Jeremiah 2:18

It is fitting first to take in Scripture, then to chew it, and finally to assimilate it. What does it serve a man to drink dirty water? "And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the troubled water?" Drink …

And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt,.... By worshipping of idols, in imitation of them; or by sending ambassadors thither for help, when they had their Lord, their God, so nigh, had they not forsaken him; nor had Josiah any business to go out against Pharaohnecho, 2Ch 35:21 and, contrary to the express word of God by the Prophet Jeremy, did the Jews which remained in Judea go into Egypt, Jer 42:19. To drink the waters of Sihor? which is the river Nile, as Jarchi interprets it.

They shall help in vain, shall be broken reeds to thee, and what thou thoughtest would be to thee as a river will be but a broken cistern." 2. This also was because of their sin. The judgment shall unavoidably come upon them which their sin has deserved; and then to what purpose is it to call in help against it?

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes

And now - What business hast thou there? Sihor - The Nile: it signifies black, called Melas by the Greeks, either from the blackness of the land it passed through, or of the soil it casts up. The waters - Here and by the same words before is meant, to seek help from either place.

What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt - Why dost thou make alliances with Egypt? To drink the waters of Sihor? - This means the Nile. See on Isa 23:3 (note). The way of Assyria - Why make alliances with the Assyrians? All such connections will only expedite thy ruin. To drink the waters of the river? - The Euphrates, as נהר nahar or הנהר hannahar always means Euphrates, the country between the Tigris and Euphrates, is termed to this day Maher alnahar, “the country beyond the river,” i.e., Mesopotamia.

Sihor--that is, the black river, in Greek, Melas ("black"), the Nile: so called from the black deposit or soil it leaves after the inundation (Isa 23:3). The Septuagint identifies it with Gihon, one of the rivers of Paradise. the river--Euphrates, called by pre-eminence, the river; figurative for the Assyrian power.

THE Jews had been chosen by God to be a special people separated to Himself forever. By various miracles, by many mercies, by strange deliverances, He had proved Himself to be to them a God worthy of their trust. Yet, strange to say— and yet not strange when we know that they were fallen men like ourselves—the Jews were constantly desirous to mix with the nations. They broke down the hedges with which God had enclosed them as a sacred garden; they desired to be laid like common lands, and to be joined with other peoples.

THE Jews had been chosen by God to be a special people separated to Himself forever. By various miracles, by many mercies, by strange deliverances, He had proved Himself to be to them a God worthy of their trust. Yet, strange to say— and yet not strange when we know that they were fallen men like ourselves—the Jews were constantly desirous to mix with the nations. They broke down the hedges with which God had enclosed them as a sacred garden; they desired to be laid like common lands, and to be joined with other peoples. No, more than this—they forsook their own true and loving God who had never deserted them, and they sometimes adopted the deities of Egypt, and at other times the false gods of Assyria! They seemed never to be content with even the gorgeous ceremonials of their own Temple; they must build altars after the fashion of Damascus; they must have Sitars on every high place, according to the custom of the accursed nations whom the Lord, their God, had driven out before them! And they seemed as if they had never reached the full desire of their hearts till they had mingled with the rites of God, all the filth and the abominations with which heathens adored their gods. Constantly did the Lord reprove them for this—for this infatuation of theirs which made them turn aside from Him, the Living Water, to hew out to themselves broken cisterns which could hold no water. They were "often reproved," but they often "hardened their necks;" often were they chastened, and they were smitten so often that "the whole head was sick, and the whole heart was faint;" they had been chastened so sorely that from the soles of their feet even to their head, they were full of wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores! Yet they still went after evil; they still turned aside from the righteous and true God. Our text contains one instance of God's expostulating with His people.

Sihor - The Nile. To lean upon Egypt was a violation of the principles of theocracy. The two rivers are the two empires, and to drink their waters is to adopt their principles and religion. Compare also Isa 8:6-7.