Set up the standard toward Zion,.... Not on the tower of Zion, as Kimchi interprets it; but on some high place, pointing to Zion, and directing the country people to flee thither for safety; for the setting up of the standard here is not for enlisting of soldiers in order to fight, but as a sign of danger, and a direction where to flee from it:
retire; gather yourselves together in order to flee, as the word p is rendered in Isaiah 10:31, though some render it, "be ye strengthened" q; take heart, and play the man; but this does not seem so agreeable to the context:
stay not; or, "stand not"; stand not in the place ye are in, but move from it in all haste, because of present danger:
for I will bring evil from the north; from Babylon, as Kimchi interprets it; which lay north to the land of Israel; and so designs the captivity Judah should be brought into there:
and a great destruction or, "breach" r; which the Babylonians should make on the inhabitants of Judea and Jerusalem.
p העיזו "congregate vos, [sub.] ad fugiendum", Vatablus; "confirmate vos [ad fugiendum]", Piscator. q "Confortamini", V. L. "corroboramiui", Castalio; "agite viriliter", Munster. r שבר "contritionem", Junius Tremellius, Piscator "confractionem", Cocceius.