Discovery BoxJeremiah 6:5 
Context6:5 So come on, let’s go ahead and attack it by night
and destroy all its fortified buildings.’
Jeremiah 37:8
Context37:8 Then the Babylonian forces 1 will return. They will attack the city and will capture it and burn it down.
Jeremiah 46:20
Context46:20 Egypt is like a beautiful young cow.
But northern armies will attack her like swarms of stinging flies. 2
1 tn Heb “the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the rendering “Babylonian.” The word “forces” is supplied in the translation here for the sake of clarity.
2 tn Heb “Egypt is a beautiful heifer. A gadfly from the north will come against her.”
The metaphors have been turned into similes for the sake of clarity. The exact meaning of the word translated “stinging fly” is uncertain due to the fact that it occurs nowhere else in Hebrew literature. For a discussion of the meaning of the word which probably refers to the “gadfly,” which bites and annoys livestock, see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:331, who also suggests, probably correctly, that the word is a collective referring to swarms of such insects (cf. the singular אַרְבֶּה [’arbeh] in v. 23 which always refers to swarms of locusts). The translation presupposes the emendation of the second בָּא (ba’) to בָּהּ (bah) with a number of Hebrew
