Therefore thus saith Jehovah Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her spring dry.
Babylon had swallowed Jerusalem whole. Zion's cry for justice hangs in the air just before this verse. God's "therefore" is His reply. He takes the case as His own, and He starts by draining the waters Babylon trusted in.
Verse 36 does not stand alone. It answers a complaint made in the two verses before. There the plundered city lists what Babylon did to her, and asks for it to fall back on Babylon.
Verses 34, 35 give the complaint of Jerusalem. "Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has swallowed me up like a dragon… he has cast me out. The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say."
To plead a cause is to argue a case in court. God stands up for people whose captors will not let them go. He had already joined that promise to the drying up of Babylon's waters in the previous chapter.
"Thus says the LORD of hosts: the children of Israel and the children of Judah were oppressed together. All who took them captive held them fast; they refused to let them go. Their Redeemer is strong; the LORD of hosts is His name; He will thoroughly plead their cause, that He may give rest to the land and unsettle the inhabitants of Babylon. … A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up: for it is a land of carved images, and they are mad about their idols."
Babylon was not a rogue power that escaped God's control. She was the tool in His hand for breaking nations — which makes the vengeance of verse 36 all the more striking.
"You were my battle axe, weapons of war: with you I have broken nations in pieces, and with you I have destroyed kingdoms. … And I have repaid Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion in your sight, says the LORD." But this did not hold back His vengeance now. "Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, says the LORD, you who destroy all the earth."
The second half of the verse strikes at Babylon's water. Here is what the Hebrew word behind "fountain" means.
maqor, πηγή, "source, perpetual spring." This is rendered "spring" in Proverbs 25:26; Jeremiah 51:36; Hosea 13:15.
Older translations say "spring" here where the ESV says "fountain." What God dried up was what the city counted on. At the end of this same chapter, Jeremiah's written prophecy went into the Euphrates.
The book was placed in the river the Babylonians trusted for safety, but which was the channel of their destruction.
Babylon's fall was not only punishment; it opened the prison door for Judah. Commentators also read it as a preview of a judgment still ahead.
Babylon has a special place in the prophecy of Jeremiah. Israel and Judah had been unfaithful, and God entrusted the government of the world to Babylon. But Babylon failed, and its destruction set Judah free to return to their land. This was a kind of picture of the judgment of the last empire in a future day when Israel will be fully restored and blessed.
Because God says "I will take vengeance for you," the wronged party does not have to. But this truth can turn into a secret wish to see our enemies punished.
Knowing God as the avenger of His people's wrongs is not meant to stir up in our hearts the smallest desire that divine vengeance should overtake our enemies. We must watch against this as a secret desire. We are prone to count on that vengeance falling on those who have injured us, and such expectations are close to hoping it will come. … How much happier to forget them, and commit ourselves and all our affairs into the hands of the Lord! The Lord alone has the right to clear the innocent and punish the guilty.
- Cry. Zion's complaint in verses 34–35 — devoured, crushed, emptied — is what this "therefore" answers.
- Cause. To "plead your cause" is God taking the case as advocate; the Redeemer is strong, and He pleads it thoroughly.
- Cut. He goes for the water — her sea, and her maqor, her perpetual spring. The river she trusted for safety became the channel of her destruction.
- Consequence. Babylon had been His battle axe, yet that gave her no protection. Being useful to God never means being safe from Him.
- Consolation. Babylon's fall set Judah free and pictures a greater judgment ahead. So the wronged can hand vengeance back to God instead of nursing it.
And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place of jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.
Babylon had crushed God's people, and this verse is His answer: the city that did it will itself end as rubble. Did that happen, why did it happen, and what does a ruin in the east say to anyone now?
The verse opens with a "therefore." Behind it stands a Redeemer who takes up His people's cause against the power that crushed them.
The Redeemer of Israel and Judah pleads their cause. He is strong to overthrow their oppressors in judgment, as He did Sodom and Gomorrah. He is strong to rescue His people and give them rest. The earth shakes at the fall of Babylon, and the cry of it sounds among the nations (vv. 33-46). All this goes beyond the past overthrow of Babylon.
Did it happen? One writer sets the prophecy beside the state of the site itself.
Babylon of old really was the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride. But for ages it has been, as Isaiah said, like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. It has, as Jeremiah predicted, become "a heap of ruins," "a horror and a hissing, without inhabitant." Jackals lie there, and owls live there. No Arab pitches a tent there, and no shepherd folds sheep there.
Someone may object that a small town still stands on the site, so the city is not truly empty. One writer answers that the town proves the opposite.
As to Hillah, I do not doubt that it is on the site of Babylon: and how do they know this? From the ruins and emptiness of the place, where lions and snakes live. Babylon was forty-eight miles round: a small Arab place is at one corner of its site. Does that make Babylon rebuilt or inhabited? Is it not a proof of the contrary, and of its ruin? If I built a hut among the palaces still standing in Delhi, what would that prove about the great Mogul emperor?
Babylon did not simply fade away. It was the most splendid city of its age, and its fall had a moral cause.
Its palaces, hanging gardens and wealth showed a lavish luxury and human achievement far beyond anything known since. But its pride, idolatry and vice called for God to step in and judge. He was patient for a long time. Daniel and his companions bore witness there. Even so, its gross immorality and idol worship brought that judgment down.
Will the literal city ever rise again? Commentators differ. One writer weighs the comparison the prophets use.
Some writers believe that the actual city of Babylon will be rebuilt, and that the destruction described in Revelation 18 refers to this literal city. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah compare Babylon's doom to Sodom and Gomorrah. Those two cities were destroyed beyond recovery... Sodom and Gomorrah will never be rebuilt. So it will be with Babylon.
Digging at the site fills in the picture and points the same way:
Excavators have located the ruins of this once powerful city north of Hilla... The digging showed that the city covered twelve square miles. Great streets and canals have come to light, and the ruins of the temple of Marduk. These ruins can never be rebuilt.
The city fell, but the name did not stop there. One writer notes that Babylon became the picture of a later city:
The inspiring Spirit made Babylon — not the land of Babylonia — a symbol of another city. In John's day it was known as the city on "seven mountains," a clear contrast with the older Chaldean city, yet even more truly "the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth" (Revelation 17:9-18).
Another writer applies this to the present day:
The principles of Babylon are widely at work today. As we see God's judgment on this system, we ourselves are kept clear of it with understanding... What belongs to Babylon is always ready to trap those who seek to exalt the Lord and call on Him out of a pure heart. But as we learn the mind of God, we are made strong against the advances of this lawless and superstitious system.
- Cause — pride. God bore long with Babylon's luxury, idolatry and immorality. Then He stepped in and judged it.
- Sentence — heaps. The site matches the verse word for word: a heap of ruins, jackals in it, no Arab pitching a tent, no shepherd folding sheep.
- Permanence — Sodom. Isaiah and Jeremiah both compare Babylon's end to Sodom and Gomorrah. On that reading the ruins will never be rebuilt, though commentators differ about a future literal city.
- Purpose — a Redeemer. The verse's "therefore" rests on a Redeemer. He pleads His people's cause, overthrows their oppressors and gives them rest.
- Reach — today. Babylon's principles are still at work. Learning God's judgment on that system keeps a person clear of its trap.
They shall roar together like young lions, growl as lions' whelps.
Babylon's people are pictured here as a pride of lions at full strength. God is answering the empire that had torn into His people, and this roar will not last long.
This is not the first lion in Jeremiah's message against Babylon. The same picture already described the empires that fed on Israel — and God had dealt with one of them before.
Poor Israel had suffered for their sins in God's government, but He was not indifferent to the vanity and arrogance of the nations that were His instruments for the punishment of His people... Israel is seen as "a scattered sheep," and Assyria and Babylon as lions devouring him. God had already dealt with Assyria: He would soon deal with the king of Babylon also.
Babylon's own emblem was the lion. One writer explains what that stood for, and what was left after the change the prophet saw.
The first, that is, Babylon, "was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I watched until the wings of it were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it." Writers had used both these symbols of Babylon before — the lion and the eagle. They speak of majesty and speed: speed of march and conquest. Both especially marked the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar. But the prophet saw a remarkable change... For if a lion is made to stand up, and its whole nature is changed, it has lost both its power and its grandeur.
This roaring ends at a feast table. One writer finds two meanings in the drunkenness, in Nineveh and in Babylon alike.
Even the figure of drunkenness seems to carry a literal meaning. One may think that the charge of drunkenness takes in, in a figurative sense, that false security in which Nineveh lay — and Babylon too, in a later day. Yet it is a well-known fact that Nineveh was caught by surprise during a religious festival of their gods. That may remind us of the infamous feast of Belshazzar on the very night that Babylon was taken.
Another writer notes how quickly it came.
Babylon did fall suddenly in the night of Belshazzar's feast. Compare Jeremiah 51:39-41.
In the end the lions are gone from the palaces. Real animals take their place.
Babylon has indeed been judged in its beauty and pride... Only the closing verses point to the utter ruin that followed centuries later, and is to last for ever. "It shall never be inhabited or lived in for all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there; no shepherds will make their flocks lie down there. But wild animals will lie down there... And wolves will cry in their palaces, and jackals in the pleasant castles. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged."
One writer looks past the ancient city to a system still at work today.
Babylonish principles largely apply today, and as we see the judgment of God concerning this system we ourselves will be intelligently kept clear of it. We cannot over-estimate the importance of this for those who seek to exalt the Lord and to call upon Him out of a pure heart. That which is Babylonish is always ready to trap such people, but as we learn the mind of God we are fortified against the advances of this lawless and superstitious system... In this connection it is said, "THEIR REDEEMER IS STRONG."
- The roar — Babylon roars like a lion because that is what she was to Israel: a predator over a scattered flock. God was not indifferent to her arrogance.
- The reply — the lion with eagle's wings meant majesty and speed of conquest. Then the wings came off and it stood like a man. It lost both power and grandeur.
- The sleep — the roaring runs into a feast. Drunkenness pictures false security, and Babylon fell on the very night of Belshazzar's banquet.
- The silence — where the roar once sounded, wild animals lie down and jackals cry in the pleasant castles. The ruin is meant to last.
- The Redeemer — read this now not out of curiosity about a dead city, but for freedom from what Babylon still stands for. Their Redeemer is strong.
When they are heated, I will prepare their drink, and I will make them drunken, that they may exult, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith Jehovah.
Jeremiah's prophecy against Babylon turns here into God's answer for His people, and it begins with a banquet rather than an army. Why would God pour the wine for the very city He is about to destroy?
The verse sits inside a reply. Israel had been crushed by Babylon, and what follows from verse 36 is God taking up their case Himself.
This is the answer of Jehovah, and it follows at length in verses 36-44.
The wider chapters carry the same double note: Babylon judged, Israel redeemed. One writer reads the book's whole Gentile section as ending here, with the ruin of Babylon told "in great detail" — the one nation among many that is never restored.
The hardest phrase is that God makes them drunk. That looks like God causing the very sin He punishes. Writing on an earlier sign in Jeremiah, one commentator answers that objection head-on:
Critics who trust only human reason may complain that this is a very simple kind of sign. They question it because it seems to lay the blame for their drunkenness on the Lord. But such criticism only exposes their own ignorance of God's ways and judgments. When men turn away from Him in any way, He gives them up to something else. Unless they repent, their lusts get a stronger hold of them (see Romans 1:18-32).
Babylon had already handed that cup to everyone else. One writer traces how such a power rises, and how it ends:
With deceit and cunning they deceive the nations and leave them helpless. That prepares the way to attack them with violence and seek their own glory. In the end they will be filled with shame instead of glory, when the LORD makes them drink the cup of judgment from His hand.
Commentators do not treat the drinking here as only a figure. One writer compares Babylon with Nineveh, another great city taken by surprise. He argues that the drunkenness was both a picture and a fact:
It seems that even the figure of drunkenness has a literal meaning as well. One may think that the charge of drunkenness covers, in a figurative sense, the false security in which Nineveh lay, as Babylon lay later on. Still, it is well known that a surprise attack came on Nineveh during a religious festival of their gods. That may remind us of the infamous feast of Belshazzar on the very night that Babylon was taken.
History records how the city fell that night. The attack came along the riverbed:
The Euphrates bends near Babylon, so Cyrus cut a new bed for the waters a few miles upstream and diverted their course… When darkness came, they opened the sluices and turned the river into this new direction. As a result the river bed was almost dry at Babylon. The Persian troops marched along that bed, under the bronze gates, and took the city… This feast was the wonder of everyone careless and heedless. While it went on, the enemy forces came in. A messenger reached the king with the news that his city was taken, and the feast broke up at once. "That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed."
Does this sleep mean eternal punishment? One writer draws a careful line:
The "perpetual sleep" runs through man's day, which is what the Old Testament dealt with. The Chaldean Babylon should never wake. And so it has been. Revelation 14:10-11 goes deeper. It is divine judgment on individual worshippers of God's enemy, and "for ever" there has the unlimited force of the New Testament. Christ has brought to light not only life and incorruption, but also the second death and everlasting judgment. The "seventy years" in no way measure Babylon's doom; they measure the chastening of the land and people of Judea.
One writer applies the scene to anyone lulled by present pleasure:
How solemnly like this are the crowds whom the enemy has managed, in every age, to lure and intoxicate with the perishing joys of this world. That world lies under the curse of God and waits for the fire of His judgment. "Those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night." But the morning is near. Then the wine, a fitting symbol of this world's joy, will have evaporated.
Not everyone in that city joined the feast:
The judgment on the feast held no terror for them, because they were not at the feast. They had already judged it. Their separation was not sleep.
- Cause. Babylon trapped the nations by deceit and violence, and the cup she poured came back to her own hand.
- Cup. God "makes them drunk" by giving people who leave Him up to the appetites they chose.
- Feast. The drunkenness was more than a symbol of false security. Belshazzar's banquet was going on the very night the city fell.
- Sleep. "Perpetual sleep" means Babylon never rose again in man's day. One writer says Revelation's "for ever" goes deeper still.
- Separation. Those who had already judged the feast stayed away from it, and its judgment held no terror for them.
I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he-goats.
Jeremiah 51:40 sits inside God's long answer to a captive city's cry. Babylon broke the nations in pieces; now she is the herd led out for the knife, and the verse names the hand that holds it.
Earlier in the chapter God reviews everything He had used Babylon to smash. One writer sets out that list and then marks the turn:
"You were my battle axe, weapons of war: with you I have broken nations in pieces; and with you I have destroyed kingdoms… with you I have broken in pieces the shepherd and his flock…" But this did not stop His vengeance now.
Babylon had broken flocks. Now God turns the flock language on her.
The slaughter is a verdict, not an accident of war. God takes up the case of a wronged people and answers it Himself:
This is Jehovah's answer, given at length in verses 36-44. "Therefore thus says Jehovah: Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you… In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunk, that they may be merry and sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, says Jehovah. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and male goats… How is the praise of the whole earth taken by surprise!"
Every step belongs to God. He takes up the case, He sets the feast, and He brings the city down.
Slaughter comes to animals that suspect nothing. That is how the city fell, and one writer points to the night it happened:
Babylon did fall suddenly in the night of Belshazzar's feast. Compare Jeremiah 51:39-41.
The feast was no coincidence of history. Writing on Nineveh's fall, the same connection is drawn between a nation's revelry and its ruin:
it is well known that the drunken feast of King Belshazzar took place on the very night when Babylon was taken.
Slaughtered animals do not get up again, and neither did Babylon. A writer was asked how long the "perpetual sleep" of the verse before this one lasts:
The "perpetual sleep" runs through man's day, which the Old Testament was dealing with. The Chaldean Babylon should never wake. And so it has been. Revelation 14:10-11 goes deeper. It is divine judgment on individual worshippers of God's enemy, and there "for ever" has the unlimited force of the New Testament.
Commentators differ on how far these chapters reach. Some read the fall as finished on the night of Belshazzar's feast. Another writer sees more in the prophecy than Cyrus ever fulfilled:
Many details in Jeremiah 50 and 51 show us there is more in the mind of the Spirit than the overthrow of Babylon by Cyrus and the partial restoration of Israel afterwards… Babylonish principles are widespread today. As we see the judgment of God on this system, we ourselves will be kept clear of it with understanding… In this connection it is said, "THEIR REDEEMER IS STRONG" (Jer. 50:34).
That leaves one question for God's people still inside the doomed city. The prophet answers it plainly:
The prophet then urges the people to leave a city which, far from sheltering anyone, could only expose them to its own destruction. "My people, go out of the midst of her, and deliver every man his soul from the fierce anger of Jehovah."
- Used — Babylon was God's battle axe for breaking nations. Being useful to Him bought her no protection when her own turn came.
- Answered — The slaughter answers a wronged people's cry. God says, "I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you."
- Surprised — The blow landed in the night of Belshazzar's feast. Slaughter takes the lamb unawares; so it took the praise of the whole earth.
- Final — Babylon's sleep had no morning. The Chaldean city never woke, and history has kept it that way.
- Escaped — Judgment on the system is God's business; getting clear of it is ours. "Go out of the midst of her" — because your Redeemer is strong.
How is Sheshach taken! and how is the praise of the whole earth seized! How is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations!
The word that carries this verse is "How" — a cry of shock over a city that is suddenly gone. Commentators read it as history and as a picture of judgment to come, and they ask why Babylon was called "the praise of the whole earth."
The shock in this cry comes from the rank of the city that has fallen. Kelly explains why God gives His warning against her again.
God renews His warning against Babylon. Nothing seemed less likely than the fall of this proud city. It was the first to achieve world-wide supremacy, and the civilisation of that age was at its height there. So it was right to say it as clearly as possible, and to repeat it, by a reversal men had never seen before. It was a sign that Jehovah had not left His people like a widow, in spite of their sin and its punishment in their land.
This cry is not a bystander's remark. It comes inside an answer, and Jerusalem's complaint came first.
In verses 34 and 35 we have the complaint of Jerusalem: "Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me; he has made me an empty vessel... Let the violence done to me be upon Babylon," let the inhabitant of Zion say.
From verse 36 on, God takes up her case Himself, and our verse is part of His reply.
This is Jehovah's answer, which follows at length in verses 36-44.
"The praise of the whole earth" is a high title, and Babylon loses it. The hand that sets her aside has another city in view.
Both lie equally in His own hands: to face and set aside Babylon and the Gentile nations then, and to establish Jerusalem and make her a praise in the whole earth, with Christ in the day to come.
The verses just before this one speak of feasts and drunken sleep. The history of the capture matches that picture.
Its downfall was unexpected. For twenty-four years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon remained the seat of the imperial court. In 538 BC the city fell in a remarkable way. The attackers chose a night when the people were about to hold a festival, and the whole city would give itself up to drunkenness and wild living. They turned the river out of its bed, to make it shallow enough for the troops to pass along. They found the gates open, and took the city. Scripture had foretold this too. It says that Cyrus was God's shepherd, and that God had taken hold of him to subdue nations: God would weaken kings to open the double gates before him, and the gates would not be shut (Isaiah 45:1-2)... We also find that the king, Belshazzar, was killed on the night of his own feast (Daniel 5:30).
Commentators differ over how far the chapter reaches. Gaebelein reads it as a prophecy of total ruin, on a scale that points past the ancient city.
This chapter is a continued prophecy of the doom and utter desolation of the proud ruler of the nations. Much here connects with Revelation 18... In the rest of the chapter God's dealing in judgment is set out in a wonderful way. It points to that coming day when the Lord will deal with the world in judgment. This must be why such a long prophecy is given. It all goes beyond the judgment of the literal Babylon.
Darby names what was judged, and anchors this part of the chapter in Jeremiah's own day.
The fall of Babylon was a judgment passed on idolatry... From verse 25 we see that it is the Babylon of those days that is in view. From verse 29 the historical details reported here give us very special proof of this.
Vine draws out what this means for a reader today.
Babylon's principles are widely at work today. As we see God's judgment on this system, we ourselves will be kept clear of it with understanding. What is Babylonish is always ready to trap those who seek to exalt the Lord, but as we learn the mind of God we are strengthened against this lawless and superstitious system... And in this connection it is said, "Their Redeemer is strong" (Jeremiah 50:34).
- How — the city. Babylon was the first power to hold world-wide supremacy, and the last place anyone expected to fall.
- How — the title. "The praise of the whole earth" is not hers to keep; God holds it in His own hand, to give to Jerusalem with Christ.
- How — the night. Her fall was unexpected: a festival night, a river turned aside, gates left open. God had foretold it all.
- How — the reason. Babylon's fall was a judgment on idolatry, and God's answer to Zion's complaint against her.
- How — today. Babylon's principles are widely at work now. Knowing God's verdict on them keeps you clear, and their Redeemer is strong.
The sea is come up upon Babylon she is covered with the multitude of its waves.
Babylon broke nations in pieces; now a sea rises over her. What is that sea, and is the flood only the fall of one ancient city?
Isaiah calls Babylon "the desert of the sea." One writer reads the two prophets together:
In Isaiah 21 we return to the doom of Babylon. It is to be "the desert of the sea." In Jeremiah's prophecy against the city he says, "The sea has come up on Babylon" (Jer. 51:42), which helps to explain the expression. Babylon would be swamped by the sea of nations and become a desert.
What does the sea stand for? Another writer answers in one line:
The sea and great waters: masses of people, viewed as such — that is, taken in the mass, unformed and undirected.
The verse sits inside the Lord's own answer to His people. He promises to plead their cause, and He ends with an order, not a comment:
This is the answer of the Lord, and it runs on at length in verses 36 to 44: "Behold, I will plead your cause and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry."… The prophet then urges the people to leave the city. Far from sheltering anyone, it could only expose them to its own destruction. "My people, go out of the midst of her, and save every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord."
God had used Babylon as a tool against other nations. That service earned her no protection when her turn came:
"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 stop His vengeance now. "Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, says the Lord, you who destroy all the earth. I will stretch out My hand upon you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt mountain."
Babylon's fall was not only an ending. The same writer shows what it meant for God's people, and what it left behind:
God allowed the rise and glory of the first Gentile empire only because of hopeless idolatry in Judah and Jerusalem. In the same way, the judgment of Babylon was the moment of deliverance for the Jewish remnant… Jeremiah in his vision (Jer. 51:42) sees the sea come up upon Babylon, so as to cover her with the multitude of its waves. And we know what a wasteland this seat of human pride sank to. It is still that way today, as everyone knows.
These chapters reach further than the fall of the ancient city. One writer draws out what they mean for readers now:
We see that the Lord has purposed to judge it and to overthrow it altogether. We also see that He will save His people from its power. In this connection the word is, "THEIR REDEEMER IS STRONG."
- Pride. Babylon was God's battle axe against other kingdoms. Her usefulness bought her nothing: "Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain."
- Flood. The sea is people in the mass. The empire that swamped others is now swamped itself, and Isaiah's title "the desert of the sea" says as much.
- Escape. The city shelters no one. God tells His people to go out of her and save their lives.
- Desolation. The waves never went back. The seat of human pride is still a wasteland today.
- Today. The pattern outlives the city. Babylonish principles still trap, and still face God's judgment. His people still have one answer: their Redeemer is strong.
Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land wherein no one dwelleth, neither doth a son of man pass thereby.
Babylon was the greatest city of its age. Here God sentences it to become empty ground that no one even walks through. Two questions follow: how could such a word come true, and does it stop with the old city?
This sentence on Babylon is part of God's reply to a people who thought He had stopped caring.
Chapter 51 goes deeper still into the moral degradation of Babylon, but the deliverance of God's people is still in view. Men may think He is showing very little care for them. But He assures them, "Israel has not been forsaken, nor Judah, by his God, the Lord of hosts." He will deal with them, He will judge Babylon, He will repay. "The Lord God of repayment will surely repay" (v. 56).
Just before this, Jerusalem lays out what Babylon did to her.
In verses 34, 35, Jerusalem makes her complaint. "Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has swallowed me up like a dragon. He has filled his belly with my delicacies. He has cast me out…"
When Jeremiah said this, nothing in the world made it look credible.
Nothing seemed less likely than the fall of this proud city. It was the first to win world-wide power, and it was the home of the civilisation of that age. So it was right to say it in the clearest way, and to say it again. Men had never seen such a reversal before. It was a sign that the Lord had not left His people a widow, despite their sin and the punishment of it in their land.
The same sentence appears at chapter 50, verse 13: wilderness, dry land, desert. One writer traces how it came true over time, not in a day.
Verse 13 announces the complete overthrow of the city, to become the last of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land and a desert. This ruin did not happen at once, but step by step ancient Babylon became all that. Excavators have uncovered the ruins of this once powerful city north of Hilla… They show that the city covered twelve square miles: great streets, canals, and the ruins of the Marduk temple. These ruins can never be rebuilt.
Later, one of history's greatest conquerors tried to reverse it.
Though Cyrus captured Babylon, many centuries passed before the ruin foretold here came true. Alexander the Great planned to make it the capital of his world-wide empire. He died before he could try to carry out what God had ruled otherwise. Then rival cities built nearby, sometimes out of its material, kept shrinking it, until it fell little by little into complete desolation.
The verse says no one dwells there. Some object that people do live on that ground today. One writer answers.
As to Hillah, I do not doubt that it is on the site of Babylon: and how do they know this? From the ruins and desolation of the place, where lions and snakes live. Babylon was forty-eight miles round: a small Arab place is at one corner of its site. Does that make Babylon rebuilt or inhabited? Is it not a proof of the contrary, and of its ruin?
Commentators differ on how far this prophecy reaches. Some are sure chapters 50 and 51 speak of the ancient city itself.
I cannot doubt that Jeremiah 50 and 51 apply to ancient Babylon. What is more, the message given to Seraiah says, "So Babylon shall sink, and shall not rise from the disaster that I will bring upon her."
Others read the detail as pointing past Cyrus altogether.
Many details in Jeremiah 50 and 51 show us there is more in the mind of the Spirit than the overthrow of Babylon by Cyrus and the partial restoration of Israel afterwards… The principles of Babylon are widespread today. As we see the judgment of God on this system, that understanding keeps us clear of it.
A city under such a sentence is no shelter. God tells His people to leave it, and the same call sounds again at the end of the Bible.
It is worth seeing this. Before the hour of Babylon's overthrow, God calls through John to the same people (the Jews) as He does through Jeremiah: "Come out of her, My People" (Rev. 18:4)… Their Redeemer is strong. He will save them, and overthrow all those who rise up against them.
- Answer. This desolation is God's answer to His crushed people: He has not forsaken Israel and Judah.
- Unlikely. Nothing looked less likely than the fall of the first city to win world-wide power.
- Gradual. The ruin did not come in a day. Babylon became the wilderness, dry land and desert God had named.
- Irreversible. Alexander planned to make it his capital and died first. The ruins are still ruins, and the small town at one corner of the site proves the desolation instead of disproving it.
- Applied. Commentators differ over whether the prophecy reaches past the ancient city. The call is the same in Jeremiah and in Revelation: come out of her. Their Redeemer is strong.
And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth what he hath swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him yea, the wall of Babylon is fallen.
Jeremiah's long message against Babylon ends up at the city's god himself. Two questions come straight out of the verse: who is Bel, and what did he swallow?
The name belongs to Babylon's own religion:
One of the gods of Babylon, thought by some to be the Babylonian name of Baal.
The judgment on the city and the judgment on her gods arrive together:
The message begins with a command: publish among the nations the conquest of Babylon. Bel (which means lord) is put to shame. Merodach, the chief god of Babylon, is dismayed; Babylonian inscriptions call him Marduk. The fall of the city throws her gods into confusion… The return of a small remnant after the defeat of Babylon clearly does not exhaust this prophecy. The return promised here comes in the day when Babylon and the Babylon spirit pass away, when all false gods fall and the Lord is exalted. Then the lost sheep of Israel will be found and gathered again.
Being swallowed and then brought back up is the picture used elsewhere for the captivity and the return:
To the captivity and return of the Jewish people from Babylon, compare Jeremiah 51:34, 44 and Daniel 9:2. These Scriptures show the swallowing up, as by a dragon or monster, and the return to the land after prayer and repentance. All of it was fulfilled.
Part of what Babylon swallowed was physical. The temple vessels ended up in the house of her gods, and then came out again:
Then Cyrus restored the vessels of the house of the LORD. Nebuchadnezzar had brought them from Jerusalem and put them in the house of his gods. His grandson, Belshazzar, defiled them at his wild feast. That night Belshazzar was killed and Babylon fell… It all shows that God had not forgotten His people. When His appointed time came, He showed His power for them.
Babylon drew the nations in, and what she gave them left them ruined:
She had made the nations drunk so that they went mad; she had corrupted them with idolatry, which is nothing but error. So the Lord will punish Babylon, the city that dwells by many waters (verse 13; see also Revelation 17:1).
No one expected those walls to give way. One night was enough:
Scripture fully foretold the destruction of Babylon. Some of these prophecies may also point to events still future: the Lord's overthrow of the last holder of Nebuchadnezzar-like authority, the beast, the last head of the revived Roman empire. Cyrus is a picture of the Lord here… Babylon's downfall was unexpected… The attackers chose a night when the people were about to hold a festival, and the whole city would give itself over to drunkenness and excess. They turned the river out of its bed, until it was shallow enough for the troops to walk along. They found the gates open, and took the city.
The fall of the old city does not use up the prophecy:
These two chapters (Jeremiah 50 and 51) show us what happened to Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans. But the prophecy goes deeper than history. It shows us principles that grow into the harlot Babylon of the book of Revelation, and that bring down the righteous judgment of God. As here (Jeremiah 51:48), so in Revelation 18:20 and 19:1, those in heaven rejoice at the overthrow of this cruel and idolatrous system… Babylonish principles are widespread today. As we see the judgment of God on this system, we will be kept clear of it ourselves. The Lord has purposed to judge it, to overthrow it altogether, and to save His people from its power. Of this it is said, "Their Redeemer is strong" (Jeremiah 50:34).
after-note: DISCUSS
- The idol — Bel was one of Babylon's gods, and some take Bel to be her name for Baal. When the city fell, her gods were shamed with her.
- The grip — Babylon had swallowed God's people like a monster swallowing prey. The temple vessels sat in the house of her gods.
- The release — the swallower had to give the prey back. The captives returned after prayer and repentance. Cyrus handed over the vessels. God had not forgotten His people.
- The reach — the nations stopped streaming to Bel. God judged a city that had made the nations drunk and mad with her idolatry.
- The ruin — the wall fell in a night of feasting, with the river turned aside and the gates open. The same principles rise again in the Babylon of Revelation, and heaven rejoices when she falls.