12 your mother shall be utterly disappointed; she who bore you shall be confounded: behold, she shall be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Your mother - i. e., Babylon. Confounded ashamed. Or, ashamed blush.
Behold - Translate, "Behold she is the hindermost of the nations, a desert, a thirsty land, and a waste:" - the reason why Babylon is to blush. Once the head of gold Daniel 2:32, she is now the lowest of earthly powers.
Your mother - Speaking to the Chaldeans: Babylon, the metropolis, or mother city, shall be a wilderness, a dry land, a desert, neither fit for man nor beast.
Your mother shall be sore confounded,.... The monarchy of the Chaldeans; so the Targum and jarchi, your congregation; or rather their metropolis, their mother city, the city of Babylon; which would be confounded when taken, none of her sons being able to defend her: the same will be true of mystical Babylon, the mother of harlots, Revelation 17:5;
she that bare you shall be ashamed; which is the same as before, in different words:
behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert; or, as the Vulgate Latin version, "she shall be the last among the nations"; she that was the head of them, signified by the head of gold in Nebuchadnezzar's image, shall now be the tail of them, and become like a dry land and desert, without inhabitants, having neither men nor cattle in it; see Jeremiah 50:3; or, as Jarchi and Kimchi, their end, "the latter end" (m) of the kingdom of Babylon; or what should befall that people in their last days would be, that their land should become a wilderness, the habitants being slain, and none to till it; or Babylon is called the last of the nations, because her punishment, in order of time, was last, as Gussetius (n) thinks; Jeremiah 25:26.
(m) "finis seu extremitas gentium", Vatablus, Montanus, Schmidt. (n) Comment. Ebr. p. 30.
Your mother--Babylon, the metropolis of the empire.
hindermost--marvellous change, that Babylon, once the queen of the world, should be now the hindermost of nations, and at last, becoming "a desert," cease to be a nation!
Mother - Your country, shall be ashamed of you, who are not able to defend her.
*More commentary available at chapter level.