Verse 20
"And all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon; and all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the isle which is beyond the sea; Dedan and Tema, and Buz, and all that have the corners of their hair cut off; and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the wilderness; and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes; and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth; and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them."
Jeremiah 25:26 leaves no doubt that every nation under the sun of heaven was included in this promise of the punitive judgment of God.
"And the king of Sheshach shall drink after them ..." (Jeremiah 25:26). Sheshach here stands for Babylon, indicating that the judgment of Babylon will come chronologically after the judgment of the other nations, the reason for that being that Babylon would be the instrument of punishment to the others before the punishment was executed upon themselves.
Sheshach in this passage is identified as an Atbasch, a form of writing in which the last letter of the alphabet is used for the first, and the letter next to the last is used for the second, etc. Here the word stands for Babylon.[11]
It is surprising that the singular word "isle" is used instead of the plural in Jeremiah 25:22. "The word means any coastland; but as it is here distinguished from Tyre and Sidon, it probably refers to Cyprus.[12]
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