John Gill Commentary Jeremiah 51:34

"Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath, like a monster, swallowed me up, he hath filled his maw with my delicacies; he hath cast me out." — Jeremiah 51:34 (ASV)

Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me
Or "us" ^F23 ; everyone of us: these are the words of Zion and Jerusalem, as appears from (Jeremiah 51:35); complaining of the injuries done them by the king of Babylon, who had eaten them up; spoiled their substance, as the Targum; took their cities, plundered them of their riches, and carried them away captive:

he has crushed me ;
to the earth; or "bruised" or "broken", even all her bones; see (Jeremiah 50:17);

he has made me an empty vessel ;
emptied the land of its inhabitants and riches, and left nothing valuable in it:

he has swallowed me up like a dragon ;
or "whale", or any large fish, which swallow the lesser ones whole. The allusion is to the large swallow of dragons, which is sometimes represented as almost beyond all belief; for not only Pliny ^F24 from Megasthenes reports, that, in India, serpents, that is, dragons, grow to such a bulk, that they will swallow whole deer, and even bulls; but Posidonius ^F25 relates, that in Coelesyria was one, whose gaping jaws would admit of a horse and his rider: and Onesicritus ^F26 speaks of two dragons in the country of Abisarus in India; the one was fourscore and the other a hundred and forty cubits long;

he has filled his belly with my delicates ;
with the treasures of the king and his nobles; with the vessels of the temple, and the riches of the people, which he loaded himself with to his full satisfaction. So the Targum, ``he filled his treasury with the good of my land;''

he has cast me out ;
out of my land, and carried me captive; so the Targum.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F23: The "Cetib", or textual reading, is "us"; but the "Keri", or marginal reading, is "me", which our version follows, and so the same in the four following words, in the text.
• F24: Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 14. col. 436.
• F25: Apud Bochart. Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 3. c. 14. col. 436.
• F26: Apud Strabo. Geograph. l. 15. p. 480.