Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy
These are the words of the prophet, or of the Lord by the prophet, to the Chaldeans, ordering them to ascend the walls of Jerusalem, and break them down, as they did, even all the walls of it round about, ( Jeremiah 52:7 Jeremiah 52:14 ) , there can be nothing done without the Lord's will; and there is no evil in a city but what is done, or ordered, or suffered to be done by him, ( Amos 3:6 ) : but make not a full end;
meaning not of the walls, for a full end was made of them, they were broken down all around; but of the people; there were a remnant to be preserved from the sword, and to be carried captive, and to be returned into their own land again, after a term of years: take away her battlements;
which must mean not the battlements of their houses, or of the temple; but of their walls, the fortifications that run out like branches without the wall F23. Kimchi interprets them the teeth of the wall; the Septuagint version renders the word, "the under props"; and the Syriac and Arabic versions, "the foundations of it". The word properly signifies the branches of a vine; wherefore Jarchi takes the word for walls, in the preceding clause, to signify the rows of a vineyard; and the Jews are sometimes compared to a vineyard; and here the Chaldeans are called upon to enter into it, to come upon the rows of the vines in it, and take away its branches: for they are not the Lord's;
either the walls and the battlements are not the Lord's, he disowns them, and will not guard them, and protect them, any more; or rather the people are not the Lord's, he has written a "loammi" upon them; they are not the people of God, nor the branches of Christ the true Vine. The Septuagint, Syriac and Arabic versions, read the words without the negative, "leave her under props", or "her foundations, because they are the Lord's". The Targum is,
``go upon her cities, and destroy, and make not a full end; destroy her palaces, for the Lord has no pleasure in them.''