Jeremiah 51:1 - Meaning and Application

The details of this large prophecy are spread out and mixed together. The same ideas are repeated and returned to so often that it is hard to divide the passage into neat sections. So we should try to gather the thoughts under their proper headings.

First, Babylon’s great power and splendor are openly acknowledged, along with the way God used her in his providence. Babylon had been a golden cup, a rich and glorious empire, a golden city (Isaiah 14:4), a head of gold (Daniel 2:38), full of good things like a cup full of wine. Even more, she had been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand. God had especially filled and favored her with blessings, and he had made the earth drunk with that cup. Some were intoxicated by her pleasures and corrupted by her, while others were terrified by her and ruined by her. In both senses, the New Testament Babylon is said to have made the kings of the earth drunk (Revelation 17:2; Revelation 18:3).

Babylon had also been God’s battle-axe. That was true in Jeremiah’s day, and it would likely be even more true later (Jeremiah 51:20). Babylon’s armies were God’s weapons of war, tools in his hand, used to break nations and kingdoms into pieces. They struck down horses and chariots, which are the strength of kingdoms (Jeremiah 51:21), and they destroyed men and women, young and old, the people who make up a nation (Jeremiah 51:22). They also struck the shepherd and his flock, the farmer and his oxen, the people and animals that keep a kingdom fed and supplied (Jeremiah 51:23). This is the kind of ruin the Chaldeans had brought when God used them as instruments of his anger to punish the nations. Yet now Babylon herself must fall.

The lesson is clear, those who have swept everything before them for a long time will still meet their match at last. Their day of falling will come too, and the rod will finally be thrown into the fire. No one should think that using God’s judgments against others will protect them from God’s own judgments. If God has used them as instruments, that does not make them safe from his justice.

Second, God’s people make a just complaint against Babylon and bring a charge against her. She is blamed for her stubborn, unhealed wickedness (Jeremiah 51:9). “We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed.” The people of God, who were captives among the Babylonians, tried to follow the instructions given to them (Jeremiah 10:11). They tried to show the Babylonians how foolish their idolatry was, but they could not turn them from it. Babylon still clung to her carved images, so the Israelites decided to leave her and return to their own country.

Some understand this as the words of the forces Babylon had hired for support. They are saying they did all they could to save her from ruin, but it was useless, so they might as well go home to their own countries. Her judgment, they say, reaches to heaven, and it is no use trying to stop it or turn it aside.

Babylon is also blamed for her old, bitter hatred against Israel. Other nations had suffered under the Chaldeans too, but Israel especially brings the matter before God and trusts him to judge it (Jeremiah 51:34-35). “The king of Babylon has devoured me and crushed me, and he never thought he had done enough harm. He has emptied me of all I had that was precious. He has swallowed me like a dragon, or like a sea monster swallowing small fish in great numbers. He has filled his belly and his treasures with my rich food and my pleasant things. Then he threw me out like a useless vessel.”

Zion and Jerusalem then say, “Let the violence done to me and my children, who are my own flesh and part of me, and all the blood of my people that they shed like water, fall back on them. Let the guilt stay on them, and let them answer for it.” Ruin is never far from those who carry the guilt of wrong done to God’s people.

Third, God the righteous Judge answers this appeal and gives judgment on Israel’s behalf against Babylon. He sits on the throne and judges rightly. He is ready to hear complaints, and he answers, “I will plead your cause” (Jeremiah 51:36). Leave it with me. In due time I will defend you fully and take vengeance for you, and every drop of Jerusalem’s blood will be paid back with interest.

Israel and Judah seemed forgotten and neglected, but God was still watching over them (Jeremiah 51:5). It is true that their land had been filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel. They had been a provoking people, and their sins were a deep offense to God, both because he is holy and because he was their own God, their Holy One. So he rightly handed them over to their enemies, and he could justly have abandoned them to perish. Yet God treats them better than they deserve.

Even with their sin and his discipline, Israel is not forsaken or cast off, though he was driven out. He is still owned and cared for by his God, the Lord of hosts, the God of power. God is still his God, and he will act for him as the Lord of hosts. So even when God’s people break his laws and come under his rebukes, that does not mean they are thrown out of his covenant, his binding promise. His care and love for them will rise again (Psalm 89:30-33).

The Chaldeans thought they would never be called to account for what they had done to God’s Israel. But there is a set time for vengeance (Jeremiah 51:6). We cannot expect it before the time God has fixed, but it will surely come then. He will repay Babylon. The avenging of Israel is the Lord’s own vengeance, because he takes up their cause. It is also the vengeance of his temple (Jeremiah 51:11), as earlier in Jeremiah 50:28.

The Lord God of repays and requites, the God to whom vengeance belongs, will surely repay (Jeremiah 51:56). He will pay Babylon back fully. He will give her back all the evil she did in Zion (Jeremiah 51:24), and he will do it openly in the sight of his people. They will have the comfort of seeing their cause defended with strong concern. They will live to see those judgments fall on Babylon, and they will clearly see that these judgments are the punishment for what Babylon did to Zion.

Then anyone can see and say, “Truly there is a God who judges on earth.” Just as Babylon caused the slain of Israel to fall, and not only the armed men but almost the whole land was put to the sword, so the slain will fall in Babylon, not only in the city but throughout the country too (Jeremiah 51:49). Cyrus will measure to the Chaldeans the same measure they used against the Jews, so that every observer can see God repaying them for what they did to his people.

But Zion’s children will especially rejoice in this (Jeremiah 51:10). “The Lord has brought forth our righteousness,” they will say. He has shown himself for us against those who dealt unjustly with us, and he has given us justice. He has also made it plain that he is again at peace with us, and that in his sight we are still a righteous nation.

Let it be spoken of to his praise: “Come, let us tell in Zion what the Lord our God has done.” Others should be invited to join us in praising him.

Then comes a declaration of the greatness and rule of that God who takes up Zion’s cause and deals with this proud, powerful enemy (Jeremiah 51:14). The Lord of hosts has said it, and he has sworn it by himself, since he could swear by no one greater, that he will fill Babylon with huge and almost unbelievable numbers of enemy soldiers. He will fill it with men like locusts, too many to resist, and they will only need to raise a shout against it. That shout will so frighten the people that they will lose heart and become an easy target for this large army.

But who can break a kingdom as strong as Babylon, and where is such a man found? The prophet answers by repeating the description he gave earlier of the Lord, his rule, and his victory over all false gods (Jeremiah 10:12-16). There, the words were meant to convince Babylon’s idol worshipers and to strengthen God’s people in faith and worship. Here they are repeated to show that God will convince people by his judgments if they will not be convinced by his word, and that he is God over all.

No one should doubt that the one who has decided to destroy Babylon is able to carry out his word. First, he is the God who made the world (Jeremiah 51:15), so nothing is too hard for him. Our help rests on his name, and our hope is built on him. Second, he rules over all the creatures he made (Jeremiah 51:16). His providence, his ongoing care and rule, is like a continuing act of creation. He has wind and rain under his command. If he speaks, there is a great mass of water in the heavens, and it is amazing how it stays there. Vapors rise from the earth, and it is amazing how they rise. Lightning and rain seem like opposites, as fire and water do, yet he produces them together. And the wind, which seems to move wherever it wishes and whose source we do not know, is still brought out of his treasuries.

Third, the idols that oppose the fulfillment of his word are only empty pretenders, and their worshipers are foolish people (Jeremiah 51:17-18). The idols are lies, worthless things, the work of mistakes and false thinking. When they are visited, that is, examined closely, they perish, meaning their honor falls and they are shown to be nothing. Those who make them are like them. But there is no comparison between the God of Israel and the gods of the nations (Jeremiah 51:19). Jacob’s portion is not like them. The God who says this and will do it is the Maker of all things and the Lord of all hosts, so he can do whatever he wills. There is also a close bond between him and his people, because he is their portion and they are his people. They trust in him as their portion, and he takes delight in them and watches over them as the lot of his inheritance. For that reason, he will do what is best for them.

This repetition of what was said before shows both how certain and how important these truths are. It calls us to pay special attention. God has spoken once, yes, twice we have heard that power belongs to God, power to destroy the strongest enemies of his church. If God speaks this way once, yes, twice, then we are without excuse if we do not hear and take it in.

Then the prophet describes the tools God will use in this work. God has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, Darius and Cyrus, who come against Babylon by divine impulse, because God’s plan is against Babylon to destroy it (Jeremiah 51:11). They carry it out, but God planned it first. They are only doing his purpose and following his direction. God’s counsel will stand, and all hearts will move according to it.

Those whom God uses against Babylon are compared to a destroying wind (Jeremiah 51:1), a wind that either burns crops with cold or knocks down everything in its path by its force. This wind comes out of God’s treasuries (Jeremiah 51:16), and here it is said to be raised against those who live among the Chaldeans, the foreign people settled among them and blended into their society. The Chaldeans rose against God by bowing to idols, and against them God will raise destroyers, because he will prove stronger than those who fight against him.

These enemies are also compared to fanners, people who separate grain from chaff with a fan, driving the chaff away (Jeremiah 51:2). The Chaldeans had once been like fanners against God’s people, winnowing them and leaving them empty (Jeremiah 15:7). Now they themselves will be stripped and scattered in the same way.

God gives them full authority to destroy and lay everything waste. They are to bend their bow against the archers of the Chaldeans (Jeremiah 51:3) and not spare her young men, but destroy them completely. The Lord has both planned and carried out what he spoke against Babylon (Jeremiah 51:12). This should encourage the instruments he uses, because it assures them of victory. The way they act is the very way God planned, so they will surely succeed. What he has spoken will be done, because he himself will do it. So all needed preparations must be made.

For that reason they are called to gather for war (Jeremiah 51:27-28). A banner is to be raised to enlist soldiers for this campaign, and a trumpet is to be blown to summon and stir them up. The nations from which Cyrus’s army is drawn are to send their recruits. The kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz, regions of Armenia, both upper and lower, and of Ascania near Phrygia and Bithynia, are to send their share of men. Commanders are to be appointed, and the cavalry is to move forward. The horses are to come in great numbers, like locusts, and to leap and paw in the valley. They are to lay waste the land as locusts do (Joel 1:4), especially the rough kind of locusts. The kings and captains are to prepare nations against Babylon, because the task is great and many hands are needed.

The Chaldeans, however, are weak and cannot stand against this threatening force. When God used them against other nations, they had courage and strength for attack, and they went on with steady resolve, conquering and going on to conquer. But now that their own turn has come to be judged, all their strength and bravery fail. Their hearts sink, and none of their bold men can even find their hands to fight back in defense.

They are called to get ready for battle, but the call is meant to shame them. The prophet says, in effect, “Polish the arrows that have gone rusty from long disuse, gather up the shields that have been cast aside in years of peace, and raise the battle standard on Babylon’s walls and towers” (Jeremiah 51:11-12). The point is that Babylon had become careless and unready, and needed to be roused, but all her efforts would come to nothing. People could call her to action, but she would have no heart to answer the call (Jeremiah 51:29).

The whole land would shake with fear, and deep sorrow would seize everyone, because they would see both God’s unstoppable power and his fixed purpose against them. They would understand that God was making Babylon a waste, and that he was carrying out what he had already planned. Then Babylon’s mighty men would lose all courage and stop fighting (Jeremiah 51:30). God would take away their strength and fighting spirit, so they would stay hidden in their strongholds, afraid to even look out. Their hearts and hands would fail them, and they would become as fearful as women, so that the enemy could burn their homes and break their bars without resistance.

The same idea appears later in the chapter (Jeremiah 51:56-58). When the destroyer comes, Babylon’s warriors, who should stand against him, are quickly seized, and their weapons fail them. Their military plans also fail. They gather for war councils, but their princes and captains are made drunk, as if by stupidity or despair. They cannot think clearly, they stagger in their decisions, and they clash with one another like drunk men. At last they fall into a lasting sleep and never wake from the wine, which is the wine of God’s wrath, a punishment that lays them in fatal helplessness.

Even the walls of the city will fail them (Jeremiah 51:58). When the enemy finds a way to cross the Euphrates, which seemed impossible to cross, the Babylonians still think the walls will save them. Their city had massive walls, and people called them the broad walls of Babylon. The city was vast, the walls were very high and wide, and some say there were even three layers of walls around the inner city and the outer city. The bricks were laid in pitch instead of mortar, so they were hard to separate, but all of this would still be torn down. The high gates and towers would be burned, and those who defended the city would wear themselves out in vain.

The destruction of Babylon by these invaders is certain. The sentence has already gone out, and it cannot be reversed. God himself is against Babylon, and no one can stand long when God is opposed to them (Jeremiah 51:8, 25). He will stretch out his hand against her, and no creature can bear that hand or stop it. It is God’s own purpose that Babylon must become a ruin, and that purpose will be carried out (Jeremiah 51:29).

The destruction is also righteous. Babylon has made herself fit for judgment, so she cannot escape it. She had been a destroying mountain, huge and high, crushing the nations around her, like rocks rolling down from a mountain and ruining the ground below (Jeremiah 51:25). But now she will be rolled down from her own heights. Her pride and power will be broken. She is also like a burning mountain, like a volcano that throws out fire and terrifies everyone near it. But she will become a burned mountain, a heap of ashes. So it will be with this world at the end of time.

Babylon is also pictured as a threshing floor, where God’s people have long been beaten like grain (Jeremiah 51:33). Now the time has come for Babylon herself to be threshed. Her princes, nobles, and people will be beaten in her own land, as grain is beaten on the threshing floor. The floor is ready, and Babylon, through her sin, has made herself fit for war and judgment. Her people are ripe for destruction, like grain ready for harvest (Revelation 14:15; Micah 4:12).

The destruction is unavoidable as well. Babylon seems well protected. She lives among many waters, and her land is surrounded by rivers, so it looks hard for an enemy to enter (Jeremiah 51:13). This is why the New Testament speaks of Babylon as sitting on many waters, meaning ruling over many nations, as the old Babylon did (Revelation 17:15). Babylon is also rich in treasures, but neither her waters nor her wealth will save her. Her end has come. It will be the limit of her greed, the boundary of her collecting, and the check on her ambition and love of money. Through Babylon’s fall, God says to the proud waves, “Thus far, and no farther.” If people will not limit their greed by wisdom and grace, God will limit it by his judgments.

Babylon thought herself safe and great, and she was proud. But she will be deceived (Jeremiah 51:53). Even if Babylon should build her walls and palaces up to heaven, and even if she tried to strengthen the highest parts of her power, it would still not save her. God will send destroyers against her, and they will break through her defenses and bring down her greatness.

The destruction of Babylon was gradual, and they could have seen it coming if they had paid attention. One warning came a year in advance, when news spread that Cyrus was making large war preparations. Another came the next year, when it was said that his plan was aimed at Babylon, and he was moving in that direction (Jeremiah 51:46). They could have sent for peace while he was still far away, but they were too proud and too confident to do it. Their hard hearts led them straight into ruin.

Yet when judgment came, it was sudden. Babylon fell all at once (Jeremiah 51:8), and the destruction was finished in a short time, like the fall of the New Testament Babylon in one hour (Revelation 18:17). The king of Babylon should have been watching the enemy’s movements, but he was far from the place of attack. So it took time for the news to reach him, and messenger after messenger hurried to the court with word that the city had been taken (Jeremiah 51:31). They had to tell him that the enemy had seized the river crossings and forts, crossed the river, and set the reeds on fire to frighten the city (Jeremiah 51:32). The warriors lost heart, dropped their weapons, and surrendered.

The messengers came one after another, as in Job’s case, with news that could not be stopped. Then the report was confirmed when the enemy entered the palace and killed the king himself, as in Daniel 5:30. The feast they were holding at the very moment the city was taken shows both their strange carelessness and the enemy’s advantage. They were roaring like lions, as drunken people do when wine fills their heads (Jeremiah 51:38, Jeremiah 51:39). They called it singing, but Scripture and sober judgment call it shouting like young lions. They likely were drinking to Cyrus and his army with loud cheers. God says that while they are heated with wine, he will serve them their true portion.

They had passed the cup around to each other, and now the cup from the Lord’s hand would come to them instead, a cup of anger and judgment (Habakkuk 2:15, Habakkuk 2:16). It would make them stagger so that they could keep on carousing, and then it would bring on a sleep from which they would never wake. They might be merry for a moment with that bitter cup, but it would end in death. On that very night, in the middle of their celebration, Belshazzar was killed.

This destruction was also total. God would finish what he had planned and complete what he had begun. The slain would fall in great numbers throughout the land of the Chaldeans, and many would be stabbed in Babylon’s streets (Jeremiah 51:4). They would be led away like lambs to slaughter (Jeremiah 51:40), so many and so helpless that the enemy would treat the killing as easily as a butcher kills lambs. The strength of the invaders is compared to a flood of water (Jeremiah 51:42). The sea rises over Babylon, and once it breaks its bounds, nothing can hold it back. In the same way, a powerful army would cover her like waves, and her cities would become a wilderness, empty and uncultivated (Jeremiah 51:43).

The judgment would also reach Babylon’s gods, the idols and carved images. God says that as proof that the whole land will be shamed, and all the wounded will groan, he will judge her idols (Jeremiah 51:47, Jeremiah 51:52). If their gods are destroyed, all hope of safety is gone. Even though the invaders were idolaters themselves, they would still destroy Babylon’s images and temples, as a sign that false gods will be overthrown. Bel, Babylon’s chief idol, is named in particular (Jeremiah 51:44). God says he will punish Bel, that great devourer, the idol who received so many sacrifices and so much wealth. He will make Bel give up what he has greedily taken. God will bring out of his temple all the riches stored there (Job 20:15). His altars will be abandoned, and no one will honor him again. The idol that seemed to protect Babylon will fail them.

The ruin would also be final. People could try balm for her pain, but it would do no good. Babylon refused healing through God’s word, so she would not be healed by his providence either (Jeremiah 51:8, Jeremiah 51:9). Babylon would become heaps of ruins (Jeremiah 51:37), and to make her shame complete, even the ruins would not be reused. No one would take a stone from her for a corner or for a foundation (Jeremiah 51:26). People would want nothing to do with Babylon or anything that belonged to her. It also means there would be nothing left there to build a kingdom again. The city would be desolate forever. Jerome said that in his day the walls were still in ruins, but the land inside them had become a wild forest.

God’s people are then called to leave Babylon. When ruin is coming, wisdom says to get out and move away. They are told to flee from the middle of Babylon and go somewhere out of the way, so they can save their lives and not be swept away in her guilt (Jeremiah 51:6). When God’s judgments are at work, it is wise to keep as far from the condemned as possible, as Israel did from Korah’s tents. This fits the advice Christ gave his disciples about Jerusalem’s destruction, when he told those in Judea to flee to the mountains (Matthew 24:16). It is also wise to leave Babylon before fear takes hold, so their hearts will not fail at the rumors they hear in the land (Jeremiah 51:45, Jeremiah 51:46).

Though God had already told them that Cyrus would be their deliverer and that Babylon’s destruction would mean their release, he had also told them that they would have peace in Babylon’s peace. So the alarms in Babylon might still frighten them. They might not have enough faith and self-control to quiet those fears. For that reason, they are advised to get away from hearing those alarms.

A note here is helpful: if we do not have enough grace to keep our temper in times of trial, we should have enough wisdom to stay away from temptation. But that is not all. It is wise to leave the city when ruin is near, but it is also their duty to leave the country once the ruin has come and they have been set free by the breaking of the prison over their heads. They are told this in Jeremiah 51:50, Jeremiah 51:51: you Israelites who escaped the sword of the Chaldeans, your oppressors, and of the Persians, their destroyers, now that the time of release has come, go away and do not stay. Hurry back to your own land, even if you are settled comfortably in Babylon, because this is not your rest. Canaan is.

He reminds them what should move them to return. “Remember the Lord from far away,” that is, remember his presence with you even now, though you are far from your native land. Remember his presence with your fathers before, in the temple, though you are now far from its ruins. No matter where we are, even in the deepest trouble or the farthest distance, we may and must remember the Lord our God. In days of fear and hope alike, it is fitting to remember the Lord.

“Let Jerusalem come into your mind.” Though it is now in ruins, still love even its dust (Psalm 102:14). Though few of you ever saw it, believe the report you have heard from those who wept when they remembered Zion. Keep thinking of Jerusalem until you are resolved to make your way there. When the city of our solemn feasts is out of sight, it must not be out of mind. It will help us greatly, as we travel through this world, to keep the heavenly Jerusalem often before us.

He also notices the discouragement felt by the returning captives. When Jerusalem is brought to mind, they cry out, “We are ashamed; we cannot bear to think of it. Shame covers our faces when it is mentioned, because we have heard of the reproach of the sanctuary, which has been profaned and ruined by foreigners. How can we think of it with any joy?” To this he answers in Jeremiah 51:52 that the God of Israel will now triumph over the gods of Babylon, and that shame will be taken away forever. The sure hope of Jerusalem’s recovery will keep us from being ashamed of Jerusalem’s ruins.

Here is the varied response stirred up by Babylon’s fall, and it is the same feeling we see with respect to the New Testament Babylon in Revelation 18:9, Revelation 18:19. Some will mourn Babylon’s destruction. There will be a cry, a loud outcry from Babylon (Jeremiah 51:54), lamenting this great ruin, the sound of sorrow, because the Lord has destroyed the sound of the crowd, that loud voice of joy that once filled Babylon (Jeremiah 51:55). We are told what they will say in their grief in Jeremiah 51:41: “How has Sheshach been taken, and how have we been deceived about her? How has that city been surprised and become a shock among the nations, the city that was once praised, glorious, and admired by the whole earth?” See how something can fall into public contempt after being praised everywhere.

Yet some will rejoice in Babylon’s fall, not because they delight in the misery of others, but because God’s just judgment is being shown, and because this opens the way for his captive people to go free. For these reasons heaven and earth, and all that is in them, will sing over Babylon (Jeremiah 51:48). The church in heaven and the church on earth will give God glory for his righteousness and thank him for it. Babylon’s ruin is Zion’s praise.