Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 51:41

"How is Sheshach taken! and the praise of the whole earth seized! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!" — Jeremiah 51:41 (ASV)

How is Sheshach taken! —“Sheshach,” it will be remembered, is the cypher which, as explained in the Note on Jeremiah 25:26, stands for Babylon. Here, in the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, it balances the actual name of the city in the second clause of the verse. The word “surprised” is the same as that rendered “stopped” in Jeremiah 51:32.