Jeremiah in the Ruins of Jerusalem, Horace Vernet, 1844. Wikimedia
Nebuchadnezzar Fails to Conquer Egypt So Jeremiah’s Prophecy Was Updated
Jeremiah’s prophecy (ch. 46) that Nebuchadnezzar will conquer Egypt never materializes. As a result, a later scribe updated the prophecy to refer to Nebuchadnezzar’s brief raid of Egypt during the civil war between Pharaoh Amasis and Pharaoh Apries in 567 B.C.E.
Published August 8, 2022
The name in Akkadian is Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, “May Nabu protect my first-born son.” The spelling in Jeremiah, Nebuchadrezzar, is thus closer to the real pronunciation than the more common Nebuchadnezzar.
The prophecy continues for six more verses (until v. 12) in this vein.
Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, ed. Benjamin Foster, Writings from the Ancient World 19 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 227–229; trans. of Chroniques Mésopotamiennes (Paris: Les Belles Lettres; 1993).
The prophecy here is part of a genre scholars call oracles against other nations, found scattered throughout the books of the prophets. For discussion of this genre, see Andrew Mein, Else K. Holt, and H. C. Paul Kim, Concerning the Nations: Essays on the Oracles Against the Nations in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 612 (London: T&T Clark, 2015). Insofar as Egypt in particular, the book of Isaiah already has such an oracle (ch. 19), referring to what will happen to Egypt during the Assyrian period.
Editor’s note: See discussion in Laurie Pearce, “Ezekiel: A Jewish Priest and a Babylonian Intellectual,” TheTorah (2017).
Editor’s note: For a discussion of Ezekiel’s attitude towards Egypt, see Safwat Marzouk, “Pharaoh Is a Monster: Ezekiel Decries Judah’s Ties with Egypt,” TheTorah (2021).
Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 227.
In brief, Egypt, under Necho II takes back the Levant following Nebuchadnezzar’s retreat in 601 B.C.E., but in 598/597, Nebuchadnezzar returned, retook Gaza, destroyed Ashdod, and conquered Jerusalem. He left Jerusalem under a new king, Zedekiah, sworn in as a vassal. However, in the coming years, Nebuchadnezzar faced a rebellion in the east, and stayed out of the Levant for a while, prompting the local powers—excepting the Philistine cities which were mostly destroyed—to discuss rebellion, led by the Judean King Zedekiah (593 B.C.E.). Soon after, in 592/591 B.C.E., Pharaoh Psammetichus II, having just defeated the Kushites to his south, retakes the Levant. In 588, Nebuchadnezzar returned to the Levant, and after a brief, failed attempt by Pharaoh Apries to push him out, the Babylonian army destroyed Jerusalem and pacified the Levant. For a detailed discussion of this back and forth, see Dan’el Kahn, “Some Remarks on the Foreign Policy of Psammetichus II in the Levant (595–589 B.C.),” Journal of Egyptian History 1 (2008): 139–158; idem, “The History Leading up to the Destruction of Judah,” TheTorah (2022).
This invasion is referenced in Josephus’ Antiquities 10:9, and likely corresponds with the invastion of Judah following the assassination of Gedaliah. I discuss this in Dan’el Kahn “Nebuchadnezzar and Egypt: An Update on the Egyptian Monuments,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 7.1 (2018): 65–78 [72–74], and I hope to discuss it in a future piece here.
For a longer discussion of this and related texts, see Kahn “Nebuchadnezzar and Egypt,” 74–78.
Several attempts were made to decipher the stela, but the signs are extremely eroded, making the interpretation difficult. The collation of this stele by Jansen-Winkeln has significantly improved the reading of the text as a whole. Karl Jansen-Winkeln, “Die Siegesstele des Amasis”. Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 141.2 (2014):132–153.
This differs from the account in Herodotus (Histories 2.169), which claims that Apries survived the battle, and was captured but then strangled to death by angry Egyptians.
Jansen-Winkeln, “Die Siegesstele des Amasis,” 137.
Stephen Langdon, Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1912), 4.206–207.
Parker and Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology, 28.
Perhaps the clearest example of an updated prophecy is in Isaiah 16. The chapter opens with an oracle about Moab that does not come to pass. The text then continues:
ישעיה טז:יג זֶה הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְ־הוָה אֶל מוֹאָב מֵאָז. טז:יד וְעַתָּה דִּבֶּר יְ־הוָה לֵאמֹר בְּשָׁלֹשׁ שָׁנִים...
Isa 16:13 That is the word that YHWH spoke concerning Moab long ago. 16:14 And now YHWH has spoken…
Here, the text is unusually candid about offering a correction. See discussion of this and other examples in, Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 476–477.
This was not the only prophecy in Jeremiah to be updated. According to Ronnie Goldstein, a later scribe, familiar with the Persian conquest of Egypt under Cambyses in 526 B.C.E., updated the prophecy in Jeremiah 43. See Ronnie Goldstein, “Casting Nets and Burning Temples: The Babylonian and Persian Background of Jer 43: 8–13,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 9.1 (2020): 63–69. In this case, however, the attribution of the conquest to Nebuchadnezzar would not have been true.
