(28) All the land of his dominion.--The use of the singular pronoun indicates that the prophet recognises the fact that the kings, captains, and rulers (see Note on Jeremiah 51:23) are all under one sovereign leader--i.e., under the king of the Medes and Persians.

Verse 28. - The captains... the rulers; rather, the governors... the viceroys (as ver. 23). Thereof refers to the land of Medea; his dominion to the King of Medea, as the suzerain of the inferior chiefs.

51:1-58 The particulars of this prophecy are dispersed and interwoven, and the same things left and returned to again. Babylon is abundant in treasures, yet neither her waters nor her wealth shall secure her. Destruction comes when they did not think of it. Wherever we are, in the greatest depths, at the greatest distances, we are to remember the Lord our God; and in the times of the greatest fears and hopes, it is most needful to remember the Lord. The feeling excited by Babylon's fall is the same with the New Testament Babylon, Re 18:9,19. The ruin of all who support idolatry, infidelity, and superstition, is needful for the revival of true godliness; and the threatening prophecies of Scripture yield comfort in this view. The great seat of antichristian tyranny, idolatry, and superstition, the persecutor of true Christians, is as certainly doomed to destruction as ancient Babylon. Then will vast multitudes mourn for sin, and seek the Lord. Then will the lost sheep of the house of Israel be brought back to the fold of the good Shepherd, and stray no more. And the exact fulfilment of these ancient prophecies encourages us to faith in all the promises and prophecies of the sacred Scriptures.Prepare against her the nations, with the kings of the Medes,.... At the head of them, Darius and Cyrus. The Syriac version has it in the singular number, the king of the Modes:

the captains thereof, and all the rulers thereof, and all the land of his dominions; that is, the inhabitants of it, the common people, with their princes, nobles, governors, as captains of them, under Cyrus, their generalissimo.