49. The Lord shall bring a nation against them from far. He enforces the same threatenings in different words, viz., that unknown and barbarous enemies should come, who shall attack them with great impetuosity and violence. And still further to aggravate their cruelty, He says that their language shall be a strange one; for, when there can be no oral communication, there is no room for entreaties, which sometimes awaken the most savage to mercy. But Jeremiah shews that this was fulfilled in the case of the Chaldeans;
“Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel; it is a mighty nation, a nation whose language thou howest not, neither understandest what they say.” (Jeremiah 5:15.)
On the other hand, when Isaiah promises them deliverance, he mentions this among the chief of their blessings, that the Jews should “not see a fierce people,” that they should not hear
“a people of deeper speech than they could perceive, of a stammering tongue (248) that they could not understand.” (Isaiah 33:19.)
For, as I have elsewhere said, the Prophets were careful to take their form of expression from Moses, lest the Jews should, according to their custom, proudly despise the threats which God had interwoven with His Law.
Lest the distance of their countries should lull them into security, He says that they should be like eagles in swiftness, so as suddenly to overwhelm them, just as God often compares the ministers of His wrath to the whirlwind and the storm. Jeremiah has also imitated this similitude, where he declares that the slaughter which the Jews in their false imagination had supposed to be far away from them, should come suddenly upon them. (Jeremiah 4:13.)
Moses adds, that this nation shall be “strong of face, (249) which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favor to the young,” whereby he signifies their extreme ferocity. I have already expounded what follows respecting their rapine and plunder.
(248) “Cui lingua stridet absque intelligentia.” — Lat. “Lesquels grondent sans intelligence.” — Fr.
(249) See margin, A. V.