At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened,.... The same with Hanes in Isa 30:4 and Tahapanes in Jer 2:16 and Tahpanhes, Jer 43:7, it was a royal seat of the kings of Egypt: there was in Solomon's time a queen of Egypt of this name, and perhaps it might be so called from her, 1Ki 11:19.
It is generally thought to be the Daphne of Pelusium, it being near that city; though Junius takes it to be a place in another part of Egypt, at a great distance, which Herodotus calls Tahcompso, an island encompassed by the Nile; and by Ptolemy called Metacompso: now at this place the day should be darkened; or should "restrain" , as it may be rendered; that is, its light; it should be a calamitous and mournful time with the inhabitants of it:when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt; the yokes they put upon the necks of others, who now should be freed from them: or, "the sceptres of Egypt", as the Vulgate Latin version renders it; the regalia of their kings, which might lie in this place; it being a royal seat where Pharaoh had a house, as appears from Jer 43:9:and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her; all that grandeur and magnificence which appeared in the courts of the kings of Egypt in this place:as for her, a cloud shall cover her; as for this city, a cloud of calamity shall cover it, so as its glory shall not be seen.
The Targum is,"a king with his army shall cover her as a cloud ascends and covers the earth:''and her daughters shall go into captivity; which may be taken either in a literal sense for the daughters of the inhabitants of this place, which must be a great affliction to their tender parents, to have them forced away by rude soldiers, and carried captive into distant lands; or in a figurative sense, for the villages and the inhabitants of them round about this city; it being usual to represent a city as a mother, and its villages as daughters; and so the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi interpret it.
Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 29. Geograph. l. 4. c. 5.