Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 50:24

"I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against Jehovah." — Jeremiah 50:24 (ASV)

I have laid a snare for you. —The two captures of Babylon by Cyrus and Darius both answered to this description. Cyrus turned aside the waters of the Euphrates into another channel, and entered by the river-bed, so that the city was taken before those who lived in the middle of the city knew that it was attacked (Herod. i. 191). In the latter case the gates were opened to Darius by the treachery of the Babylonian general Zopyrus (Herod. iii. 158). (Isaiah 45:1.) In Jeremiah 51:31-32 we have the same fact more vividly described.