He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
The prophecy against Babylon turns from arrows, shields and armies to the God who made the world. Why does a message of war stop to praise creation? What do power, wisdom and understanding have to do with the fall of an empire?
This verse opens a block of praise to God. One commentator points out that the same lines already stand in an earlier chapter of the same book.
Then comes a noble testimony to God in verses 15-19, set against idols and the people who worship them… This differs from Jeremiah 10:12-16 only in that Israel is left out of the last verse.
Three words describe how the world came to be: power, wisdom and understanding. Writing on the same lines in chapter 10, one commentator sees all three at work in making the world. He then points to what the next verse says about lightning.
He is the Creator. His power, wisdom and understanding worked in creating and establishing the earth and the heavens (v. 12)… Right here the Spirit records a scientific fact, made known over 2500 years ago: "He makes lightning for the rain" (v. 13). Scientists have only recently discovered this link between lightning and rain. Like many other discoveries, the Scriptures of Truth stated it in a few words ages ago.
Babylon was famous for its wise men. Next to the God who established the world by wisdom, human knowledge counts for nothing.
Idols are nothing, but the Lord God of Israel is all. He is the King of Nations, who rules over all. He is the true God, the living God, the everlasting King… He made the earth by His power. He established the world by wisdom. He stretched out the heavens by His understanding. But what is man? Brutish in his knowledge.
An idol has to be made. The Lord makes — and He carries the people He has made.
The house of Israel is reminded that the Lord carries the remnant of Israel. He made His people, carries them, and will deliver them from all their enemies… The Lord is the Maker, but an idol has to be made. Once made, instead of carrying others it has to be carried. Set in its place it cannot move, cannot answer a cry for help, and cannot save anyone from trouble.
Scripture never sets out to prove that God exists. It points to what He made and lets His works speak. What they say is both grand and tender.
There is no elaborate argument in proof of the existence of God… God reveals Himself. He makes Himself known by His works. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork."… "The gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens."… In the book of Job, God Himself appeals to His work in creation as an unanswerable argument for His infinite superiority. It gives the mind the clearest proof of His almighty power, and it touches the heart too, because He stoops so low to speak with us. The majesty and the love, the power and the tenderness, are all divine.
Babylon did more than conquer nations. She spread her idols among them, and that is why judgment falls.
Chapter 51 goes deeper still into Babylon's moral corruption, but the rescue of God's people is still in view… She had made the nations drunk so that they became mad. She had corrupted them with idolatry, the work of errors. So the Lord will punish Babylon, which "dwells upon many waters."
What God plans against Babylon, He also carries out. He stirs up her enemies to do it.
Babylon needed all its military equipment now. The Lord had roused the spirit of her northern foes against her, and had decided to destroy her… "Set up the standard on the walls of Babylon. Make the watch strong. Set up the watchmen. Prepare the ambushes, for the Lord has both devised and done what He spoke against the people of Babylon."
- Maker — He made the earth by His power. Everything else hangs on that: God makes; an idol has to be made.
- Wisdom — He established the world by wisdom. That leaves Babylon's famous wise men looking foolish; man is "brutish in his knowledge."
- Understanding — He stretched out the heavens by His understanding. The note about lightning and rain shows how far ahead of us that understanding runs.
- Witness — Scripture never argues that God exists. He makes Himself known by His works, and those works answer every idol.
- Verdict — the God who devised creation has "both devised and done" what He spoke against Babylon. Power that made a world can end an empire.
When he uttereth his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the end of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.
The prophecy has just announced Babylon's fall. Then it stops to describe the God who commands the clouds, the lightning and the wind. Why place a description of weather in the middle of a war sentence, and what does it prove about the One passing it?
This verse sits inside a short block of praise placed in the middle of the judgment on Babylon. One writer points out that the block repeats an earlier chapter of the same book almost word for word:
Then comes a noble testimony to God in verses 15-19, set against idols and those who worship them… It differs from Jeremiah 10:12-16 only in leaving Israel out of the last verse.
So the praise is not new. Here the old song stands over Babylon.
The verse traces a chain: a voice, waters massed in the sky, vapour drawn up from the ends of the earth. One writer notes how closely that matches what happens in the air:
How scientifically accurate these ancient Scriptures are! They speak of vapours gathered from the ends of the earth — a worldwide area. They speak of the way vapour rises, and of electrical discharge turning the vapour into a multitude of waters in the heavens. It is indeed most striking! People have often said that the Scriptures are not given to teach science. But when they do touch on science, they make no mistakes.
(The writer follows an older translation, which reads "a multitude of waters" where the ESV has "a tumult of waters.")
The phrase about lightning is not decoration. It states a link between the flash and the downpour, and that link took a long time for anyone to find:
That great scientist, Lord Kelvin, stirred huge interest when he announced his discovery: only an electrical discharge turns vapour into water, and so rain falls. He found that lightning produces the necessary electrical discharge, and lightning only.
Another writer notes how long that fact waited in the text:
Right here the Spirit records a scientific fact, made known over 2500 years ago: "He makes lightning for the rain." Like many other discoveries, it was stated in a few words in the Scriptures of Truth ages ago.
The wind here is not loose. God keeps it and brings it out. One writer sees the whole storm under a single hand, and a single will:
He is Lord above all gods — the gods His people have sadly kept comparing Him with. He is great beyond thought; they are so infinitely little. But Jehovah has done, in spite of all opposition, just what He pleased in heaven and on earth. Vapour, and rain; and lightning, and wind — all the equipment of storm are in His hand, and made to serve His kind purposes.
Another writer takes the thought of God's hidden supply further:
God is the Creator and Former of all things. He has hidden vast riches in the created universe, still undiscovered. He has hidden far greater riches still in the new creation, which true believers are part of in Christ through grace.
The verses on either side explain the point of the weather. Their gods were manufactured. This God manufactures the storm. One writer sets the two side by side:
With axe and hammer they make their gods! They cannot speak! They have to be carried! For they cannot go themselves! Silver and gold and blue and purple may cover them, but they are just blocks of wood! There is no breath in them!… The nations compete in strange and clever arts to form these empty things, but "The Portion of Jacob is not like them; for He is the Former of all things."
An idol cannot raise a cloud or move a mile. The One whose voice fills the sky with water needs no one to carry Him.
- Voice. The chapter interrupts Babylon's death sentence with praise. What God says with His mouth, the sky obeys — the same power stands behind the word spoken against the city.
- Vapour. He draws moisture up from the ends of the earth. Commentators note how exact that is: vapour gathered worldwide, rising, then turning to water — written down long before anyone could measure it.
- Voltage. Lightning is made for rain. Science found that link only in modern times. The prophet had already written it down.
- Vault. Wind is brought out of storehouses. Storm is stock He keeps and spends for kind purposes. His hidden riches reach further still, into the new creation believers share in Christ.
- Vanity. Set beside all this, gods that must be carried are nothing. The One who forms all things is His people's portion, and the manufactured gods of a doomed city could not hold it up.
Every man is become brutish, so as to have no knowledge; every founder is put to shame by the graven image, for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
In the middle of his battle orders against Babylon, Jeremiah sets the God who made the earth beside the gods that men make. Verse 17 gives the verdict on the second: the maker's own work shames him, because it has no life in it.
The lines about idols are not a detour. They follow a section of praise to God, and they repeat words the prophet had used earlier in his book.
Then comes a noble testimony to God, set against idols and those who worship them, in verses 15-19… It differs from Jeremiah 10:12-16 only in leaving out Israel in the last verse. It is clearly understood there, if we treat its insertion as a correction in some of the copies.
Older translations read "brutish" here. The word covers both what a man fails to know and how he then behaves.
The word is used for the ignorance of man (Psalm 73:22), and for a man acting like a creature without reason — that is, without conscience before God. The word is beir, translated "brutish" in Psalm 94:8; Jeremiah 10:8, 14, 21; Jeremiah 51:17.
The goldsmith needs no argument to condemn him. His own product does it: the thing he made can do nothing for anyone.
But if Israel witnesses to God, the idolaters become their own witness to the emptiness of their idols. Those who make the idols are "all of them vanity," and their images "profitable for nothing." They "neither see nor know," and their helplessness brings shame to their makers. The metalworker uses his own strength to shape a metal god, and the carpenter shapes a wooden idol in the form of a man.
The verse calls the images false and breathless. Skill and costly materials cannot supply life, and the same charge falls on the men who taught people to trust these gods.
The wise men and the workmen may work together to hold the nations by idolatry, but their gods are all the works of error, and so "they shall perish." The God of truth will triumph over this falsehood!… The signs of the heavens dismay the nations! With axe and hammer they make their gods! They cannot speak! They have to be carried, for they cannot walk! Silver and gold and blue and purple may cover them, but they are just blocks of wood! There is no breath in them! The "wise men" who teach their doctrines are foolish. So the prophet exposes the utter emptiness of idolatry.
The verse ties its two halves together: the man has no knowledge, and his image has no breath. The link runs from the idol back to the man.
What can these senseless gods do but degrade the men who bow before them into beings as senseless? And this is the just penalty on those who can forsake God to follow what are plainly their own inventions.
The words fall on a whole city, not just on single people. Babylon passed her idolatry on to the nations, and that is why judgment comes.
Chapter 51 goes deeper still into how corrupt Babylon had become, but the rescue of God's people is still in view… She had made the nations drunk, so that they went mad. She had corrupted them with idolatry, the work of errors. Therefore the Lord will punish Babylon, which "dwells upon many waters."
Two verses later the prophet turns from the idols to Israel's portion. That portion is a Person, and Babylon's images do not last.
The Lord is exalted in the overthrow of this cruel and corrupt system. He is the "Portion of Jacob" and the "Former of all things," and Israel is the rod of His inheritance… "I will do judgment on the graven images of Babylon," says the Lord. But He will bring His people to Zion, where God will set the true King according to Psalm 2.
- Setting — The verse sits inside a song of praise to God, verses 15-19, set against idols and those who worship them. It repeats almost word for word what Jeremiah had said in chapter 10.
- Stupid — The older word is "brutish": a man who is ignorant, and who acts like a creature without reason or conscience before God.
- Shamed — The maker's own work disproves him. The idol can do nothing, and that is the evidence against the hands that shaped it.
- Breathless — Silver, gold and fine cloth cannot supply the one thing missing. The image is false: it cannot speak or walk, and there is no breath in it. So it drags its worshippers down to its own level.
- Swept away — Babylon spread her idolatry to the nations, so judgment falls on her images along with her. What remains is the Portion of Jacob, the Maker of all things, who brings His people back to Zion.
They are vanity, a work of delusion in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
Jeremiah's prophecy against Babylon stops mid battle-cry to praise the God who made the earth. Then it turns on the idols that city trusted, giving them a verdict and an end date — why should a song about the Creator doom man-made gods?
These words are not new in the book. One commentator notes where the passage sits and how closely it matches an earlier one:
Verses 15-19 then give a noble testimony to God, in contrast with idols and those who worship them. … This differs from Jeremiah 10:12-16 only in leaving Israel out of the last verse.
Jeremiah first spoke these words in chapter 10, to his own people. The same sentence now falls on the nation that carried them away.
ESV calls the idols "a work of delusion"; older versions read "the work of errors". One commentator, writing on the same words in chapter 10, names the hands behind that work:
The wise men with their teaching of empty things, and the workmen with their clever skill in silver and gold and wood, may work together with Chaldean scholarship to hold the nations by idolatry. But they are all works of error, and so "they shall perish". The God of truth will triumph over this falsehood! … The fact that these false gods will perish completely is recorded by the Spirit in verse 11 of that chapter, in the Chaldean language. This is striking: it is the only verse written that way in the whole book. The idolatrous Chaldeans were to take Israel captive, but in their own language God records the complete overthrow of their false gods.
The skill is real; the object is empty. Error runs through the whole system, so its collapse is only a matter of time.
Babylon did not keep her religion to herself. She exported it, and that is why the charge of the verse lands on her:
She had made the nations drunk, so that they went mad. She had corrupted them with idolatry, the work of errors. So the Lord will punish Babylon, which "dwells by many waters" (v. 13; see also Rev. 17:1). Her end will come (vv. 1-18).
So the "time of their punishment" is not vague. It is Babylon's own end, and her gods go down with her.
Babylon's overthrow did more than remove a tyrant. It settled a question about who the real God is:
The fall of Babylon was also a judgment pronounced upon idolatry. The portion of Jacob — the LORD — might discipline His people, but He was not like the empty gods of the nations. After disciplining them, He would bring out His righteousness, in contrast with the nations that oppressed them, and in the end He would use them as His weapons of war.
God punished Israel, but He never handed them over to lifeless gods. The idols perish; the God who disciplined His people then shows His righteousness against their oppressors.
One commentator sees the same system still at work, and makes it practical:
Babylonish principles are widespread today. As we see the judgment of God on this system, we understand it and keep clear of it. We cannot overrate how important this is for those who seek to exalt the Lord and to call on Him out of a pure heart. What is Babylonish is always ready to trap them, but as we learn the mind of God we are made strong against the advances of this lawless and superstitious system.
So the verse is not just ancient history. Anything that rests on error still has an end date, and knowing that keeps a person from investing in it.
- Worthless. The verse first prices the idols of Babylon: empty, whatever the silver and gold cost.
- Error. They come out of an organised falsehood — craftsmen, wise men and scholarship together — and "the God of truth will triumph over this falsehood."
- Repeated. The same sentence stands in Jeremiah 10. It now falls, almost word for word, on the empire that carried Israel away.
- Dated. "The time of their punishment" is a set day. Babylon's fall was itself "a judgment pronounced upon idolatry."
- Applied. Babylonish principles are still at work. Seeing God's verdict on them in advance keeps a believer clear of them.