Thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold, evil shall go forth
from nation to nation
Begin in one nation, and then go on to another; first in Judea, and then in Egypt; and so on, like a catching distemper, or like fire that first consumes one house, and then another; and thus shall the cup go round from nation to nation, before prophesied of: thus, beginning at Judea, one nation after another was destroyed by the king of Babylon; then he and his monarchy were destroyed by the Medes and Persians; and then they by the Macedonians; and then the Greeks by the Romans; and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth;
or "from the sides of [it]" F20; that is, "from the ends of [it]"; as the Targum, which paraphrases it,
``and many people shall come openly from the ends of the earth;''this was first verified in the Chaldean army under Nebuchadnezzar, compared to a whirlwind, ( Jeremiah 4:13 ) ; and then in the Medes and Persians under Cyrus; and after that in the Greeks under Alexander; the great and last of all in the Romans under Titus Vespasian.