The LORD of Armies says: “The wide walls of Babylon will be utterly overthrown. Her high gates will be burned with fire. The peoples will labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they will be weary.”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 58. Broad wall. The pagan historians agree not in the dimensions, but allow it was excessively broad and lofty. Calmet.—Six chariots might go abreast. It was 360 stadia long, (Ctesias); or 480 (Herod. i. 178.) that is above 23 leagues, allowing 2,500 paces for each. This author says the breadth was fifty cubits of the king, three inches larger than the common one, or about twenty-one inches. Pliny (vi. 26.) improperly applies this to Roman feet, and says the walls were two hundred feet high; while Herodotus assigns so many cubits. Calmet.—There were three different walls. Curt. v.—Cyrus demolished the outer one. Beros.—What remained, ( Calmet.) with the hundred brazen gates, Darius treated in like manner. Herod. i. 179. and iii. 159.—Thus was the prediction fulfilled, and the works of so many captive nations brought to nothing. It is asserted that 200,000 ( Calmet.) daily finished a stadium, (Curt. v.) or 125 paces. Calmet.