Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 51:42
The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.
42. The sea is come up ] the hostile army arriving in overwhelming force. Cp. Jer 46:7-8, Jer 47:2; Isa 17:12.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
By a grand metaphor the invading army is compared to the sea.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 42. The sea is come up] A multitude of foes have inundated the city.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
A multitude of enemies, that are like the sea in which there is a multitude of waters, or that will overrun them as the sea overfloweth the shore, or any land into which it once breaketh.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
42. The seathe host of Medianinvaders. The image (compare Jer 47:2;Isa 8:7; Isa 8:8)is appropriately taken from the Euphrates, which, overflowing inspring, is like a “sea” near Babylon (Jer 51:13;Jer 51:32; Jer 51:36).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The sea is come up upon Babylon,…. A vast army, comparable to the great sea for the multitude thereof, even the army of the Medes and Persians under Cyrus; so the Targum,
“a king with his armies, which are numerous like the waters of the sea, is come up against Babylon:”
she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof; being surrounded, besieged, surprised, and seized upon by the multitude of soldiers in that army, which poured in upon it unawares. Some think here is a beautiful antithesis, between the inundation of Cyrus’s army and the draining of the river Euphrates, by which means he poured in his forces into Babylon.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Description of the fall. The sea that has come over Babylon and covered it with its waves, was taken figuratively, even by the Chaldee paraphrasts, and understood as meaning the hostile army that overwhelms the land with its hosts. Only J. D. Michaelis was inclined to take the words in their proper meaning, and understood them as referring to the inundation of Babylon by the Euphrates in August and in winter. But however true it may be, that, in consequence of the destruction or decay of the great river-walls built by Nebuchadnezzar, the Euphrates may inundate the city of Babylon when it wells into a flood, yet the literal acceptation of the words is unwarranted, for the simple reason that they do not speak of any momentary or temporary inundation, and that, because Babylon is to be covered with water, the cities of Babylonia are to become an arid steppe. The sea is therefore the sea of nations, cf. Jer 46:7; the description reminds us of the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea. On Jer 51:43, cf. Jer 48:9; Jer 49:18, Jer 49:33., Jer 50:12. The suffix in refers to “her cities;” but the repetition of is not for that reason wrong, as Graf thinks, but is to be explained on the ground that the cities of Babylonia are compared to a barren land; and the idea is properly this: The cities become an arid country of steppes, a land in whose cities nobody can dwell.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
THE Prophet here employs a comparison, in order more fully to confirm his prophecy respecting the destruction of Babylon; for, as it was incredible that it could be subdued by the power or forces of men, he compares the calamity by which God would overwhelm it to a deluge. He then says that the army of the Persians and of the Medes would be like the sea, for it would irresistibly overflow; as when a storm rises, the sea swells, so he says the Medes and the Persians would come with such force, that Babylon would be overwhelmed with a deluge rather than with the forces of men. We now then understand the Prophet’s meaning, when he says that Babylon would be covered with waves when the Medes and the Persians came It then follows, —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(42) The sea is come up upon Babylon . . .The literal explanation of the words as referring to the foundation of the Euphrates adopted by some commentators is clearly inadmissible, and is at variance with the next verse. The prophet falls back on an image which he had used before (Jer. 46:7), and which had become familiar through Isaiah (Isa. 8:7-8; Isa. 17:12), and speaks of Babylon as covered with the great sea of nations that were sweeping over her.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 51:42. The sea is come up A multitude of people, which, like an inundation, carry all before them.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jer 51:42 The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.
Ver. 42. The sea is come up upon Babylon. ] A sea of hostile forces; what wonder, therefore, though she be taken?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 18:4, Psa 18:16, Psa 42:7, Psa 65:7, Psa 93:3, Isa 8:7, Isa 8:8, Eze 27:26-34, Dan 9:26, Luk 21:25, Rev 17:15, Rev 17:16
Reciprocal: Isa 14:23 – make Isa 21:1 – the desert Isa 29:7 – the multitude Jer 51:64 – Thus shall Eze 26:3 – as the sea Dan 11:10 – overflow
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 51:42. In figurative language such terms as floods and waters are often used to indicate great distress. The same thing is meant in the verse by the sea, referring to the army of the Persians that was to overflow the city of Babylon.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
51:42 The {z} sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of its waves.
(z) The great army of the Medes and Persians.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
It would be as though the waves of the sea had overwhelmed Babylon.
"There is probably an allusion here to the mythological chaotic waters of the primeval ocean (Tiamat) which, according to the Babylonian myth of creation, were overthrown by the god Marduk when he fought against Tiamat and destroyed her. The fall of Babylon would be of such gigantic proportions that it would appear as nothing less than a reversal of that primeval victory." [Note: Thompson, p. 764. See also Smothers, p. 371; and Harrison, Jeremiah and . . ., p. 187.]