John Gill Bible Commentary

And I will smite the inhabitants of this city,.... With one or other of his arrows after mentioned: or, "them that abide in this city" (o); that do not go out of it, and surrender themselves to the king of Babylon; see Jer 21:9; both man and beast; the latter for the sin of the former; particularly such beasts as were fit for food are meant, whereby the famine would be increased, and so the greater destruction of men: they shall die of a great pestilence; both man and beast; a disease which comes immediately from the hand of God; hence Hippocrates used to call it , "the divine disease": here it denotes a very uncommon one, which should sweep away large numbers; called great, both for quality, or the nature of it, and for the quantity of persons that died of it. (o) "manentes in hac urbe", Gataker.