For thou hast made of a city an heap
Which is to be understood, not of Samaria, nor of Jerusalem;
rather of Babylon; though it is best to interpret it of the city
of Rome, as Jerom says the Jews do; though they generally explain
it of many cities, which shall be destroyed in the times of Gog
and Magog, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi; and so the Targum has it in
the plural number; perhaps not only the city of Rome, but all the
antichristian states, the cities of the nations, all within the
Romish jurisdiction are meant; which shall all fall by the
earthquake, sooner or later, and become a heap: [of] a
defenced city, a ruin;
or, "for a fall" F3; the same thing is meant as before:
it designs the fall of mystical Babylon or Rome, called the great
and mighty city, ( Revelation
18:2 Revelation
18:10 ) : a palace of strangers;
which Kimchi interprets of Babylon, which, he says, was a palace
to the cities of the Gentiles, who are called strangers; and it
is said, that that city was originally built for strangers, that
dwelt in tents, in Arabia Deserts; but it is best to understand
it of Rome, as before, which is the palace of such who are aliens
from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants
of promise, who have introduced a strange religion, and are the
worshippers of strange gods, ( Daniel 11:38
Daniel
11:39 ) . The Targum renders it,
``the house of the gods of the people in the city of Jerusalem;''and this will be made to be no city, it shall never be built;
any more, when once it is destroyed, signified by the angels casting a millstone into the sea, which shall never be taken up again, or found more, ( Revelation 18:21 ) .
F3 (hlpml) "in lapsum".