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15. Swept away. A change in vowel pointing permits the translation “Chep has fled.” This would agree with the LXX, which here reads, “Why has Apis fled?” Apis, Egyptian Ḥep, was from early historical times the bull-god of Memphis. Several inscriptions from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, during which time Jeremiah was in Egypt, speaks of Ḥep as “installed in the house of Ptah,” the chief god of Memphis. Apis was believed to be incarnate in a succession of sacred bulls, which were kept in great luxury at Memphis for worship and divination. When such bulls died they were mummified and buried with great care.

In 1850 the French archeologist Mariette discovered the Serapeum at Sakkara, an ancient cemetery of Memphis. This consists of two subterranean galleries about 1,200 ft. (366 m.) long, lined with tomb chambers that contained the mummified bodies of more than 60 bulls, ranging in date from the 14th to the 2d century b.c. The second of these galleries was built by Psamtik I, a contemporary of Jeremiah, which fact indicates the exalted place the worship of Apis held at the time of the prophecy.

The probability that Apis was here in the prophet’s mind is strengthened by the fact that the Heb. ’abbir, “valiant one,” also means “bull” and is so translated in Ps. 22:12; 50:13; 68:30; Isa. 34:7. As in the days of Moses the Egyptian gods were revealed in their true light (see on Ex. 8:2; 10:21), so now dramatizing the defeat of the Egyptians, Jeremiah seems to be pointing to the helplessness of the great bull gods.