Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about
This is directed to the Medes and Persians, to dispose of their army in proper places round about the city of Babylon, to besiege it; and to order their instruments of war, fit for that purpose, a convenient manner; since they might be sure of victory, the Lord being wroth with it, and having so severely threatened its ruin: all ye that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows;
the Elamites, or Persians, as before observed, were well skilled in archery; and, as Xenophon F17 reports, Cyrus had in his army, when he came to Babylon, a great number of archers and slingers; and the archers are called upon to draw the bow, who were expert at it, and not spare their arrows, since they would everyone do execution, as in ( Jeremiah 50:9 ) ; and the slingers to "cast [their stones] at her" F18, for so may be rendered; and thus it is interpreted, by Jarchi and by Kimchi, of casting either arrows or stones: for she hath sinned against the Lord;
which brought the wrath of God upon her; and chiefly the ill treatment of his people was the sin against him he resented.