They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.
They shall come all for violence - the sole object of all is, not to establish just rights, but to get all they can by violence.
Their faces shall sup up as the east wind - i:e., they shall, as it were, swallow up all before them; so the horse, in Job 39:24, is said to "swallow the ground with fierceness and rage" [from gamaa', to swallow up]. Maurer takes the Hebrew х mªgamat (H4041)] from an Arabic root, 'the desire of their faces' - i:e., the eager desire expressed by their faces. Henderson, with Symmachus and the Syriac, translates, 'the aspect,' from an Arabic root, 'that which appears externally of anything.' Gesenius and Ludovicus de Dieu take it from the root [gamam] akin to the Arabic for multitude: 'their multitude of faces.'
As the east wind - the Simoom, which spreads devastation wherever it passes (Isaiah 27:8, "He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind"). Gesenius translates [qariymaah], '(is) forwards.' The rendering proposed, Eastward, as if it referred to the Chaldeans' return home Eastward from Judea, laden with spoils, is improbable. Their "gathering the sand" accords with the Simoom being meant, as it carries with it whirlwinds of sand collected in the desert. The parallelism seems to me best sustained throughout by the English version. Though the Hebrew is more commonly used in the sense Eastward; yet the Hebrew letter appended [he (-h)] does not always mean direction toward, but is a more expanded form of the simple word х qaadiym (H6921)], east wind.