The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land.
He does not narrate the event, but graphically supposes himself a watchman in Babylon, beholding the events as they pass.
The burden of the desert of the sea - The champaign between Babylon and Persia. It was once a desert, and it was to become so again.
Of the sea. The plain was covered with the water of the Euphrates, like a "sea" (Jeremiah 51:13; Jeremiah 51:36: so Isaiah 19:5, "the (Egyptian) sea" - the Nile), until Semiramis raised great dams against it. Cyrus removed these dykes, and so converted the whole country again into a vast desert-marsh.
As whirlwinds in the south - (Job 37:9; Zechariah 9:14.) The south wind comes upon Babylon from the deserts of Arabia, and its violence is the greater from its course being unbroken along the plain (Job 1:19, "a great wind from the wilderness").
(So) it cometh from the desert - the plain between Babylon and Persia. From a terrible land - Media, to guard against which was the object of Nitocris' great works (Herodotus, 1:
185). Compare as to "terrible" applied to a wilderness, as being full of unknown dangers, Deuteronomy 1:19.