Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 46:21

"Also her hired men in the midst of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back, they are fled away together, they did not stand: for the day of their calamity is come upon them, the time of their visitation." — Jeremiah 46:21 (ASV)

Her hired men are in the midst of her like fatted bullocks. —Literally, bullocks of the stall. The prophet harps, as it were, on the same image. The mercenaries—Ionians, Carians, and others—in the army of Pharaoh-Hophra, who had their camp at Bubastis (Herod. ii. 152, 163), should be like a drove of terrified cattle, fed to the full, driven to the slaughter-house.