Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 13:4

"Take the girdle that thou hast bought, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock." — Jeremiah 13:4 (ASV)

Go to Euphrates. The Hebrew word Phrath is the same as that which, everywhere else in the Old Testament, is translated as the Greek name for the river, Euphrates. It has been suggested:

1. that the word means “river” generally, or “rushing water,” applied with special distinction to the “great river,” and therefore it may have been used here in its general sense; and
2. that it may stand here for Ephratah, or Bethlehem, as the scene of Jeremiah’s symbolic actions, the place being chosen because of its suggestive similarity to Euphrates.

These conjectures, however, have no other basis than the assumed improbability of a double journey of two hundred and fifty miles; and this, as has been shown, can hardly be considered a serious factor in the question. In Jeremiah 51:0, there can be no doubt that the writer means Euphrates. It may also be noted, as a coincidence confirming this view, that Jeremiah appears as personally known to Nebuchadnezzar in Jeremiah 39:11. Those who consider Ephratah the scene of what is recorded here point to the caves and clefts in the rocky region between Bethlehem and the Dead Sea as agreeing with the description. On the other hand, the form Prath is nowhere found as a substitute for the familiar Ephratah.

A hole of the rock. Better, cleft. In the lower part of its course, the Euphrates flows through an alluvial plain, and the words therefore point to some part of its upper course above Pylæ, where it flows through a valley that is more or less rocky.