Jeremiah 51:42

42 What a horrifying sight Babylon will be to the nations! The sea will rise over Babylon, and its roaring waves will cover it.

Jeremiah 51:42 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 51:42

The sea is come up upon Babylon
A vast army, comparable to the great sea for the multitude thereof, even the army of the Medes and Persians under Cyrus; so the Targum,

``a king with his armies, which are numerous like the waters of the sea, is come up against Babylon:''

she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof;
being surrounded, besieged, surprised, and seized upon by the multitude of soldiers in that army, which poured in upon it unawares. Some think here is a beautiful antithesis, between the inundation of Cyrus's army and the draining of the river Euphrates, by which means he poured in his forces into Babylon.

Jeremiah 51:42 In-Context

40 I will take them to be slaughtered like lambs, rams, and male goats.

41 "Sheshach has been captured. Babylon, the city that the whole world praised, has been taken captive.

42 What a horrifying sight Babylon will be to the nations! The sea will rise over Babylon, and its roaring waves will cover it.

43 Its cities will be ruined. It will become a desert, a land where no one lives and where no human travels.

44 I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make Bel spit out everything that it has swallowed. Nations will no longer stream to Babylon, and its walls will fall.