John Calvin on Jeremiah 46:20

Jeremiah intimates here, that though Egypt indulged in pleasures, it could not yet escape the vengeance of God. We reminded you yesterday why the Prophets mentioned the wealth, the riches, and the power of the ungodly, even because they are blinded by all the good things in which they abound; for they fear nothing, nor feel any anxiety, but through a false notion they exempt themselves from every evil. As, then, the unbelieving are thus presumptuous and proud, the Prophets, on the other hand, warn them and say, that however they may exult in their own strength and defenses, they would yet, when it pleased God to make them prey, become the most miserable of all.

The Prophet, then, in short, takes away the false conceit of the Jews, as well as of the Egyptians; as though he had said, “The Egyptians trust in their prosperity, even as though they were like a heifer frisking in the fields; but calamity,” he says,.” is coming, is coming from the north.” He repeats the same word, in order to remove every doubt: coming, then, is distress, it is coming from the north, that is, from the Babylonians, who were situated northward to Judea, as we stated yesterday.

Jeremiah 46:21

21. Also her hired men are in the midst of her like fatted bullocks; for they also are turned back, and are fled away together: they did not stand, because the day of their calamity was come upon them, and the time of their visitation.

21. Etiam mercenarii ejus in medio ejus tanquam vituli saginati, quia etiam ipsi vertent terga, fugient simul, non steterunt, quia dies calamitatis (vel, miseriae) venit super eos, tempus visitationis ipsorum.