Chapter Fifty-One

1–64. A prophecy against Babylon.

Jer 51:1-46. Continuing his discourse about the fate of Babylon, the prophet again speaks of how the Lord punishes Babylon for Israel’s sake: the Lord finally destroys this mighty kingdom, which was previously in His hand as an instrument for punishing various nations. The prophet clearly names here the destroyers of Babylon — the kings of Media, the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz (1–34). Israel itself recognizes in the destruction of Babylon the work of God’s vengeance for the wrongs which the Babylonians inflicted upon Israel (35–46). And all shall rejoice at the destruction of this terrible kingdom (47–58). At the end of the chapter it is told how Jeremiah entrusted Seraiah to read this prophecy and then throw the scroll with the prophecy into the Euphrates (59–64).

Jeremiah 51:1. Thus says the Lord: Behold, I shall raise up against Babylon and against those dwelling in the midst of it My adversaries. “Dwelling in the midst of it My adversaries” — according to the translation from the Hebrew: (not dwelling) in the heart (central point) of My adversaries. The Russian translation lacks the object after the word “raise up,” but in the Hebrew text this object exists. There the expression stands: ruach maschehil — a destroying wind or: the spirit of the destroyer.

Jeremiah 51:7. Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, intoxicating all the earth; the nations drank from it and became mad. Gold denotes the magnificence of life in Babylon, which was enjoyed by various nations friendly to Babylon. They drank from the cup of Babylon and became infected with its impiety. For this they must share in its punishment as well.

Jeremiah 51:10. The Lord has brought forth our righteousness; come and let us declare on Zion the work of the Lord our God. Here the speakers are the Jews.

Jeremiah 51:11. Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers; the Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of Media, because His purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it, for it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance for His temple. “Fill the quivers” — more correctly from the Hebrew: “put on the shields” — By Medes the prophet could call here the inhabitants of Iran in general, including the Persians.

Jeremiah 51:14. The Lord of hosts has sworn by Himself: truly I say, I will fill you with men as with locusts, and they shall raise a shout against you. Even though Babylon were filled with men like locusts, yet his enemies shall take it and raise a victorious shout in the taken city. Jer 51:15-19. A repetition of Jer 10:12-16.

Jeremiah 51:20. You are My hammer, a weapon of war; by you I struck down nations, and by you I shattered kingdoms; An address to Babylon.

Jeremiah 51:25. Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, says the Lord, that destroys all the earth, and I will stretch out My hand against you, and roll you down from the rocks, and I will make you a burned-out mountain. A destroying mountain is Babylon called as a kingdom that ruled over all the earth. “A burned-out mountain.” In Palestine mountains were often adorned with forests. If the forest burned, the mountain took on a sorrowful appearance.

Jeremiah 51:26. And no one shall take from you a stone for a corner, and no stone for a foundation, but you shall be an eternal desolation, says the Lord. Babylon shall cease to be a support for other nations.

Jeremiah 51:27. Raise a standard on the earth, sound a trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against it, summon against it the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz, appoint a commander against it, bring up horses like a terrible locust. Ararat is part of Armenia at the middle course of the Araxes; the Minnians are inhabitants of the country at Lake Van, to the west of Ararat. Ashkenaz is approximately in the neighborhood of Armenia.

Jeremiah 51:32. And the fords have been seized, and the gates have been burned with fire, and the warriors are in terror. “Fords” — more correctly: wooden bridges across the Euphrates and canals. “Gates” — more correctly: wooden structures or sluices that held water where it was needed.

Jeremiah 51:33. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: the daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is being trampled; yet a little while and the time of her harvest shall come. “At the time it is being trampled.” Since the harvest is still only in the future, the reference here cannot be to a threshing floor during threshing, but rather to a threshing floor that is being trampled so that afterwards grain can be threshed upon it.

Jeremiah 51:34. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has devoured me and crushed me; he has made me an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a dragon; he filled his belly with my delicacies, he cast me out. This is a complaint of Jerusalem (see Jer 51:35).

Jeremiah 51:36. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will plead your case and take vengeance for you, and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry. The sea was sometimes called the Euphrates River, which overflowed in spring over a vast expanse (see Isa 21:1).

Jeremiah 51:38. Like lions they shall all roar, and like lion whelps they shall growl. Here the discourse is about the Chaldeans in their present position. Let them triumph, as it were the prophet would say, briefly, it shall pass away.

Jeremiah 51:39. At the height of their carousing I will prepare a feast for them and make them drunk, so that they may rejoice and fall asleep an eternal sleep, and not awake, says the Lord. After eating, the Chaldeans, like lions, shall want to drink, and behold the Lord shall give them drink from which they shall fall into rapture (irony), and then they shall fall into an eternal sleep!

Jeremiah 51:40. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams together with he-goats. No class in the Chaldean people shall be spared (see Isa 14:9).

Jeremiah 51:41. How Sheshak is taken, and the glory of the whole earth is seized! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! “Sheshak” — see Jer 25:26.

Jeremiah 51:42. The sea has come up over Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of its waves. “Sea” — here an image of the all-destroying enemy force.

Jeremiah 51:44. And I will visit Bel in Babylon, and I will take from his mouth what he has swallowed, and the nations shall no longer flow to him, and the wall of Babylon shall fall. From “Bel” (Bel) the Lord will take away “what he has swallowed” (balah) — an obvious play on words. Military spoils of war the pagans customarily considered the property of their gods. We can also see here an indication that the foreigners living in Babylon shall all flee from there. “The wall of Babylon.” Babylon had two walls — an outer and an inner, both dedicated to Bel or Bel. The outer wall was 430 stadia in length, fifty cubits in thickness, and 200 cubits in height. Besides this, all Babylonia along the lower course of the Euphrates and Tigris was defended under Nebuchadnezzar by a huge “Median wall,” built to protect against attack by the Medes (12–15 miles in length, 20 feet in thickness, and 100 feet in height) and connecting the Tigris with the Euphrates.

Jeremiah 51:45. Go forth from the midst of her, My people, and save each of you your lives from the fierce wrath of the Lord. See verse 6.

Jeremiah 51:46. Let not your heart grow faint, and let not fear seize you at the report which shall be heard in the land; a report shall come one year, and after that another report in another year, and violence shall be on the earth, ruler against ruler. The liberation of Israel from captivity shall be accompanied by terrible political upheavals; year after year terrible tidings shall come of various catastrophes in the political life of nations. But for Israel this shall be only a sign of the approaching liberation (see Matt 24:6 and following).

Jeremiah 51:50. You who have escaped the sword, depart, do not tarry; remember the Lord from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your heart. An address to Israel, gathered in Babylon.

Jeremiah 51:55. For the Lord is laying waste Babylon, and He shall put an end to the proud voice in her. And their waves shall roar like great waters, and a loud voice shall resound. “The proud voice.” Thus the prophet denotes the noise, the bustle which constantly reigned on the streets of the greatest trading city — Babylon. This noise of human voices shall be drowned out by the noise of the waves, advancing upon Babylon, that is, by the cries of enemies who shall attack Babylon.

Jeremiah 51:58. Thus says the Lord of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; so the peoples labor for naught, and the nations weary themselves for fire only. “The peoples labor for naught.” Over the construction of such long walls as the Babylonian walls, tens of thousands of people must have worked. It is known, moreover, that Nebuchadnezzar built the inner wall of Babylon in 15 days!

Jeremiah 51:59. The word which the prophet Jeremiah commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with Zedekiah, the king of Judah, in the fourth year of his reign; and Seraiah was the chief of the supplies. Seraiah, as we may infer from Jer 32:12, was the brother of Baruch. Only a man close to the prophet could undertake such a mission as is indicated below. In the fourth year of his reign Zedekiah traveled to Babylon to assure the Babylonian king of his faithfulness, in view of the rumors which may have reached Babylon concerning his schemes (see Jer 27:1 and following). “The chief of the supplies” — more correctly: quartermaster, who was to provide for the food and lodging for the king and his retinue.

Jeremiah 51:61. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah: When you come to Babylon, see that you read all these words, “See,” that is, choose an opportune time and place, especially for carrying out the symbolic action described below.

Jeremiah 51:63. And when you finish reading this book, bind a stone to it and throw it into the midst of the Euphrates, The sinking of the scroll was to serve as a vivid representation of the fall of Babylon. Special Remarks. The oracles of the prophet concerning Babylon, spoken by him over a series of years, were compiled into one scroll in the fourth year of Zedekiah. There are serious objections to the genuineness of chapters L and LI, but all the same these objections can be removed upon unbiased examination of the matter. As regards the form of the prophetic utterances of chapters L and LI, it clearly bears the marks of Jeremiah’s literary style. The writer very freely conveys, in repetitions, the very words of Jeremiah, and this could only be done by the prophet himself — another writer would not have dared to do this. It is said that here the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple is already presupposed as accomplished, which contradicts the time point indicated in Jer 51:59, when these prophecies were composed; it is said that here Jeremiah, prophesying about the speedy liberation of the Hebrews from the Babylonian captivity, contradicts his earlier speeches, in which he persuaded his countrymen to live patiently in captivity, which was to last 70 years. But according to Jeremiah’s view, the captivity had already begun with the deportation of part of the Judeans to Babylon under Jehoiakim (in 607 BC), and the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the temple was already an accomplished fact for him. But he nowhere speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple as events already accomplished. In chapter Jer 51:51, Jeremiah speaks only of the invasion of foreign people into the sanctuary, which could refer to the taking of sacred vessels from the temple in 607 BC. The Lord still dwells in Jerusalem (Jer 51:50), as does the prophet himself (Jer 50:5). Furthermore, if this section had been written by someone after the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, in it the destruction of Babylon could not have been depicted as so complete as it appears here and as it was not in fact when Cyrus took it. The destroyers of Babylon appear to be such enemies (the kings of Media, etc.) as might have seemed to a writer living before the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. And could a post-exilic writer speak of Babylon as of a state at the very apex of glory? Moreover, verse Jer 50:33 could not have been written after the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus and the liberation of the Hebrews from captivity. It is also said that earlier Jeremiah spoke of the Chaldeans with greater sympathy, while here he appears as their hater. But previously also the prophet praised the Chaldeans only as executors of the will of God, and not as attributing to them any special beneficial significance in the history of mankind in themselves. Concerning the fulfillment of the prophecy about Babylon — see Isa 13 and Isa 14 chapters.