Jeremiah 51:45,46 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

My people, go ye out of the midst of her, &c. See note on Jeremiah 50:8. And lest your heart faint, and ye fear for the rumour, &c. “Lest the rumours of new forces, ready to join themselves to the Babylonians, dishearten you, and make you despair of seeing so great an empire subdued by any human power.” A rumour shall come one year, and after that in another year This seems to be an idiomatic phrase, denoting that terrifying rumours should continue year after year. And in these words the prophet, by God's direction, gives signs or tokens to the captive Jews, whereby they might know the exact time when Babylon should be taken, and, consequently, when they should remove from the city into some other place, that they might not be terrified, and induced to quit the city before there was any occasion for their doing so; and he acquaints them that there should come a rumour one year, namely, of Cyrus's preparations against the Babylonians; and that the next year there should be another rumour, namely, as we may suppose, of Cyrus's march into Asia, and his victories there, and of his drawing nearer and nearer to Babylon every day. And violence in the land, ruler against ruler “It is possible,” says Blaney, “that the contests between the adverse powers of Babylon and Media, during which the dominions of the former were subjected to the miseries of foreign invasion, may alone be here intended. But Berosus, the Chaldean historian, as cited by Josephus, Contra Apion, lib. 1., gives an account of civil violences and disorders that were committed in the land after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, whose son, Evil-merodach, was, after a short reign, murdered, and his throne usurped by one of his subjects. The usurper's son, who succeeded him, was also murdered in his turn, and the kingdom restored to the lawful heir; and all this happened in the course of a few years previous to the foreign invasion. These therefore, I think, are more likely to be the violence in this passage alluded to, and introduced as the forerunners of still greater devastations.”