Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 25:9

"behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith Jehovah, and [I will send] unto Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations." — Jeremiah 25:9 (ASV)

The families of the north. —The phrase reminds us of the vision of “the seething pot from the face of the north” in Jeremiah 1:13, and includes all the mingled races, Scythians and others, who acknowledged the dominion of the Chaldean king.

Nebuchadrezzar ... my servant. —The use of the word which is applied by psalmists and prophets to David (Psalms 78:70; 2 Samuel 7:8) and to the future Christ (Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 52:13) is in every way remarkable. It has its parallel, and, in fact, its explanation, in the language in which Isaiah speaks of Cyrus as the shepherd, the anointed, of Jehovah (Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1). Each ruler of the great empires of the world was, in ways he did not know, working out the purposes of God.

The phrase “I will utterly destroy” may be noted as especially characteristic of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 2:34; Deuteronomy 3:6, and other passages) and Joshua (Joshua 2:10; Joshua 6:21; Joshua 8:26).