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And they, the seven shepherds and eight principal men, i.e. those great, wise, and successful instruments of God’s revenge, and of his church’s deliverance,
shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword: this passage seems to point to the Babylonians, who did invade, waste, and subdue the Assyrian kingdom under the conduct of Merodach-baladan, king of Babylon, called also Berodach, 2Ki_20:12. He sent the congratulatory embassy to Hezekiah, newly by miracle cured of his mortal disease and delivered from the Assyrian, Isa_39:1,2. This Merodach taking the opportunity of the weakness of the Assyrian kingdom, partly by the great slaughter of Sennacherib’s army, and the murder of that mighty, daring monarch, and partly by the civil wars which ensued between the regicides and Esarhaddon, took arms, and succeeded in the attempt, subduing the Assyrian kingdom with force and bloodshed enough.
The land of Nimrod; the same, say some, with the land of Assyria but others, perhaps with better reason, refer this to Babylon, and the kingdom thereof, which by Nebuchadnezzar’s hand destroyed the Jews, Jerusalem, and temple, and was afterwards destroyed by the Medes and Persians, whom God raised to punish Babylon and release the Jews.
In the entrances: as we read, it denoteth the fortified frontiers, the garrisons which keep all the entrances of the kingdom; it denoteth also their cities, through the gates of which was great entrance, or their courts of judicature, which were kept in the gates: both their military power should be reduced and their civil power also by the prevailing conqueror.
Thus shall he; in this manner shall he, i.e. the Messiah,
deliver us, the Jews his people,
from the Assyrian; both as type of all other enemies, and he an enemy to the people of God.
When he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth in our borders: see this explained Mic_5:1. I add, that what is rendered when might be rendered because, and note the reason why the Lord Messiah doth so deal with Assyria first and Babylon next.