For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs.
For, lo, I raise up - not referring to God's having brought the Chaldeans from their original seats to Babylonia (note, Isaiah 23:13); for they had already been upwards of twenty years (namely, ever since Nabopolassar's era) in political power there; but to His being about now to raise them up as the instruments of God's "work" of judgment on the Jews (2 Chronicles 36:6, "Against him (Jehoiakim) came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon"). The Hebrew х meeqiym (H6965)] is future, 'I will raise up.'
The Chaldeans, that bitter - i:e., cruel (Jeremiah 50:42, "A great nation, and many kings shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth: they shall hold the bow and the lance: they are cruel, and will not show mercy," etc.; cf. margin, Judges 18:25, "angry," bitter of soul; 2 Samuel 17:8, "chafed in their minds," bitter of soul).
And hasty - not passionate, but 'impetuous.'