And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea, in your sight, all their evil which they have done in Zion, saith Jehovah.
God has just listed how He used Babylon to smash nations, kings and armies. So how can He now punish Babylon for what it did in Zion — in full view of the people who suffered it?
Serving God's purpose did not make Babylon safe. One writer separates God's aim from the aim of the men He used.
God shows that He may use strangers to chastise His people. But before long He will turn and deal with their oppressive cruelty. He does so because their intention was to destroy, while God employed them only to chasten.
The wording of the surrounding verses is worth pressing. Babylon's career as God's weapon is spoken of as finished, and the record of service runs straight into the sentence.
Then the Spirit of prophecy addresses Babylon, listing in detail the ways God had employed her before her fall. "You were [not "are"] my battle axe, weapons of war: with you I have broken nations in pieces; and with you I have destroyed kingdoms." But this did not hold back His vengeance now.
The place matters. God ties Himself to His people, so an attack on them is an attack on Him.
From the moment God is in Israel He identifies Himself with His people. As a result He treats the nations according to how they treated Israel… The moment they touch Israel, they touch the apple of His eye. In all these chapters we see how Israel stands with the nations. God judges those nations because they trampled down His people, though He also used them to punish His people.
God had real cause to judge His people. That did not excuse the way Babylon treated them.
He does not in this ignore the righteousness of God in visiting His people with judgment. On that side there was cause enough. But Babylon's oppression of Judah was unjustifiable by any standard of human fairness. Her wars were driven by greed for territory and lust for power. God often permits sorrows to come on His own people as discipline, even when the troubles themselves were not deserved.
The sentence is carried out in the open, before the eyes of the people who were wronged — and when Babylon falls, the shame of the captives falls with her.
Babylon's fall is the justification of Judah, who then turns in heart to Zion, so that they might publish there the work of Jehovah their God.
This reaches past one empire. Babylon gets back what she handed out, and the last book of the Bible repeats the pattern.
In her fall Babylon only reaped what she had sown. "For it is the vengeance of the LORD… as she has done, do to her." God pronounces the same verdict on the Babylon of the end time… "Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds" (Rev. 18:6).
- Used — Babylon was God's weapon; the earlier verses list the nations and kingdoms broken by her hand. Service in God's purposes is not the same as approval.
- Exceeded — God employed her only to chasten; her own intention was to destroy. That gap between His purpose and her own aim is what this verse charges against her.
- Zion — God names the place of the crime. God had identified Himself with that people, so to touch them was to touch the apple of His eye.
- Repaid — God settles the account in full and in public, before their very eyes. The same fall that ends Babylon clears Judah's name and sends her back to Zion with something to tell.
- Repeated — Babylon reaped what she sowed. The last book of the Bible pronounces the same verdict on the Babylon still to come. The measure you use is the measure that returns.
Behold, I am against thee, mount of destruction, saith Jehovah, which destroyest all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burning mountain.
Jeremiah's message against Babylon reaches its sharpest point here. God turns and speaks to the empire He Himself had raised up. The verse works in pictures: a mountain, rocks, fire. Commentators ask what each picture means, and how far the judgment reaches.
A mountain in prophecy means more than geography. One writer draws the meaning out of this verse:
"A great mountain burning with fire." Scripture itself gives the force of the figure... Here Jehovah threatens the Chaldean kingdom with consuming judgment, a "burnt mountain." Its might and greatness seemed so well established that no overthrow looked possible.... A mountain as a symbol represents a kingdom (Isa. 2:2; Zech. 4:7; Jer. 51:25) or a firmly established power (Ps. 46:2; Rev. 6:14; Rev. 16:20). The main idea to grasp in these prophetic symbols is a strong, solid, established power. And that power is itself the target of God's governmental vengeance.
Earlier in the book Babylon carries a very different title. The change of name is the whole argument of these two chapters:
The book of Jeremiah has already made it plain: God Himself raised up Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, to be His servant. He gave him world-power and dominion... In these two chapters, though, that is not the main point. Here Jeremiah looks at Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon from the side of their own actions. He no longer calls the king the Lord's servant. He names him with scorn, "This Nebuchadnezzar" (Jer. 50:17), and calls Babylon "O destroying mountain" (Jer. 51:25). She had destroyed the earth instead of ruling it. She had corrupted the nations too. So in these two chapters God rejects her, and He settles the redemption of Israel and Judah.
Just before this verse, God lists what He had broken through Babylon. Then comes the "Behold":
Then the Spirit of prophecy speaks to Babylon. He lists in vivid detail the ways God had used her before her fall. "You were my battle axe, weapons of war: with you I have broken nations in pieces; and with you I have destroyed kingdoms."... But this did not hinder His vengeance now.
The same pattern appears with Assyria:
God uses the pride and wrongdoing of the wicked to chasten His people. Afterwards He destroys the instrument. The Assyrian, God's rod to strike Israel, glorifies himself against God, who breaks the rod.
Some read the rolling from the rocks and the stone for a corner as a note about building materials. One writer answers that with a plain fact about the city:
Taking a stone for a corner is all a mistake of the passage. Apart from a few foundations, Babylon was not built of stone; it is a mere figure... The words picture the destruction of her power as a mountain. They do not describe the actual building material of the city, which was not stone at all.
In Revelation 8 the second trumpet sounds. A great mountain burning with fire falls into the sea. Commentators use Jeremiah as the key to that scene. One of them notes a real difference between the two:
Look at Jeremiah, and you will see that we do not explain these things at random or out of mere imagination... The "mountain burning with fire" stands for a system of power. That power lies under the judgment of God, and it also brings judgment on others... Babylon, in Jeremiah, was to be "a burnt mountain," hurled down from its place of eminence. In Revelation the mountain is "burning." Babylon was itself to be as a consumed or destroyed mountain.
Commentators differ on how far this reaches. Some hold that God carried out the sentence on the ancient city, and that it is finished. Others allow that the prophecies against Babylon "may refer also to still future events." They point to a last holder of Nebuchadnezzar's kind of authority (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
One writer points forward to a later scene, where God warns His own people before the blow lands:
This again reminds us of Revelation 18. There we read about the corrupting influences of the Babylon of the future. And, as in the verses we have just looked at, God calls the Jews to leave her, just before Babylon is thrown down, never to be found again (v. 21). He says, "Come out of her, my people" (Rev. 18:4).
- Mountain — In prophecy a mountain is a settled, established power, so tall it looks impossible to topple. God speaks straight to this one.
- Destroying — Babylon's new name is her indictment. Given the earth to rule, she wrecked it instead, so God takes the servant title away.
- Instrument — Being God's battle axe bought her nothing. God uses the pride of the wicked to chasten His people, then breaks the rod He used.
- Rolled down — The rocks and stones are a picture, not building material. What falls is her power, not her bricks.
- Burnt — Babylon destroyed others. She ends as a burnt mountain herself. Revelation reuses the picture: a burning mountain falls into the sea.