Jeremiah 5:15
Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say.
The word is the Lord's warning and reproof to Judah, the house of Israel, given before the overthrow of Jerusalem, belonging to the period of Judah's decline that ended with the fall of the kingdom in 586 B.C. He declared that He would bring upon them from far a mighty and ancient nation whose language they knew not, neither understood what was said. That mighty nation from far is Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, which God would bring against Israel. It would come to destroy their city and take them into captivity to serve the king of Babylon for seventy years. Even then Jerusalem need not have fallen and the people need not have gone into captivity, for if they would turn to the Lord and regard His law and keep His Sabbath, Jerusalem would have stood forever.
They refused the warning, persisted in pride and self-exaltation, and would not hear and turn from sin. The word "ancient" means that its antiquity is hidden, reaching back to a time so remote and unknown that its beginning is hidden. Babylon was the first city after the Flood and the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom, the first kingdom in rebellion against God, while the other named cities came later than Babylon.