Egypt … Assyria. It is certain that there was a large body of Jews in Egypt at this time (Jeremiah 43:6, Jeremiah 43:7); and to Assyria the ten tribes, who are here specially mentioned under the name Ephraim, had been deported.
Besides this, Assyria is often used loosely for Western Asia or Babylonia, of which, after its submission, it formed a most important feature (see 2 Kings 23:29; Ezra 6:22; and in the Apocrypha, 1 Esdr.
7:15; Judith 1:7; 2:1). In the 'Oracula Sibyllina,' the Assyrians are continually confused with Persians, Babylonians, and other Eastern nations. Egypt and Assyria are here used as types of the countries to which Jews had been banished (comp.
Hosea 11:11). Gilead and Lebanon. A designation of the northern district of Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan, in which these tribes had been originally settled. This region had been most exposed to hostile attacks, and was the first to be depopulated.
Place shall not be found for them (Isaiah 49:20). Josephus testifies to the teeming population of Galilee in later times ('Bell. Jud.,' 2.3, 1; 3.3, 2; 4.1, 2; 7.5). Septuagint, "There shall not even one of them be left behind," i.
e. in exile.