The families of the north. — The phrase reminds us of the vision of “the seething pot from the face of the north” in Jeremiah 1:13, and includes all the mingled races, Scythians and others, who owned the sway of the Chaldæan king.
Nebuchadrezzar... my servant. — The use of the word which is applied by psalmists and prophets to David (Psalms 78:70; 2 Samuel 7:8) and to the future Christ (Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 52:13) is every way remarkable. It has its parallel, and, in fact, its explanation, in the language in which Isaiah speaks of Cyrus as the shepherd, the anointed, of Jehovah. (Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1) Each ruler of the great empires of the world was, in ways he knew not, working out the purposes of God. The phrase “I will utterly destroy” may be noted as specially characteristic of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 2:34; Deuteronomy 3:6, et al.) and Joshua (Joshua 2:10; Joshua 6:21; Joshua 8:26).