Thus saith the LORD, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth.
A people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth.
The ancients were little acquainted with the north; therefore it is called the remotest regions (as the Hebrew [miyarkªteey] for "sides" ought to be translated, see note, Isaiah 14:13) of the earth. The Chaldees are meant (Jeremiah 1:15; Jeremiah 5:15). It is striking that the very same calamities (and from the same quarter, "from the north ... from the coasts of the earth") which the Chaldeans had inflicted on Zion are threatened as the retribution to be dealt in turn to themselves by Yahweh (Jeremiah 50:41-43. Like the Chaldeans themselves, the Persian avengers too are described as "holding the bow and the lance," and "cruel, not showing mercy, their voice roaring like the sea," and as "riding upon horses, every one put in array, like a man to the battle, against thee (not now, O daughter of Zion, but), O daughter of Babylon." God thus marks emphatically His retributive justice.