The Last Recorded Prophecy

“This shall be the sign to you, declares the Lord …”

Bible students are familiar with the difficulties raised by comparing one or two of Jeremiah’s later prophecies to secular historical narratives covering the same periods, particularly those concerning Nebuchadnezzar and his conquest of Egypt.

Having spent a fair bit of time studying other accounts written by secular historians, these tempests in a teapot trouble me not a bit.

Little in life could be more tentative, fragmentary or hotly disputed than our understanding of secular history going back even a single century. We can’t get a scholarly consensus about events concerning which thousands upon thousands of pages have been written. Waxing dogmatic about events that occurred 2,500 years ago is a game for dullards, as someone once put it. Imagining we have done more than scratch the surface in our investigations of the ancient world is the grandest of scholarly conceits.

When Scholars Agree

Notwithstanding their biases, secular historians are in general agreement with their biblical counterparts about certain prophecies in the later chapters of Jeremiah. The sign God gave to the Judean exiles in Egypt through Jeremiah is one of them. It is the very last in a series of prophecies prompted by the idolatrous behavior of the faithless Jewish remnant that had fled to Egypt to hide from Nebuchadnezzar’s wrath. Here’s the entire thing:

“This shall be the sign to you, declares the Lord, that I will punish you in this place, in order that you may know that my words will surely stand against you for harm: Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life, as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy and sought his life.”

This terminal prophecy has no specific date stamp in the text, but we know Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 586 BC, taking thousands of Judeans captive to Babylon and leaving behind only a few under the governorship of a man named Gedaliah, shortly murdered by a fellow Judean working on behalf of Judah’s Ammonite enemies. Accordingly, experts estimate the flight to Egypt in which Jeremiah reluctantly participated took place somewhere between 585 and 582 BC.

In Egypt, Jeremiah continued to warn the Judean remnant that God would judge them for their idolatry and disobedience in returning there. In chapter 44, he does so for the final time, assuring them all but a few Jewish refugees are destined to die by sword and famine. The defiant remnant responds by confirming their allegiance to the queen of heaven and their refusal to believe or obey God. Faced with rebellion and unbelief, Jeremiah gives them his final warning that they will not escape the sword, and he offers his prophecy concerning Pharaoh Hophra as evidence that what he has foretold about the remnant of Judah will surely come true.

What Happened to Hophra?

So then, what happened to Hophra? Uncharacteristically, Bible scholars and secular historians actually agree on this one. Hophra is a Hebraism for the Pharoah secular historians call Apries, Wahibre Haaibre and Ouaphris. I will stick strictly with secular sources to document his fate. Here’s what they say about it:

From Britannica.com:

“According to Herodotus, he [Apries] took the Phoenician port of Sidon, but, because of his subsequent failure in an attack on Cyrene in Libya, the Egyptian army mutinied and elected their general Amasis as king instead (570). Apries was imprisoned but escaped; he later was murdered, perhaps by Egyptians.”

From Wikipedia:

“When the defeated army returned home, a civil war broke out in the Egyptian army between the indigenous troops and the foreign mercenaries. The Egyptians threw their support to Amasis II, a general who had led Egyptian forces in a highly successful invasion of Nubia in 592 BCE under Pharaoh Psamtik II, Apries' father. Amasis quickly declared himself pharaoh in 570 BCE, and Apries fled Egypt and sought refuge in a foreign country. When Apries marched back to Egypt in 567 BCE with the aid of a Babylonian army to reclaim the throne of Egypt, he was likely killed in battle with Amasis’ forces. Alternatively, Herodotus: II.169 holds that Apries survived the battle, and was captured and treated well by the victorious Amasis, until the Egyptian people demanded justice against him, whereby he was placed into their hands and strangled to death.”

From Historica:

“Civil war broke out between the Egyptian indigenous troops and the foreign mercenaries, and the Egyptians supported the general Amasis, who declared himself Pharaoh in 570 BC. Apries fled the country, and, in 567 BC, he returned with a Babylonian army, hoping to return to power. However, he was captured by Amasis and initially treated well, but, when the Egyptian people demanded justice, Amasis had him strangled to death.”

From Ancient Origins:

“Apries tried once again to regain his throne, in 567 BC. This time he was accompanied by a new mercenary force, comprised entirely of Babylonians.

Not surprisingly, Apries was easily defeated by the unified Egyptian forces. This time he was not allowed to escape, but instead was placed under arrest and finally executed by Amasis. Despite their intense rivalry, his successor did give Apries a proper burial, in recognition of his one-time status as the legitimate pharaoh of Egypt.”

Scholars Arguing with Each Other

I have commented elsewhere on how frequently even the most renowned secular historians disagree not only with biblical scholars but far more commonly with each other, sometimes with the petulance of children squabbling in the schoolyard. Here we have four secular accounts with plenty of disagreement about details, but none about the one point that really matters to Bible scholars and to us: Hophra fell into the hands of his enemies just as their own Zedekiah fell into the hands of his. On this, everyone agrees. Jeremiah’s prophecy to the Judean exiles concerning the ruling Pharaoh of their day proved right on the nose in fewer than 20 years. Moreover, of the Judean remnant who fled to Egypt and against whom Jeremiah prophesied, there remains no trace in either secular or biblical history.

That’s a strong ending to a legendary prophetic career, and a reminder of just how tenuous and dissonant the sources of secular historians really are. Never can we be sure their attacks on scripture are launched from solid ground.