66 You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Yahweh.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
He first asks God to persecute them in wrath, that is, to be implacable to them; for persecution is, when God not only chastises the wicked for a short time, but when he adds evils to evils, and accumulates them until they perish. He then adds, and prays God to destroy them from under the heavens of Jehovah This phrase is emphatical; and they extenuate the weightiness of the sentence, who thus render it, "that God himself would destroy the ungodly from the earth." For the Prophet does not without a design mention the heavens of Jehovah, as though he had said, that though God is hidden from us while we sojourn in the world, he yet dwells in heaven, for heaven is often called the throne of God, -- "The heaven is my throne." (Isaiah 66:1.) "O God, who dwellest in the sanctuary." (Psalm 22:4; Psalm 77:14.) By God's sanctuary is often meant heaven. For this reason, then, the Prophet asked here that the ungodly should be destroyed from under the heaven of Jehovah, that is, that their destruction might testify that he sits in heaven, and is the judge of the world, and that things are not in such a confusion, but that the ungodly must at length render an account before the celestial judge, whom they have yet long neglected. This is the end of the chapter.
Persecute - Or, pursue them in anger and destroy them, etc.
Persecute and destroy them - Thou wilt pursue them with destruction. These are all declaratory, not imprecatory.
From under the heavens of the Lord - This verse seems to allude to the Chaldaic prediction, in Jeremiah 10:11. By their conduct they will bring on themselves the curse denounced against their enemies.
The Septuagint and Vulgate seem to have read "From under heaven, O Jehovah:" and the Syriac reads, "Thy heavens, O Jehovah!" None of these makes any material change in the meaning of the words.
It has already been noticed in the introduction, that this chapter contains a triple acrostic, three lines always beginning with the same letter; so that the Hebrew alphabet is thrice repeated in this chapter, twenty-two multiplied by three being equal to sixty-six.
Persecute and destroy them in anger,.... As they have persecuted the people of God, do thou persecute them; and never leave pursuing them untie thou hast made a full end of them, as the effect of vindictive wrath and vengeance:
from under the heavens of the Lord; which are made by him, and in which he dwells; let them not have the benefit of them, nor so much as the sight of them; but let them perish from under them, Jeremiah 10:11.
from under . . . heavens of . . . Lord--destroy them so that it may be seen everywhere under heaven that thou sittest above as Judge of the world.
Persecute - Many passages of this nature which we meet with are prophecies, some of them may be both prophecies and prayers.
*More commentary available at chapter level.