(32) Whirlwind.--The word, as in Jeremiah 23:19, is more generic, a tempest. The storm is seen as it were rising from the "coasts"--i.e., the sides or horizon of the earth, as in Jeremiah 6:22--and spreading over all the nations.

Verse 32. - A great whirlwind; rather, a great storm (as Jeremiah 23:19). The coasts of the earth; rather, the furthest parts of the earth. The storm, as it appears on the horizon, comes as it were from the ends of the earth; perhaps, too, there is an allusion to the distant abode of the foe (comp. Jeremiah 6:22).

25:30-38 The Lord has just ground of controversy with every nation and every person; and he will execute judgment on all the wicked. Who can avoid trembling when God speaks in displeasure? The days are fully come; the time fixed in the Divine counsels, which will make the nations wholly desolate. The tender and delicate shall share the common calamity. Even those who used to live in peace, and did nothing to provoke, shall not escape. Blessed be God, there is a peaceable habitation above, for all the sons of peace. The Lord will preserve his church and all believers in all changes; for nothing can separate them from his love.Thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation,.... Begin in one nation, and then go on to another; first in Judea, and then in Egypt; and so on, like a catching distemper, or like fire that first consumes one house, and then another; and thus shall the cup go round from nation to nation, before prophesied of: thus, beginning at Judea, one nation after another was destroyed by the king of Babylon; then he and his monarchy were destroyed by the Medes and Persians; and then they by the Macedonians; and then the Greeks by the Romans;

and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth; or "from the sides of it" (t); that is, "from the ends of it"; as the Targum, which paraphrases it,

"and many people shall come openly from the ends of the earth;''

this was first verified in the Chaldean army under Nebuchadnezzar, compared to a whirlwind, Jeremiah 4:13; and then in the Medes and Persians under Cyrus; and after that in the Greeks under Alexander; the great and last of all in the Romans under Titus Vespasian.

(t) "a lateribus terrae", Schmidt; "a finibus terrae", Vatablus.