25:11 seventy years. The beginning and end points of the prophesied seventy-year Babylonian captivity of the Jews are in question, because of the unsettled state of the Babylonian and Medo-Persian chronologies of this period, as well as the several stages of deportation into Babylon and the several stages of return from exile under Ezra and Nehemiah. No matter how this period is calculated in detail, however, it is certainly of a seventy-year order of magnitude (approximately 606–536 B.C.).

25:12 king of Babylon. God sometimes uses pagan kings and peoples to punish his own people when they depart from His will. Thus, Nebuchadnezzar was called “my servant” (Jeremiah 25:9), even though he was wicked and idolatrous. Eventually he was punished (Daniel 4) and finally his grandson Belshazzar, who inherited his kingdom, was slain and the kingdom of Babylon itself conquered by the Medo-Persians (Daniel 5:30, 31).

25:29 inhabitants of the earth. Those whom God has allowed to punish His chosen people must eventually be judged themselves. Many of those nations targeted in the preceding verses (Uz, Philistia, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Dedan, Elam, Media, Babylonia) have already vanished from the earth as nations, and others will follow, because of their treatment of Israel and Judah.

25:33 the earth. Here “earth” could better be translated “land.” The reference is probably to the great line of armies from all parts of the world who will have gathered in the land of Israel, stretching from the land of Edom in the south to Armageddon in the north, anticipating the final great battle with the returning Christ (see Isaiah 34:5, 6; 63:1-4; Revelation 16:14-16; 19:17-21), when they will all be destroyed.