A sword [is] upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord
Or, "shall be" F11 or, "O sword, [be thou] on the Chaldeans" F12; that is, the sword of the Medes and Persians; those that kill with the sword, as the Targum; in the mystic sense, the Christian princes that shall draw the sword against the antichristian states: and upon the inhabitants of Babylon;
the metropolis of Chaldea; the common people in it, as distinguished from those of high rank and degree following: and upon her princes;
Belshazzar and his nobles, who were slain the night Babylon was taken: and upon her wise [men];
prime ministers, politicians, and counsellors of state; neither high birth nor great wisdom can secure from the sword of the enemy, when it has a commission from God, as it had here.