Jeremiah 51:42

42 The sea has risen over Babylon; she has been covered by its tumultuous waves.

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 bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and goats.

41 How Sheshach is taken, the pride of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!

42 The sea has risen over Babylon; she has been covered by its tumultuous waves.

43 Her cities have become an object of horror, a land of drought and a desert, a land in which no one lives, and through which no mortal passes.

44 I will punish Bel in Babylon, and make him disgorge what he has swallowed. The nations shall no longer stream to him; the wall of Babylon has fallen.