North country

The "North country" in prophetic literature primarily refers to Babylon and the region of Mesopotamia, approached from Israel's perspective by the northern land route rather than across the Arabian desert to the east. Jeremiah repeatedly uses the phrase to refer to Babylonia as the direction from which judgment would come (Jeremiah 1:14–15; 6:22; 10:22), and he announces that the exiles would return from the north country (Jeremiah 3:18; 16:15; 23:8). Zechariah's visions use north country to refer to the Babylonian diaspora that God would summon home (Zechariah 6:6–8). The phrase also appears in Isaiah 41:25, where God calls a conqueror (Cyrus) from the north as his instrument of deliverance.