“Set up a standard on the earth; blow the trumpet among the nations; prepare the nations for war against her; summon against her the kingdoms, Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz; appoint a marshal against her; bring up horses like bristling locusts.
The Prophet here confirms what he had before taught, even that Babylon, however proud on account of its strongholds, would not yet escape God’s hand. Had he used a simple mode of speaking, hardly any one would have ventured to look for what the Prophet said. It was then necessary to introduce figurative expressions, of which we have before spoken.
The particulars of this copious prophecy are dispersed and interwoven, and the same things left and returned to so often that it could not well be divided into parts, but we must endeavor to collect them under their proper heads. Let us then observe here, I.
Commenting on Jeremiah 51:1-58
And the land shall tremble and sorrow,.... The land of Chaldea, the inhabitants of it, should tremble, when they heard of this powerful army invading their land, and besieging their metropolis; and should sorrow, and be in pain as a woman in travail, as the word (f) signifies: for every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon; or, "shall stand" (g); be certainly...