not ignoring you, hill.
i just don't know.
thinking.
sorry.
:(

an apelles question, perhaps?

I've only looked into this a bit, but it seems to say that because of how the princes will die by the sword (and the rest of the fulfilment of the prophecy), Egypt will be laughing at them (derision in the land of Egypt).

Whether people are fleeing to Egypt to find safety or not, I don't know.

Like I said. Just starting out.

I'll look into the pronoun twist, but I'm not sure I'm qualified.

One thing though, Israel does appear to be feminine in ch 2 when she is the bride. Just from looking through the book, I can see other places where Judah is "he" then "she." So I think it is flip flopping.

I'll keep looking.