The literal translation is:

Then the earth quaked and writhed;

For the thoughts of Yahweh against

Babel have stood fast;

To make Babel a waste without inhabitant.

And the land shall tremble - It is represented here as trembling under the numerous armies that are passing over it, and the prancing of their horses.

And the land shall tremble and sorrow,.... The land of Chaldea, the inhabitants of it, should tremble, when they heard of this powerful army invading their land, and besieging their metropolis; and should sorrow, and be in pain as a woman in travail, as the word (f) signifies:

for every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon; or, "shall stand" (g); be certainly fulfilled; for his purposes are firm and not frustratable:

to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant; this the Lord purposed, and threatened to do; see Jeremiah 50:39.

(f) "et parturiet", Schmidt. So Ben Melech. (g) "stabit, vel stant", Schmidt.

On the advance of this mighty host against Babylon, to execute the judgment determined by the Lord, the earth quakes. The mighty men of Babylon cease to offer resistance, and withdraw dispirited, like women, into inaccessible places, while the enemy sets fire to the houses, breaks the bars, and captures the city. The prophet views all this in spirit as already present, and depicts in lively colours the attack on the city and its capture. Hence the historic tenses, ותּרעשׁ, ותּחל, חדלוּ, etc. קמה is used of the permanence, i.e., of the realization of the divine counsels, as in Jeremiah 44:23. On the singular, see Ewald, 317, a. "To make the land," etc., as in Jeremiah 4:7; Jeremiah 18:16, etc. "They sit (have taken up their position) in the strongholds" (Mountain fastnesses), i.e., in inaccessible places; cf. 1 Samuel 13:16; 2 Samuel 23:14. נשׁתה is but to be regarded as a Kal form from נשׁת; on its derivation from שׁתת, see on Isaiah 41:17. "They have become women;" cf. Jeremiah 50:37. The subject of the verb הצּיעתוּ is the enemy, who set fire to the dwellings in Babylon. "Runner runs against runner," i.e., from opposite sides of the city there come messengers, who meet each other running to tell the king in his castle that the city is taken. The king is therefore (as Graf correctly remarks against Hitzig) not to be thought of as living outside of the city, for "in this case לקראת would have no meaning," but as living in the royal castle, which was situated in the middle of the city, on the Euphrates. Inasmuch as the city is taken "from the end" (מקּצה), i.e., on all sides, the messengers who bring the news to the king's fortress must meet each other.

And the land shall tremble and sorrow: for every purpose of the LORD shall be performed against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant.

51:29 The land - Babylon, or the land of Chaldea.

29. land shall tremble . every purpose of . Lord shall be performed-elegant antithesis between the trembling of the land or earth, and the stability of "every purpose of the Lord" (compare Ps 46:1-3).

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.