In the New King James Version, the chapter is sub-titled "Proclamation Against Babylon".

Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus (B;

The ASV refers to "the bare mountain", i.e. "i.e. one denuded of trees, so that the signal might be clearly distinguished".

[12] This verse makes clear that Babylon was to fall at the hand of the Medes, probably under the leadership of Cyrus the Great.

[12] The Medes are specified by name as the instrument of God's wrath, pointing to a historical setting in the sixth century, but according to Childs, significantly "portrayed as a still future event, and ... not to be interpreted as a late postexilic retrojection of the events in 539" BC when Medes (and Persia) actually conquered Babylon.