Bobcat,
I know, the trail is pretty cold by now, but the subject seems to keep coming up. I had some discussion about this with a non JW friend recently while I was working my way through Herodotus ( in English). I had thought that the Neo-Babylonian invasion discussion had slipped right through my fingers or in one ear and out the other subvocalizing, but another book seemed to sort things out.
Canadian Egyptologist Donald Redford wrote a book titled "Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times". I had picked it up in 2010 for $7.98 - and it has turned out to be a fascinating read. Toward the end of the book there is a chapter on "Egypt and the Fall of Judah". The first time I read it I was pre-occupied with Jerusalem, but Redford had a lot to say about Jeremiah - maybe a dozen pages examining his utterances. About Jer 46:11-12, "Swept away by the magnitude of the Babylonian victory [ at Carchemish in 604 - described in Wiseman's Chronicles of the Akkadian Kings] Jeremiah declared Nebuchadrezzar to be God's instrument and confidently predicted the destruction of all the states of the world [ 25:9, 17-26]."
Indeed, he writes of the fate of Ashkelon, a Greek city laid to ruin for a hundred years and its inhabitants deported to Babylon. This was recorded on one stelae by a Greek mercenary named Antimenidas.
Nonetheless, despite Jer 46:13-26, Redford notes (p. 457):
"It was over 60 years since an invading force had trodden the highway south from Gaza toward the eastern Delta, but in the interim, Saite concern over with the northeast frontier had produced a border far more securely fortified than the one Ashurbanipal had had to cross... unopposed..."
There was now to encounter "the fortified keep of Migdol, which now, since the coming to power of the 26th Dynasty, constituted the true border fort of the northern frontier and the entry to Egypt proper..."
P. 458 "When the Babylonians came within sight of Migdol (citing Herodotus, Book II - Egypt, paragraph 159), they found the Egyptian army drawn up and waiting.
"The Chronicle and Herodotus constitute our sole records of the battle. Both are laconic. The former reads, 'In the month of Kislev ( November-Decembe 601) [Nebuchadrezzar] took the lead of his army and marched to Egypt. The king of Egypt heard of it and mustered his arm. In open battle they smote the breast of each other and inflicted great havoc on each other. [Nebuchadrezzar] and his troops turned back and returned to Babylon. ' Herodotus records that Nechno ' attacked the Syrians (sic) by land and defeated them at Magdolus.'
"The battle amounted ot asignal defeat to Babylonian arms. Jeremiah and the doomsayers were confounded. but Necho seized the opportunity of the Babylonian retreat ( in defiance of Jeremiah's opinion of him [46:17]) to follow up his advantage and seize Gaza, now deprived of its fortifications through the recent siege.
"For the Babylonians Migdol had meant the loss of troops and equipment, and no further hostilities could be envisaged for the immediate future. In fact from January 600 to late November 599 Nebuchadrezzar remained at home in Babylon in order to 'gather together his chariots and horses in great number.' [Wiseman, Chronicles]..."
... There is much more.