Jeremiah 50:21 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Go up against the land of Merathaim, and against Pekod Although these two words מרתים, Merathaim, and פקוד, Pekod, are considered by our translators as proper names; and the latter is so understood by the Chaldee paraphrast: yet all the other ancient versions agree in representing the former word as an appellative, and the latter as a verb. The former, which is the dual number of מרה, marah, may signify either bitterness, or rebellion; and Blaney thinks that “Babylon is called the land of bitterness, or of redoubled bitterness here, because it had proved such to the Jewish nation, whose country had been ruined, and the people held in slavery there.” Accordingly he translates the verse as follows: “Against the land of bitterness go up; upon it, and upon its inhabitants visit, O sword, and utterly destroy their posterity, saith Jehovah, and perform according to all that I have charged thee.” The command seems to be directed to Cyrus and his confederates.