Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 46:17

"They cried there, Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise; he hath let the appointed time pass by." — Jeremiah 46:17 (ASV)

They did cry there ... —Better, There they cry ... The difficulty of the verse has led to many different renderings. The meaning of the English version is that the exiles returning to their own land would say that Pharaoh, with all his arrogant boasts, was merely an empty noise; that he had passed the limit of God’s long-suffering; and that the day of retribution had come.

However, a slight change in the Hebrew words yields this rendering: They have called the name of Pharaoh king of Egypt, A Noise; he has passed (or lost) the appointed season—that is, the time allowed by God’s long-suffering. This is supported by some of the ancient versions and may be accepted as the best rendering.

The Septuagint and Vulgate agree in interpreting the opening words as an imperative: Call you the name of Pharaoh ...; but the former, as if despairing of the meaning, simply reproduces the Hebrew words that follow in Greek letters, while the latter translates it as: Tumultum adduxit tempus (“Time, the appointed time, has brought the noise”—that is, of war and destruction), as if it were, like Magor-missabib, a new nomen et omen given to the Egyptian king.

Luther, offering another meaning for the words translated “appointed time,” renders it as: Pharaoh king of Egypt lies prostrate, he has left his tent. Ewald, following the line of the Vulgate, renders the name by which Pharaoh is spoken of as: tumult, which a sign or ‘moment’ disperses, the “tumult” being his boastful clamour, the “sign” the token of Jehovah’s will. Hitzig agrees more closely with the English version in the latter clause, and it may be accepted as, on the whole, having the most in its favour.