Bible Strands
Jeremiah 46:20
Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but a gadfly from the north is coming against her.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jeremiah delivers this oracle against Egypt on behalf of the Lord during a campaign to assess Pharaoh Necho’s military movements. The prophet addresses the Egyptian leadership and military, warning of imminent invasion.
The words — The text uses עֶגְלָה ('eglah), literally "heifer," to describe Egypt, and קֶרֶץ (qereṣ), literally "gadfly," to represent the invading force. These terms frame Egypt’s perceived strength and the sudden, piercing threat it faces.
The thread — The "gadfly from the north" motif echoes Jeremiah 1:14 and Jeremiah 47:2, where northern disaster and rising waters symbolize divine judgment. The heifer imagery parallels Hosea 10:11, where a trained heifer receives a yoke, signaling submission to divine discipline.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that national pride and military strength cannot prevent divine judgment. It requires readers to accept that geopolitical power is subordinate to the Lord’s sovereign timing.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 47:2 This is what the LORD says: “See how the waters are rising from the north and becoming an overflowing torrent. They will overflow the land and its fullness, the cities and their inhabitants. The people will cry out, and all who dwell in the land will wail
- Hosea 10:11 Ephraim is a well-trained heifer that loves to thresh; but I will place a yoke on her fair neck. I will harness Ephraim, Judah will plow, and Jacob will break the hard ground.
- Jeremiah 1:14 Then the LORD said to me, “Disaster from the north will be poured out on all who live in the land.
- Jeremiah 46:6 “The swift cannot flee, and the warrior cannot escape! In the north by the River Euphrates they stumble and fall.
- Jeremiah 46:10 For that day belongs to the Lord GOD of Hosts, a day of vengeance against His foes. The sword will devour until it is satisfied, until it is quenched with their blood. For the Lord GOD of Hosts will hold a sacrifice in the land of the north by the River Euphrates.
- Jeremiah 25:9 behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.
- Jeremiah 46:24 The Daughter of Egypt will be put to shame; she will be delivered into the hands of the people of the north.”
- Jeremiah 50:11 “Because you rejoice, because you sing in triumph—you who plunder My inheritance—because you frolic like a heifer treading grain and neigh like stallions,