Jeremiah 51:13 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Babylon is said to dwell upon many waters, because upon the great river Euphrates, which they say did not only run by it, but almost encompass it, branching itself into many smaller rivers, which made several parts of the city islands. Abundant in treasures; it is a city much noted in Scripture for wealth, and made much more wealthy than it was by traffic by the conquest of many nations. Thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness: the prophet tells them that now their gathering time was over, there was now a boundary set to their covetousness; in the Hebrew it is, the cubit of thy covetousness, which is by our translators well translated a measure, because it was amongst the Jews the common measure of height and depth. The word by us translated covetousness, as Exodus 18:21, may either signify riches, the object of their covetousness, or prosperity, or that unlawful desire of having more, which is properly called covetousness, either because they should be destroyed utterly, or because they should prosper no more; there was no end put to the Babylonians lusts, but there was an end put to the satisfaction of their lusts.