And I will bring you into the wilderness of the
people
Into Babylon, and into captivity there, which they thought to
avoid by fleeing to other countries. Some think that those
inhospitable nations are meant, Syro-media, Caspia, Hyrcania,
Iberia, and others, into which many of the Jews were brought, who
sought to live elsewhere than at Babylon; and others are of
opinion that this respects the time of their return from Babylon
to their own land, between which lay a wilderness, here referred
to; but perhaps the prophecy respects the present state of the
Jews, in which they have continued ever since their destruction
by the Romans; through whom they have been brought among the
several nations of the world, particularly the Roman empire,
compared to a wilderness; and represented as a populous one, as
it is, and in which the beast, or antichrist, now is; see (
Revelation 17:3 ) and
there will I plead with you face to face; judge, condemn, and
take vengeance, or inflict punishment on them in the most public
manner, as he now does. The Targum is, "and I will take vengeance
on you face to face".