Set ye up a standard in the land,.... Not in Chaldea, but rather in any land; or in all the countries which belonged to Media and Persia; where Cyrus's standard is ordered to be set up, to gather soldiers together, and enlist in his service, in order to go with him in his expedition against Babylon:blow the trumpet among the nations; for the same purpose, to call them to arms, to join the forces of Cyrus, and go with him into the land of Chaldea:prepare the nations against her: animate them, stir up their spirits against her, and furnish them with armour to engage with her: or, "sanctify" them; select a certain number out of them fit for such work:call together the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz; the two former are generally thought to intend Armenia the greater, and the lesser; and the latter Ascania, a country in Phrygia; and certain it is that Cyrus first conquered these countries, and had many Armenians, Phrygians, and Cappadocians, in his army he brought against Babylon, as Xenophon relates.
The Targum is, declare"against her to the kingdoms of the land of Kardu, the army of Armenia and Hadeb,''or Adiabene:appoint a captain against her; over all these forces thus collected: Cyrus seems to be intended; unless the singular is put for the plural, and so intends a sufficient number of general officers of the army:cause the horses to come up as the rough caterpillars; or "locusts" ; which though generally smooth, yet some fire hairy and rough; to which the horses in Cyrus's army are compared, for their multitude, the shape of their heads, long manes, and manner of going, leaping, and prancing.
So the Targum,"they shall cause the horses to come up, leaping like the shining locust;''that is of a yellow colour, and shines like gold. So the word the Targum here uses is used by Jonathan in Le 13:32; of hair yellow as gold, and here to be understood of hairy locusts: and, as Aelianus says, there were locusts of a golden colour in Arabia.
And such may be meant here by the Chaldee paraphrase, which well expresses their motion by leaping; see Joe 2:5; and which agrees with that of horses.