Jeremias 51:30-32

The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight: they have remained, &c. “The year before the siege of Babylon, Cyrus overthrew Belshazzar in battle, whereupon his army retreated within the walls, where they were shut up by him and besieged. Afterward, when Cyrus entered the city, he ordered public proclamation to be made, that all persons should keep within their houses, and whoever was found abroad should be put to death; and threatened to set their houses on fire, if any offered to hurt the soldiers from the tops of their houses.” They became as women Timorous, and without courage. They have burned their dwelling-places The enemy have burned their houses. Her bars are broken All her fortresses, and what she confided in as her chief defence against the enemy. One post shall run to meet another Messengers shall run from different parts, and so fall in with one another, all carrying the same intelligence to the same person, that the city was taken on the part every one came from.

This is a very natural description of what may be supposed to happen on a city being taken by surprise in the middle of the night; for, as fast as the alarm spread, people would be posting away with the news from all parts to the head-quarters. The translation of the last clause, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end, is not accurate: the word מקצה does not mean at one end, for one is not in the text, but at the extremity. It may not be improper to observe further here, that though it seems unusual to say that one messenger runs to meet another, to acquaint any one with the same news, the usual expression in such a case being, that one messenger follows upon the heels of another; yet, in this matter, this unusual way of speaking was exactly descriptive of the fact; for Babylon being taken by a party of soldiers entering by the channel of the Euphrates at each extremity of the city, the messengers who carried the news to the king at his palace would actually run toward and meet each other at or near the palace, as they came from opposite quarters, to acquaint him that his city was taken at the extremities; for we cannot but suppose that people would run from each end of the city to the palace as soon as Cyrus's men entered.

The passage in the original has great beauty and sublimity, which, however, is almost lost in our translation. Houbigant seems to give it its due force, rendering the verbs in the present tense, and omitting the connecting particles, which greatly augments its energy, thus: “Courier comes to meet courier messenger meets messenger to inform the king of Babylon that his city is taken at the extremity, that the passages are stopped, [or surprised, see Jeremias 51:41,] that fires are burning among the reeds, that the men of war are terrified.” The passages here mentioned “were most probably the entrances into the city from the river side, which were secured by gates that ought, as Herodotus observes, to have been fast barred, which, if it had been done, would have effectually frustrated the attempt of the enemy; but being left open and unguarded, on account of the public festivity, the assailants were in possession of those entrances, and in the heart of the city, before the besieged were aware of it.” The word אגמים, here rendered reeds, properly signifies marshes or lakes; and the phrase here seems to import, that the enemies had burned up all the outworks belonging to the marshy grounds about the river Euphrates. Lowth.