Judgment Coming On Kedar and Hazor At The Hands Of Nebuchadrezzar (Jeremiah 49:28-33).
In this case it is made plain who the assailants are to be, Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon. It is therefore noteworthy that Nebuchadrezzar is portrayed as operating under God's instructions in smiting Kedar and Hazor. Kedar were eponymously descended from Ishmael (Genesis 25:13; 1 Chronicles 1:29), but the large majority of the tribes would not be direct descendants, but descended from peoples who had united themselves with Ishmael's descendants. Descendants of Kedar, Ishmael's son, would have joined up with other nomadic peoples to form one ‘nation', divided up into various tribes roaming the Syro-Arabian desert. The claim by Arabs that they are direct descendants of Ishmael are as false as claims by most Jews to be direct descendants of Abraham.
The term Kedar probably meaning ‘black' and describes nomadic tribesfolk of the Syro-Arabian desert, covering an area stretching from southern Arabia to Mesopotamia. (Some tribes were, for example, present in southern Babylonia in 8th century BC). Isaiah prophesies their downfall (Isaiah 21:16-17). They lived in simple encampments made up of black tents (Isaiah 42:11; Song of Solomon 1:5; Psalms 120:5), and kept large flocks (Isaiah 60:17), growing very wealthy. We know from external sources that they clashed with Ashurbanipal and the Assyrians in 7th century BC, and were later attacked by Nebuchadrezzar and the Babylonians in 599 BC, as described here, partly due to their activities and partly due to their wealth. They discovered that their desert wastes did not give them the immunity they hoped for. They preferred descending on peoples from the desert in order to obtain spoils, rather than peoples descending on them. An example of this is found in Judges 6 where the invaders included ‘the people of the east' (Judges 6:3). Hazor were a parallel group of semi-nomadic peoples in the Arabian desert (and is not to be confused with the Canaanite city of Hazor). Their ‘cities' and ‘villages' were probably oasis encampments.
But as well as their depredations against His people, no doubt increased at the times of Israel/Judah's discomfort at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians, YHWH also has in mind that these ‘people of the east' have turned from the worship of the one true God of Ishmael, and have become idolaters, something revealed by their ‘cutting off' of the corners of their hair.
‘Of Kedar, and of the kingships of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote.'
Once more the heading reveals the identity of those being prophesied against.