Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 51:3

"Against [him that] bendeth let the archer bend his bow, and against [him that] lifteth himself up in his coat of mail: and spare ye not her young men; destroy ye utterly all her host." — Jeremiah 51:3 (ASV)

Let the archer bend his bow. —The words represent the sense of the original, but the Hebrew word for “archer” is literally bender, and so the iteration of the verb gains its full rhetorical force. On “brigandine,” as meaning the “coat of mail” of heavy-armed troops, see Note on Jeremiah 46:4. The two classes of soldiers describe collectively the garrison that defended Babylon.