Jeremiah 51:42

42 The sea is come up over Babylon:she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

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, and like rams with kids.

41 How is Sesach taken, and the renowned one of all the earth surprised? How is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations?

42 The sea is come up over Babylon:she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

43 Her cities are become an astonishment, a land uninhabited and desolate, a land wherein none can dwell, nor son of man pass through it.

44 And I will visit against Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he had swallowed down: and the nations shall no more flow together to him, for the wall also of Babylon shall fall.