Jeremiah 49:38 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

I will set my throne in Elam. — The throne of Jehovah is, it is clear, the throne of the king who is, for the time, His chosen instrument and servant, in this case therefore the throne of Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 43:10), against whom. Elam, like the other nations in Jeremiah 25:13-25, and in Jeremiah 48, 49, had apparently risen in rebellion. Of this we have, perhaps, a trace in the statement of Jdt. 1:1-13, that Nebuchadnezzar defeated Arphaxad, a king of Media, in the seventeenth year of his reign. The words find an historical fulfilment in the fact that Shushan, “in the province of Elam,” became one of the royal residences of the Chaldæan kings (Daniel 8:2), and continued to be so under those of Persia, who, as regards the population of Elam proper, were as conquerors (Nehemiah 1:1; Esther 1:2). A like prediction of the fall of Elam, among other nations, before the attack of the King of Babylon is found in Ezekiel 32:24.