Jeremiah 50:9 - Exposition

I will raise; literally, I will stir up (or, awaken ) ; comp. Jeremiah 6:22 ; Isaiah 13:17 . An assembly of great nations. So in a parallel prophecy, "the kingdoms of nations gathered together" ( Isaiah 13:4 ). Callias in Ebers' learned story, 'The Egyptian Princess,' speaks of "an empire so casually heaped together, and consisting of seventy populations of different tongues and customs, as that of Persia." From thence; i.e. from the headquarters of the array of nations. As of a mighty expert man ; rather, as of an expert warrior (or, mighty man ) . The marginal rendering of the Authorized Version represents a various reading of the Hebrew found in three old editions, and presupposed in the Targum and Vulgate, "one making childless," i.e. "a destroyer." The received reading, however, is self-evidently right. None shall return in vain. It seems doubtful whether this refers to the arrow or to the mighty man. The arrow may be said to "return [or, 'turn'] in vain" when it misses its aim or strikes the mark without piercing it; the mighty man when he retires from the field defeated. This wider use of the phrase is sanctioned by Isaiah 55:11 .