look to their children Out of sheer helplessness

פסוק ד׳ · Verse 4

Hebrew:

עַל־הַיּ֗וֹם הַבָּא֙ לִשְׁד֣וֹד אֶת־כׇּל־פְּלִשְׁתִּ֔ים לְהַכְרִ֤ית לְצֹר֙ וּלְצִיד֔וֹן כֹּ֖ל שָׂרִ֣יד עֹזֵ֑ר כִּֽי־שֹׁדֵ֤ד יְהֹוָה֙ אֶת־פְּלִשְׁתִּ֔ים שְׁאֵרִ֖ית אִ֥י כַפְתּֽוֹר׃

English:

Because of the day that is coming For ravaging all the Philistines, For cutting off every last ally Of Tyre and Sidon. For GOD will ravage the Philistines, The remnant from the island of Caphtor.

פסוק ה׳ · Verse 5

Hebrew:

בָּ֤אָה קׇרְחָה֙ אֶל־עַזָּ֔ה נִדְמְתָ֥ה אַשְׁקְל֖וֹן שְׁאֵרִ֣ית עִמְקָ֑ם עַד־מָתַ֖י תִּתְגּוֹדָֽדִי׃

English:

Baldness has come upon Gaza, Ashkelon is destroyed. O remnant of their valley, How long will you gash yourself?

פסוק ו׳ · Verse 6

Hebrew:

ה֗וֹי חֶ֚רֶב לַיהֹוָ֔ה עַד־אָ֖נָה לֹ֣א תִשְׁקֹ֑טִי הֵאָֽסְפִי֙ אֶל־תַּעְרֵ֔ךְ הֵרָגְעִ֖י וָדֹֽמִּי׃

English:

“O sword of GOD, When will you be quiet at last? Withdraw into your sheath, Rest and be still!”

פסוק ז׳ · Verse 7

Hebrew:

אֵ֣יךְ תִּשְׁקֹ֔טִי וַיהֹוָ֖ה צִוָּה־לָ֑הּ אֶֽל־אַשְׁקְל֛וֹן וְאֶל־ח֥וֹף הַיָּ֖ם שָׁ֥ם יְעָדָֽהּ׃ {פ}

English:

How can it be quiet When GOD has given it orders Against Ashkelon and the seacoast, Given it assignment there?

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