Jeremiah 47
Big idea: Seven verses on Philistia, and the last two are a question addressed to a sword: how can you be quiet, when you have been given an assignment? The weapon is asked to explain itself and cannot.
The address to the sword is the only place in the book where an oracle ends by interrogating an instrument rather than a nation.
47:1–7 — How can you be quiet?
The opening image is a flood coming from the wrong direction: waters rise up out of the north and become an overflowing stream, and overflow the land and everything in it — the city and those who dwell in it. Philistia is a coastal plain, so a flood from the north rather than from the sea is exactly what an invading army looks like on that geography. And the human detail is the one the poem stops on: the men will cry, and all the inhabitants of the land will wail — at the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers don't look back to their children because of feebleness of hands. Parents running without turning round, because they have nothing left in their arms.
1 Yahweh’s word that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines, before Pharaoh struck Gaza. 2 Yahweh says: “Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and will become an overflowing stream, and will overflow the land and all that is therein, the city and those who dwell therein. The men will cry, and all the inhabitants of the land will wail. 3 At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers don’t look back for their children because their hands are so feeble, 4 because of the day that comes to destroy all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Sidon every helper who remains; for Yahweh will destroy the Philistines, the remnant of the isle of Caphtor. 5 Baldness has come on Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nothing. You remnant of their valley, how long will you cut yourself? 6 “‘You sword of Yahweh, how long will it be before you are quiet? Put yourself back into your scabbard; rest, and be still.’ 7 “How can you be quiet, since Yahweh has given you a command? Against Ashkelon, and against the seashore, there he has appointed it.”
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).