Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.
Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth - Hebrew, shaachar (H7836), the dawn thereof; i:e., its first rising. Evil shall come on thee without the least previous intimation (Rosenmuller). But dawn is not applied to "evil," but to prosperity shining out after misery (Isaiah 21:12). Translate, 'Thou shalt not see any dawn' (of alleviation) (Maurer). But there seems to be a mockery of Babylon, whose astrologers prided themselves on being able to divine the approach of evil and of good days: 'Thou who boastest that thou canst tell the advent of all days, shalt not foresee the day of thy destruction' (Grotius).
Thou shalt not be able to put it off - rather, as margin, 'thou shalt not be able to remove it by expiation,' as one is delivered from sin and its penalty by expiation. Hebrew, Kophrah: cf. Isaiah 47:3, note; Isaiah 13:17: it shall be never ending.
Thou shalt not know from whence it riseth - unawares; which thou dost not apprehend. Proving the fallacy of thy divinations and astrology (Job 9:5; Psalms 35:8).