(38) I will set my throne in Elam.--The throne of Jehovah is, it is clear, the throne of the king who is, for the time, His chosen instrument and servant, in this case therefore the throne of Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 43:10), against whom. Elam, like the other nations in Jeremiah 25:13-25, and in Jeremiah 48, 49, had apparently risen in rebellion. Of this we have, perhaps, a trace in the statement of Judith 1:1-13, that Nebuchadnezzar defeated Arphaxad, a king of Media, in the seventeenth year of his reign. The words find an historical fulfilment in the fact that Shushan, "in the province of Elam," became one of the royal residences of the Chaldaean kings (Daniel 8:2), and continued to be so under those of Persia, who, as regards the population of Elam proper, were as conquerors (Nehemiah 1:1; Esther 1:2). A like prediction of the fall of Elam, among other nations, before the attack of the King of Babylon is found in Ezekiel 32:24.
Verse 38. - I will set my throne; i.e. my tribunal (as Jeremiah 43:10). The king and the princes; rather, king and princes. The threat is not merely that the reigning king shall be dethroned, but that Elam shall lose its native rulers altogether.
49:34-39 The Elamites were the Persians; they acted against God's Israel, and must be reckoned with. Evil pursues sinners. God will make them know that he reigns. Yet the destruction of Elam shall not be for ever. But this promise was to have its full accomplishment in the days of the Messiah. In reading the Divine assurance of the destruction of all the enemies of the church, the believer sees that the issue of the holy war is not doubtful. It is blessed to recollect, that He who is for us, is more than all against us. And he will subdue the enemies of our souls.
And I will set my throne in Elam,.... Either when Alexander subdued it, or Cyrus, or rather Nebuchadnezzar, whose palace probably was, as it is certain his successors was, in Shushan in Elam, as before observed from Daniel 8:2. This is called the Lord's throne, because he gave it to him; his conquest of Elam, and his dominion over it, were from him:
and will destroy from thence the king and the princes, saith the Lord; so that there should be no more kings of Elam, and princes and nobles of their own, after this time; and because mention is made of the kings of Elam in the times of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah 25:25; though that is observed in the first year of his reign, some have thought that it is best to understand it or Cyrus, the Lord's servant and anointed; and whose throne might well be called the throne of God, which he gave him, and set him on in an eminent manner, not only there, but elsewhere; see Ezra 1:2; and when this country of Elam, or Elymais, became at part of the Persian empire, and never had any more kings to reign over it separately. Some of the Jewish Rabbins (b), as Kimchi observes, interpret the king and princes of Vashti of Haman and his sons; but very wrongly.
and will destroy from thence the king and the princes, saith the Lord; so that there should be no more kings of Elam, and princes and nobles of their own, after this time; and because mention is made of the kings of Elam in the times of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah 25:25; though that is observed in the first year of his reign, some have thought that it is best to understand it or Cyrus, the Lord's servant and anointed; and whose throne might well be called the throne of God, which he gave him, and set him on in an eminent manner, not only there, but elsewhere; see Ezra 1:2; and when this country of Elam, or Elymais, became at part of the Persian empire, and never had any more kings to reign over it separately. Some of the Jewish Rabbins (b), as Kimchi observes, interpret the king and princes of Vashti of Haman and his sons; but very wrongly.
(b) In T. Bab. Megillah, fol. 10. 2.