whole earth
This universality is significant and marks the whole passage as referring, not merely to a near judgment upon Assyria, but in a yet larger sense to the final crash of the present world-system at the end of the age. (See "Times of the Gentiles," (Luke 21:24); (Revelation 16:14); (Daniel 2:44); (Daniel 2:45) "Armageddon,"; (Revelation 16:14); (Revelation 19:17). No other such universal catastrophe on the nations is known to Scripture.