2 Give it out among the nations, make it public, and let the flag be lifted up; give the word and keep nothing back; say, Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is broken, her images are put to shame, her gods are broken.
Bel is bent down, Nebo is falling; their images are on the beasts and on the cattle: the things which you took about have become a weight to the tired beast.
See, here come war-carriages with men, horsemen by twos: and in answer he said, Babylon is made low, is made low, and all her images are broken on the earth.
And I will send punishment on Bel in Babylon, and take out of his mouth what went into it; no longer will the nations be flowing together to him: truly, the wall of Babylon will come down.
Give the news in Migdol, make it public in Noph: say, Take up your positions and make yourselves ready; for on every side of you the sword has made destruction.
And I saw another angel in flight between heaven and earth, having eternal good news to give to those who are on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and language and people, Saying with a loud voice, Have fear of God and give him glory; because the hour of his judging is come; and give worship to him who made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of water. And a second angel came after, saying, Destruction has come to Babylon the great, which gave to all the nations the wine of the wrath of her evil ways.
The Lord will let himself be seen by them: for he will make all the gods of the earth feeble; and men will go down before him in worship, everyone from his place, even all the sea-lands of the nations.
And in the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin, king of Judah, had been taken prisoner, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the first year after he became king, took Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison.
For this reason, see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send punishment on her images; and through all her land the wounded will be crying out in pain.
One man, running, will give word to another, and one who goes with news will be handing it on to another, to give word to the king of Babylon that his town has been taken from every quarter:
At the cry, Babylon is taken! the earth is shaking, and the cry comes to the ears of the nations.
And in fear men make public the works of God; and giving thought to his acts they get wisdom.
And he will put a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and they will be burned by him: and he will make Egypt clean as a keeper of sheep makes clean his clothing; and he will go out from there in peace. And the stone pillars of Beth-shemesh in the land of Egypt will be broken by him, and the houses of the gods of Egypt burned with fire.
Give ear to the word of the Lord, O you nations, and give news of it in the sea-lands far away, and say, He who has sent Israel wandering will get him together and will keep him as a keeper does his flock.
And I am coming to get together all nations and tongues: and they will come and will see my glory. And I will put a sign among them, and I will send those who are still living to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud, Meshech and Rosh, Tubal and Javan, to the sea-lands far away, who have not had word of me, or seen my glory; and they will give the knowledge of my glory to the nations.
All this has come to your ears and you have seen it; will you not give witness to it? I am now making clear new things, even secret things, of which you had no knowledge.
And have given their gods to the fire: for they were no gods, but wood and stone, the work of men's hands; so they have given them to destruction.
Put up a flag on a clear mountain-top, make a loud outcry to them, give directions with the hand, so that they may go into the doors of the great ones.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 50
Commentary on Jeremiah 50 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 50
In this chapter, and that which follows, we have the judgment of Babylon, which is put last of Jeremiah's prophecies against the Gentiles because it was last accomplished; and when the cup of God's fury went round (ch. 25:17) the king of Sheshach, Babylon, drank last. Babylon was employed as the rod in God's hand for the chastising of all the other nations, and now at length that rod shall be thrown into the fire. The destruction of Babylon by Cyrus was foretold, long before it came to its height, by Isaiah, and now again, when it has come to its height, by Jeremiah; for, though at this time he saw that kingdom flourishing "like a green bay-tree,' yet at the same time he foresaw it withered and cut down. And as Isaiah's prophecies of the destruction of Babylon and the deliverance of Israel out of it seem designed to typify the evangelical triumphs of all believers over the powers of darkness, and the great salvation wrought out by our Lord Jesus Christ, so Jeremiah's prophecies of the same events seem designed to point at the apocalyptic triumphs of the gospel church in the latter days over the New-Testament Babylon, many passages in the Revelation being borrowed hence. The kingdom of Babylon being much larger and stronger than any of the kingdoms here prophesied against, its fall was the more considerable in itself; and, it having been more oppressive to the people of God than any of the other, the prophet is very copious upon this subject, for the comfort of the captives; and what was foretold in general often before (ch. 25:12 and 27:7) is here more particularly described, and with a great deal of prophetic heat as well as light. The terrible judgments God had in store for Babylon, and the glorious blessings he had in store for his people that were captives there, are intermixed and counterchanged in the prophecy of this chapter; for Babylon was destroyed to make way for the turning again of the captivity of God's people. Here is,
And these being set the one against the other, it is easy to say which one would choose to take one's lot with, the persecuting Babylonians, who, though now in pomp, are reserved for so great a ruin, or the persecuted Israelites, who, though now in thraldom, are reserved for so great a glory.
Jer 50:1-8
Jer 50:9-20
God is here by his prophet, as afterwards in his providence, proceeding in his controversy with Babylon. Observe,
Jer 50:21-32
Here,
Jer 50:33-46
We have in these verses,