Глава 43

The leaders of the people, having heard this, indulging in insolence and arrogance, forgot both requests and oaths, and dared to say to the Prophet: (Jer.43:2). You speak falsely; “The Lord our God did not send you to us,” saying: “Do not enter Egypt.” (Jer.43:3). But “Baruch the son of Neriin is inciting thee against us, so that in the hands of the Chaldean he will kill us, and bring us to Babylon.” Having told this to the Prophet, and clearly violating these oaths, they rushed to Egypt with all the gathered people, even taking the Prophet and Baruch with them. Therefore, in Tafnas (and this is an Egyptian city), the Prophet receives a command to take stones, hide them (Jer. 43:9) “before the gates of the house of Pharaoh,” in view of the Jews, and proclaim to them the following: Jer.43:10. Behold, I will send and bring Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant, and he will set up his throne on these stones that you have hidden, and he will raise up his weapons against them, and the Egyptians, some he will put to death, and others he will take captive, he will burn the churches of idols, and he will take them themselves as captives. And announcing that the king of Babylon will not invade Egypt casually, but will use every effort to crush it, he likens him to a shepherd picking off insects on his clothes; and the shepherds, having a lot of leisure, do it carefully. (Jer.43:12). And he will strip Egypt, says the Prophet, “like a shepherd” who strips insects from his robe, “and he will go out from there in peace” (Jer. 43:13). And “he will crush the pillars of Iliupol, like” in On, “and he will burn the houses of the Egyptian gods with fire.” The city had two names, called both On and Iliopolis. The book of Exodus revealed this to us, saying that the children of Israel “created cities for Pharaoh, Pitho, and Ramess, and He who is Heliopolis” (Ex. 1:11). God calls Nebuchadnezzar His servant not because he was a slave by devotion and disposition, but because he was a slave by nature; for creation is enslaved to the Creator. And at the same time God teaches that Nebuchadnezzar did this by His permission.