50:8-20 The desolation that shall be brought upon Babylon is set forth in a variety of expressions. The cause of this destruction is the wrath of the Lord. Babylon shall be wholly desolated; for she hath sinned against the Lord. Sin makes men a mark for the arrows of God's judgments. The mercy promised to the Israel of God, shall not only accompany, but arise from the destruction of Babylon. These sheep shall be gathered from the deserts, and put again into good pasture. All who return to God and their duty, shall find satisfaction of soul in so doing. Deliverances out of trouble are comforts indeed, when fruits of the forgiveness of sin.

Verses 11-20. - Babylon's desolation and Israel's glorification. Verses 11, 12. - Because ye were glad, etc.; rather, Truly ye may be glad; truly ye may rejoice, ye spoilers of mine heritage; truly ye may leap as a heifer at grass, and neigh as steeds; yet your mother, etc. Your triumph shall be of short duration; disgrace follows closely upon its heels. "Your mother" is a term for the nation regarded as a whole (comp. Isaiah 51:1; Hosea 2:2; Hosea 4:5). "At grass" is the reading adopted by the Septuagint and Vulgate; the pointed text has (the vowels alone are different), "(a heifer) that thresheth," i.e. allowed to eat its fill of corn, agreeably to the direction in Deuteronomy 25:4. It is not clear why the Authorized Version deserted the received pointing. Behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness; rather, Behold, the hindermost of the nations! a wilderness, etc. The subject understood in the first part is obviously the people, in the second the land, of Babylon.

Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of mine heritage,.... This is addressed to the Chaldeans who destroyed Jerusalem and the land of Judea, once the heritage of the Lord; when they rejoiced at the destruction of God's people, and insulted them in their miseries; and which is the cause and reason assigned of their ruin; for though they had a commission to destroy, yet they exceeded that, and especially by exulting at the ruin of that people, which showed great inhumanity. So the Papists will rejoice at the slaying of the witnesses, but will be repaid in their own coin, Revelation 11:10;

because ye are grown fat as the heifer at grass: which feeds all the day, and so grows fat. Some copies read, "as the heifer that treads out" (k) the corn; which, according to the law, was not to be muzzled, and so was continually feeding, and grew plump and sleek; and so these Chaldeans, having enriched themselves with the spoils of Judea and other nations, gave themselves up to ease and luxury; and it was at one of their festivals their city was taken, to which there may be some allusion:

and bellow as bulls: or, "neigh as horses" (l); having got the victory, of which war horses are sensible; or it may denote their impetuous lust after women, whom they forced and ravished, when taken captives by them.

(k) "sicut vitula exterens", Tigurine version; "triturans", Cocceius, De Dieu. (l) "hinnistis sicut fortes (equi)", Munster, Vatablus, Piscator, Schmidt; "ut caballi", Cocceius.

11. (Isa 47:6).

grown fat—and so, skip wantonly.

at grass—fat and frisky. But there is a disagreement of gender in Hebrew reading thus. The Keri is better: "a heifer threshing"; the strongest were used for threshing, and as the law did not allow their mouth to be muzzled in threshing (De 25:4), they waxed wanton with eating.

bellow as bulls—rather, "neigh as steeds," literally, "strong ones," a poetical expression for steeds (see on [994]Jer 8:16) [Maurer].

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