(29) And the land shall tremble and sorrow.--The verbs in the Hebrew are in the past tense, the prophet seeing, as it were, the very event which he portrays passing before him in his vision.
Verse 29. - Shall tremble and sorrow. The Hebrew has "trembled and sorrowed" (or, "quaked and writhed for pain"); and in the sequel, have stood (i.e. been ratified by the event, as Jeremiah 44:28). The prophet here, as so often, regards what is still future as past from the point of view of eternity.
51:1-58 The particulars of this prophecy are dispersed and interwoven, and the same things left and returned to again. Babylon is abundant in treasures, yet neither her waters nor her wealth shall secure her. Destruction comes when they did not think of it. Wherever we are, in the greatest depths, at the greatest distances, we are to remember the Lord our God; and in the times of the greatest fears and hopes, it is most needful to remember the Lord. The feeling excited by Babylon's fall is the same with the New Testament Babylon, Re 18:9,19. The ruin of all who support idolatry, infidelity, and superstition, is needful for the revival of true godliness; and the threatening prophecies of Scripture yield comfort in this view. The great seat of antichristian tyranny, idolatry, and superstition, the persecutor of true Christians, is as certainly doomed to destruction as ancient Babylon. Then will vast multitudes mourn for sin, and seek the Lord. Then will the lost sheep of the house of Israel be brought back to the fold of the good Shepherd, and stray no more. And the exact fulfilment of these ancient prophecies encourages us to faith in all the promises and prophecies of the sacred Scriptures.
And the land shall tremble and sorrow,.... The land of Chaldea, the inhabitants of it, should tremble, when they heard of this powerful army invading their land, and besieging their metropolis; and should sorrow, and be in pain as a woman in travail, as the word (f) signifies:
for every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon; or, "shall stand" (g); be certainly fulfilled; for his purposes are firm and not frustratable:
to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant; this the Lord purposed, and threatened to do; see Jeremiah 50:39.
(f) "et parturiet", Schmidt. So Ben Melech. (g) "stabit, vel stant", Schmidt.
for every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon; or, "shall stand" (g); be certainly fulfilled; for his purposes are firm and not frustratable:
to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant; this the Lord purposed, and threatened to do; see Jeremiah 50:39.
(f) "et parturiet", Schmidt. So Ben Melech. (g) "stabit, vel stant", Schmidt.