The burden of the book is "the day of the Lord," the judgment of God upon the whole earth. The day of the Lord is a day of darkness and supernatural terrors, but also a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities.
The judgment is executed partly by instruments whom the Lord has consecrated for that end. It is a sacrifice, and the guests are already bidden. Israel is the sacrifice, and the guests are those whom the Lord has called to consume it. It is obvious that in the phrase, "He hath sanctified his guests," the prophet refers to some particular people, who, he anticipates, will execute the judgment of God on Israel. It was the movements of this people, the report of them and the alarm they were creating among the nations, that awoke the presentiment in the prophet's mind that Jehovah was about to use them for the chastisement of Israel and of the world.
The Chaldeans could hardly be the people in the prophet's view, for, though Nabopolassar succeeded in 625 in placing the crown of Babylon on his brow, his kingdom was still a dependency of Assyria, and probably confined to the southern half of Babylonia. Assyria was still mistress of the West, and there was nothing in the history of the Chaldeans, nor in their position at the time to suggest that they would be a menace to the world. . . .
