Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary.
The broad walls of Babylon - 87 feet wide (Rosenmuller); 50 cubits (Grotius). A chariot of 4 horses abreast could meet another on it without collision. The walls were 200 cubits high, and 485 stadia, or 60 miles, in extent.
Her high gates - 100 in number, made of brass; 25 on each of the 4 sides, the city being square; between the gates were 250 towers. Berosus says triple walls encompassed the outer, and the same number the inner city. Cyrus caused the outer walls to be demolished. Taking the extent of the walls to be 365 stadia, as Diodorus states, it is said 200,000 men completed a stadium each day, so that the whole was completed in one year.
The people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary. The event will show that the builders of the walls have 'laboured' only for the "fire" in which they shall be consumed. "In the fire" answers to the parallel, "burnt with fire." Translate, 'shall have laboured in vain,' etc. Compare Job 3:14, "Kings and counselors of the earth built desolate places for themselves" - i:e., grand places, soon about to be desolate ruins. Jeremiah has in view here Habakkuk 2:13.