A drought against her waters, that they may be dried up! For it is a land of images, and they are mad over idols.
Here the same word is used in a different sense: he had often before used the word חרב, chereb, “sword;” but now by changing only a point, he uses it in the sense of waste, or drought. It is so rendered by the Vulg. and the Targ., omitted by the Sept., and rendered “sword” by the Syr., and also by Blayney and Henderson.
We have in these verses, I. Israel's sufferings, and their deliverance out of those sufferings. God takes notice of the bondage of his people in Babylon, as he did of their bondage in Egypt; he has surely seen it, and has heard their cry. Israel and Judah were oppressed together, Jer 50:33.
Commenting on Jeremiah 50:33-46
A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up,.... Either on the waters of the land of Chaldea in general, from whence should follow barrenness, and so a want of the necessaries of life; hence Kimchi interprets it of a consumption of riches, and all good things; or on the waters of Babylon, the river Euphrates, which ran through it; the channel...