to be (causatively · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
nations
גוֹיִם֙go.Yim
H1471
a foreign nation · noun, common masculine plural absolute
kings
מַלְכֵ֣יmal.Khei
H4428
a king · noun, common masculine plural construct
Medes
מָדַ֔יma.Dai
H4074
Madai · proper noun, a place name
captains
פַּחוֹתֶ֖יהָpa.cho.Tei.ha
H6346
a prefect (of a city or small district) · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
rulers
סְגָנֶ֑יהָse.ga.Nei.ha
H5461
a prefect of a province · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
land
אֶ֥רֶץ'E.retz
H776
the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular construct
dominion
מֶמְשַׁלְתּֽוֹmem.shal.To
H4475
rule · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 51:11 Make bright the arrows; gather the shields: the LORD hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: for his device is against Babylon,…
Jeremiah 25:25 And all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes,
Genesis 10:2 The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.
1 Chronicles 1:5 The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.
Esther 1:3 In the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes…
Esther 10:2 And all the acts of his power and of his might, and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai, whereunto the king advanced him, are they…
Isaiah 13:17 Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it.
Isaiah 21:2 A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Med…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 51:1-58
The particulars of this copious prophecy are dispersed and interwoven, and the same things left and returned to so often that it could not well be divided into parts, but we must endeavor to collect them under their proper heads. Let us then observe here,
I. An acknowledgment of the great pomp and power that Babylon had been in and the use that God in his providence had made of it (Jer 51:7): Babylon hath been a golden cup, a rich and glorious empire, a golden city (Isa 14:4), a head of gold (Dan 2:38), filled with all good things, as a cup with wine. Nay, she had been a golden cup in the Lord's hand; he had in a particular manner filled and favoured her with blessings; he had made the earth…
kings of . . . Medes-- (Jer 51:11). The satraps and tributary kings under Darius, or Cyaxares.
his dominion--the king of Media's dominion.
land shall tremble . . . every purpose of . . . Lord shall be performed--elegant antithesis between the trembling of the land or earth, and the stability of "every purpose of the Lord" (compare Psa 46:1-3).
John Gill on Jeremiah 51:28
Prepare against her the nations, with the kings of the Medes,.... At the head of them, Darius and Cyrus. The Syriac version has it in the singular number, the king of the Modes:
the captains thereof, and all the rulers thereof, and all the land of his dominions; that is, the inhabitants of it, the common people, with their princes, nobles, governors, as captains of them, under Cyrus, their generalissimo.
John Calvin on Jeremiah 51:28
Jeremiah 51:28
28. Prepare against her the nations with the kings of the Medes, the captains thereof, and all the rulers thereof, and all the land of his dominion.
28. Praeparate contra eam gentes, regna Medorum, duces ejus, et principes ejus, et totam terram ditionis ejus.
He now repeats what he had said of preparing the nations; but he mentions them first generally, and then he comes to specify them particularly. He then bids the nations to be sent for, and then he shows who they were, even the kingdoms of the Medes [91] There was, indeed, but one kingdom, but many kings were subject to it. Then, on account of the many provinces over which satraps ruled, and also on account of many trib…
The Church Fathers
[Daniel 5:30-31] "On that same night Belshazzar, King of the Chaldeans, was slain, and Darius the Mede succeeded to his kingdom at the age of sixty-two." Josephus writes in his tenth book of the Jewish Antiquities that when Babylon had been laid under siege by the Medes and Persians, that is, by Darius and Cyrus, Belshazzar, King of Babylon, fell into such forgetfulness of his own situation as to put on his celebrated banquet and drink from the vessels of the Temple, and even while he was besieged he found leisure for banqueting. From this circumstance the historical account could arise, that he was captured and slaughtered on the same night, while everyone was either terrified by fear of the vision and its interpretation, or else taken up with festivity and drunken banqueting. As for the fact that while Cyrus, King of the Persians, was the victor, and Darius was only King of the Medes, it was Darius who was recorded to have succeeded to the throne of Babylon, this was an arrangement occasioned by factors of age, family relationship, and the territory ruled over. By this I mean that Darius was sixty-two years old, and that, according to what we read, the kingdom of the Medes was more sizable than that of the Persians, and being Cyrus's uncle, he naturally had a prior claim, and ought to have been accounted as successor to the rule of Babylon. Therefore also in a vision of Isaiah which was recited against Babylon, after many other matters too lengthy to mention, an account is given of these things which are to take place: "Behold I Myself will rouse up against them the Medes, a people who do not seek after silver nor desire gold, but who slay the very children with their arrows and have no compassion upon women who suckle their young" (Isaiah 13:17-18). And Jeremiah says: "Sanctify nations against her, even the kings of Media, and the governors thereof and all the magistrates thereof and all the land under the power thereof" (Jeremiah 51:28). Then follow the words: "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor during the time of its treading; yet a little while, and the time of its harvesting will come" (Jeremiah 51:33). And in testimony of the fact that Babylon was captured during a banquet, Isaiah clearly exhorts her to battle when he writes: "Babylon, my beloved, has become a strange spectacle unto me: set thou the table and behold in the mirrors…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Governor — (1.) Heb. nagid, a prominent, conspicuous person, whatever his capacity: as, chief of the royal palace (2 Chr. 28:7; comp. 1 Kings 4:6), chief of the temple (1 Chr. 9:11; Jer. 20:1), the leader of…
Medes, Media — (middle land). Media lay northwest of Persia proper, south and southwest of the Caspian Sea, east of Armenia and Assyria, west and northwest of the great salt desert of Iran. Its greatest length was…
Media — Heb. Madai, which is rendered in the Authorized Version (1) “Madai,” Gen. 10:2; (2) “Medes,” 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11; (3) “Media,” Esther 1:3; 10:2; Isa. 21:2; Dan. 8:20; (4) “Mede,” only in Dan. 11:1.…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
A summons addressed to the nations to fight against Babylon, in order that, by reducing the city, vengeance may be taken for the offence committed against Israel by Babylon. Jer 51:27. "Lift up a standard on the earth, sound a trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz against her; appoint troops against her; bring up horses lie horrid locusts. Jer 51:28. Prepare nations against her, the kings of the Medes and her governors, and all her lieutenant-governors, and all the land of his dominion. Jer 51:29. Then the earth quakes and trembles: for the purposes of Jahveh against Babylon are being performed, to make the land of Babylo…
Ararat was the mountainous region north of Babylon. • Ashkenaz was Noah’s great-grandson through Japheth and Gomer (Gen 10:2-3); his descendants probably lived in Ararat, as did the people of Minni, who are otherwise unknown.
Rashi on Jeremiah 51:27
prepare Heb. קַדְשוֹ.
a marshal Heb. טפסר, an expression of an army [or an expression of a lord].
bristling Heb. סמר. (Herisse in French), covered with spikes. Cf. “It made the hair of my flesh stand up like spikes (תְּסַּמֵר)” (Job 4:15).
