Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations.
Ver. 9. Behold, I will send and take.] By a secret instinct. as Jer 1:15
And Nebuchadnezzar my servant,] i.e., Mine executioner, the rod of my wrath, Isa 10:5 and the scourge of the world, as Attila styled himself.
And against all these nations round about.] Who were so infatuated that they did not combine against Nebuchadnezzar, whom the Septuagint called a dove, Jeremiah 25:38, but he was a vulture rather, and these nations were as so many silly doves, which save themselves by flight, not fight; and sitting in their dove cots, see their nests destroyed, and their young ones killed before their eyes, never offering to rescue or revenge, as other fowls do. So dealt the old Britons when invaded by the Romans; they joined not their forces against the common enemy, sed dum singuli pugnabant, universi vincebantur. but while the fought separately, they were conquered together. a
a Tacitus