A sword [is] upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord,.... Or, "shall be" k or, "O sword, [be thou] on the Chaldeans" l; that is, the sword of the Medes and Persians; those that kill with the sword, as the Targum; in the mystic sense, the Christian princes that shall draw the sword against the antichristian states:
and upon the inhabitants of Babylon; the metropolis of Chaldea; the common people in it, as distinguished from those of high rank and degree following:
and upon her princes; Belshazzar and his nobles, who were slain the night Babylon was taken:
and upon her wise [men]; prime ministers, politicians, and counsellors of state; neither high birth nor great wisdom can secure from the sword of the enemy, when it has a commission from God, as it had here.
k "Erit", Abarbinel; "irruet", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. l חרב על כשדים "gladie, super Chaldaeos, scil. veni, ades", Schmidt.