Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 50:9

"For, lo, I will stir up and cause to come up against Babylon a company of great nations from the north country; and they shall set themselves in array against her; from thence she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of an expert mighty man; none shall return in vain." — Jeremiah 50:9 (ASV)

An assembly of great nations from the north country. —Like all the great monarchies of the East, the Medo-Persian kingdom, which was to be the destroyer of Babylon, was made up of a collection of many different races. Herodotus (vii. 61-69), in his account of the army of Xerxes, names twenty-two, from the Medes and Persians at the head of the list to the Arabians and Ethiopians at its close.

From thence she shall be taken. —The Hebrew adverb may be interpreted either of time or place. The latter, referring to the region from which the assailants come, makes better sense.

As of a mighty expert man. —The marginal rendering, “destroyer,” follows the Vulgate and the Targum, and represents a variant reading. There is no sufficient reason for rejecting the Authorized Version, which has the support of the Septuagint and Syriac versions.

None shall return in vain. —Grammatically, the words may refer either to the warrior or the arrow. The use of the same phrase in 2 Samuel 1:22 and Isaiah 55:11 is perhaps in favor of the latter.