Jer. 51 The severe judgment of God against voluptuous, covetous, tyrannical, and idolatrous Babel, in the revenge and for the redemption of Israel, Jer. 51:1–58. Jeremiah delivereth the book of this prophecy to Seraiah, to be cast into Euphrates, in token of the perpetual shaking of Babylon, Jer.

In this chapter the prophecy of the destruction of Babylon is continued under new metaphors; he begins with that of a wind, a destroying wind, ( as northerly winds are ordinarily very pernicious,) but the Hebrew idiom so ill suiteth that of other languages, that it is no easy matter positively to…

Wicked men are compared to chaff, Ps. 1:4. Such as execute judgment on them are called fanners, Jer. 15:7, Matt. 3:12; because as the fanner keepeth what is in the fan unquiet in a continual motion and agitation, by which (advantaged by the wind) he emptieth it of the chaff; so the executioners of…

Whatever arms the Babylonians shall be armed with, they shall meet with their matches; those that are archers shall meet with archers to bend the bow against them, and those who are otherwise armed shall meet with persons prepared to encounter them at their own weapons.

Thus all of them shall be destroyed, some in the fields, some in the streets of their cities.

That is, not, utterly forsaken, for in a sense they were forsaken as to some gradual manifestations of God’s love to them, but Judah and Israel were not left as a widow, or were not divorced from God.

It is a matter of no great moment whether we understand these words as spoken to the Jews in the captivity of Babylon, as Jer. 1:8, or to those whom the Chaldeans had hired to help them, or to such strangers as for their secular advantages lived in Babylon.

A golden cup, because of her great riches and plenty. God hitherto had made me of Babylon as a rod in his hand, and had given her riches, and power, and prosperity proportioned to the service he had for her to do; what she did she did by commission from God; therefore this golden cup is said to…

That is, she shall suddenly fall and be destroyed; you may try all the probable ways for her cure, but they will all be used to no purpose.

The prophet here seemeth to personate the mercenary soldiers that should come to help the Chaldeans, as if they should say this, they would have helped Babylon, but there was no healing for her; and therefore they call one to another to leave her to herself, and return each man to his own country,…

These words are spoken as in the person of the Jews, owning the destruction of Babylon, 1. To be the mighty work of God. 2. An act of justice and judgment, pleading the cause and revenging the wrongs of his people; and owning the Jewish religion, and calling one to another to go to the temple to…

Make bright the arrows; prepare the arrows for fighting, whether by feathering, sharpening, or polishing and cleansing of them, is not much material. Gather the shields; you that are Chaldeans, gather all the shields you have together, you will have need of them all: or, you that are the enemies of…

Some judge these words spoken to the Medes, declaring the will of God, that they should use all probable means to conquer Babylon, or (as some would have it) display their banners upon the walls of it, as signs of its being already conquered: but certainly it is more reasonable to conclude them the…

Babylon is said to dwell upon many waters, because upon the great river Euphrates, which they say did not only run by it, but almost encompass it, branching itself into many smaller rivers, which made several parts of the city islands.

The Lord, that is able to bring to pass what he saith, hath sworn by his life, or by himself; see the like phrase Jer. 22:5, Jer. 44:26, Jer. 49:13, Amos 4:2, Amos 6:8, Isa.

We had these five verses all in Jer. 10:12–16. See there the explication of the several passages in them; the scope of which is only to convince those to whom the prophet spoke, that notwithstanding all the power, and riches, and greatness, and alliances of the Chaldeans, yet that God who had…

Interpreters are here divided, whether by thou or thee in this and the following verses to understand Cyrus, whom God made use of to destroy Babylon and many other places, or Babylon. Our translators understand it of Cyrus, and therefore speak of the future tense, will I.

The sense of all three verse is the same, viz. that God had made use of, and was still making use of the Babylonians to waste and impoverish much people, wasting their goods, routing their armies, killing all sorts of their inhabitants.

The particle in the front of this verse, which our translators (understanding the four former verses of Cyrus) render and in a copulative sense, must be rendered now, or but, if the four former verses be understood of Babylon, and the sense is this: Though I nave hitherto made use of Babylon, and…

Babylon is not here called a mountain because it was situated upon any hills or mountains, for it appears from Gen. 11:2 that it was situated in a plain, and we read, Jer.

God threateneth to Babylon an utter ruin and desolation, so as they should not have a stone left fit to lay a foundation, or to make a corner-stone; or, as some others interpret it, that city should never be built again, there should never from the rubbish of it be taken a stone to lay the…

The former words of this verse are expounded by those that follow; setting up of standards and blowings of trumpets are preparatory to bring armies together.

Here the prophet declares those particular princes and nations that should be God’s instruments to destroy Babylon, viz. Cyrus and Darius, the emperors of the Medes, with all the forces under their command, and people under their dominion.

That is, Babylon, or the land of Chaldea, shall tremble and sorrow; for God hath determined to destroy it, and to leave it wholly desolate, so as none should dwell in it.

When God hath determined an end, he ordereth means proportionable to that end. Babylon had many valiant and mighty men, and it is very probable the Babylonians trusted very much to them; but when it came to, God took off their courage, so as they had no heart to fight, but kept themselves in their…

We have had occasion one and again to recite what we have in civil historians about the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, viz., that it was taken by surprise, by the Median emperor’s unexpected diverting the river Euphrates by divers channels which he cut; as also that Babylon was a very vast city, the…

This was part of the message which the prophet saith the messenger should carry to the king of Babylon, that was in the other part of the city, that the passages over the river Euphrates, or any other passages by which the Babylonians might, upon the enemies’ entrance, make their escape, were all…

Babylon had been a threshing instrument by which, and a threshing-floor in which, God had threshed many other nations; God now intended to make it as a threshing-floor wherein he would thresh the Chaldeans.

The prophet speaketh this in the name of the Jews, complaining of the king of Babylon as the author of all the miseries they had endured, which he expresseth by several phrases signifying the same thing, viz. that it was the king of Babylon that had ruined.

The words are either a prayer, or a prediction of God’s vengeance upon Babylon; so Ps. 137:7–8. God hath said vengeance is his, and he will repay it. The church of the Jews here commits its cause to God, and prayeth him to execute vengeance for her.

Men had need take heed how they give cause of appeals to God against them, especially the appeals of such as are a people that have a covenant relation to God. God in those cases ordinarily showeth himself a swift witness and judge, and gives a speedy judgment in such causes.

Babylon shall become heaps; heaps of rubbish. A dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant. See Poole “Jer. 50:39”, See Poole “Jer. 50:40”, where the same thing was before said.

It is uncertain whether this be to be understood of the Medes, making horrible roarings and noises when they took Babylon; or of the Babylonians, who upon the taking of their city (as is usual) made horrid outcries, as being a people quite undone: some think it referreth to the drunken noises of…

When they shall grow hot with wine, I will put, or give, or make them a feast of another nature. Interpreters judge that the prophet referreth to the feast made by Belshazzar, Dan.

That is, they shall be destroyed before they are aware of it.

We meet with this term Sheshach only here, and Jer. 25:26; both places leave it doubtful whether it be to be taken for an idol, which they called by the name of Shach, or a name given to the city of Babylon, which worshipped that idol, to the honour of which the Babylonians kept a yearly festival…

A multitude of enemies, that are like the sea in which there is a multitude of waters, or that will overrun them as the sea overfloweth the shore, or any land into which it once breaketh.

See Jer. 2:6, Jer. 9:12; the words are all of them descriptive of an utter desolation, that should not only be the fate of Babylon the head city, but of all the inferior cities, that were as daughters to that mother city.

And I will punish Bel and Babylon: Bel was the principal Babylonian idol, of which see what is noted Jer. 1:2. And I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up; all the vessels of the temple, 2 Chron. 36:7, and whatever gifts the Babylonians had presented to him.

These words are an exhortation to the Jews to be willing, upon the first proclamation of liberty by Cyrus, to go out of Babylon, notwithstanding the pleasantness of the place, and that now their stakes had been pitched there many years, because of the ruin which should most certainly come on that…

And lest your heart faint; and lest they should be affrighted by the succession of evils year after year that should come on Babylon. Some think it were better translated, And let not your heart faint.

I will do, that is, I will execute, judgment upon the idols of Babylon, and the whole land of Chaldea shall be confounded, when they shall see that their idols will do them no more service.

All the creatures in heaven and earth. shall rejoice at the vengeance which God shall take upon Babylon, which had been the destroyer of so many of their people. The Median soldiers are those here called spoilers from the north.

The words in the Hebrew have some difficulty, which is not so obvious to those not acquainted with that language, but hath given occasion to interpreters to vary in their particular translations of it; but they mostly agree in the general sense, viz.

It is hard to resolve whether the prophet here speaks to the Chaldeans, or the Medes, or the Jews, though most understand it of the Jews, whom God would have leave Babylon as soon as they should have a liberty proclaimed; and to remember when they came into Judea the great things, both of justice…

The words of this verse seem to prove that the Jews were the persons intended in the former verse, whom God would have to go away, and not to stand still; for it is out of doubt that it is of them the prophet here speaketh, and whom the prophet brings in here, saying, We are confounded, that is,…

For which complaints of my people, or rather for which profanation of my holy place, I will be revenged upon their graven images, and not only upon their idols, but upon the worshippers of them, and cause a groaning of wounded men over all the country of the Chaldeans; I will cause them to know…

We are very prone to measure things by the measures of our own reasons, and to judge of events which are to be the effects of Divine power by human probabilities, therefore God is put to use many words to the same purpose: he saw the Jews saying in their hearts, How can these things be? Babylon…

To assure them that what God threatened should certainly be, he calls to the Jews to listen, as if already there were cry from Babylon, and a sound of a great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans.

The sword is not so much the sword of the Medes a the sword of the Lord. It is he who is to be looked at, a the spoiler of Babylon. And destroyed out of her the great voice; and hath made to cease in that great city the noise caused from the multitudes of people in it walking up an, down, and…

Little more is said here than was before, only the words hint the taking of Babylon by a surprise, when the kin and the inhabitants were not aware of it, which he had be fore also told us, Jer. 51:39–40. In this the prophet saith that God would act but as a just God, a God of recompence.

Drunken men use to fall asleep. The prophet speaks here metaphorically. His meaning is, that the Lord would fill them with the wine of his fury, mentioned Jer. 30:15–16, and upon the drinking of it they should sleep their last sleep, the effects of it should be their utter ruin and destruction.

Incredible things are told us by historians of this great city. They say the compass of it was threescore miles about; that her walls were in height two hundred feet, her breadth such as two chariots might drive abreast upon the top of them; that it had a hundred great gates, many of then of brass.

Of this Seraiah we read no more than we have in this verse, though, Jer. 36:26, there be mention made of another Seraiah. When he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah into Babylon: we no where read of any journey Zedekiah made into Babylon till he was carried a prisoner thither, it is therefore…

Not to the Chaldeans, nor possibly is it to be understood of a mere private reading of them to himself, but to the Jews that were in Babylon, acquainting them with what God had spoken against Babylon by the prophet.

Thou shalt testify that thou believest what thou hast read to be what shall most certainly come to pass, by speaking words to this sense.

It hath been often said that Euphrates was that great river which ran by the walls of Babylon; into this Seraiah is commanded by Jeremiah to throw this roll of prophecy against Babylon, symbolically to teach the Jews, that according to the tenor of his prophecy the time should come, after some…