Thus shall they be unto thee, &c.— Thus shall they serve thee, upon whom thou hast spent thy pains; thy negociators, with whom thou hast dealt from thy youth. See Bishop Lowth's translation. See also Isaiah 47:12. They shall wander every one to his quarter, means, "They shall wander, by whatever ways they can, to the extreme boundaries of thy empire, to save themselves from the general calamity."
REFLECTIONS.—1st, Babylon had long sat as a queen, and seen her captives prostrate at her feet, a virgin kingdom, whom no conqueror had yet subdued; but now her doom is read: into the dust she must fall low; no more her monarchs grace the throne, seized by the Persian king; no more rioting in luxury and delicacies, her miserable inhabitants are reduced to the lowest drudgery, to grind at the mill, or driven in herds as captives before their lordly masters, stripped naked without compassion or humanity; for the vengeance is from God; and he, as Israel's Redeemer, now returns the cruelty they had shown his people. The noise which once resounded in the streets of Babylon is silenced: and in darkness, whither they retired, or in their prison-houses, in vain they lamented the loss of their kingdom, which should be no more restored: Note; (1.) They who abuse their power, and walk in pride, God delights to abase. (2.) It is well to be inured to hardship; those who are most delicately brought up, will feel every reverse of station with deeper anguish. (3.) When God visits in vengeance, the sinner may expect judgment without mercy.
2nd, All God's dealings are according to the strictest equity; if Babylon suffer, her sins have given abundant provocation. We have,
1. The black catalogue of her crimes.
[1.] Cruelty to God's people, God was wroth with his people, and meant to visit their iniquities with the scourge, and therefore gave them into the hands of the Chaldeans; but they unmercifully chastised them with scorpions, paying no regard to age or station; but on the ancients, whose hoary locks, or honours, should have pleaded for compassion, making their yoke heavy. Note; They who cruelly oppress God's people, however they may triumph for a moment, will find a day of awful reckoning at hand.
[2.] Pride and security. Because her monarchy seemed established, she promised herself that her throne should be coeval with the days of time; and neither regarding her sins nor warned by the threatnings denounced against her, sat secure in her own sufficiency, and despised her enemies. Note; They who are most self-confident and secure, are nearest the precipice of ruin.
[3.] Love of ease and pleasure: Given up to the indulgence of sensual appetite, and confident that every day should return fraught with mirth and jollity, and no sorrow interrupt the jocund hours.
[4.] Detestable sorceries, and magical arts, in which from their youth they were trained up, and wherein they placed their chief dependance: and all these are sins, which are remarked as found in Babylon mystical, and will be the causes of her destruction, Revelation 7:17 to Revelation 18:4.
2. The doom of Babylon is read. She trusted in her wisdom, policy, wealth, and wickedness; but deceived herself, as sinners usually do: her boasts can issue only in her confusion. Vain is her confidence; in one day the evils from which she thought herself so secured, shall overtake her, her king and nobles be slain, her people captives. So sudden and terrible the destruction, she could neither foresee nor avert it. Fruitless would be every attempt of her astrologers and diviners; wearied with disappointment, despair should seize her, when all the counsels of her magicians failed, and ruin approached. Her wise men, so far from delivering their country, should be unable to save themselves, utterly consumed by the Divine Judgment, as fuel reduced to dust by the flames. Her merchants, either those astrologers who had enriched themselves by their pretensions to science, or rather those who traded to Babylon, shall flee to secure themselves, every one to his quarter, or passage, glad to desert the devoted city, and eager to save themselves in their own land, from the impending danger. See Revelation 18:15. Note; (1.) Sinners are strangely apt to promise themselves secrecy and impunity, and this hardens their hearts against the Divine admonitions. (2.) The dangers, of which the proud and secure were least apprehensive, often suddenly surprise them; and too late, to their astonishment, they discover the ruin which they cannot escape. (3.) The greatest monarch sits on a tottering throne, when wickedness loosens the pillars of it. (4.) Wisdom and wealth are no defence against the judgments of God. (5.) They who are the instruments of deceiving others, shall themselves feel the heaviest strokes of vengeance.