The word that Yahweh spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.
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The word that Yahweh spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.
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The word that the LORD spake against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah the prophet.
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The word that the LORD spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.
Cross-references (17)
Passages linked to Jeremiah 50:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 25:26-27 and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are on the surface of the earth. The king of Sheshach will drink after them. “You shall tell them, ‘Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.” ’
- Isaiah 13:1-3 The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. Set up a banner on the bare mountain! Lift up your voice to them! Wave your hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. I have commanded my consecrated ones; yes, I have called my mighty men for my anger, even my proudly exulting ones.
- Jeremiah 51:1-14 Yahweh says: “Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind. I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her. They will empty her land; for in the day of trouble they will be against her all around. Against him who bends, let the archer bend his bow, also against him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail. Don’t spare her young men! Utterly destroy all her army! They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets. For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, by his God, by Yahweh of Armies; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. “Flee out of the middle of Babylon! Everyone save his own life! Don’t be cut off in her iniquity; for it is the time of Yahweh’s vengeance. He will render to her a recompense. Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh’s hand, who made all the earth drunk. The nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations have gone mad. Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed! Wail for her! Take balm for her pain. Perhaps she may be healed. “We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let’s each go into his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. ‘Yahweh has produced our righteousness: come, and let’s declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God.’ “Make the arrows sharp! Hold the shields firmly! Yahweh has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it; for it is the vengeance of Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple. Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon! Make the watch strong! Set the watchmen, and prepare the ambushes; for Yahweh has both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon. You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your covetousness. Yahweh of Armies has sworn by himself, saying, ‘Surely I will fill you with men, as with the canker worm; and they will lift up a shout against you.’
- 2 Samuel 23:2 “Yahweh’s Spirit spoke by me. His word was on my tongue.
- Job 1:17 While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, “The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
- Psalms 137:8-9 Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, he will be happy who repays you, as you have done to us. Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.
- Isaiah 14:4 that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!”
- Isaiah 21:1-10 The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land. A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing. Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I so am dismayed that I can’t see. My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me. They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield! For the Lord said to me, “Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees. When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness.” He cried like a lion: “Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post. Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs.” He answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground. You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!” That which I have heard from Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.
- Isaiah 23:13 Behold, the land of the Chaldeans. This people didn’t exist. The Assyrians founded it for those who dwell in the wilderness. They set up their towers. They overthrew its palaces. They made it a ruin.
- Isaiah 47:1-15 “Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs, and wade through the rivers. Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.” Our Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies is his name, is the Holy One of Israel. “Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no longer be called the mistress of kingdoms. I was angry with my people. I profaned my inheritance and gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy. You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged. You said, ‘I will be a princess forever,’ so that you didn’t lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the results. “Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me. I won’t sit as a widow, neither will I know the loss of children.’ But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments. For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you. You have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’ Therefore disaster will come on you. You won’t know when it dawns. Mischief will fall on you. You won’t be able to put it away. Desolation will come on you suddenly, which you don’t understand. “Stand now with your enchantments and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth, as if you might profit, as if you might prevail. You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you. Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by. The things that you labored in will be like this: those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way. There will be no one to save you.
- Jeremiah 27:7 All the nations will serve him, his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land comes. Then many nations and great kings will make him their bondservant.
- Habakkuk 2:5-20 Yes, moreover, wine is treacherous. An arrogant man who doesn’t stay at home, who enlarges his desire as Sheol, and he is like death, and can’t be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations, and heaps to himself all peoples. Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’ Won’t your debtors rise up suddenly, and wake up those who make you tremble, and you will be their victim? Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it. Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! You have devised shame to your house, by cutting off many peoples, and have sinned against your soul. For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it. Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity! Behold, isn’t it of Yahweh of Armies that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh’s glory, as the waters cover the sea. “Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies! You are filled with shame, and not glory. You will also drink, and be exposed! The cup of Yahweh’s right hand will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals, which made them afraid; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them. “What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it. But Yahweh is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!”
- Acts 7:4 Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land, where you are now living.
- 2 Peter 1:21 For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit.
- Revelation 18:1-24 After these things, I saw another angel coming down out of the sky, having great authority. The earth was illuminated with his glory. He cried with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and she has become a habitation of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality, the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from the abundance of her luxury.” I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don’t receive of her plagues, for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities. Return to her just as she returned, and repay her double as she did, and according to her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her double. However much she glorified herself, and grew wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, ‘I sit a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see mourning.’ Therefore in one day her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire; for the Lord God who has judged her is strong. The kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived wantonly with her will weep and wail over her, when they look at the smoke of her burning, standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For your judgment has come in one hour.’ The merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more: merchandise of gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, all expensive wood, every vessel of ivory, every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble; and cinnamon, incense, perfume, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, sheep, horses, chariots, and people’s bodies and souls. The fruits which your soul lusted after have been lost to you. All things that were dainty and sumptuous have perished from you, and you will find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, will stand far away for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was dressed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls! For in an hour such great riches are made desolate.’ Every ship master, and everyone who sails anywhere, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood far away, and cried out as they looked at the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like the great city?’ They cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had their ships in the sea were made rich by reason of her great wealth!’ For she is made desolate in one hour. “Rejoice over her, O heaven, you saints, apostles, and prophets; for God has judged your judgment on her.” A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down, and will be found no more at all. The voice of harpists, minstrels, flute players, and trumpeters will be heard no more at all in you. No craftsman, of whatever craft, will be found any more at all in you. The sound of a mill will be heard no more at all in you. The light of a lamp will shine no more at all in you. The voice of the bridegroom and of the bride will be heard no more at all in you; for your merchants were the princes of the earth; for with your sorcery all the nations were deceived. In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on the earth.”
- Genesis 10:10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
- Genesis 11:31 Terah took Abram his son, Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife. They went from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan. They came to Haran and lived there.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Our Prophet has been hitherto speaking of neighboring nations…
Our Prophet has been hitherto speaking of neighboring nations who had cruelly harassed the chosen people; and it was some consolation when the children of Abraham understood that God undertook their cause and would be the avenger of those wrongs which they had suffered. But this of itself would have been no great consolation, yea, it might have been viewed as nothing by many, while there was no hope of restoration; for it would have been but a small consolation to have others as associates in misery. If, indeed, Jeremiah had only taught that none of the nations who had troubled God’s Church would escape unpunished, the Jews might have raised an objection, and said, that they were not freed from their own calamities, because the monarchy of Babylon still flourished, and that they were buried as it were in a perpetual grave. It was therefore necessary that what we read here should be predicted. And though this prophecy is given last, we ought to notice that the Prophet had from the beginning expressly spoken, as we have seen, of the calamity and destruction of Babylon. But this prophecy is given as the conclusion of the book, to mitigate the sorrow of the miserable exiles; for it was no small relief to them to hear that the tyranny by which they were oppressed, and under which they did live as it were a lifeless life, would not be perpetual. We now then understand why the Prophet spoke of the Babylonians and of their destruction.
But a longer preface would be superfluous, because those acquainted with Scripture well know that the Jews were at length so reduced by the Babylonians that their very name seemed to have been obliterated. As then they were reduced to such extremities, it is no wonder that the Prophet here affirms that the Babylonians would be at length punished, and that not only that God might show himself to be the avenger of wickedness, but also that the miserable exiles might know that they were not wholly repudiated, but on the contrary that God had a care for their salvation. We now perceive the design of this prophecy.
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The word of Jehovah, he says, which he spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by the hand of Jeremiah the Prophet He testifies in his usual manner that he did not bring forward what he himself had invented, but that God was the author of this prophecy. He at the same time declares that he was God’s minister; for God did not descend from heaven whenever it pleased him to reveal his favor to the Jews, but, as it is said in Deuteronomy, he was wont to speak by his servants. (Deuteronomy 18:18.) In short, Jeremiah thus recommends the things he was about to say, that the Jews might reverently receive them, not as the fictions of men, but as oracles from heaven. It follows —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Hebrew, hands.
Hebrew, hands.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jer 50:1 The word that the LORD spake against…
Jer 50:1 The word that the LORD spake against Babylon [and] against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah the prophet.
Ver. 1. The word that the Lord spake against Babylon.] Which was built by Nimrod, as Nineveh was afterwards by his nephew Ninus. {Gen 10:11} Of the greatness of this city, besides what we read in holy writ, much may be read in Herodotus and Pliny. It was the head city of the Assyrian and Chaldean monarchy, which lasted above seventeen hundred years, till Cyrus the Persian took the kingdom. Isaiah prophesied against it in several chapters. Habakkuk maketh it his whole business. Jeremiah had set forth how Sheshach, that is, Belshazzar, should drink the dregs of the cup of God’s wrath. {Jer 25:26} Here, and in the next chapter, he discourseth it more at large, showing how it was that Babylon was to drink of that cup; and for more certainty, it is spoken of in this prophecy as already done.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The prophet having from the 46th chapter been denouncing…
The prophet having from the 46th chapter been denouncing the judgments of God against the other Gentiles, the Egyptians, Moabites, Philistines, Ammonites, Edomites, Syrians, Kedarens, Hazorites, Elamites or Persians, (the most of which had been enemies to the Jews,) in these two chapters he denounceth God’s judgments against the Chaldeans and Babylonians. These were to execute God’s vengeance on all the rest, and therefore are themselves threatened in the last place to be destroyed by the Medes the prophecy against them is mixed with many gracious promises to the Jews.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain I. Here is a word spoken against Babylon by…
I. Here is a word spoken against Babylon by him whose works all agree with his word and none of whose words fall to the ground. The king of Babylon had been very kind of Jeremiah, and yet he must foretel the ruin of that kingdom; for God's prophets must not be governed by favour or affection. Whoever are our friends, if, notwithstanding, they are God's enemies, we dare not speak peace to them. 1. The destruction of Babylon is here spoken of as a thing done, Jer 50:2. let it be published to the nations as a piece of news, true news, and great news, and news they are all concerned in; let them hang out the flag, as is usual on days of triumph, to give notice of it; let all the world take notice of it: Babylon is taken. Let God have the honour of it, let his people have the comfort of it, and therefore do not conceal it. Take care that it be known, that the Lord may be known by those judgments which he executes, Psa 9:16. 2. It is spoken of as a thing done thoroughly. For, (1.) The very idols of Babylon, which the people would protect with all possible care, and from which they expected protection, shall be destroyed. Bel and Merodach were their two principal deities; they shall be confounded, and the images of them broken to pieces. (2.) The country shall be laid waste (Jer 50:3) out of the north, from Media, which lay north of Babylon, and from Assyria, through which Cyrus made his descent upon Babylon; thence the nation shall come that shall make her land desolate. Their land was north of the countries that they destroyed, who were therefore threatened with evil from the north (Omne malum ab aquilone - Every evil comes from the north); but God will find out nations yet further north to come upon them. The pomp and power of old Rome were brought down by northern nations, the Goths and Vandals.
II. Here is a word spoken for the people of God, and for their comfort, both the children of Israel and of Judah; for many there were of the ten tribes that associated with those of the two tribes in their return out of Babylon. Now here,
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1. It is promised that they shall return to their God first and then to their own land; and the promise of their conversion and reformation is that which makes way for all the other promises, Jer 50:4, Jer 50:5. (1.) They shall lament after the Lord (as the whole house of Israel did in Samuel's time, Sa1 7:2); they shall go weeping. These tears flow not from the sorrow of the world as those when they went into captivity, but from godly sorrow; they are tears of repentance for sin, tears of joy for the goodness of God, in the dawning of the day of their deliverance, which, for aught that appears, does more towards the bringing of them to mourn for sin than all the calamities of their captivity; that prevails to lead them to repentance when the other did not prevail to drive them to it. Note, It is a good sign that God is coming towards a people in ways of mercy when they begin to be tenderly affected under his hand. (2.) They shall enquire after the Lord; they shall not sink under their sorrows, but bestir themselves to find out comfort where it is to be had: They shall go weeping to seek the Lord their God. Those that seek the Lord must seek him sorrowing, as Christ's parents sought him, Luk 2:48. And those that sorrow must seek the Lord, and then their sorrow shall soon be turned into joy, for he will be found of those that so seek him. They shall seek the Lord as their God, and shall now have no more to do with idols. When they shall hear that the idols of Babylon are confounded and broken it will be seasonable for them to enquire after their own God and to return to him who lives for ever. Therefore men are deceived in false gods, that they may depend on the true God only. (3.) They shall think of returning to their own country again; they shall think of it not only as a mercy, but as a duty, because there only is the holy hill of Zion, on which once stood the house of the Lord their God (Jer 50:5): They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward. Zion was the city of their solemnities; they often thought of it in the depth of their captivity (Psa 137:1); but, now that the ruin of Babylon gave them some hopes of a release, they talk of nothing else but of going back to Zion. Their hearts were upon it before, and now they set their faces thitherward. They long to be there; they set out for Zion, and resolve not to take up short of it. The journey is long and they know not the road, but they will ask the way, for they will press forward till they come to Zion; and, as they are determined not to turn back, so they are in care not to miss the way. This represents the return of poor souls to God. Heaven is the Zion they aim at as their end; on this they have set their hearts; towards this they have set their faces, and therefore they ask the way thither. They do not ask the way to heaven and set their faces towards the world; nor set their faces towards heaven and go on at a venture without asking the way. But in all true converts there are both a sincere desire to attain the end and a constant care to keep in the way; and a blessed sight it is to see people thus asking the way to heaven with their faces thitherward. (4.) They shall renew their covenant to walk with God more closely for the future: Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant. They had broken covenant with God, had in effect separated themselves from him, but now they resolve to join themselves to him again, by engaging themselves afresh to be his. Thus, when backsliders return, they must do their first works, must renew the covenant they first made; and it must be a perpetual covenant, that must never be broken; and, in order to that, must never be forgotten; for a due remembrance of it will be the means of a due observance of it.
2. Their present case is lamented as very sad, and as having been long so: "My people" (for he owns them as his now that they are returning to him) "have been lost sheep (Jer 50:6); they have gone from mountain to hill, have been hurried from place to place, and could find no pasture; they have forgotten their resting-place in their own country and cannot find their way to it." And that which aggravated their misery was, (1.) That they were led astray by their own shepherds, their own princes and priests; they turned them from their duty, and so provoked God to turn them out of their own land. It is bad with a people when their leaders cause them to err, when those that should direct them, and when those that should secure and advance their interests are the betrayers of them. (2.) That in their wanderings they lay exposed to the beasts of prey, who thought they were entitled to them, as waifs and strays that had no owner (Jer 50:7); it is with them as with wandering sheep, all that found them have devoured them and made a prey of them; and when they did them the greatest injuries they laughed at them, telling them it was what their own prophets had many a time told them they deserved; that was far from justifying those who did them wrong, yet they bantered them with this excuse, We offend not, because they have sinned against the Lord; but they could not pretend that they had sinned against them. And see what notion they had of the Lord they had sinned against, not as the only true and living God, but only as the habitation of justice and the hope of their fathers; they had put a contempt upon the temple and upon the tradition of their ancestors, and therefore deserved to suffer these hard things. And yet it was indeed an aggravation of their sin, and justified God, though it did not justify their adversaries in what was done to them, that they had forsaken the habitation of justice and him that was the hope of their fathers.
3. They are called upon to hasten away, as soon as ever the door of liberty was opened to them (Jer 50:8): "Remove, not only out of the borders, but out of the midst of Babylon; though you be ever so well seated there, think not to settle there, but hasten to Zion, and be as the he-goats before the flocks; strive which shall be foremost, which shall lead in so good a work:" a he-goat is comely in going (Pro 30:31) because he goes first. It is a graceful thing to be forward in a good work and to set others a good example.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The word that the Lord spake against Babylon,.... Or…
The word that the Lord spake against Babylon,.... Or "to", of "of Babylon" (c); the city of Babylon, the metropolis of the Chaldean empire; sometimes it signifies the whole country, here the city only, as appears by what follows:
and against the land of the Chaldeans; whither the Jews were carried captive, for whose comfort this prophecy is delivered out; and which had subdued other nations, and was become an universal monarchy; these people are mentioned last, because the rest of the nations were to drink the cup of God's wrath at their hands, and then they were to drink it after them; see Jer 25:9; this is to be understood not only of Babylon and its empire, literally taken, but of mystical Babylon and its dependencies; of Rome, and its jurisdiction; of antichrist, and the antichristian states, the last enemies of the church and people of God, who will be destroyed by the pouring out of the seven vials; see Rev 15:1. This prophecy, which is called "the word that the Lord spake", for it was from him, the thing was decreed and declared by him, came
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by Jeremiah the prophet, to whom the king of Babylon had been very kind; but yet he must be, and was, faithful as a prophet, to deliver what he had from the Lord concerning the ruin of his empire.
(c) "ad Babel", Montanus; "de Babylone", V. L. "de Babel", Cocceius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The judgment of Babel, and the land of Chaldea,…
The judgment of Babel, and the land of Chaldea, for their idolatry, tyranny and pride; with gracious promises of the redemption of Israel intermixed, ver. 1-46.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain This and the following chapter contain a prophecy relating…
CHAPTER L
This and the following chapter contain a prophecy relating to
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the fall of Babylon, interspersed with several predictions
relative to the restoration of Israel and Judah, who were to
survive their oppressors, and, on their repentance, to be
pardoned and brought to their own land. This chapter opens with
a prediction of the complete destruction of all the Babylonish
idols, and the utter desolation of Chaldea, through the
instrumentality of a great northern nation, 1-3.
Israel and Judah shall be reinstated in the land of their
forefathers after the total overthrow of the great Babylonish
empire, 4, 5.
Very oppressive and cruel bondage of the Jewish people during
the captivity, 6, 7.
The people of God are commanded to remove speedily from
Babylon, because an assembly of great nations are coming out of
the north to desolate the whole land, 8-10.
Babylon, the hammer of the whole earth, the great desolator of
nations, shall itself become a desolation on account of its
intolerable pride, and because of the iron yoke it has rejoiced
to put upon a people whom a mysterious Providence had placed
under its domination, 11-34.
The judgments which shall fall upon Chaldea, a country addicted
to the grossest idolatry, and to every species of superstition,
shall be most awful and general, as when God overthrew Sodom
and Gomorrah, 35-40.
Character of the people appointed to execute the Divine
judgments upon the oppressors of Israel, 41-45.
Great sensation among the nations at the very terrible and
sudden fall of Babylon, 46.
NOTES ON CHAP. L
Verse 1. THE WORD THAT THE LORD SPAKE AGAINST BABYLON] This is also a new head of discourse.
The prophecy contained in this and the following chapter was sent to the captives in Babylon in the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah. They are very important; they predict the total destruction of the Babylonish empire, and the return of the Jews from their captivity. These chapters were probably composed, with several additions, out of the book that was then sent by Jeremiah to the captives by the hand of Seraiah. See Jer 51:59-64.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Jer 50:1-3. The word that the Lord spake against…
Jer 50:1-3. The word that the Lord spake against Babylon — This prophecy was delivered and sent to Babylon in the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign, as appears from Jer 51:59. Declare ye among the nations — The downfall of Babylon was an event in which many nations were concerned, that empire having been a common oppressor. Set up a standard — To call people together, and impart unto them these good tidings. The destruction of Babylon was likewise a sort of signal to the Jews to assemble together, in order to their return to their own land, the time of their captivity being then to expire. Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken to pieces — When God punishes an idolatrous nation he is said to confound its idols, because they do not bring assistance to their worshippers, nor deliver them out of his hands. Bel is the same with Baal, a name common to the idols of the eastern countries, and at first probably given to some of the heavenly bodies: see note on Isa 39:1. For out of the north there cometh a nation against her — The Medes, who lay north of Babylon.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Against ... against - Concerning.
Against ... against - Concerning.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Prophet. He had spoken against them in the fourth…
Prophet. He had spoken against them in the fourth year of Joachim, and now is more explicit in the fourth of Sedecias, (chap. li. 60.) sending his predictions to be read, and then thrown into the Euphrates. The fall of Babylon was gradual. It was in consequence of her pride and cruelty, ver. 11, 17, 23, 29., and Isaias xlvii. 6. (Calmet) --- It had shewn the greatest enmity to the Jews, and was at last overthrown by the Medes and Persians. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 11. Prophecy against Babylon (chh. 50, 51.)
11. Prophecy against Babylon (chh. 50, 51.)
Introduction
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1. Before the battle of Carchemish Jeremiah predicted to his people a severe visitation by a people coming from the north, whom he afterwards recognized as the Chaldeans, and then constantly proclaimed that Israel and the other nations would be saved from complete destruction only by subjection to Nebuchadnezzar. It may, therefore, be said that during part of his ministry he spoke of the Chaldeans unknowingly in a manner favorable to them. There is no contradiction, however, as many suppose, in his here predicting the destruction of Babylon itself, and in the same manner by a people coming from the north (Jer_50:3; Jer_50:9; Jer_50:41, Jer_51:48). For Jeremiah would only say that for the present, in the proximate future, Babylon is the instrument of judgment on all nations (Jer_50:23; Jer_51:20 sqq.), but the time is coming when Babylon itself must drain the cup of wrath, in punishment for the sins which it has incurred in the execution of its mission (Jer_50:11; Jer_50:24; Jer_50:28; Jer_50:32; Jer_51:6; Jer_51:11; Jer_51:24; Jer_51:36; Jer_51:56). Jeremiah’s declarations for and against Babylon are thus related to each other, as in Jer_25:27 the brief declaration, “and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them,” is to the previous announcements that Babylon shall offer the cup of wrath. It is not strange to find a prophecy against Babylon in Jeremiah, but must be regarded as perfectly natural.
2. Prophecy against Babylon has a history. First, Isaiah, probably moved by the embassy, which Merodach-Baladan sent to Hezekiah (Isaiah 39, 2Ki_20:12 sqq.) proclaimed the judgment of destruction on Babylon (Isaiah 13, 14, 21; Isa_43:14; Isa_46:1-2; Isaiah 47; Isa_48:14 sqq.). He is followed by Micah, who, in a brief declaration, comprises all which Jeremiah has said in his whole book for and against Babylon, “thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thy enemies.” Mic_4:10. Habakkuk then, the cotemporary of Jeremiah, prophesied before him, but after the battle of Carchemish, against Babylon, characterizing it not only in the narrower sense as a power hostile to the people of Israel, but also in a higher and more comprehensive sense as a worldly power, self-deifying, and the enemy of God. Jeremiah finally appropriates his predecessors and represents the acme of Old Testament prophecy against Babylon. He thus forms the main foundation for the prophecy of the Apocalypse concerning the Babylon of the final period. It is, however, to be observed that he gives relatively less prominence than Habakkuk to the ideal significance of Babylon as a type of ungodly, self-deifying, worldly powers. The latter does this in brief but wondrously profound and significant utterances. “For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that powerful and irrepressible nation, which goes as far as the earth extends, to occupy dwellings which are not. Terrible and fearful are they; from themselves proceed their judgment and their dignity” (Hab_1:6-7). “Then he overflows with courage and transgresses and becomes guilty; this his power is unto his God” (Hab_1:11). “Lo, inflated, not upright is his soul within him, but the just by faith shall live” (Hab_2:4). “Yea also because wine stultifies a man, who is arrogant and is not contented, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is like death and cannot be satisfied, but draweth to himself all nations and gathereth to himself all nations” (Hab_2:5).—Jeremiah by no means passes over this element, but he rather intimates it only in single words, in those significant names which he gives to Babylon when he calls it Double defiance (Jer_50:21), Pride (as personification in Jer_50:31-32), Heart of my opponents (Jer_51:1), Golden cup making the whole earth drunk (Jer_51:7). We may then say that of the two contemporary prophets, who lived to see the culmination of the Babylonian power, Jeremiah draws the grandest and most complete picture of the destruction menacing Babylon, but in such wise that he only intimates the ideal element which represents Babylon as the centre and type of all worldly enmity to God, while Habakkuk, who, notwithstanding the external insignificance of his little book, has a powerful and profound mind, gives us deeper glances into the inner life of the Babylonian empire.
3. It is not, however, the prophets who first stamped Babylon as a centre and type of ungodly empire. This character was impressed upon it from the earliest period. It was the locality of the first earthly princedom. That Nimrod, whose memory is preserved to the present day by the ruined tower of the Birs Nimrud, and who still lives in the traditions of the East as a great criminal and enemy of God, had, according to Gen_10:8 sqq., Babylon as the beginning of his dominion. The first aristocrat, hero of the chase and of war, conqueror, and despot, proceeded from Babylon. Add to this, that the Babylonian tower-structure is, according to its most essential nature, to be regarded as an undertaking of human pride begun without God and in man’s own strength. The tower was to be a memorial of a period of gigantic effort and aspiration towards the political concentration of the human race into one irresistible power. Thus we see that the ideas of earthly power and glory were from the first native to the soil of Babylon. Comp. Naegelsb., Jer. u. Bab., S. 5 sqq.; Perizonius, Origg. Babylonicæ, Cap. 10–12; Jahn, Archæology I., 1, S. 30, coll. Deyling, Observ. Sacræ., P. III., p. 19 ff.—Brian Walton in his Polyglott, Lond., Prolegg. I., pag. 3; Hetzel, Gedanken über den babylonischen Thurmbau, Hildb., 1775; Görres, Die Völkertafel des Pent., Regensburg, 1845, 1, S. 51. The seed sowed in that primitive period reached its full bloom in Nebuchadnezzar. By him Babylon was really made the first “all-devouring” universal monarchy, by which I mean that his power was greater than that of the Assyrians before him, or the Persians and Romans after him. But he also devoured the theocracy, i.e., the only point on this earth where the kingdom of God was represented in the form of a human popular and civil life. Since that time the kingdom of God as such has had no place on earth. It is still as the church in the embrace of worldly power. Babylon, however, the first worldly power which brought the kingdom of God into this condition, appears from that time in the Scriptures as the worldly power, κατʼ ἐξοχὴν, so that not only what the Old Testament prophets declare of the different representatives of worldly dominion, of Egypt (Rev_11:8), Tyre (Rev_18:11 coll. Ezekiel 27.), Nineveh (Rev_18:3; Rev_18:5 coll. Nah_3:4, Jon_1:2), is transferred in the New Testament to Babylon, but even the name of Babylon itself is attributed to the final form of the worldly power, antichristian Rome. Comp. Rev_17:9; Rev_17:18. See in general Rev_14:8; Rev_16:9, and especially chh. 17, 18. This subject is treated more in detail in Naegelsb. Jer. u. Bab.
4. With regard to the etymology of the name Babylon there have been two opposite views. According to one, which was first broached by Stephanus Byzantinus and the Etymologicon Magn. s. v. Βαβνλὼν, the name, designates Bel as the founder of the city. Eichhorn (Biblioth. d. bibl. Litt. III., S. 1001) accordingly explains בָּבֶל as arising from Bab Bel, i.e., porta or aula Beli. Gesenius (Thesaur., pag. 212), Tuch and others modify this view, in so far that they translate בָּבֶל domus Beli, since the word is written in Arabic bâbel, and bâ is frequently used in Arabic names of cities for bî, bêt. Knobel (Gen., S. 128) derives Babel from Bar-bel, i.e., arx (βᾶρις, בִּירַה) Beli. It is opposed however to these explanations that they are supported on partly much too recent and partly altogether insecure linguistic analogies. The other explanation is founded on Gen_11:7; Gen_11:9 (נָֽכְלָה שְׂפָתַּם, Jer_50:7 and בִּי שָׁם בָּלֵל י׳ שְׂבַּת בָּל־הָאָרֶץ), According to this בָּבֶל arose from בַּלְבֵּל. The punctuation of the first syllable is to he explained after the analogy of כּוֹכָב for טוֹטָבּוֹת כַּבְכָּב, for טָכְּטָבּוֹת (Ew. § 158, c; Olsh. § 74, § 189, a). For the Segol of the second syllable appeal might be made to כַרְמֶל (Delitzsch on Gen_11:9). The meaning would be confusio. Comp. Exo_29:2; Exo_29:40; Lev_2:4-6; further, בְּלִיל, farrago; תְּבֻלַּל troubling, blemish (Lev_21:20). These explanations are also favored by the ancient translations. Onkelos translates נָֽבְלָה, Gen_11:7, by בָּלַל ,נְבַלְבֵּל, Jer_50:9, by בִּלְבֵּל, confudit. Comp. Buxtorf, Lex. Rabb. et Talm., pag. 309. The Peshito version has in Jer_11:9 balbel (comp. Castelli, Lex., pag. 100); Saadiah balbala confudit.—Comp. Gabler, Urgeschichte II. 2, S. 228. Haevernick, Einleit. i. A. T., I., S. 147, 8.—The Babylonian monuments lead to still another etymology. According to Oppert, namely (Exp. en. Mesop. II. S. 46), the word reads on the monuments Babi-ilu, Babilu. Bab is the Shemitic בַּב door, Ilu the ·͂Ηλος in Diodorus, the Κρόνος of the Greeks, Saturn, the god of the deluge. The meaning of the name would then be Porta Dei diluvii. Comp. Ib., S. 67, 157, 259.—Which of these explanations is the correct one is by no means decided, for even the cuneiform inscriptions, presupposing that they are correctly deciphered, represent a late date in relation to the origin of the name, and it is a question whether the Babylonian scholars themselves knew the correct etymology of the word. [Comp. also Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, s. v., Babel, Babylon; Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, I., p. 149; Id., Herodotus, II., p. 574; Dr. Pusey, Lectures on Daniel, p. 271, n, quoted in Wordsworth ad loc.—S. R. A.]
5. The genuineness of this prophecy has been shown by me in detail in my work Jeremia und Babylon, S. 69 ff. Graf also acknowledges it (S. 580 ff.). Only Ewald and Meier, so far as I know, still persist, in maintaining its unauthenticity. “This portion evidently belongs to the last period of the exile, and cannot therefore proceed from Jeremiah,” says the latter (Die prophet. Bücher d. A. T., S. 350, 2). I myself formerly regarded the passage Jer_50:41-46 as a gloss, but I have now retracted this opinion. But after repeated investigation I cannot regard the passage Jer_51:15-19 as original. Consult the exegesis. In respect to the word שֵׁשַׁדְ, Jer_51:41, also, my suspicions have not yet been removed.
6. In what manner the prophecy is related to its fulfilment has been fully shown in Naegelsb. Jer. u. Bab., S. 135. I add to the remark there, that according to Theodoret Jews were the last inhabitants of the destroyed city of Babylon, the following notice from Oppert (Exp. I., S. 135): “Hillah fut fondée par Seifeddaulet vers l’an 1100 à la place de l’antique ville de Babylone, τὸ ἄστν. Jusque-là, des Juifs avaient habité seuls la ville ou plutôt les ruines de Babylone; en 1030 après Jesus-Christ ils quittèrent ces lieux.” Many later witnesses thus corroborate the statement of Theodoret, that the people of Israel could not separate themselves from the corpse of the city, which had destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.
7. In regard to the division of the portion, I am no longer of opinion that the whole is to be discriminated into three main sections with thirteen subdivisions. I still think that three chronological stages may be distinguished, in so far as the destruction of Babylon is represented partly as future, now in the stage of preparation (comp. Jer_50:9; Jer_50:21; Jer_50:26; Jer_50:41) partly as present, in the process of execution (comp. Jer_50:14; Jer_50:24; Jer_50:35; Jer_50:43, etc.; Jer_51:1; Jer_51:11; Jer_51:27), partly as already accomplished (comp. Jer_50:2; Jer_50:15; Jer_50:46; Jer_51:39; Jer_51:41; Jer_51:46; Jer_51:57). And these three stages are so distributed that the first is chiefly in the beginning, the second chiefly in the middle, the third towards the close; but not so sharply defined that Jer_50:21 to Jer_51:33 may be regarded as the second and the foregoing and following as the first and third divisions. The single tableaux or pictures, of which, according to the peculiar style of Jeremiah, the discourse consists, are more distinct. I find nineteen of these, exclusive of the superscription and the historical close. The exegesis will exhibit these in detail.
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1. THE SUPERSCRIPTION
Jer_50:1
1 The word which Jehovah spoke against Babylon, against the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The form of the superscription is like those in Jer_45:1; Jer_46:13. The expression בְּיַר is not found in any other superscription of Jeremiah’s. It occurs in this sense only in Jer_37:2. In my work, Jer. u. Bab., S. 22, I have proposed the hypothesis that there is in this an intimation that this prophecy, according to Jer_51:59 sqq., was given only by the hand, not by the mouth of the prophet. אֶל־אֶרֶץ ו׳ defines more particularly the idea of בַָּבֶל and guards against too narrow a rendering. Comp. Jer_50:8; Jer_50:45; Jer_51:54.
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2. THE CORD BROKEN; ISRAEL FREE (Psa_124:7)
2 Declare it among the nations,
Publish it and erect a signal;
Publish it, conceal it not.
Say “Babylon is taken, with shame stands Bel,
Merodach is thrown down, with shame stand her images,
Thrown down are her idols.”
3 For a nation cometh against her from the north,
And will make her land desolate,
That no inhabitant shall be therein
From man down to beast they flee; up, away!
4 In those days and at that time, saith Jehovah,
The children of Israel shall come,
They and the children of Judah together;
Weeping shall they come
And seek Jehovah their God.
5 After Zion shall they inquire,
Their faces turned thitherward:
“Come, let us join ourselves1 to Jehovah
In a perpetual covenant2 that shall not be forgotten.”
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The prophet in the first two verses goes to work analytically, first (Jer_50:2) causing the destruction of Babylon to be proclaimed aloud to all nations, and then (Jer_50:3) saying, how and by whom this destruction will be accomplished. This analytic description serves him, however, only as a basis for a promise important to him above all, viz., that in those days the captives of Israel and Judah being liberated, will come home and be united to their God in an eternal and unforgetable covenant (Jer_50:4-5).
Jer_50:2-3. Declare it…up, away. The importance of the matter is shown in the grandeur and animation of the opening, in which the summons to proclaim and the declaration of the destruction are five times repeated. Comp. Jer_4:5-6; Jer_5:20; Jer_31:7; Jer_46:14.—Erect a signal, i.e., for the rapid spread of the tidings. Comp. Jer_51:12; Jer_51:27; Jer_4:6; Jer_6:1; Isa_5:26; Isa_13:2.—Conceal it not. The address seems to be to the friends of Babylon, who might be disposed to withhold this Job’s post.—Taken. Comp. Jer_8:9; Jer_10:14; Jer_46:24; Jer_48:1.—Bel and Merodach are not different deities, but one and the same (comp. Delitzsch on Isa_46:1). The temple of Belus (comp. Herod. I. 181, 2) was also the temple of Marduk, as he is called on the monuments. Here he was worshipped as the Bilu rabu (בַּעַל רָב) as deus augurationis and protective deity of Babylonia. “Toute la dynastie Babylonienne (says Oppert, Exp. en Mesop., Tom. II., p. 272) le met (Merodach) à la tête des Dieux, et l’inscription de Borsippa le nomme le roi du ciel et de la terre. Nebo prend la seconde place et les autres divinités ne paraissent que rarement.” Comp. Tom. 1, p. 178, 9.—That he is not Mars, as I formerly supposed and Hahn in Drechsler’sJesaja on Jer_31:1 (II., 2, S. 212) directly maintains, is decidedly affirmed by Oppert (p. 271).—The purport of the proclamation is expressed in Jer_50:2 b and 3 only. From Jer_50:4 we have the words of the prophet, who predicts in what manner these results will be attained. This is seen from the imperfects יָשִׁית ,יִהְיֶה, etc.—A nation from the north. Comp. Jer_50:9. The destroyers of Babylon are to come from the north, and in Jer_51:27-28 nations to the north and north-east of Babylonia are mentioned. Comp. the map in Niebuhr’sAss. u. Bab., and S. 135, Anm. 1; 427, 8.—Moreover, the remarkable parallelism should be noticed, Babylon, once the nation from the north, menacing Israel, is now attacked by such a nation, Comp. Jer_2:15; Jer_4:7; Jer_9:9; Jer_33:12; Jer_51:62.
Jer_50:4-5. In those days …. forgotten. The destruction of Babylon is immediately followed by the redemption. The prophets so regard it as to comprise all the stages of its fulfilment through several thousand years in one picture. To this picture belongs above all the reunion of the tribes of the northern and southern kingdom (comp. Jer_3:14-16) and then their honest conversion to the Lord (comp. Jer_3:21; Jer_31:9-19; Hos_3:5), the return to Zion (Jer_31:8), the conclusion of a covenant with Jehovah, which shall not be broken and forgotten like the first (comp. Gen_17:10; Lev_19:5-7; Deut. 29. and 30). Comp. also Jer_20:11; Jer_23:40.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. “Daniel’s Babylonian empire resumes, as it were, the thread which was broken off with the tower-erection and kingdom of Nimrod. In the Babylonian tower-building the whole of the then existing humanity was united against God; with the Babylonian kingdom began the period of the universal monarchies, which again aspired after an atheistical union of entire humanity. Babylon has since and even to the Revelation (Jeremiah 18) remained the standing type of this world.” Auberlen, Der proph. Daniel, S. 230.
2. For what reason does Babylon appear as a type of the world? Why not Nineveh, or Persepolis, or Tyre, or Memphis, or Rome? Certainly not because Babylon was greater, more glorious, more powerful or prouder and more ungodly than those cities and kingdoms. Nineveh especially was still greater than Babylon (comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. S. 474, 5), and Assyria was not less hostile to the theocracy, having carried away into captivity the northern and larger half of the people of Israel. Babylon is qualified for this representation in two ways: 1. because it is the home of worldly princedom and titanic arrogance (Gen_10:8; Gen_11:1-4); 2. because Babylon destroyed the centre of the theocracy, Jerusalem, the temple and the theocratic kingdom, and first assumed to be the single supreme power of the globe.
3. “When God has used a superstitious, wicked and tyrannical nation long enough as His rod, He breaks it in pieces and finally throws it into the fire. For even those whom He formerly used as His chosen anointed instruments He then regards as but the dust in the streets or as chaff before the wind.” Cramer.
4. “No monarch is too rich, too wicked, too strong for God the Lord. And He can soon enlist and engage soldiers whom He can use against His declared enemies.” Cramer.
5. “Israel was founded on everlasting foundations, even God’s word and promise. The sins of the people brought about that it was laid low in the dust, but not without hope of a better resurrection. Babylon, on the other hand, must perish forever, for in it is the empire of evil come to its highest bloom. Jeremiah owns the nothingness of all worldly kingdoms, since they are all under this national order to serve only for a time. We are to be subject to them and seek their welfare for the sake of the souls of men, whom God is educating therein; a Christian however cannot be enthusiastic for them after the manner of the ancient heathen nor of ancient Israel, for here we have no abiding city, our citizenship is in heaven. The kingdoms of this world are no sanctuaries for us and we supplicate their continuance only with the daily bread of the fourth petition. Jeremiah applies many words and figures to Babylon which he has already used in the judgments on other nations, thus to intimate that in Babylon all the heathenism of the world culminates, and that here also must be the greatest anguish. What, however, is here declared of Babylon must be fulfilled again on all earthly powers in so far as, treading in its footprints, they take flesh for their arm and regard the material of this world as power, whether they be called states or churches.” Diedrich.
6. On Jer_50:2. In putting into the mouth of Israel, returning from Babylon, the call to an everlasting covenant with Jehovah, the prophet causes them 1. to confess that they have forgotten the first covenant; 2. he shows us that the time of the new covenant begins with the redemption from the Babylonish captivity. He was far, however, from supposing that this redemption would be only a weak beginning, that the appearance of the Saviour would be deferred for centuries, that Israel would sink still deeper as an external πολιτεία, and that finally the Israel of the new covenant would itself appear as a μυστήριον, εἰς ὃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ἄγγελοι παρακύψαι (1Pe_1:9-12).
7. From what Jeremiah has already said in Jer_31:31-34 of the new covenant we see that its nature and its difference from the old is not unknown to him. Yet he knows the new covenant only in general. He knows that it will be deeply spiritual and eternal, but how and why it will be so is still to him part of the μυστήριον.
8. On Jer_50:6. Jeremiah here points back to Jeremiah 23. Priests, kings and prophets, who should discharge the office of shepherds, prove to be wolves. Yea, they are the worst of wolves, who go about in official clothing. There is therefore no more dangerous doctrine than that of an infallible office. Jer_14:14; Mat_7:15; Mat_23:2-12.
9. On Jer_50:7. It is the worst condition into which a church of God can come, when the enemies who desolate it can maintain that they are in the right in doing so. It is, however, a just nemesis when those who will not hear the regular messengers of God must be told by the extraordinary messengers of God what they should have done. Comp. Jer_40:2-3.
10. On Jer_50:8. “Babylon is opened, and it must be abandoned not clung to, for the captivity is a temporary chastisement, not the divine arrangement for the children of God. God’s people must in the general redemption go like rams before the herd of the nations, that these may also attach themselves to Israel, as this was fulfilled at the time of Christ in the first churches and the apostles, who now draw the whole heathen world after them to eternal life. Here the prophet recognizes the new humanity, which proceeds from the ruins of the old, in which also ancient Israel leads the way; thus all, who follow it, become Israel.” Diedrich.—“The heathen felt somewhat of the divine punishment when they overcame so easily the usually so strongly protected nation. But Jeremiah shows them still how they deceived themselves in thinking that God had wholly rejected His people, for of the eternal covenant of grace they certainly understood nothing.” Heim and Hoffmann on the Major Prophets.
11. On Jer_50:18. “The great powers of the world form indeed the history of the world, but they have no future. Israel, however, always returns home to the dear and glorious land. The Jews might as a token of this return under Cyrus; the case is however this, that the true Holy One in Israel, Christ, guides us back to Paradise, when we flee to His hand from the Babylon of this world and let it be crucified for us.” Diedrich.
12. On Jer_50:23. “Although the Chaldeans were called of God for the purpose of making war on the Jewish nation on account of their multitudinous sins, yet they are punished because they did it not as God with a pure intention, namely, to punish the wrong in them and keep them for reformation; for they were themselves greater sinners than the Jews and continued with impenitence in their sins. Therefore they could not go scot-free and remain unpunished. Moreover, they acted too roughly and dealt with the Jews more harshly than God had commanded, for which He therefore fairly punished them. As God the Lord Himself says (Isa_47:6): When I was angry with My people I gave them into thine hands; but thou shewedst them no mercy. Therefore it is not enough that God’s will be accomplished, but there must be the good intention in it, which God had, otherwise such a work may be a sin and call down the divine punishment upon it.” Würtemb. Summ.
13. On Jer_50:31-34. “God calls Babylon Thou Pride, for pride was their inward force and impulse in all their actions. But worldly pride makes a Babylon and brings on a Babylon’s fate .… Pride must fall, for it is in itself a lie against God, and all its might must perish in the fire; thus will the humble and meek remain in possession of the earth: this has a wide application through all times, even to eternity.” Diedrich.
14. On Jer_51:33. “Israel is indeed weak and must suffer in a time of tyranny; it cannot help itself, nor needs it to do so, for its Redeemer is strong, His name The Lord Zebaoth—and He is, now, having assumed our flesh, among us and conducts our cause so that the world trembles.” Diedrich.
15. On Jer_50:45. “An emblem of the destruction of anti-christian Babylon, which was also the true hammer of the whole world. This has God also broken and must and will do it still more. And this will the shepherd-boys do, as is said here in Jer_51:45 (according to Luther’s translation), that is, all true teachers and preachers.” Cramer.
16. On Jeremiah 51. “The doctrines accord in all points with the previous chapter. And the prophet Jeremiah both in this and the previous chapter does nothing else but make out for the Babylonians their final discharge and passport, because they behaved so valiantly and well against the people of Judah, that they might know they would not go unrecompensed. For payment is according to service. And had they done better it would have gone better with them. It is well that when tyrants succeed in their evil undertakings they should not suppose they are God’s dearest children and lean on His bosom, since they will yet receive the recompense on their crown, whatever they have earned.” Cramer.
17. [“Though in the hand of Babylon is a golden cup; she chooses such a cup, in order that men’s eyes may be dazzled with the glitter of the gold, and may not inquire what it contains. But mark well, in the golden cup of Babylon is the poison of idolatry, the poison of false doctrines, which destroy the souls of men. I have often seen such a golden cup, in fair speeches of seductive eloquence: and when I have examined the venomous ingredients of the golden chalice, I have recognized the cup of Babylon.” Origen in Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]
“The seat and throne of Anti-christ is expressly named Babylon, namely, the city of Rome, built on the seven hills (Rev_17:9). Just as Babylon brought so many lands and kingdoms under its sway and ruled them with great pomp and pride (the golden cup, which made all the world drunk, was Babylon in the hand of the Lord (Jer_51:7), and all the heathen drank of the wine and became mad)—so has the spiritual Babylon a cup in its hand, full of the abomination and uncleanness of its whoredom, of which the kings of the earth and all who dwell on the earth have been made drunk. As it is said of Babylon that she dwells by great waters and has great treasures, so writes John of the Romish Babylon, that it is clothed in silk and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls (Rev_18:12). Of Babylon it is said that the slain in Israel were smitten by her; so also the spiritual Babylon is become drunk with the blood of the saints (Rev_17:6). Just, however, as the Chaldean Babylon is a type of the spiritual in its pride and despotism, so also is it a type of the destruction which will come upon it. Many wished to heal Babylon but she would not be healed; so many endeavor to support the ruinous anti-christian Babylon, but all in vain. For as Babylon was at last so destroyed as to be a heap of stones and abode of dragons, so will it be with anti-christian Babylon. Of this it is written in Rev_14:8 : She is fallen, fallen, that great city, for she has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. And again, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and a hold of all foul and hateful birds (Rev_18:2). As the inhabitants of Babylon were admonished to flee from her, that every man might deliver his soul (Jer_51:6)—and again, My people, go ye out from the midst of her and deliver every man his soul, etc. (Jer_51:45)—so the Holy Spirit admonishes Christians almost in the same words to go out from the spiritual Babylon, that they be not polluted by her sins and at the same time share in her punishment. For thus it is written in Rev_18:4, I heard, says John, a voice from heaven saying, Go ye out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins reach unto heaven and God remembers her iniquities.” Wurtemb. Summarien.
18. On Jer_51:5. “A monarch can sooner make an end of half a continent than draw a nail from a hut which the Lord protects.—And if it is true that Kaiser Rudolph, when he revoked the toleration of the Picards and the same day lost one of his principal forts, said, ‘I thought it would be so, for I grasped at God’s sceptre’ (Weismanni, Hist. Eccl. Tom. II. p. 320)—this was a sage remark, a supplement to the words of the wise.” Zinzendorf.
19. On Jer_51:9. We heal Babylon, but she will not be healed. Babylon is an outwardly beautiful but inwardly worm-eaten apple. Hence sooner or later the foulness must become noticeable. So is it with all whose heart and centre is not God. All is inwardly hollow and vain. When this internal vacuity begins to render itself externally palpable, when here and there a rent or foul spot becomes visible, then certainly come the friends and admirers of the unholy form and would improve, cover up, sew up, heal. But it does not avail. When once there is death in the body no physician can effect a cure.
20. On Jer_51:17; Jer_51:19-20. “The children of God have three causes why they may venture on Him. 1. All men are fools, their treasure is it not; 2. The Lord is their hammer; He breaks through everything, and 3, they are an instrument in His hand, a heritage; in this there is happiness.” Zinzendorf.
21. On Jer_51:41-44. “How was Sheshach thus won, the city renowned in all the world thus taken? No one would have thought it possible, but God does it. He rules with wonders and with wonders He makes His church free. Babylon is a wonder no longer for its power, but for its weakness. We are to know the world’s weakness even where it still appears strong. A sea of hostile nations has covered Babylon. Her land is now a desolation. God takes Bel, the principal idol of Babylon, symbolizing its whole civil powers in hand, and snatches his prey from his teeth. Our God is stronger than all worldly forces, and never leaves us to them.” Diedrich.
22. On Jer_51:58. “Yea, so it is with all walls and towers, in which God’s word is not the vital force, even though they be entitled churches and cathedrals … God’s church alone possesses permanence through His pure word.” Diedrich.
23. On Jer_51:60-64. When we wish to preserve an archive safely, we deposit it in a record-office where it is kept in a dry place that no moisture may get to it. Seraiah throws his book-roll into the waters of the Euphrates, which must wash it away, dissolve and destroy it. But this was of no account. The main point was that he, Seraiah, as representative of the holy nation had taken solemn stock of the word of God against Babylon, and as it were taken God at His word, and reminded Him of it. In this manner the matter was laid up in the most enduring and safest archive that could be imagined; it was made a case of honor with the omniscient and omnipotent God. Such matters can, however, neither be forgotten, nor remain in dead silence, nor be neglected. They must be brought to such an end as the honor of God requires.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jer_50:2. This text may be used on the feast of the Reformation, or any other occasion with reference to a rem bene gestam. The Triumph of the Good Cause, 1. over what enemies it is gained; 2. to what it should impel us; (a) to the avoidance of that over which we new triumph; (b) to the grateful proclamation of what the Lord has done for us, by word and by deed.
2. On Jer_50:4-8. The deliverance of Israel from the Babylonian captivity a type of the deliverance of the Church. 1. The Church must humbly acknowledge the captivity suffered as a judgment of God. 2. She must turn like Israel inwardly with an upright heart unto the Lord; 3. She must become like Israel to all men a pattern and leader to freedom.
3. On Jer_50:5. A confirmation sermon. “What is the hour of confirmation? 1. An hour which calls to separation; 2. an hour which leads to new connections; 3. an hour which fixes forever the old covenant with the soul’s friend.” Florey, 1853.
4. On Jer_50:18-20. Assyria and Babylon the types of all the spiritual enemies of the church as of individual Christians. Every one has his Assyria and his Babylon. Sin is the destruction of men. Forgiveness of sins is the condition of life, for only where forgiveness of sins is, is there life and blessedness. In Christ we find the forgiveness of sins. He destroys the handwriting. He washes us clean. He is also the good shepherd who leads our souls into green pastures, to the spiritual Carmel.
5. On Jer_50:31-32. Warning against pride. Babylon was very strong and powerful, rich and splendid. It seemed invincible by nature and by art. Had it not then a certain justification in being proud, at least towards men? No; for no one has to contend only with men. Every one who contends has the Lord either for his friend or his enemy. It is the Lord from whom cometh victory (Pro_21:31). He it is who teacheth our hands to fight (Psa_18:35; Psa_144:1). His strength is made perfect in weakness (2Co_12:9). He can make the lame (Isa_33:23; Mic_4:7) and mortally wounded (Jer_37:10) so strong that they overmaster the sound (comp. Jer_51:45). He can make one man put to flight a thousand (Deu_32:30; Isa_30:17). With him can one dash in pieces a troop and leap over a wall (Psa_18:29). No one accordingly should be proud. The word of the Lord, “I am against thee, thou proud one!” is a terrible word which no one should conjure up against himself.
6. On Jer_50:33-34. The consolation of the Church in persecution. 1. It suffers violence and injustice. 2. Its redeemer is strong.
7. On Jer_51:5. God the Lord manifests such favor to Israel as to declare Himself her husband (Jer_2:2; Jer_3:1). But now that Israel and Judah are in exile, it seems as if they were rejected or widowed women. This, however, is only appearance. Israel’s husband does not die. He may well bring a period of chastisement, of purification and trial on His people, but when this period is over, the Lord turns the handle, and smites those through whom He chastised Israel, when they had forgotten that they were not to satisfy their own desire, but only to accomplish the Lord’s will on Israel.
8. On Jer_51:6. A time may come when it is well to separate one’s self. For although it is said in Pro_18:1; he who separateth himself, seeketh that which pleaseth him and opposeth all that is good—and therefore separation, as the antipodes of churchliness, i.e., of churchly communion and humble subjection to the law of the co-operation of members (1Co_12:25 sqq.) is to be repudiated, yet there may come moments in the life of the church, when it will be a duty to leave the community and separate one’s self. Such a moment is come when the community has become a Babylon. It should, however, be noted that one should not be too ready with such a decision. For even the life of the church is subject to many vacillations. There are periods of decay, obscurations, as it were, comparable to eclipses of the stars, but to these, so long as the foundations only subsist, must always follow a restoration and return to the original brightness. No one is to consider the church a Babylon on account of such a passing state of disease. It is this only when it has withheld the objective divine foundations, the means of grace, the word and sacrament, altogether and permanently in their saving efficacy. Then, when the soul can no longer find in the church the pure and divine bread of life; it is well “to deliver the soul that it perish not in the iniquity of the church.” From this separation from the church is, however, to be carefully distinguished the separation within the church, from all that which is opposed to the healthy life of the church, and is therefore to be regarded as a diseased part of the ecclesiastical body. Such separation is the daily duty of the Christian. He has to perform it with respect to his private life in all the manifold relations, indicated to us in Mat_18:17; Rom_16:17; 1Co_5:9 sqq.; 2Th_3:6; Tit_3:10; 2Jn_1:10-11.—Comp. the article on Sects, by Palmer in Herzog, R.-Enc., XXI., S. 21, 22.
9. On Jer_51:10. The righteousness which avails before God. 1. Its origin (not our work or merit, but God’s grace in Christ); 2. Its fruit, praise of that which the Lord has wrought in us (a) by words, (b) by works.
10. On Jer_51:50. This text may be used at the sending out of missionaries or the departure of emigrants. Occasion may be taken to speak 1, of the gracious help and deliverance, which the Lord has hitherto shown to the departing; 2, they may be admonished to remain united in their distant land with their brethren at home by (a) remembering the Lord, i.e., ever remaining sincerely devoted to the Lord as the common shield of salvation; (b) faithfuly serving Jerusalem, i.e., the common mother of us all (Gal_4:26), the church, with all our powers in the proper place and measure, and ever keeping her in our hearts.
Footnotes:
[1]Jer_50:5.—באו ונלוו Both forms are Imperative, and there is no need either to take בּאֹוּ as Perf. or to alter נִלְווּ into נִלִיה(Graf.). Comp. Ewald, § 226, b; Olsh, § Joel 4:11; Isa_43:9.
[2]Jer_50:5.—ברית עולם. Accus. modalis. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 70, i; Jer_31:31-32; Jer_32:40.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain THE TITLE, Jer_50:1.
THE TITLE, Jer_50:1.
1. The word… against Babylon — Rather, concerning.
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By Jeremiah — Literally, as in the margin, by the hand of Jeremiah, suggesting not a spoken, but a written, message. The and should be omitted, and so land of the Chaldeans is simply an appositive of Babylon, which is thus shown to be not the city but the land.
The circle of the nations is completed in this prophecy against Babylon, which is much the most elaborate of all, containing one hundred verses. The genuineness of the passage is assailed by several critics on such grounds as these: 1) Elsewhere Jeremiah is the friend of the Chaldeans; here he is their enemy, and thirsts for their overthrow: 2) The style is repetitious. 3) New words and thoughts, foreign to Jeremiah, are introduced. 4) It shows a striking resemblance to certain passages in Isaiah 5) It displays an intimate knowledge of Babylonian topography and customs.
We reply: 1) Jeremiah indeed recognises the Chaldeans as the ministers of God’s justice, but still this does not change the fact that they are the enemies of the theocracy; and Jeremiah’s loyalty as a Jew and a worshipper of the Most High cannot be questioned. 2) That the style contains repetitions is eminently characteristic of Jeremiah, the warmth of whose emotional nature continually leads him to dwell on and to repeat matters of supreme interest. 3) There is no proof that new words and thoughts, novel to Jeremiah, have been introduced. 4) The introduction of passages from other prophets, such as Isaiah, Obadiah, and Nahum, has already been illustrated; and in this Jeremiah is simply consistent with himself. 5) The knowledge of Babylon is only of such general character as every intelligent Jew must have possessed.
In favor of the genuineness of this passage we may note — 1) Its own distinct and formal claim, so that if it be not genuine it is a base forgery. 2) The style is characteristically Jeremiah’s. 3) The local and historical allusions are fully in harmony with this view. One illustrative passage, the fifth verse, has been repeatedly quoted: “They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward.” The exact reading is hitherward, showing that the writer was at Jerusalem.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) By Jeremiah the prophet.—Literally, by the hand of…
(1) By Jeremiah the prophet.—Literally, by the hand of Jeremiah. The phrase is not found elsewhere in Jeremiah’s writings, with the one exception of Jer_37:2. It probably indicates that the prophecy that follows was written with his own hand, and not dictated. (See Jer_51:60.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain We have now reached a point at which some…
We have now reached a point at which some reference is necessary to the controversies of the so called "higher criticism." An attempt must be made to put the reader in possession of the data which are so variously estimated by critics of different schools. Theological considerations need not, and therefore ought not, to be admitted; like every other critical question, that which we are now approaching can be argued out on purely literary grounds. At first sight, indeed, it would appear not to require a long debate, seeing that in Jer_1:1 and Jer_51:60 the prophecy is expressly attributed to Jeremiah. But, on the other hand, it must be observed that the authorship of the heading in Jer_1:1 is altogether obscure; very possibly, like those of so many of the psalms, the heading may be incorrect. And as to Jer_51:60, can we be absolutely certain that the expression, "all these words," was intended to refer to the prophecy which now precedes Jer_51:59-64? No doubt Jeremiah did write a prophecy against Babylon, and give it to Seraish with the charge described in Jer_51:61-64. But how do we know that this prophecy has come down to us in the form in which it was written?
This attitude of reserve is not assumed without substantial grounds, derived from two sources the epilogue (Jer_51:59-64) and the prophecy itself. First, as to the epilogue. It is clear that the words, "and they shall be weary," are out of place in ver. 64, and that they are wrongly repeated from ver. 58. But how came they to be repeated? Because, originally, the declaration, "Thus far are the words of Jeremiah," stood at the end of ver. 58. When the short narrative in vers. 59-64 (ending at "I will bring upon her") was combined with Jer_51:1-51, Jer_51:58, the declaration in question was removed from ver. 58 to ver. 64, and, by accident, the preceding word (in the Hebrew) was removed with it. This leaves it open to us to doubt whether the present prophecy on Babylon is really the one referred to in ver. 60, supposing, that is, there are other reasons, derived from the prophecy itself, for questioning its Jeremianic authorship.
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The reasons which have been adduced for doing so are analogous to those which lead so many students to doubt the Isaianic authorship of Isa_40:4-6.
I The author of the latter prophecy (or the greater part thereof) writes as if he were living at the close of the Babylonian exile. So does the author of Jer 1 and Jer 51 "Yet a little while," he says, (Jer_51:33) "and the time of her harvest shall come" the time, that is, of that judicial interposition which (comp. Isa_17:5, 11 Mat_13:39) is the heavenly antitype of harvest. He urges his fellow countrymen to flee, while there is still time, from the doomed city. (Jer_51:6, Jer_51:45) He mentions, as the instruments of the Divine vengeance, the Medes, (Jer_51:11, Jer_51:28) and, as it would seem, refers, though obscurely, to Cyrus. (Jer_51:20-23)
1. Although the above statement is literally true of most of Isa 40-66, yet there are some passages which are much more suggestive of a Palestinian origin than of a Babylonian (see Cheyne"s "Prophecies of Isaiah," 2:202). Precisely so in Jer 50 and Jer 51, at least according to one prevalent interpretation of Jer_50:5 Jer_51:50 (which are thought to imply a residence in Jerusalem); Jer_50:28 Jer_51:11, Jer_51:35, 51 (suggestive, perhaps, of the continuance of Jerusalem and the temple); Jer_1:17 Jer_51:34 (implying, as some think, that Nebuchadnezzar was still alive). Still, there is so much doubt respecting the soundness of the inferences, that it is hardly safe to rely too confidently upon them. The case of Jer 1, and Jer 51 is, therefore, in so far rather less favourable to Jeremiah"s authorship than that of Isaiah 40-66, is to that of Isaiah.
2. Amongst much that is new and strange in the style of phraseology of Isaiah 40-66, there is not a little that reminds one forcibly of the old Isaiah. Similarly with Isa 50 and Isa 51, as compared with Jeremiah, "Every impartial judge," says Kuenen (who will not be suspected of a prejudice for tradition), "must admit that the number of parallel passages is very large, and that the author of ch. 50 and 51 agrees with no one more than with Jeremiah." For instance, the formula, "Thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel", (Jer_1:18 Jer_51:33) also occurs in Jer_7:3 Jer_9:15, and some twenty-six other passages; comp. also Jer_1:3 with Jer_9:9 Jer_1:5 with Jer_32:40 Jer_1:7 with Jer_2:3, Jer_14:18, Jer_17:13; and see other passages referred to in the Exposition. The probability would, therefore, appear to be that, whatever solution we adopt for the literary problems of Isaiah 40-66, an analogous solution must be adopted for ch. 50 and 51. The whole question is so large, and connects itself with so many other problems, that the present writer declines to pronounce upon it here. Only it should be observed
(1) that both subject and tone remind us of Isaiah 40-66, and the kindred prophecies scattered about in the first part of the Book of Isaiah, and more especially of Isa 13 and the closely related prophecy, Isa 34;
(2) that these two chapters, ch. 50 and 51, present some striking points of contact with Ezekiel, who, though contemporary with Jeremiah, was still a later contemporary, and allusions to whom (since Ezekiel was a literary rather than an oratorical prophet) imply that his prophetic book was already in circulation in other words, suggest a date well on in the Exile for the prophet who alludes to him;
(3) that, though there are many Jeremianic allusions in ch. 50 and 51, there are also several passages copied almost verbally from prophecies of Jeremiah, and applied to Babylon and its assailants (it seems difficult to believe that Jeremiah should have been such a good economizer of his literary work). It deserves to be added
(4) That, though Jeremiah is a great student of the earlier prophetic writings, and makes numerous allusions to them (see especially ch. 46-49), nothing approaching to the mosaic work in ch. 50 and 51 can be pointed to in the undoubted prophecies of Jeremiah. In fact, the Exposition will show that the author of these two chapters has borrowed almost the whole of their contents from other prophets his own property, so to speak, being too insignificant to be worth mentioning. Here, in justification of
(1) is a list of points of contact between ch. 50 and 51 and Isa 13:
(a) "To consecrate or, "sanctify," used of persons, Jer_51:27 Isa_13:3. Here only (elsewhere with "war" following).
(b) "Lift ye up a banner," Jer_50:2 Jer_51:27; also Isa_13:2.
(c) Comp. Jer_50:16 with Isa_13:14; close phraseological agreement.
(d) Comp. Jer_50:6, 17 with first part of Jer_13:14; agreement as to sense.
(e) "Behold, I will stir up against Babylon," Jer_51:1; (comp. Jer_50:9) so Isa_13:17. Comp. also, however, Isa_41:25 Joe 3 (Hebrew, 4) 7-9.
(f) Comp. Jer_51:3 (Jer_50:14, Jer_50:29) with Isa_13:18; agreement as to sense.
(g) Comp. Jer_51:11, 28 with Isa_13:17 (mention of the Medes).
(h) Comp. Jer_50:39, 40 with Isa_13:19-22.
This last parallel may, perhaps, be questioned. At first sight it may appear that both Jer_50:40 and Isa_13:19 are based upon Jer_49:18 (which see), but when we inspect Isa_13:19 more closely in the Hebrew, we shall find reason to conclude that the original, both of this passage and of Jer_50:40, is Amo_4:11. We must, therefore, put Jer_49:18 out of the question, and learn to be on our guard against plausible inferences. The only point which remains to be decided is the relation between Jer_50:40 and Isa_13:19; which passage is the original? One important element in our decision will be the naturalness in the mode of reference to Sodom and Gomorrah; to the present writer this seems to determine the question against ch. 50 and 51 and in favour of Isa 13. (The imitation is limited to Isa 13 because Isa 14 passes on to another though a related subject.) And here, in justification of
(2) are points of contact between ch. 50 and 51 and the Prophet Ezekiel.
(a) Ideas and motives.
(i) Figure of scattered flock, Jer_50:6, Jer_50:7. (Eze 34)
(ii) Effects of the avenging Sword of Jehovah. (Jer_5:3-5 Eze_21:30 Eze_33:1-6)
(b) Words and phrases
(i) No word is more distinctly peculiar to Ezekiel than gillulim, idol blocks, which occurs no less than thirty-nine times in his book, and elsewhere only once in Leviticus, once in Deuteronomy, six times in Kings, and once in Jeremiah. (Jer_50:2)
(ii) Anaq, to groan, occurs thrice in Ezekiel, once in Jeremiah, (Jer_51:52) and nowhere else. It is remarkable that in the latter passage we find not only a word but a phrase of Ezekiel"s. (Eze_26:13)
(iii) Pekod, the name of a Chaldean district, occurs in Jer_50:21; also Eze_23:23.
(iv) The striking combination, pakhoth useghanim, occurs in Jer_51:28, Jer_51:57; also Eze_23:6, Eze_23:12, Eze_23:23.
(v) Kasdim for "Chaldea" (properly the Chaldeans), Jer_51:10 Jer_51:24, Jer_51:35; also Eze_16:29 Eze_23:16.
(vi) Jer_51:25, 26 seems to allude to Eze_35:3-5, 9 (see the Hebrew, and verify the statement by the Hebrew concordance).
(c) General characteristics of style. Granting that the style of ch. 50 and It. approaches nearest on the whole to that of Jeremiah, it must be admitted, in the words of the latest German critic, Budde, that it "frequently enough declines from the simple, plain, and rather loose style of Jeremiah, to the flowery and turgid manner of speech of Ezekiel;" also that the points of contact are such as imply the originality of Ezekiel and the dependence upon him of ch. 50 and 51.
Against; rather, concerning.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Jeremiah 50, Jeremiah 51
CHAPTER XXV
BABYLON
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Jeremiah 50, Jeremiah 51
"Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces."- Jer_50:2
THESE chapters present phenomena analogous to those of Isaiah 40-66, and have been very commonly ascribed to an author writing at Babylon towards the close of the Exile, or even at some later date. The conclusion has been arrived at in both cases by the application of the same critical principles to similar data. In the present case the argument is complicated by the concluding paragraph of chapter 51, which states that "Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon," in the fourth year of Zedekiah, and gave the book to Seraiah ben Neriah to take to Babylon and tie a stone to it and throw it into the Euphrates.
Such a statement, however, cuts both ways. On the one hand, we seem to have what is wanting in the case of Isaiah 40-66-a definite and circumstantial testimony as to authorship. But, on the other hand, this very testimony raises new difficulties. If 50 and 51 had been simply assigned to Jeremiah, without any specification of date, we might possibly have accepted the tradition according to which he spent his last years at Babylon, and have supposed that altered circumstances and novel experiences account for the differences between these chapters and the rest of the book. But Zedekiahs fourth year is a point in the prophets ministry at which it is extremely difficult to account for his having composed such a prophecy. If, however, Jer_51:59-64 is mistaken in its exact and circumstantial account of the origin of the preceding section, we must hesitate to recognise its authority as to that sections authorship.
A detailed discussion of the question would be out of place here, but we may notice a few passages which illustrate the arguments for an exilic date. We learn from Jeremiah 27-29, that, in the fourth year of Zedekiah, the prophet was denouncing as false teachers those who predicted that the Jewish captives in Babylon would speedily return to their native land. He himself asserted that judgment would not be inflicted upon Babylon for seventy years, and exhorted the exiles to build houses and marry, and plant gardens, and to pray for the peace of Babylon. {Jer_29:4-14} We can hardly imagine that, in the same breath almost, he called upon these exiles to flee from the city of their captivity, and summoned the neighbouring nations to execute Jehovahs judgment against the oppressors of His people. And yet we read:-
"There shall come the Israelites, they and the Jews together:
They shall weep continually, as they go to seek Jehovah their God;
They shall ask their way to Zion, with their faces hitherward." {Jer_50:4-5}
"Remove from the midst of Babylon, and be ye as he-goats before the flock." {Jer_50:8}
These verses imply that the Jews were already in Babylon, and throughout the author assumes the circumstances of the Exile. "The vengeance of the Temple," i.e., vengeance for the destruction of the Temple at the final capture of Jerusalem, is twice threatened. {Jer_50:28; Jer_51:11} The ruin of Babylon is described as imminent:-
"Set up a standard on the earth,
Blow the trumpet among the nations,
Prepare the nations against her."
If these words were written by Jeremiah in the fourth year of Zedekiah, he certainly was not practising his own precept to pray for the peace of Babylon.
Various theories have been advanced to meet the difficulties which are raised by the ascription of this prophecy to Jeremiah. It may have been expanded from an authentic original. Or again, Jer_51:59-64 may not really refer to Jeremiah 50:1 - Jeremiah 51:58; the two sections may once have existed separately, and may owe their connection to an editor, who met with Jer_50:1-46; Jer_51:1-58 as an anonymous document, and thought he recognised in it the "book" referred to in Jer_51:59-64. Or Jer_50:1-46; Jer_51:1-58 may be a hypothetical reconstruction of a lost prophecy of Jer_51:59-64 mentioned such a prophecy and none was extant, and some student and disciple of Jeremiahs school utilised the material and ideas of extant writings to supply the gap. In any case. it must have been edited more than once, and each time with modifications. Some support might be obtained for any one of these theories from the fact that Jer_50:1-46; Jer_51:1-58 is prima facie partly a cento of passages from the rest of the book and from the Book of Isaiah. {Jer_50:8; Jer_51:6, with Isa_48:20; Jer_50:13 with Jer_49:17; Jer_50:41-43 with Jer_6:22-24; Jer_50:44-46 with Jer_49:19-21; Jer_51:15-19 with Isa_10:12-16}
In view of the great uncertainty as to the origin and history of this prophecy, we do not intend to attempt any detailed exposition. Elsewhere whatever non-Jeremianic matter occurs in the book is mostly by way of expansion and interpretation, and thus lies in the direct line of the prophets teaching. But the section on Babylon attaches itself to the new departure in religious thought that is more fully expressed in Isaiah 40-66. Chapters 50, 51, may possibly be Jeremiahs swan song, called forth by one of those Pisgah visions of a new dispensation sometimes granted to aged seers; but such visions of a new era and a new order can scarcely be combined with earlier teaching. We will therefore only briefly indicate the character and contents of this section.
It is apparently a mosaic, compiled from lost as well as extant sources; and dwells upon a few themes with a persistent iteration of ideas and phrases hardly to be paralleled elsewhere, even in the Book of Jeremiah. It has been reckoned that the imminence of the attack on Babylon is introduced afresh eleven times, and its conquest and destruction nine times. The advent of an enemy from the north is announced four times. {Jer_50:3; Jer_50:9; Jer_51:41; Jer_51:48}
The main theme is naturally that dwelt upon most frequently, the imminent invasion of Chaldea by victorious enemies who shall capture and destroy Babylon. Hereafter the great city and its territory will be a waste, howling wilderness:-
"Your mother shall be sore ashamed,
She that bare you shall be confounded;
Behold, she shall be the hindmost of the nations,
A wilderness, a parched land, and a desert.
Because of the wrath of Jehovah, it shall be uninhabited;
The whole land shall be a desolation.
Every one that goeth by Babylon
Shall hiss with astonishment because of all her plagues." {Jer_50:12; Jer_13:13; Jer_50:39-40; Jer_51:26; Jer_51:29; Jer_51:37; Jer_51:41-43}
The gods of Babylon, Bel and Merodach, and all her idols, are involved in her ruin, and reference is made to the vanity and folly of idolatry. {Jer_51:17-18} But the wrath of Jehovah has been chiefly excited, not by false religion, but by the wrongs inflicted by the Chaldeans on His Chosen People. He is moved to avenge His Temple:- {Jer_50:28}
"I will recompense unto Babylon
And all the inhabitants of Chaldea
All the evil which they wrought in Zion,
And ye shall see it-it is the utterance of Jehovah". {Jer_51:24}
Though He thus avenge Judah, yet its former sins are not yet blotted out of the book of His remembrance:-
"Their adversaries said, We incur no guilt.
Because they have sinned against Jehovah, the Pasture of Justice,
Against the Hope of their fathers, even Jehovah". {Jer_50:7}
Yet now there is forgiveness:-
"The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none;
And the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found
For I will pardon the remnant that I preserve". {Jer_50:20}
The Jews are urged to flee from Babylon, lest they should be involved in its punishment, and are encouraged to return to Jerusalem and enter afresh into an everlasting covenant with Jehovah. As in Jeremiah 31, Israel is to be restored as well as Judah:-
"I will bring Israel again to his Pasture;
He shall feed on Carmel and Bashan;
His desires shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead." {Jer_50:19}
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—1. Chronology of the Chapter.—This and…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—1. Chronology of the Chapter.—This and the following chapter constitute one prophecy against Babylon; and the date of its authorship is given in chap. Jer_51:59 : “the fourth year of Zedekiah.” Jeremiah delivered this written prophecy to Seriah, the king’s chamberlain and Baruch’s brother (cf. chap. Jer_32:12), who accompanied Zedekiah the king to Babylon, probably at Nebuchadnezzar’s summons, for some imposing state occasion: the prophet’s design being to send to the exiles there His message concerning the overthrow of the Chaldean power and their return from captivity.
2. National Affairs.—Jeremiah was at this time dwelling in Jerusalem (Jer_50:5, lit. “hitherwards,” not as in E.V., “thitherwards,” the writer being in Jerusalem), yet he regards the city as already captured and in ruins (Jer_50:11; Jer_50:15; Jer_50:17; Jer_50:28, &c.), while the exiles at Babylon, taught by their sorrows and misfortunes, are seeking their God in penitence (Jer_50:4-7). But the expressions are all general, there are none of those minute touches which would certainly have been found had the city and temple been actually destroyed (Dr. Payne Smith). The exact position of affairs will be apparent by reference to Notes in loc. to chap. 29. Comp. also Topic, “Prophecy vindicated in Babylon’s Fall” (on chap. Jer_25:13), p. 473.
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3. Personal Allusions.—Jer_50:2. “Bel,” the principal deity of Babylon, and “Merodack” (which means in Syria, little lord), another idol-god.
Literary Criticisms.—Jer_50:5. “Their faces thitherward:” but הֵנָּה uniformly means hither: they look “hither” from scenes of exile.
Jer_50:9. “A mighty expert man” The pointing of the word מַשְׁכִּיל, maschil, appears in most of the authorities; therefore is rendered expert; but some editions read מַשְׂכִּיל mashchil, a destroyer, or prosperous.
Jer_50:12. “Your mother:” אִמְּכֶם is the metropolis of the empire, Babylon.
Jer_50:17. “Devoured him … broken his bones.” Rather, “The first, even the king of Assyria, ate him (imagery of a lion being kept up), and this last, even Nebuchadnezzar, hath picked his bones.” For Israel was so wasted by Assyria, that Nebuchadnezzar had but the bones to pick.
Jer_50:21. “Marathaim.” Marg. “the rebels;” but מְרַתַיִם is doubly rebellious: it is a dual form, intended as an intensitive, and conveys the sense of the very rebellious land. “Pekod” signifies visitation.
Jer_50:31. “O thou most proud.” Lit. O Pride; God calls Babylon by that name, זָדוֹן.
SUBJECT OF CHAPTER 50
BABYLON’S PREDICTED OVERTHROW: ISRAEL’S SURE REDEMPTION
Introductory considerations—
i. Why was Babylon’s fall announced? That the exiles there might cherish hope in their captivity and nurture faith in Jehovah as still working out purposes of mercy for His covenant people. Comp. “The Theocratic Purpose of the Captivity,” p. 472.
ii. What was the power which should effect Babylon’s overthrow? “A nation cometh up against her from the north” (Jer_50:3). The Median power, which Cyrus successfully led against Babylon (see Topic, “Sheshach,” ii. 2, p. 475). As Judah’s overthrow by Babylon had always been predicted “from the north” (chap. Jer_1:14), now, in turn, Babylon’s overthrow is to be by a power “from the north.” The north is the region where the sun never shines, and emblematical, therefore, of severity and gloom. The Medo-Persian empire was an aggregation of small nationalities welded into unity by Cyaxares (B.C. 633).
iii. In what light is Babylon’s ruin to be regarded? Comp. “The Supernatural Termination of Babylon’s Power,” p. 472. Her work was done; and, as being a graceless and arrogant power, God destroyed it when it had served the end for which He created and prolonged it. For though Babylon worked out God’s designs in Judah’s punishment, it was not done by her in recognition of Jehovah and His will, but in violent lust of empire, and in disregard of the sanctity of Zion’s holy things.
iv. How would the exiles greet this prediction? Surely it would call them to the repentance and re-allegiance to God which Jeremiah describes (Jer_50:4-5), and foster in them a patient waiting for the hour of their promised redemption, and restrain their souls from Babylon’s idolatries by fixing their expectation and trust in Jehovah.
Observation.—The fate of Babylon is homiletically treated in chap. 25; hence in these two chapters the general theme will be left, and only verses selected for homilies.
HOMILIES ON VERSES IN CHAPTER 50
Jer_50:4. Theme: WEEPING PILGRIMS. “Going and weeping; they shall go and seek the Lord their God.”
i. THE RETURN. “Going.” In part fulfilled when some few of the ten tribes of “Israel” joined Judah in a “covenant” with God at the restoration of Judah to their own land (Neh_9:38; Neh_10:29). Its full accomplishment is yet to come (chap. Jer_31:9; see Homilies on “The Watchmen’s Call” and “Pilgrims to Zion,” pp. 518, 519. Comp also Hos_1:11; Zec_12:10). Its constant fulfilment is realised in souls returning to the Lord in prayer, penitence, and faith.
ii. THE TEARFUL JOURNEY. “Weeping.” With sorrow at the remembrance of their sins and sufferings (Ezr_3:12-13; Psa_126:5-6). With gladness at their restoration, after so long a delay, and in a manner surpassing all hope.
iii. THE DIVINE GOAL. “Seek the Lord their God.” More a going back in heart to Him, than a mere geographical return to their land. A happier goal that than to a ruined country; for the goal of piety, “The Lord,” is a better and more blessed one than the goal of patriotism—a wasted country. God is more to the ransomed soul than Zion!
Jer_50:4-5. Theme: SINNERS RETURNING TO GOD.
Evident that the verses allude to the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity. But as they interestingly describe what is manifest in the return of sinners to God, we will use them to illustrate such a circumstance.
I. Penitents going in company. “In those days the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together.”
There had been much dissension and great enmity between these tribes from the days of Rehoboam (see 1 Kings 12); but it had been foretold that they should again unite, and here we behold them coming “together.” Thus it is with sinners in submitting to the teachings of the Holy Ghost and yielding to divine influence.
Whatever was the distance, whatever the enmity existing between them before, now, as with one accord, they come together to the house of God, to the throne of grace, to the Saviour of mankind. See Eph_2:13-14.
II. Sinners returning with weeping. “Going and weeping.”
What an affecting sight! Whence have they come? Why do they weep? Whither are they going? They have left the land of their captivity, where they were aliens from God, servants to idolaters, slaves to their enemies; they have left the ways of sin, the company of the wicked, the service of the devil Behold them going.
As they go they weep: not from regret that they are leaving scenes and circumstances to which they have been so long habituated, but rather because they remained connected with them so long. They are affected by a sense of God’s goodness to them and by a consciousness of their ingratitude towards God; they weep on account of their sins, and the proof of their sincerity is manifest in their movement; for as they weep they go; they leave their former sinful situation, and they are going.
III. Souls returning to the Lord. “To seek the Lord their God.”
The children of Israel and of Judah had wandered from Jehovah, the true God, the God of their fathers; they had provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, especially by the folly and the infamy of idolatrous practices, and God had left them for a while captives in the hands of idolaters. But mixing mercy with judgment, He remembered them in their low estate; and here we find them again seeking the Lord their God.
Sinners may wander from God, but misery, infamy, and ruin will be the consequence; they must return again to God or perish. And they may return; for oh! how kind are the words of the Lord our God, of Jesus our Saviour, to weeping returning sinners! “Ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with your whole heart” (Jer_29:13).
IV. Seekers asking direction. “They ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward.”
Zion was the city of solemnities among the Jews, and God was peculiarly present there. But Zion means the Church, and it is in His Church that God may always be found. So Jesus our Saviour promises. Agreeably to this, “they ask the way to Zion;” and as a proof that this is not an idle inquiry, they ask “with their faces thitherward.” Their dispositions are turned toward God and His people; their souls are inclined to religion and its ways.
Thus disposed, they next resolve, “Come and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant, that shall not be forgotten.”
They had been joined to idols, to sin, to wickedness. But now they say, “Come let us join ourselves to the Lord.”
The way to join ourselves to the Lord is, spiritually, by faith and by love; outwardly, by connecting ourselves with the Lord’s people—with those who worship God in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.—Altered from “Sketches of Sermons.”
Jer_50:5. Theme: DIRECTIONS TO INQUIRERS. “They shall ask the way to Zion, Come and let us join ourselves to the Lord.” The evidences of a state of grace are the same in all ages. The thought of the numbers in heaven and the numbers on the way to it may well encourage us.
Text said of Israel in Babylon, but said spiritually of seekers in every age.
Perhaps never a day since first promise in which there has not been some inquirer to heaven.
“We are compassed,” etc. It is always instructive to mark the peculiar and characteristic distinctions of the people of God. Though there are some things in which they differ, there are many in which they agree. Unity without uniformity.
There may be circumstantial differences between Moses and Joshua, Paul and John, Martha and Mary, Peter and Nathaniel, but they yet possess a oneness of character. All love Christ; love prayer; love the Word of God; love the fellowship of the Gospel. “All drink into the same Spirit.”
Our text exhibits some of these, and we shall set before you—
I. Some of the marks and characteristics of the pilgrims to Zion. “Arise, let us go up to Zion.” Earnestness, Union, Effort.
1. By their earnest inquiry. “They inquire the way to Zion with their faces thitherward.” Supposes Desire, Ignorance, Docility, Resolution.
As when the bondage of Israel was broken they began to turn homewards, so when the soul is truly converted to God it begins to turn heavenwards. “Arise ye,” etc.
The soul truly awakened is no longer content to sleep in sin, to linger upon the brink of perdition, to remain under the sentence and condemnation of a broken law, but determines to seek salvation and escape the wrath to come. “I will arise.”
Paul inquires, “What wouldst Thou have me to do?” Peter inquires, “Lord, to whom shall we go but to Thee?” The jailor inquires, “What shall I do to be saved?” Balak inquires, “Wherewithal shall I come before the Lord?”
Depend upon it, it is a great era in any man’s history when he feels himself wrong, becomes aware of his danger, has strong convictions awakened, sees his need of a Saviour, feels for the first time the powers of the world to come, and earnestly resolves to make the care of his soul the first concern.
But it is of great consequence that he should at once act upon his convictions. These inquired with “their faces directed thitherward.” Not ask the way to heaven and set their faces to the world; not set their faces to heaven and go on at a venture without asking the way; but in all true converts there is both a sincere desire to attain the end and a constant care to keep the way. Guard against trifling with convictions. Pray that they may be deepened and confirmed, that you may be enabled to act upon them, that they may issue in sound conversion.
2. By their penitential regrets. “Going and weeping.”
They weep that they have been in bondage so long, that their best days have been devoted to folly and sin, that so few are found walking with them, that the way is so rough, the difficulties so great, and that they find so many traces and footprints of returning feet—of those who professed to set out on pilgrimage, but whose hearts were not right. The open enemies of the way do not discourage so much as the false friends of the way (Psa_78:8-11).
Repentance awakens a godly sorrow for sin past, a painful sense of sin present, our remaining corruption, and a holy jealousy and distrust of ourselves for the future, lest, like Lot’s wife, we look back, or, like Israel, in heart go back (Psa_51:12).
3. By their mutual solicitude and concern. “Come and let us.” Roused themselves, they long to rouse others.
Religion delights in unity and association. It consecrates the social principle by bringing it in aid of our own and others’ piety. The charity of religion when it begins at home does not end there. One of the first indications of piety is a concern for the salvation of others (Joh_1:41). “Andrew first findeth his own brother.” Like lighted torches spread the flame.
He who can forego the communion of saints will probably very soon be able to resign communion with God.
4. By their solemn and determined consecration to God. “Let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant.”
“My understanding shall be His to know Him; my will His to choose Him; my affections His to love Him; and all my active powers His to serve and honour Him.”—Bishop Beveridge. Williams of Kidderminster records:—“I solemnly devoted and dedicated myself to Him who is the King of kings, resolving by His grace to give a full divorce to all manner of sins, and to the utmost of my power to strive and wrestle with all temptations to sin, whether from without or within; to avoid the society of vain and graceless persons; to commend myself to God by prayer at least twice a day; to be careful and constant in self-examination and meditation; particularly to meditate on the love of God in Christ, and of Christ in willingly offering Himself a sacrifice for poor sinners, and in sending the blessed Spirit, whose strivings and quickening motions I resolved, by the grace of God, never to quench. I resolved to watch narrowly against the wanderings and strayings of my heart in any duty; to make the glory of God and the salvation of my soul my chief business and design; and to account the affairs of this world but as diversions to me in my way heavenward. I determined to call myself to account for the actions of the day, and frequently to write remarks thereon. This was of excellent use to keep me close to God and duty to prevent sin; it helped me to redeem precious time, making conscience of rising betimes for communion with God.”
II. Directions to those who are desirous of walking in this way.
1. Solemnly consecrate yourself to God. “Join yourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant,” &c.
2. Carefully study the directions for the way. “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet.” Here your course is clearly marked out all the way from the city of destruction to the heights of Zion.
The uses of the Bible read and heard are to convince of sin, to convert to Christ, to confirm in grace, to conduct to glory.
As ever you would profit by a sermon or a chapter, follow it with the tears of repentance and the prayers of faith. Remember that the Bible without its Inspirer’s illumination is like a dial without sunshine.
3. Keep close to your Guide. Jesus says, “I am the way.” He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Honour Christ in His prophetical office as He who loosens the seals and opens the Book, and throws light on the dispensations of God, and guides and guards the Church from earth to heaven.
Peter followed, but followed afar off.
4. Do not separate yourselves from your godward companions.
5. Keep the end constantly in view.—S. Theodey, 1842.
Jer_50:4-5. Theme: YOUNG CONVERTS STARTING ZIONWARD.
I. God reconciled to them in grace is the object of their inquiry.
II. It is usual with inquirers to associate with those who are like-minded with themselves.
III. This inquiry after God and happiness is frequently accompanied with tears.
IV. Mount Zion is the place to which they will repair for instruction and comfort.
V. Devout and sincere inquirers will gladly avail themselves of the direction and counsel of Christian ministers and of other pilgrims who have made some advance in the way to the celestial city.
VI. Young converts, having found God, to their unspeakable satisfaction, will do well to “join themselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.”—Rev. R. Frost, Dunmow, 1833.
Note—
“The fall of Babylon is to be immediately followed by the return of the exiles homewards in tearful procession because they go as penitents, and yet with joy because their faces are towards Zion. The cessation, moreover, of the schisms between Israel and Judah is one of the signs of the times of the Messiah (Isa_11:12-13), and symbolically represents the gathering together of all the discordant and warring empires of the world under the peaceful sceptre of the Church’s King.”—Speaker’s Commentary.
Jer_50:6. Theme: THE SOUL’S RESTING-PLACE. “They have forgotten their resting-place.”
The prophet speaks of the captivity of Israel in language of plaintive and poetic beauty: “My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have caused them to go astray; they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting-place.” Jehovah had now come to seek and save them, and the first evidence that He is among them is that they return penitent to Him. As the lost child that has run hither and thither in the crowded streets, seeking in vain the parent from whom she has wandered, crying herself sick in the bitterness of her sorrow, does at the sight of the mother coming to her relief rush to her embrace, so the Jewish nation rose repentingly to meet God as He drew near, saying with earnest and devout enthusiasm, “Come and let us join ourselves unto the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten” (Jer_50:5). To take the text in a spiritual sense is not accommodation, but interpretation, for all this was designed to present a striking analogy to the case of the sinner and his Saviour. Viewed in this light, the text suggests—
I. That the human soul needs a resting-place.
This is true of the soul—
1. In innocence. As a creature he could not but be dependent. Without unquestioning trust in God, safety and happiness were impossible to man even before the Fall.
2. How much more true is this since man has become a sinner! To the sense of dependence there is now added the restlessness of a rebel, whose conscience is carrying a load it cannot shake off, whose intellect is revolving questions it cannot solve, whose heart is crying out for love that shall be worthy of its acceptance, and for an object that shall be worthy of its love. His nature is utterly weary. The past is guilty, the future is hopeless, and so the present is restless. Have you never sought to hide yourself from God and from yourself in business, pleasure, excitement, because of a consciousness of guilt, even as Adam attempted to hide himself amid the trees? You become yourself the spectre that haunts your heart, and you carry yourself for ever with you. Never, therefore, until yourself is changed can you enter into an unfailing resting-place.
II. Jesus Christ is the resting-place the soul needs.
The deliverance from the power of sin and the effects of sin can alone remove the soul’s distress. In Christ we have—
1. Full redemption. He took upon Himself our sins and redeemed us from the curse of the law, so that “there is no condemnation to them that are in Him.” No anodynes of earth can give the soul the rest that the blood of Christ can. What the words of men could not do the voice of Jesus has accomplished; for when He has said, “Thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace,” the heavings of the troubled heart have been stilled, as of old the rolling waves of Galilee subsided at His command.
2. In Him we also have regeneration. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” A new centre has been given to his heart, a new aim to his life, a new joy to his experience. In his heart Christ has opened a fountain that quenches his thirst for evermore.
3. He gives repose to the intellect. Christ is “the truth.” Jesus Christ alone brings to the soul the element of certainty, and, worn out by vain flights, it folds its weary wings and rests with quiet thankfulness on this tree of knowledge, which is also the tree of life.
4. He also gives repose to the affections of the soul. Earthly objects prove disappointing or fall away from us, or are torn from us and leave the soul all palpitating with agony, but no power can separate from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Earthly objects cannot last through the soul’s immortality, but Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and the repose that Christ brings is as everlasting as Himself.
III. The text implies that this resting-place of the soul is sometimes forgotten, even by those who have known and enjoyed it.
“My people have forgotten their resting-place.” This place can be attained even on earth by Christians. Paul, amid the damp and darkness of his prison, exclaimed, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded He is able to keep what I have committed to Him against that day.” Eminent Christians in all ages, &c. But a Christian may frequently have his peace in Christ disturbed. At moments he may be walking through darkness. Job was a true man of God even when he was crying out, “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!” True, a Christian is not justified in being in this distressed state of mind.
When does a Christian forget his resting-place?
1. When he falls into perplexity, doubting whether he is forgiven or not
2. When he depends upon merely human and earthly resources.
3. When he loses his confidence in the midst of affliction.
Are there those here who have never known this resting-place? Let them seek it now. Come to Christ—
“Take Him for what He is; oh, take Him all,
And look above.
Then shall thy tossing soul find anchorage
And steadfast peace;
Thy love shall rest on His, thy weary doubts
For ever cease;
Thy heart shall find in Him and in His grace
Its rest and bliss.”
—Rev. W. M. Taylor, D.D., New York.
Jer_50:6. Theme: ROAMING FROM GOD.
i. However unlike in all other choices and courses of action, men alarmingly concur in this, to neglect religion, forsake the fountain of happiness. “They have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting-place.”
ii. We find no exception to this rule apart from individual cases in which Divine grace has worked a distinction. As in Nature we never find a stone ascend upwards or a river flow backwards of its own accord, so in the moral world we never find men prefering eternity to time, holiness to sin, the Creator to the creature of their own accord.
iii. Wherever this wrong tendency is found superseded by a supreme attachment to heavenly things, we are sure that this new bias owns a heavenly agency.
These Jews in Babylon wandered from hill to hill, from religion to religion, from comforter to comforter, from one broken dependence to another, but never by any chance wandering back to God.
I. God is the proper rest of the human spirit.
1. Every created life requires some object of hope and trust.
2. The dire effect of human depravity is to separate us from God, and to prompt us to seek some other rest.
3. Actually to know and enjoy God is the triumph of personal and experimental religion.
II. A tendency to forget and forsake God lies at the root of all our miseries.
It plunged Israel into captivity; it exposes us to ruin.
1. This is literally true of the whole world of sinners. We have all “forgotten our resting-place.”
2. This is practically true of the whole world of saints—the source of their miseries. Not absolute forgetfulness, but a practical one. What makes us faint in calamity, quarrel with Providence, murmur under disappointments, betake ourselves to unworthy means to avoid calamity or obtain relief, &c.
III. Satisfaction is sought in vain while we desert God. “Wander from mountain to hill.”
1. Some concentrate happiness in self.
2. Others seek satisfaction in their worldly possessions and well-planned enterprises.
3. Others in their personal talents.
4. Others in their untarnished reputation.
No matter what be the object of idolatry, if God be “forgotten” and the proper “resting-place” forsaken, if the care of their soul be neglected and the cross of Christ unsought, “destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known.”
(a.) There is criminality in this neglect of God.
(b.) There is degradation in it.
(c.) There is ruin, disaster, in it, sooner or later.
IV. God’s dispensations correct this perverse tendency in man to roam from Him.
1. The dispensations of His providence.
2. The influence of His grace and Spirit.
Comments—
Jer_50:6. “My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray.” See on chap. Jer_2:8, and especially Jer_23:1 seq.
Jer_50:7. “Their adversaries said, We off end not, because they sinned against the Lord.” “It is the worst condition into which the Church of God can come when the enemies who desolate it maintain they are in the right in doing so. It is, however, a just Nemesis when those who will not hear the regular messengers of God must be told by the extraordinary messengers of God what they should have done.”—Naegelsbach.
Nebuzaradan urged the plea of this verse (chap. Jer_40:2-3; cf. Zec_11:5). The Jews’ guilt was so palpable that they were condemned even in the judgment of heathens. They saw they had apostatised from “the hope of their fathers,” from the God whose faithfulness their fathers had experienced.
Jer_50:14. “Against Babylon, for she hath sinned against the Lord.” By oppressing His people; for their cause is His. Also by profaning His sacred vessels (Dan_5:2).
Jer_50:17. Theme: THE SCATTERED SHEEP. “Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions hath driven him away.”
Sin made them victims of invading conquerors. Text was fulfilled in the captivity by Assyria. Language appropriate to every lost sinner.
I. A wandering sheep is a very fit emblem of a poor sinner. Entangled in the briars of the wilderness, torn and pierced by its thorns; the lions have devoured us, &c. In plain language: man’s heart, affections, powers of his mind, all are alienated from God. A wandering sheep is the emblem of—
1. Indigence, perplexity, and disappointment.
2. Danger.
3. Helplessness.
4. An object of pity and anxious solicitude. God pitied the sinner (Joh_3:16); His love is illustrated by Luk_15:3, &c.
II. Jesus Christ is the great Shepherd, who seeks and gathers into His fold His wandering sheep. As such He is frequently described (Psa_23:1; Isa_40:11; Joh_10:11).
1. He knows they are in the wilderness. He came “to seek and to save that which is lost.” He finds them in a ruined condition.
2. He pities them, and rescues them from their enemies. He “takes the prey from the mighty, and delivers the lawful captive.”
3. He restoreth the soul (Psalms 23) He came to give “life more abundantly” (Joh_10:10-11). For this purpose He died, paid the price, &c.
III. How blessed is the present state of the restored sheep! Loved, redeemed, enfolded.
1. The fold of Christ is a secure enclosure. The “Lord is round about His people.” His perfections are on every side for their security.
2. They are in suitable and congenial society. Sheep associate not with other animals. We “have fellowship one with another.”
3. He will ever watch over them, guide and defend them; for they are precious to Him. He will “never leave nor forsake them:” be with them in the valley of death, and then enfold them in heaven.
IV. The restored sheep are amply tended and nourished.
1. They “go in and out and find pasture.” But they are not always fed on the same ordinance. The blessing is not confined to one means of grace.
2. All the blessings of the new covenant are for the nourishment of the soul.
3. The endearing character of Christ should engage our confidence, as our Shepherd. He is infinitely good, providentially kind, and graciously tender to His people. His bounty supplies, His wisdom orders, all things for us; and His Gospel brings us every spiritual enjoyment.
V. The sheep shall be eventually removed from the fold below to that in glory.
1. Here they have much enjoyment, but it is often imperfect and interrupted. Sin disquiets, the world disappoints, ordinances only prove a blessing occasionally.
2. The time is nearing when the flock shall be all in one fold, eternally with the Shepherd, led by Him into the eververdant pastures.
(a.) Are you one of Christ’s sheep? As a wandering sinner, have you been reclaimed?
(b.) Have you sensible enjoyment of the provisions of the Gospel? Are they to you green pastures, &c.?
(c.) If not identified with the flock of Christ now, at the day of division you will be severed from the redeemed of the Lord (Mat_25:31, &c.)
—From “Helps for the Pulpit.”
Jer_50:20. Theme: GOD’S MERCY TO HIS PEOPLE. “In those days the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve.”
God’s promises seem so “exceeding great” that we are tempted to limit them by conditions. Men may indeed deceive themselves as to their own personal interest in them; but God is sovereign in His affluence.
This promise has been only in part accomplished; for since the Jews’ return from Babylon “their sins have been found,” and visited, too, in wrathful indignation for many hundreds of years. At a period fast nearing, God’s elect among them shall be restored to His favour, &c.
I. The extent of God’s mercy to His chosen people.
1. They are constantly represented as a remnant. Yet they are “a remnant according to the election of grace” (Rom_11:5).
2. For them, however, God designs the richest mercy. A full and perfect remission of all sin (Isa_38:17); and to remember their sins no more for ever (Jer_31:31-34; Heb_10:14-17). God will henceforth view them as they are in Christ, “without spot or blemish” (Eph_5:27).
II. The interest which the Jewish nation has in this covenanted mercy.
1. They are the direct objects God has in view in this promise. We do right to apply these words to God’s elect generally, but wrong to overlook their primary purpose. This is emphatically a pledge to the Jews.
2. So applied, the promise should fill us with unutterable joy.
III. With what thoughts should we contemplate this promised mercy?
1. Amazement at the riches of God’s grace.
2. Humiliation, loathing ourselves for our iniquities against such a God.
3. Gratitude (Rom_12:1).
4. Affiance. In all He has done He gives us the pledge that He will never suffer any one to “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”—Rev. Chas. Simeon, M.A., 1828.
Jer_50:20. Theme: PLENTEOUS FORGIVENESS. “I will pardon them whom I reserve.”
I. In some cases pardon would be both unrighteous and dangerous.
The law must be honoured and the transgressor cease from the sin which needs pardon.
II. The pardon God bestows is sovereign in its exercise.
As pardon is an act of grace, not merited, it must be sovereign; bestowed according to the good pleasure of His will.
III. A universal offer of pardon is proclaimed in the Gospel.
On the ground of “repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.”
IV. While, therefore, God’s grace designs the scheme of pardon through Christ, the responsibility of securing pardon rests on man.
However wicked, no man need despair of obtaining it. “Let him return unto the Lord, and He will abundantly pardon.”
How can we doubt this when He pardoned a Manasseh, a Magdalene, a Saul? “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.”—Rev. D. Pledge. (See Addenda: SIN IN OBLIVION.)
Comments—
Jer_50:24. “I have laid a snare for thee, O Babylon.” Cyrus turned the waters of the Euphrates into a different channel, and so entered Babylon by the dried-up channel at night. Thus was the impregnable city taken by a stratagem—“Thou wast not aware;” for one-half of the city was in the enemy’s hands before the other knew of it.
Jer_50:34. Theme: THE STRENGTH OF THE REDEEMER. “Their Redeemer is strong.”
I. These words suggest a difficulty. If He be strong, why does Israel so often suffer beneath the hand of the oppressor? If my father have bread, why do I hunger?
1. God does not display His strength at once, in order the more to glorify it. Lazarus dies. Jesus hastens not to him until the third day. Why? We had never known He could raise the dead if He had displayed His power always in healing the sick. Stephen dies full of faith, triumphing. God could have saved him from death, but showed His power by sustaining him.
2. God does not at once display His strength, &c., in order to make His people lay hold of it. When did Jonah, Manasseh, &c., cry loudest? Was it not when His arm seemed far from helping them?
3. Another reason is that He hereby chastens His people. There is no greater punishment than God leaving us to ourselves.
4. Hereby He instructs them. We are taught that God’s strength will never be exerted to make us secure in sin and indolence.
5. Often He does not exert His strength to liberate His people so that He may show mercy to their oppressors. He delayed to redeem Israel out of the hand of Pharaoh that Moses might reason with him.
II. These words convey a blessed truth.
1. Consider the might of the enemy from whom He delivers us. From the power of Satan, the world, our evil hearts.
2. Consider the completeness of the deliverance. He saves both body and soul, by His own arm, without the help of another. “His own arm hath gotten Him the victory.”
3. Consider His strength upholds to the very end all whom He hath redeemed. He brings up from Egypt to the goodly land. Was there one of all the host He brought out of Egypt that was forced back to captivity?
III. These words imply a terrible warning.
1. To all who oppress God’s people. He who blesses the giver of the cup of cold water shall punish all those who touch one of these little ones.
2. To all who reject His help. As strong to slay as to make alive. Seek His blessing. Flee to Israel’s strong Redeemer, lest the plagues written in the Book be experienced by you.
Say not, “I am willing to enjoy life now and take the consequences of it hereafter.” Say not, “If it be right, I am willing to expiate my crimes.” That is but hanging garlands on the sword that must enter your soul.—From “Stems and Twigs.”
Comments—
Jer_50:39-40. BABYLON DESERTED OF INHABITANTS. This utter extinction of Babylon was not effected by one stroke, but gradually. Cyrus took away its supremacy. Darius Hystaspes deprived it, when it had rebelled against Persia, of its fortifications. Seleucus Nicanor removed its citizens and wealth to Seleucia, which he founded close by Babylon. The Parthians removed all that was left to Ctesiphon. Nothing but its walls were left under the Roman Emperor Adrian.
ADDENDA TO CHAPTER 50: ILLUSTRATIONS AND SUGGESTIVE EXTRACTS
Jer_50:5. Faces Zionward. Among the old Romans there prevailed the touching custom of holding the face of every new-born infant towards the heavens, signifying, by their presenting its forehead to the stars, that it was to look above the world into celestial glories. It was a vain superstition; but Christianity dispels the fable, and gives us a clear realisation of the Pagan yearning. Young lives should be turned with their faces heavenwards.
Jer_50:20. Sin cast into oblivion. Cicero said of Cæsar, “He forgiveth nothing but injuries only.”
“These evils I deserve,
Yet despair not of His final pardon,
Whose ear is ever open, and His eye
Gracious to readmit the suppliant.”
—Milton.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain Those who would make their future different from the…
Jer 50:5
Those who would make their future different from the past must cultivate two things; first, the spirit of inquiry; secondly, a spirit of determination.
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I. Like these Israelites—for the words are written figuratively—we have been going "from mountain to hill," that is, from one form of idol worship to another, till we have forgotten our resting-place. There is but one resting-place for the creature, and that is the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, apprehended by the soul, fled to, clung to, trusted. They who would find rest must find it in God. There is always something beautiful in the spirit of inquiry. The very face of the inquirer shines. That kindling of the eye as a man listens—the man who has a thirst for knowledge—the man whose soul is set on finding its way into some new region of science, or into some new joy, is a touching sight to the looker-on; and it is an inspiring influence to the teacher who feels that he has a message. Of all inquiries the way to Zion is. first and foremost. Whatever form inquiry takes, this is its meaning. Even intellectual inquiry is often either the escape from, or a substitute for, this. We all believe in a hereafter—in a heaven; the way to it is our question.
II. But it is not immaterial to find it added, that they who ask the way to Zion must also have their faces thitherward. The spirit of inquiry must be also the spirit of resolution and determination. For there is an inquiry about the way which is all speculation. There may even be a questioning about the way to Zion with the back turned upon it, instead of the face. There once was a rich young man who said to Jesus Christ: "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" but when the terrible words came, "Go and sell.... come and follow," then he went away sorrowful. There was inquiry, but there was no determination. He asked the way to Zion, but his face was not thitherward.
C. J. Vaughan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 17.
References: Jer 50:5.—Preacher’s Lantern, vol. i., p. 258. Jer 50:23.—E. P. Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 193.
Jer 50:34
Among the remarkable provisions of the Mosaic law there were some very peculiar ones affecting the next-of-kin. The nearest living blood-relation to a man had certain obligations and offices to discharge under certain contingencies, in respect of which he received a special name, and which is sometimes translated in the Old Testament "Redeemer," and sometimes "Avenger" of blood. In the text Jehovah is represented as having taken upon Himself the functions of the next-of-kin, and is the Kinsman-Redeemer of His people.
I. Notice, first, the qualifications and offices of the "Goel." The qualifications may be all summed up in one—that he must be the nearest living blood-relation of the person whose Goel he was. His offices were three. The first was connected with property (Lev 25:25, Revised Version). The second was to buy back a member of his family fallen into slavery. The third was to avenge the blood of a murdered relative.
II. Notice the grand mysterious transference of this office to Jehovah. This singular institution was gradually discerned to be charged with lofty meaning and to be capable of being turned into a dim shadowing of something greater than itself. You will find that God begins to be spoken of in the later portions of Scripture as the Kinsman-Redeemer. I reckon eighteen instances, of which thirteen are in the second half of Isaiah. The reference is, no doubt, mainly to the great deliverance from captivity in Egypt and Babylon, but the thought sweeps a much wider circle and goes much deeper down than these historical facts. There was in it some faint apprehension of the deeper sense in which it was true that God is the next-of-kin to every soul, and ready to be its Redeemer.
III. We have the perfect fulfilment of this Divine office by the man Christ Jesus. Christ is our Kinsman. He is doubly of kin of each soul of man, both because in His true manhood He is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, and because in His divinity He is nearer to us than the closest human kindred can ever be. By both He comes so near to us that we may clasp Him by our faith, and rest upon Him, and have Him for our nearest Friend; our Brother. Because He is man’s Kinsman He buys back His enslaved brethren; He brings us back our squandered inheritance, which is God. He will keep our lives under His care, and be ready to plead our cause.
A. Maclaren, Christian Commonwealth, Aug. 20th, 1885.
References: Jer 51:50.—Spurgeon. My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 285. Jer 51:51.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 231.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain The Fall of Babylon and the Restoration of Israel
The Fall of Babylon and the Restoration of Israel
The prophecy concerning Babylon is ascribed to Jeremiah in Jer_51:59. This, however, need not mean more than that it represents the tone of Jeremiah's utterances as expanded by a follower, e.g. Baruch, at a later date. The reasons for doubting Jeremiah's authorship aro: (a) he elsewhere speaks in friendly terms of the Chaldeans; here their overthrow is predicted; (b) the style and words betray another writer; (c) the knowledge displayed of Babylonian matters is greater than could be expected of the prophet; (d) the Jews are in exile far away from Jerusalem (Jer_50:4, Jer_50:6, Jer_50:17, Jer_50:33) The prophecy was fulfilled when Babylon was taken by Cyrus or his general Gobryas (perhaps the Darius of Daniel) in 539 b.c., nearly 50 years after the fall of Jerusalem.
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2. A standard] as the speediest way of calling attention to the news. Merodach] another name for Bel (Baal), the tutelary God of Babylon.
3. Out of the north] referring to the Medo-Persian power. Media was NW. of Babylon.
4. The overthrow of their captors shall free the Jews.
5. Thitherward] RM 'Heb. hitherward.'
8-16. The triumph of Babylon over Israel shall be avenged.
8. As the he goats] in joyful alacrity.
9. An assembly of great nations] see for some of them Jer_51:27. Herodotus (vii. 61f.) says there were twenty-two.
11. It is for exulting over Israel that Chaldea suffers. At grass] RV 'that treadeth out the corn.' The command in Deu_25:4 would have this effect.
12. The hindermost, etc.] RV 'She (Babylon) shall be the hindermost,' etc.
15. Given her hand] RV 'submitted herself,' surrendered. Foundalions] RV 'bulwarks.' Her walls are thrown down] not done by Cyrus, but (according to Herod, iii. 159) at the later capture by Darius.
16. They shall turn, etc.] The captives of other nations as well as of the Jews shall be released.
17-32. Babylon and her empire are doomed, while Israel shall be forgiven.
17. The lions] The sculptured winged lions (Assyrian and Babylonian) give the image a special point. Assyria had devoured the Ten Tribes, and now Babylon was crushing the feeble remnant of the people. Assyria had paid the penalty; so too shall Babylon.
20. Reserve] RV 'leave as a remnant.'
21. Merathaim.. Pekod] Proper names bearing the significant senses of 'double-rebellion' and 'visitation,' alluding to Babylon.
23. Hammer] Babylon: cp. Jer_51:20. Individuals at other times have borne this title; Judas Maccabæus for his victories over Syria; Charles Martel, grandfather of Charles the Great (Charlemagne), who conquered the Saracens in a decisive battle at Tours, 732a.d., and Edward I of England, on whose tomb at Westminster Abbey are the words, 'Scotorum Malleus,' or 'hammer of the Scots.'
27. Bullocks] i.e. her choice young warriors: cp. Jer_48:15.
28. The vengeance of his temple] the requital for having burnt it: cp. Jer_51:11.
29. The Holy One of Israel] cp. Jer_51:5, not elsewhere in this book, but characteristic of Isaiah.
33-40. Babylon shall be utterly laid waste.
34. Redeemer] Heb. Goel, the near kinsman, to whom belonged the duty of avenging a murder. So the Lord is about to avenge His people.
36. Liars] rather, 'boasters.'
37. Mingled people] see on Jer_25:20.
38. Her waters] the many canals which drained and irrigated the country around Babylon: cp. Jer_51:13.
Idols] Heb. 'terrors,' meaning their grotesque forms, such as winged bulls and humanheaded lions.
39. The wild beasts of the islands] RV 'the wolves,' Heb. 'howling creatures.' Owls] RY 'ostriches.'
41-46. The enemy approaches and fulfils God's behests.
41-43. See on Jer_6:22.
44-46. Adapted from Jer_49:19-21.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain CHAPTERS 50-51 Babylon
CHAPTERS 50-51 Babylon
These two final chapters contain a great prophecy concerning Babylon, her overthrow and doom. The fifty-first chapter closes with the statement “thus far are the words of Jeremiah.” There is a direct statement that Jeremiah wrote all these words. We find it at the close of Jer 51:59-64. “Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon.” It would be a brazen infidelity which says Jeremiah did not write all these words. Yet the almost universally accepted view of the critics is that these chapters cannot be the work of Jeremiah. The German infidel, Professor Eichhorn, the man who coined the phrase “higher criticism,” started this denial; Kuenen, Budde and others have followed in his steps. Others have modified this radical view and concede the possibility that Jeremiah may have been the author of these two chapters. No believer in the Word of God can have a moment’s doubt as to this question.
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An analysis of these two chapters would be difficult to make. We therefore point out some of the leading parts of this great utterance. The prophecy covers both the doom of Babylon as it has been and the doom of another, the mystical Babylon, so prominent in the last book of the Bible, in which also two chapters are devoted to Babylon. Some hold that the literal Babylon is meant in Revelation; that the city in Mesopotamia must be rebuilt; that it will finally become the one great world center domineering the religious, commercial and political affairs of all the world, and that when this has taken place Jeremiah’s prophecy will be fulfilled. A careful examination of this theory will show that it is untenable. It would mean that all the great world-centers of today must be wiped out first, and London, New York, and others would have to yield their supremacy to the restored Babylon. The chapters in Revelation show
us clearly that a Babylon of a mystical nature is meant, which in spirit, in worldly glory and corruption corresponds to the ancient Babylon. This mystical Babylon is Rome. This has been the interpretation of the chapters of Revelation from the earliest times and is still maintained, with a few exceptions, by all sound and spiritual expositors of the Word of God.
The message begins with the command to publish among the nations the conquest of Babylon, that Bel (lord) is put to shame and that Merodach (the chief god of Babylon, known as Marduk in Babylonian inscriptions) is dismayed. The gods of Babylon are put to confusion on account of the fall of the city. The disaster comes from the north (Medo Persia, the conqueror of Babylon; Dan 7:1-28). Jer 50:4-7 predict the return of the nation thoroughly penitent. That the return of a small remnant after the defeat of Babylon does not exhaust this prophecy is obvious. The return promised here comes in the day when the times of the Gentiles are over, when Babylon and the Babylon spirit will pass away, when all false gods fall and the Lord is exalted in that day. Then the lost sheep of Israel will be found and gathered again.
The invasion under Cyrus is described in Jer 50:9-10. The fall of the Babylon in Revelation is not brought about by an invasion such as is described here, but by the ten horns of the beast, the revived Roman empire Rev 17:16; Dan 7:1-28) .
Jer 50:13 announces the complete overthrow of the city, to become the hindermost of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land and a desert. This ruin was not at once carried out, but gradually ancient Babylon became all that. The ruins of this once powerful city have been located north of Hilla, a town of about 25,000 inhabitants. Koldewey, of the German Orient Society, laid bare by excavation many of the ruins, showing that the city covered twelve square miles; great streets and canals, and the ruins of the Marduk temple have been found. These ruins can never be rebuilt Isa 47:1-15). There is nothing which indicates that this once glorious city is to have a revival and then be destroyed once more and remain a wilderness after its destruction at some future time.
In her fall Babylon only reaped what she had sown. “For it is the vengeance of the LORD; take vengeance upon her; as she hath, do unto her” (Jer 50:15). The same verdict is pronounced upon the Babylon of the end time, when Rome will once more have supremacy, when the present day Babylon-spirit will concentrate in a great world federation. “Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works; in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double” Revelation 18:66). The nations will then drink of the cup of God’s wrath and judgment as the literal Babylon did. Coupled with these judgment predictions are the future blessings of Israel. When the Lord overthrows the final Babylon, as seen in the book of Revelation, when the great whore is judged and her seat, Rome, in Italy, goes up in smoke, then Israel’s day of glory and blessing breaks. “In those days, and in that time, saith Jehovah, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found; for I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant” (Jer 50:20; see Jer 31:34; Mic 7:18, and Rom 11:25-28). After still more predictions concerning the fall and doom of Babylon (Jer 50:21-32), we find another prophecy of comfort. When the times of the Gentiles end with the complete dethronement of Babylon in its mystical meaning as pictured in Revelation, the Redeemer of Israel will arise to plead the cause of His people Israel. The fiftieth chapter ends with an additional description of the desolation of Babylon.
The fifty-first chapter is a continued prophecy of the doom and utter desolation of the proud mistress of the nations. Much here connects with Rev 18:1-24. The remnant of Israel is addressed in Jer 51:5 and Jer 51:6. Compare with Rev 18:4. It is the same command to flee Babylon, a principle which is in force today as regards the true church and her separation from ecclesiastical evil. The golden cup mentioned in Jer 51:7 is also mentioned in Revelation in Rev 17:4, in the description of papal Rome and her evil abominations. In the rest of the chapter God’s dealing in judgment is wonderfully told out, prophetic of that coming day when the Lord will deal with the world in judgment. This must be the reason why such an extended prophecy is given. It all goes beyond the judgment of the literal Babylon. We call attention to the last verses of this long chapter. We read there that the prophet, after he wrote down all these words against Babylon, gave the book to Seraiah, chief chamberlain of Zedekiah. This was before the fall of Jerusalem. Seraiah was evidently the brother of Baruch (Jer 32:12). While Jeremiah knew the significant position that Babylonia, and especially King Nebuchadnezzar, had been given by the sovereign Lord, on account of which he urged submission to the Chaldeans; he also knew even then, before Jerusalem fell, of Babylon’s fall and doom. Seraiah went to Babylon and he was to read the roll there, probably not in public, but in private. After reading, he was to speak certain words (Jer 51:62), then bind a stone to the roll and cast it into the Euphrates. When the roll was sinking he was to say, “Thus shall Babylon sink and shall not rise again.” In our New Testament book of prophecy we read: “And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more” Rev 18:21. That great predicted end of all God-defiance and opposition, typified by Babylon and its past glory, will surely come. Jeremiah uttered his last word.
The last chapter of Jeremiah is not from his pen; some other inspired writer was moved by the Holy Spirit to add the history of the capture of Jerusalem and the fate of the people.
The substance of this appendix is found in 2Ki 24:18-20; 2Ki 25:1-30; 2Ki 25:27-30. The reader will find in the second book of Kings our annotations on this history. But why is it added here once more? Evidently to show how literally the judgment predictions and divine warnings given through Jeremiah were fulfilled. For a time the false prophets had their way; their lying messages, their words of delusion and false hope were listened to and believed. The lot of the prophet of God was a lonely lot; he was rejected and he suffered. Yea, often the weeping prophet was discouraged and filled with gloom. But the time came when he was vindicated and God’s Word was vindicated, while the false prophets were found out to be liars and deceivers.
In our own day we have the false prophets still with us, men and women, who deny the truth and teach error. They speak of world improvement, world betterment, and world conquest. What God has spoken concerning “wrath and judgment to come” is set aside. Those who preach and teach according to the infallible Word of God, who see no better world, no universal righteousness and peace, are branded as pessimists. The “day of the LORD” and the “coming of the Lord” are sneered at. But as the Word of God spoken by Jeremiah was vindicated, so the Word of God will be vindicated again, till all the enemies of the written Word, the Bible, and the living Word, Christ, are silenced forever.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Chaldea Punished; Israel Redeemed
Chaldea Punished; Israel Redeemed
v. 1. The word that the Lord spake against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah, the prophet, when Seraiah, to whom it was committed, was sent to Babylon, 51:59-60. It seems that the various prophecies against Babylon were collected at this time, to be sent as one message, partly to pronounce the doom of the oppressor, 25:12, partly to console the captive Jews and to remind them of the eventual end of their captivity.
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v. 2. Declare ye among the nations and publish and set up a standard, to call the attention of all men to the importance and the significance of this announcement; publish, and conceal not; say, Babylon is taken; Bel, the chief deity of the Chaldeans, is confounded; Merodach, another name for the same idol, is broken in pieces. Her idols are confounded, covered with shame and confusion, her images are broken in pieces, powerless before the almighty power of Jehovah.
v. 3. For out of the North, whence the army of the Modes approached some sixty years later, there cometh up a nation against her which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein; they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast, making the former populous land a desolate waste.
v. 4. In those days and in that time, when the punishment would strike Babylon, saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, the members of the Lord’s Church of believers among His chosen people, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping, with tears of joy over the restoration which had been almost beyond their hopes; they shall go and seek the Lord, their God, with a repentant heart.
v. 5. They shall ask the way to Zion, the habitation of Jehovah, with their faces thitherward, set with steadfast purpose not to be daunted or to be turned aside by difficulties along the way, saying, Come and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten, as the first covenant had been act aside by an apostate nation.
v. 6. My people hath been lost sheep; their shepherds have caused them to go astray, the very men who were entrusted with their care being guilty of this gross neglect; they have turned them away on the mountains, the places of idolatry; they have gone from mountain to hill, from one altar of idolatrous worship to the next; they have forgotten their resting-place, in the care of Jehovah, where they could lie down in safety.
v. 7. All that found them have devoured them, the enemies everywhere making a practice of preying on the Lord’s people; and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the Lord, the Habitation of justice, He who is the essence of righteousness, the Fountain of Israel’s salvation, even the Lord, the Hope of their fathers, in whom the true believers had ever trusted for help. Their adversaries felt that they incurred no guilt, that they were, in fact, justified in taking advantage of the children of Israel.
v. 8. Remove out of the midst of Babylon, so all Israelites in truth are now warned, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, where they were as yet held in captivity, and be as the he-goats before the flocks, the leaders of all oppressed nations, as they now turned to flee.
v. 9. For, lo, I will raise, and cause to come up, against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the North country, an army composed of representatives of many nations; and they shall set themselves in array against her, with full equipment for warfare; from thence, or "there," she shall be taken, namely, where the hostile nations have assembled themselves; their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man, one well versed in the art of warfare; none shall return in vain, none of them would fail to perform its deadly work.
v. 10. And Chaldea shall be a spoil, a prey ready for the invaders; all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the Lord, since they were getting all that their heart desired in the way of rich booty. In this sense the Lord now turns directly to Babylon in pronouncing sentence upon the Chaldean Empire.
v. 11. Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of Mine heritage, the Chaldeans called so on account of the pillage committed by them in destroying Judah, because ye are grown fat as the heifer at grass, skipping like a threshing calf or heifer, with proud insolence, and bellow as bulls, or, "neigh as steeds," in overweening, challenging pride,
v. 12. your mother shall be sore confounded, the nation as such being heaped with disgrace; she that bare you shall be ashamed, blushing with the shame of it all. Behold, the hindermost of the nations, for this was the station to which Babylon had now been reduced, shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert, the nation itself, of course, having been destroyed.
v. 13. Because of the wrath of the Lord it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate, since His anger had caused the inhabitants to be driven away or slaughtered; every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished and hiss at all her plagues, in sneering derision. In order to carry out this judgment upon Babylon, the nations everywhere are now called upon to take the city.
v. 14. Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about, to surround the city and to attack her from all sides simultaneously; all ye that bend the bow, the archers representing the entire army of the enemy, shoot at her, spare no arrows; for she hath sinned against the Lord, she has fully deserved the punishment being meted out to her.
v. 15. Shout against her round about, encouraging one another with loud and fierce battle-cries; she hath given her hand, thereby submitting to the conquerors; her foundations are fallen, the fortifications in which she trusted for safety, her walls are thrown down, so that she is now helpless before the invaders; for it is the vengeance of the Lord, the destruction of Babylon was a punishment determined by Him; take vengeance upon her, retaliation being permitted in this instance; as she hath done, do unto her.
v. 16. Cut off the sower from Babylon and him that handleth the sickle, or scythe, in the time of harvest, so that both sowers and reapers would be destroyed, and there could be no harvesting in the entire country; for fear of the oppressing sword they shall turn every one to his people, and they shall flee every one to his own land, the strangers in the country getting ready to preserve their lives before the threatening catastrophe comes. Over against this fate of Babylon is placed the deliverance of Judah from oppression and exile.
v. 17. Israel is a scattered sheep, like a lonely sheep driven away from its flock, the lions have driven him away, the enemies chasing him far from his homeland; first, the king of Assyria hath devoured him, especially in the campaigns at the time of Hezekiah; and last, this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath broken his bones, like a beast of prey striking down his victim.
v. 18. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land as I have punished the king of Assyria, whose judgment had already been brought about.
v. 19. And I will bring Israel, His own congregation, again to his habitation, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, occupying the richest sections of his fertile land, and his soul shall be satisfied upon Mount Ephraim and Gilead, the northern part of Canaan, which included the rich Valley of Jezreel.
v. 20. In those days and in that time, saith the Lord, the prophecy now again turning to the Messianic trend, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none, no longer any guilt would be charged against it; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found; for I will pardon them whom I reserve, granting them forgiveness and pardon by virtue of the Messiah’s merits. If enemies of the Lord, whom He, for any reason whatever, has used as His instruments to carry out His plans, become overbearing and insolent as a consequence, He readily plunges them from the height of their pride to the depths of humiliation and confusion.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
God gives Jeremiah a message about Babylon. See: Poetry and Parallelism
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This is the word that Yahweh declared
This idiom is used to introduce a special message from God. AT: "This is the message that Yahweh gave" or "This is the message that Yahweh spoke" (See: Idiom)
by the hand of Jeremiah the prophet
The hand is a synecdoche for the person. See how you translated this in Jeremiah 37:2. AT: "through Jeremiah, who was a prophet" (See: Synecdoche)
cause them to listen ... cause them to listen
This phrase is repeated to emphasize the importance of the command. (See: Parallelism)
Lift up a signal
"Put up a sign"
Babylon is taken
"Babylon is conquered"
Bel is made ashamed. Marduk is dismayed. Its idols are put to shame; its images are dismayed
These lines mean the same thing and emphasize that Yahweh has disgraced the gods of Babylon. (See: Parallelism and Active or Passive)
Bel ... Marduk
These are two names for the chief god of Babylon. (See: How to Translate Names)
translationWords
word of God
declare
Babylon
Chaldea
hand
Jeremiah
prophet
report
nation
shame
false god
image
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 50:1–51:64 This message of judgment on Babylon is the…
50:1–51:64 This message of judgment on Babylon is the longest for any nation except Judah, and threats against Babylon are interwoven with promises for Judah’s restoration. Babylon was the Lord’s agent for destroying the other civilizations of the Near East, but it was also guilty of its own sins. The Lord would judge Babylon by doing to her what she had done to others (50:15).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.