7 And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his land also come, when many nations and great kings shall reduce him to servitude.
For thus saith Jehovah of hosts: After the glory, hath he sent me unto the nations that made you a spoil; for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. For behold, I will shake my hand upon them, and they shall become a spoil to those that served them: and ye shall know that Jehovah of hosts hath sent me.
that thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased, -- the exactress of gold ceased! Jehovah hath broken the staff of the wicked, the sceptre of the rulers. He that smote the peoples in wrath with a relentless stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted unsparingly.
And this is the writing that is written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE, God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it; TEKEL, Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting; PERES, Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. Then Belshazzar commanded, and they clothed Daniel with purple, and [put] a chain of gold about his neck, and made proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, [being] about sixty-two years old.
And he cried with a strong voice, saying, Great Babylon has fallen, has fallen, and has become the habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hated bird; because all the nations have drunk of the wine of the fury of her fornication; and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have been enriched through the might of her luxury. And I heard another voice out of the heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye have not fellowship in her sins, and that ye do not receive of her plagues: for her sins have been heaped on one another up to the heaven, and God has remembered her unrighteousnesses. Recompense her even as she has recompensed; and double [to her] double, according to her works. In the cup which she has mixed, mix to her double. So much as she has glorified herself and lived luxuriously, so much torment and grief give to her. Because she says in her heart, I sit a queen, and I am not a widow; and I shall in no wise see grief: for this reason in one day shall her plagues come, death and grief and famine, and she shall be burnt with fire; for strong [is the] Lord God who has judged her.
And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her with fire; for God has given to their hearts to do his mind, and to act with one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Send thy sickle and reap; for the hour of reaping is come, for the harvest of the earth is dried. And he that sat on the cloud put his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple which [is] in the heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the altar, having power over fire, and called with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Send thy sharp sickle, and gather the bunches of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripened. And the angel put his sickle to the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast [the bunches] into the great wine-press of the fury of God; and the wine-press was trodden without the city, and blood went out of the wine-press to the bits of the horses for a thousand six hundred stadia.
And there was given to it a mouth, speaking great things and blasphemies; and there was given to it authority to pursue its career forty-two months. And it opened its mouth for blasphemies against God, to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, and those who have their tabernacle in the heaven. And there was given to it to make war with the saints, and to overcome them; and there was given to it authority over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation; and all that dwell on the earth shall do it homage, [every one] whose name had not been written from [the] founding of [the] world in the book of life of the slain Lamb. If any one has an ear, let him hear. If any one [leads] into captivity, he goes into captivity. If any one shall kill with [the] sword, he must with [the] sword be killed. Here is the endurance and the faith of the saints.
And them that had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they became servants to him and his sons, until the reign of the kingdom of Persia; to fulfil the word of Jehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath, to fulfil seventy years.
The word that Jehovah spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet. Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and lift up a banner; publish, conceal not! Say, Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is dismayed: her images are put to shame, her idols are dismayed. For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: both man and beast are fled; they are gone. In those days, and at that time, saith Jehovah, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping as they go, and shall seek Jehovah their God. They shall inquire concerning Zion, with their faces thitherward, [saying,] Come, and let us join ourselves to Jehovah, in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten. My people are lost sheep; their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they turned them away on the mountains: they went from mountain to hill, they forgot their resting-place. All that found them devoured them, and their adversaries said, We are not guilty, because they have sinned against Jehovah, the habitation of righteousness, even Jehovah, the hope of their fathers. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he-goats before the flock. For behold, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon, an assemblage of great nations from the north country; and they shall set themselves in array against her: from thence shall she be taken. Their arrows shall be as those of a mighty expert man: none shall return empty. And Chaldea shall be a spoil: all the spoilers thereof shall be satiated, saith Jehovah. For ye rejoiced, for ye triumphed, ye plunderers of my heritage; for ye have been wanton as the heifer at grass, and neighed as steeds. Your mother hath been sorely put to shame; she that bore you hath been covered with reproach: behold, [she is become] hindmost of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. Because of the wrath of Jehovah, it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate; every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and shall hiss, because of all her plagues. Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about, all ye that bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she hath sinned against Jehovah. Shout against her round about: she hath given her hand; her ramparts are fallen, her walls are thrown down: for this is the vengeance of Jehovah. Take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest. For fear of the oppressing sword let them turn every one to his people, and let them flee every one to his own land. Israel is a hunted sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria devoured him, and last this Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones. Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will visit the king of Babylon and his land, like as I have visited the king of Assyria. And I will bring Israel again to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied upon mount Ephraim and in Gilead. In those days, and at that time, saith Jehovah, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon those whom I leave remaining. Go up against the land of double rebellion, against it, and against the inhabitants of visitation; waste and utterly destroy after them, saith Jehovah, and do according to all that I have commanded thee. A sound of battle is in the land, and great destruction. How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken! How is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations! I have laid a snare for thee, and thou, Babylon, art also taken, and thou wast not aware; thou art found, and also caught, for thou hast contended with Jehovah. Jehovah hath opened his armoury, and hath brought forth the weapons of his indignation; for this is a work for the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, in the land of the Chaldeans. Come ye against her from every quarter, open her storehouses; pile her up like sheaves, and destroy her utterly: let nothing of her be left. Slay all her bullocks; let them go down to the slaughter: woe unto them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation. The voice of them that flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Jehovah our God, the vengeance of his temple. Call together the archers against Babylon, all those that bend the bow: encamp against her round about; let there be no escaping: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she hath done, do unto her: for she hath acted proudly against Jehovah, against the Holy One of Israel. Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets; and all her men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith Jehovah. Behold, I am against thee, proud one, saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts; for thy day is come, the time that I visit thee: and the proud one shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up; yea, I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all that are round about him. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: The children of Israel and the children of Judah were together oppressed; and all that took them captives held them fast: they refused to let them go. Their Redeemer is strong; Jehovah of hosts is his name: he will thoroughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the land, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon. The sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith Jehovah, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men; the sword is upon the liars, and they shall become fools; the sword is upon her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed; the sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her, and they shall become as women; the sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed: a drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up; for it is a land of graven images, and they are mad after frightful idols. Therefore wild beasts of the desert with jackals shall dwell there, and ostriches shall dwell therein; and it shall be no more inhabited for ever, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and their neighbour cities, saith Jehovah, no one shall dwell there, neither shall a son of man sojourn therein. Behold, a people cometh from the north, and a great nation. And many kings shall arise from the uttermost parts of the earth. They lay hold of bow and spear; they are cruel, and will not shew mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses -- set in array like a man for the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon. The king of Babylon hath heard the report of them, and his hands wax feeble; trouble hath taken hold of him, pangs as of a woman in travail. Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of the Jordan against the strong habitation; for I will make him suddenly run away from it; and who is a chosen [man] whom I may appoint over her? For who is like me? and who will assign me a time? and who is that shepherd that will stand before me? Therefore hear the counsel of Jehovah, which he hath taken against Babylon, and his purposes which he hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: The little ones of the flock shall certainly draw them away; he shall certainly make their habitation desolate for them. At the sound of the taking of Babylon the earth hath quaked, and the cry is heard among the nations.
And this whole land shall become a waste, an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, [that] I will visit on the king of Babylon and on that nation, saith Jehovah, their iniquity, and on the land of the Chaldeans, and I will make it perpetual desolations. And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them also; and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.
Come down and sit in the dust, virgin-daughter of Babylon! Sit on the ground, -- [there is] no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones, and grind meal; remove thy veil, lift up the train, uncover the leg, pass over rivers: thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will meet none [to stay me]. ... Our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. ... Sit silent, and get thee into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called, Mistress of kingdoms.
For I will rise up against them, saith Jehovah of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and scion and descendant, saith Jehovah. And I will make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith Jehovah of hosts.
and they shall be terrified: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them, they shall writhe as a woman that travaileth; they shall be amazed one at another, their faces shall be as flames. Behold, the day of Jehovah cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the earth desolate; and he will destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of the heavens and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will make the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will bring low the haughtiness of the violent. I will make a man more precious than fine gold, even man than the gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens to shake, and the earth shall be removed out of her place, at the wrath of Jehovah of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. And it shall be as with a chased roe, and as with a flock that no man gathereth together; every one shall turn to his own people, and every one flee into his own land. All that are found shall be thrust through; and every one that is in league [with them] shall fall by the sword. And their infants shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes, their houses shall be rifled, and their women ravished. Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who do not regard silver, and as for gold, they have no delight in it. And [their] bows shall dash the young men to pieces, and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb: their eye shall not spare children. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in, even to generation and generation; nor shall Arabian pitch tent there, nor shepherds make fold there. But beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of owls; and ostriches shall dwell there, and wild goats shall dance there. And jackals shall cry to one another in their palaces, and wild dogs in the pleasant castles. And her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Jeremiah 27
Commentary on Jeremiah 27 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 27
Jer 27:1-22. The Futility of Resisting Nebuchadnezzar Illustrated to the Ambassadors of the Kings, Desiring to Have the King of Judah Confederate with Them, under the Type of Yokes. Jeremiah Exhorts Them and Zedekiah to Yield.
1. Jehoiakim—The prophecy that follows was according to this reading given in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, fifteen years before it was published in the reign of Zedekiah to whom it refers; it was thus long deposited in the prophet's bosom, in order that by it he might be supported under trials in his prophetic career in the interim [Calvin]. But "Zedekiah" may be the true reading. So the Syriac and Arabic Versions. Jer 27:3, 12; Jer 28:1, confirm this; also, one of Kennicott's manuscripts. The English Version reading may have originated from Jer 26:1. "Son of Josiah" applies to Zedekiah as truly as to "Jehoiakim" or "Eliakim." The fourth year may, in a general sense here, as in Jer 28:1, be called "the beginning of his reign," as it lasted eleven years (2Ki 24:18). It was not long after the fourth year of his reign that he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 51:59; 52:3; 2Ki 24:20), in violation of an oath before God (2Ch 36:13).
2. bonds—by which the yoke is made fast to the neck (Jer 5:5).
yokes—literally, the carved piece of wood attached at both ends to the two yokes on the necks of a pair of oxen, so as to connect them. Here the yoke itself. The plural is used, as he was to wear one himself, and give the others to the ambassadors; (Jer 27:3; 28:10, 12) proves that the symbolical act was in this instance (though not in others, Jer 25:15) actually done (compare Isa 20:2, &c.; Eze 12:3, 11, 18).
3. And send them to the king of Edom, &c.—Appropriate symbol, as these ambassadors had come to Jerusalem to consult as to shaking off the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar. According to Pherecydes in Clement of Alexandria [Miscellanies, 567], Idanthura, king of the Scythians, intimated to Darius, who had crossed the Danube, that he would lead an army against him, by sending him, instead of a letter, a mouse, a frog, a bird, an arrow, and a plough. The task assigned to Jeremiah required great faith, as it was sure to provoke alike his own countrymen and the foreign ambassadors and their kings, by a seeming insult, at the very time that all were full of confident hopes grounded on the confederacy.
5. God here, as elsewhere, connects with the symbol doctrine, which is as it were its soul, without which it would be not only cold and frivolous, but even dead [Calvin]. God's mention of His supreme power is in order to refute the pride of those who rely on their own power (Isa 45:12).
given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me—(Ps 115:15, 16; Da 4:17, 25, 32). Not for his merits, but of My own sole good pleasure [Estius].
6. beasts of the field—not merely the horses to carry his Chaldean soldiers, and oxen to draw his provisions [Grotius]; not merely the deserts, mountains, and woods, the haunts of wild beasts, implying his unlimited extent of empire [Estius]; but the beasts themselves by a mysterious instinct of nature. A reproof to men that they did not recognize God's will, which the very beasts acknowledged (compare Isa 1:3). As the beasts are to submit to Christ, the Restorer of the dominion over nature, lost by the first Adam (compare Ge 1:28; 2:19, 20; Ps 8:6-8), so they were appointed to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, the representative of the world power and prefigurer of Antichrist; this universal power was suffered to be held by him to show the unfitness of any to wield it "until He come whose right it is" (Eze 21:27).
7. son … son's son—(2Ch 36:20). Nebuchadnezzar had four successors—Evil-merodach, his son; Neriglissar, husband of Nebuchadnezzar's daughter; his son, Labosodarchod; and Naboned (with whom his son, Belshazzar, was joint king), son of Evil-merodach. But Neriglissar and Labosodarchod were not in the direct male line; so that the prophecy held good to "his son and his son's son," and the intermediate two are omitted.
time of his land—that is, of its subjugation or its being "visited" in wrath (Jer 27:22; Jer 25:12; 29:10; 50:27; Da 5:26).
serve themselves of him—make him their servant (Jer 25:14; Isa 13:22). So "his day" for the destined day of his calamity (Job 18:20).
8. until I have consumed them by his hand—until by these consuming visitations I have brought them under his power.
9. ye—the Jews especially, for whom the address to the rest was intended.
enchanters—augurs [Calvin], from a root, the "eyes," that is, lookers at the stars and other means of taking omens of futurity; or another root, a "fixed time," observers of times: forbidden in the law (Le 19:26; De 18:10, 11, 14).
10. to remove you—expressing the event which would result. The very thing they profess by their enchantments to avert, they are by them bringing on you. Better to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, and remain in your land, than to rebel, and be removed from it.
11. serve … till it—The same Hebrew root expresses "serve" and "till," or "cultivate." Serve ye the king of Babylon, and the land will serve you [Calvin].
12. I spake also—translate, "And I spake," &c. Special application of the subject to Zedekiah.
13. Why … die—by running on your own ruin in resisting Nebuchadnezzar after this warning (Eze 18:31).
14. lie—(Jer 14:14).
15. in my name—The devil often makes God's name the plea for lies (Mt 4:6; 7:22, 23; Jer 27:15-20, the test whereby to know false prophets).
16. The "vessels" had been carried away to Babylon in the reign of Jeconiah (2Ki 24:13); also previously in that of Jehoiakim (2Ch 36:5-7).
18. at Jerusalem—that is, in other houses containing such vessels, besides the house of God and the king's palace. Nebuzara-dan, captain of the guard under Nebuchadnezzar, carried all away (2Ki 25:13-17; 2Ch 36:18). The more costly vessels had been previously removed in the reigns of Jehoiakim and Jeconiah.
19. (Jer 52:17, 20, 21).
22. until … I visit them—in wrath by Cyrus (Jer 32:5). In seventy years from the first carrying away of captives in Jehoiachin's reign (Jer 29:10; 2Ch 36:21).
restore them—by the hand of Cyrus (Ezr 1:7). By Artaxerxes (Ezr 7:19).