Jer_25:20. Pharaoh Hophra's mercenaries; whose employment provoked the native Egyptians to overthrow him (Eze_30:5). Haereb in Exo_7:38 also. (See MIXED MULTITUDE.)
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
Mingled People
(עֵרֶב, e'reb, a mixture), spoken of a mixed multitude, such as accompanied the Israelites from Egypt (Exo_12:38), and joined them after their return from Babylon (Neh_13:3); but specifically (with the def. article) of the promiscuous mass of foreign auxiliaries, e.g. of Solomon (1Ki_10:15), of Egypt (Eze_30:5; Jer_25:20; Jer_25:24), of Chaldaea (Jer_50:37). The phrase (הָעֶרֶב, ha- ereb), like that of the mixed multitude, which the Hebrew closely resembles, is applied in Jer_25:20, and Eze_30:5, to denote the miscellaneous foreign population of Egypt and its frontier-tribes, including every one, says Jerome, who was not a native Egyptian, but was resident there. The Targum of Jonathan understands it in this passage, as well as in Jeremiah 1:37, of the foreign mercenaries, though in Jer_25:24, where the word again occurs, it is rendered Arabs. It is difficult to attach to it any precise meaning, or to identify with the mingled people any race of which we have knowledge. The kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert,' are the same apparently as the tributary kings (A.V. kings of Arabia') who brought presents to Solomon (1Ki_10:15); the Hebrew in the two cases is identical.
These have been explained (as in the Targum on 1Ki_10:15) as foreign mercenary chiefs who were in the pay of Solomon, but Thenius understands by them the sheiks of the border tribes of Bedouins, living in Arabia Deserta, who were closely connected with the Israelites. The mingled people' in the midst of Babylon (Jer_50:37) were probably the foreign soldiers or mercenary troops, who lived among the native population, as the Targum takes it. Kimchi compares Exo_12:38, and explains ha-ereb of the foreign population of Babylon generally, foreigners who were in Babylon from several lands,' or it may, he says he intended to denote the merchants, ereb being thus connected with the עֹרְבֵי מִעֲרָבֵךְof Eze_27:27, rendered in the A.V. the occupiers of thy merchandise.' His first interpretation is based upon what appears to be the primary signification of the root עָרִב, arab, to mingle, while another meaning, to pledge, guarantee,' suggested the rendering of the Targum mercenaries,' which Jarchi adopts in his explanation of the kings of ha-ereb,' in 1Ki_10:15, as the kings who were pledged to Solomon and dependent upon him. The equivalent which he gives is apparently intended to represent the French garantie. The rendering of the A.V. is supported by the Sept. σύμμικτος in Jeremiah, and ἐπίμικτος in Ezekiel. SEE MIXED MULTITUDE.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.