Jeremiah 51:42

42 Come up against Babylon hath the sea, With a multitude of its billows it hath been covered.

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 cause them to go down as lambs to slaughter, As rams with he-goats.

41 How hath Sheshach been captured, Yea, caught is the praise of the whole earth, How hath Babylon been for an astonishment among nations.

42 Come up against Babylon hath the sea, With a multitude of its billows it hath been covered.

43 Its cities have been for a desolation, A dry land, and a wilderness, A land -- none doth dwell in them, Nor pass over into them doth a son of man.

44 And I have seen after Bel in Babylon, And I have brought forth that which he swallowed -- from his mouth, And flow no more unto him do nations, Also the wall of Babylon hath fallen.