Against Babylon - Jeremiah 50-51

The genuineness of this prophecy has been impugned by the newer criticism in different ways; for some quite refuse to allow it as Jeremiah's, while others consider it a mere interpolation.

(Note: With regard to the special attacks and their refutation, see details on Keil's Manual of Introduction to the Old Testament translated by Prof. Douglas, in Clark's F.T.L. vol. i. p. 342ff.. To the list there given of the defenders of this prophecy (of whom Kueper, Hävernick, and Nägelsbach in the monograph entitled der Prophet Jeremias und Babylon , 1850, have thoroughly discussed the question), we must add the name of Graf, who, in the remarks prefixed to his commentary on Jer 50f., has thoroughly examined the arguments of his opponents, and reached this result: "The prophecy contains nothing which Jeremiah could not have written in the fourth year of Zedekiah; and the style of writing itself exhibits all the peculiarities which present themselves in his book. This prophecy is therefore as much his work as the prophecies against the other foreign nations." Only the passage Jeremiah 51:15-19, a repetition of Jeremiah 10:12-16, is said to proceed from another hand, because it stands out of all connection with what precedes and what follows it (but see the exposition); while he has so fully vindicated, as genuine portions of the prophecy, other passages which had been assumed as interpolations, even by Nägelsbach in his monograph, that the latter, in treating of Jeremiah in Lange's Bibelwerk see Clark's Translation, p. 419, has renounced his former doubts, and now declares that it is only the passage in Jeremiah 51:15-19 that he cannot regard as original.)

Hitzig ( Exeg. Handb . 2 Aufl.) considers that this oracle, with its epilogue, Jeremiah 51:59-64, is not to be wholly rejected as spurious, as has been done by Von Cölln and Gramberg; he is so much the less inclined to reject it, because, although there is many an interpolated piece here and there (?), yet no independent oracle has hitherto been found in Jeremiah that is wholly interpolated. "In fact," he continues, "this oracle shows numerous traces of its genuineness, and reasons for maintaining it. The use of particular words (Jeremiah 50:6; Jeremiah 51:1, Jeremiah 51:5,Jeremiah 51:7, Jeremiah 51:14, Jeremiah 51:45, Jeremiah 51:55), and the circle of figures employed (Jeremiah 51:7-8, Jeremiah 51:34, Jeremiah 51:37), as well as the style (Jeremiah 50:2-3, Jeremiah 50:7-8, Jeremiah 50:10), especially in turns like Jeremiah 51:2; the concluding formula, Jeremiah 51:57; the dialogue introduced without any forewarning, Jeremiah 51:51, - all unmistakeably reveal Jeremiah; and this result is confirmed by chronological data." These chronological data, which Hitzig then extracts from particular verses, we cannot certainly esteem convincing, since they have been obtained through a method of exegesis which denies the spirit and the essential nature of prophecy; but his remarks concerning Jeremiah's use of words and his circle of images are perfectly well-founded, and may be considerably corroborated if the matter were more minutely investigated. Notwithstanding all this, Ewald has again repeated, in the second edition of his work on the Prophets, the assertion first made by Eichhorn, that this prophecy is spurious. He does not, indeed, deny that "this long piece against Babylon has many words, turns of expression, and thoughts, nay, even the whole plan, in common with Jeremiah; and since Jeremiah is often accustomed in other places also to repeat himself, this might, at the first look, even create a prepossession favouring the opinion that it was composed by Jeremiah himself. But Jeremiah repeats himself in a more wholesale style, and is not unfaithful to himself in his repetitions: here, however, the Jeremianic element peers through only in single though very numerous passages, and the repeated portions are often completely transformed. What, therefore, appears here as Jeremianic is rather a studied repetition and imitation, which would require here to be all the stronger, when the piece was intended to pass as one of Jeremiah's writings." Ewald goes on to say that Babylon appears already as directly threatened by Cyrus; and the whole view taken of Babylon as a kingdom utterly degenerated, and unable any longer to escape the final destruction, - the prophetic impetuosity shown in rising up against the Chaldean oppression, - the public summons addressed to all the brethren living in Babylon, that they should flee from the city, now irrecoverably lost, and return to the holy land, - the distinct mention of the Medes and other northern nations as the mortal enemies of Babylon, and of the speedy and certain fall of this city; - all this, says Ewald, is foreign to Jeremiah, nay, even conflicting and impossible. For particular proof of this sweeping verdict, Ewald refers to the name שׁשׁך (Jeremiah 51:41, as in Jeremiah 25:26) for Babylon, לב for כּשׂדּים , Jeremiah 51:1, and similar circumlocutions for Chaldean names, Jeremiah 51:21. He refers also to certain words which are quite new, and peculiar only to Ezekiel and later writers: סגן , פּחה , Jeremiah 51:23, Jeremiah 51:25, Jeremiah 51:27; גּלּוּלים , Jeremiah 50:2; בּדּים as a designation of false prophets, Jeremiah 50:36; also to החרים , to devote with a curse, Jeremiah 50:21, Jeremiah 50:26; Jeremiah 51:3, which in the rest of Jeremiah occurs only Jeremiah 25:9. Further, he refers to the headings found in Jeremiah 50:1 and Jeremiah 51:59, which are quite different from what Jeremiah himself would have written; and lastly, to the intimate connection subsisting between Jeremiah 50:27; Jeremiah 51:40, and Isaiah 34:6., between Jeremiah 50:39 and Isaiah 34:14, and between 51:60ff. and Jeremiah 34:16.

But all these considerations are much too weak to prove the spuriousness of the passage before us. The connection with Isa 34 quite agrees with Jeremiah's characteristic tendency to lean on older prophecies, and reproduce the thoughts contained in them (we merely recall the case of the prophecy concerning Moab in Jer 48, against whose genuineness even Ewald has nothing to say); and it can be brought to tell against the genuineness of this oracle only on the groundless supposition that Isa 34 originated in exile times. The headings given in Jeremiah 50:1 and Jeremiah 51:59 contain nothing whatever that would be strange in Jeremiah: Jeremiah 51:59 is not a title at all, but the commencement of the account regarding the charge which Jeremiah gave to Seraiah when he was going to Babylon, with reference to his carrying with him the prophecy concerning Babylon; and the heading in Jeremiah 50:1 almost exactly agrees with that in Jeremiah 46:13 (see the exposition). Of the alleged later words, החרים and גּלּוּלים are derived from the Pentateuch, בּדּים from Isaiah 44:25. סגן and פּחה certainly were not known to the Hebrews till the invasions of Judah by the Assyrians and Chaldeans; but he latter of the two words we find as early as in the address of the Assyrians in Isaiah 36:9, and the former in Isaiah 41:25 : thus, not a single one of the words alleged to have been first used by Ezekiel is peculiar to him. Finally, of the circumlocutions used for the names "Babylon" and "Chaldeans," Ewald himself confesses that שׁשׁך in Jeremiah 25:26 may be Jeremiah's; and he has yet to give proof for the assertion that the names cited are merely circumlocutions in which a play is made on words that did not come into vogue till after Jeremiah's time. And as little has been even attempted in the way of establishing the opinion he has expressed regarding what is Jeremianic in the prophecy, - that it is a studied repetition and imitation, - or the assertion that Babylon is represented as being directly threatened by Cyrus. In the Old Testament Scriptures, Cyrus is represented as the king of Persia, which he was; but this prophecy says nothing of the Persians. Thus, the learned supplementary matter with which Ewald seeks to support his general assertions is by no means fitted to strengthen his position, but rather shows that the proper argument for rejecting this oracle as spurious is not to be found in the nature of this particular prophecy, but in the axiom openly expressed by Eichhorn, von Cölln, Gramberg, and other followers of the "vulgar rationalism," that Jeremiah could not have announced the destruction of Babylon by the Medes, because at his time the Medes had not yet appeared on the scene of history as a conquering nation; for, according to the principles of rationalism, the prophets could merely prophesy of things which lay within the political horizon. It has not escaped the acute observation of Hitzig, that the genuineness of this prophecy could not be shaken by such general assertions; hence he has adopted Movers' hypothesis of numerous interpolations, in order thereby to account for the use made of portions of Isaiah, which, on dogmatic grounds, are referred to the exile. But for this assumption also there are wanting proofs that can stand the test. Besides the general assertion that Jeremiah could not have repeated earlier prices word for word, the arguments which Movers and Hitzig bring forward from the context, or from a consideration of the contents, in the case of isolated verses, depend upon false renderings of words, conjectures of a merely subjective character, and misunderstandings of various kinds, which at once fall to the ground when the correct explanation is given.

The germ of this prophecy lies in the word of the Lord, Jeremiah 25:12, "When seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and make it everlasting desolations;" and its position with regard to the other prophecies of Jeremiah against the nations has already been given in outline in the statement of Jeremiah 25:26, "And the king of Sheshach (Babylon) shall drink after them." Just as these utterances (Jeremiah 25:12, Jeremiah 25:26) stand in full accord with the announcement that, in the immediate future, all nations shall be given into the power of the king of Babylon, and serve him seventy years; so, too, the prophecy against Babylon now lying before us not only does not stand in contradiction with the call addressed to Jeremiah, that he should proclaim to his contemporaries the judgment which Babylon is to execute on Judah and all nations, but it rather belongs to the complete solution of the problems connected with this call. The announcement of the fall of Babylon, and the release of Israel from Babylon, form the subject of the prophecy, which is more than a hundred verses in length. This double subject, the two parts of which are so closely connected, is portrayed in a series of images which, nearly throughout, are arranged pretty loosely together, so that it is impossible to summarize the rich and varied contents of these figures, and to sketch a correct plan of the course of thought and of the divisions of the oracle. Hence, too, the views of expositors with regard to the division of the whole into parts or strophes widely differ;

(Note: Thus, according to Eichhorn, Dahler, and Rosenmüller, the whole consists of several pieces (three or six) which originally belonged to different periods; according to Schmieder, it consists of "seven different poems of songs, all having the same subject, which, however, they set forth from different sides, and under countless images." Nägelsbach at first assumed that there were three main divisions, with thirteen subdivisions; afterwards, in Lange's Bibelwerk see Clark's Foreign Theol. Library, he thinks he is able also to distinguish three stages of time, which, however, do not permit of being sharply defined, so that he continues to divide the whole prophecy into nineteen separate views or figures.)

we follow the view of Ewald, that the whole falls into three main parts (Jer 50:2-28, Jeremiah 50:29 on to Jeremiah 51:26, and 51:27-58), every one of which begins with a spirited exhortation to engage in battle. These three main portions again fall into ten periods, of which the first three (Jeremiah 50:2-10, Jeremiah 50:11-20, and Jeremiah 50:21-28) form the first main division; the four middle ones form the second main portion (Jeremiah 50:29-40, Jeremiah 50:41 to Jeremiah 51:4, Jeremiah 51:5-14, and Jeremiah 51:15-26); while the following three form the last (vv. 27-37, 38-49, and 50-58). We further agree with what Ewald says regarding the contents of the first two parts in general, viz., that in the first the prevailing view is the necessity for the deliverance of Israel, and that in the second, the antithesis between Babylon on the one hand, and Jahveh together with Israel, His spiritual instrument, on the other, is fully brought out; but we do not agree with his remark concerning the third part, that there the prevailing feature is the detailed description of the condition of Israel at that time, for this does not at all agree with the contents of 51:27-58. Rather, the address rises into a triumphant description of the fall of Babylon, in which the Lord will show Himself as the avenger of His people. On the whole, then, the prophecy is neither wanting in arrangement nor in that necessary progress in the development of thought which proves unity of conception and execution.

The title, "The word which Jahveh spake concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet," follows Jeremiah 46:13 in choosing אשׁר דּ instead of the usual אשׁר היה , and deviates from that passage only in substituting "by the hand of Jeremiah" for "to Jeremiah," as in Jeremiah 37:2. The preference of the expression "spake by the hand of" for "spake to," is connected with the fact that the following prophecy does not contain a message of the Lord which came to Jeremiah, that he might utter it before the people, but a message which he was to write down and send to Babylon, Jeremiah 51:60. The apposition to "Babylon," viz., "the land of the Chaldeans," serves the purpose of more exactly declaring that "Babylon" is to be understood not merely of the capital, but also of the kingdom; cf. Jeremiah 50:8, Jeremiah 50:45, and 51, 54.

The fall of Babylon, and deliverance of Israel. - Jeremiah 50:2. "Tell it among the nations, and cause it to be heard, and lift up a standard; cause it to be heard, conceal it not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is ashamed, Merodach is confounded; her images are ashamed, her idols are confounded. Jeremiah 50:3. For there hath come up against her a nation out of the north; it will make her land a desolation, and there shall be not an inhabitant in it: from man to beast, [all] have fled, are gone. Jeremiah 50:4. In those days, and at that time, saith Jahveh, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; they shall go, weeping as they go, and shall seek Jahveh their God. Jeremiah 50:5. They shall ask for Zion, with their faces [turned to] the road hitherwards, [saying], Come, and let us join ourselves to Jahveh by an eternal covenant [which] shall not be forgotten. Jeremiah 50:6. My people have been a flock of lost ones; their shepherds have misled them [on] mountains which lead astray: from mountain to hill they went; they forgot their resting-place. Jeremiah 50:7. All who found them have devoured them; and their enemies said, We are not guilty, for they have sinned against Jahveh, the dwelling-place of justice, and the hope of their fathers, Jahveh. Jeremiah 50:8. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and from the land of the Chaldeans; let them go forth, and let them be like he-goats before a flock. Jeremiah 50:9. For, behold, I will stir up, and bring up against Babylon, an assembly of great nations out of the land of the north: and they shall array themselves against her; on that side shall she be taken: his arrows [are] like [those of] a skilful hero [who] does not return empty. Jeremiah 50:10. And [the land of the] Chaldeans shall become a spoil; all those who spoil her shall be satisfied, saith Jahveh."

In the spirit Jeremiah sees the fall of Babylon, together with its idols, as if it had actually taken place, and gives the command to proclaim among the nations this event, which brings deliverance for Israel and Judah. The joy over this is expressed in the accumulation of the words for the summons to tell the nations what has happened. On the expression, cf. Jeremiah 4:5-6; Jeremiah 46:14. The lifting up of a standard, i.e., of a signal-rod, served for the more rapid spreading of news; cf. Jeremiah 4:6; Jeremiah 6:1, Isaiah 13:2, etc. "Cause it to be heard" is intensified by the addition of "do not conceal it." The thing is to be proclaimed without reserve; cf. Jeremiah 38:14. "Babylon is taken," i.e., conquered, and her idols have become ashamed, inasmuch as, from their inability to save their city, their powerlessness and nullity have come to light. Bel and Merodach are not different divinities, but merely different names for the chief deity of the Babylonians. Bel = Baal, the Jupiter of the Babylonians, was, as Bel-merodach, the tutelary god of Babylon. "The whole of the Babylonian dynasty," says Oppert, Expיd. en Mיsopot . ii. p. 272, "places him [Merodach] at the head of the gods; and the inscription of Borsippa calls him the king of heaven and earth." עצבּים , "images of idols," and גּלּוּלים , properly "logs," an expression of contempt for idols (see on Leviticus 26:30), are synonymous ideas for designating the nature and character of the Babylonian gods.

Jeremiah 50:3

Babylon is fallen by a people from the north, that has gone out against her, and makes her land a desolation. This nation is described in Jeremiah 50:9 as a collection, union of great nations, that are enumerated especially in Jeremiah 51:27-28. On "it [the nation] shall make her land," etc., cf. Jeremiah 2:15; Jeremiah 48:9; on the expression "from man to beast," cf. Jeremiah 33:12; Jeremiah 9:9. נדוּ is from נוּד , Jeremiah 50:8 and Jeremiah 49:30 = נדדוּ , from נדד , Jeremiah 9:9.

Jeremiah 50:4-6

Then, when Babylon shall have fallen, the children of Israel and Judah return out of their captivity, seeking Jahveh their God with tears of repentance, and marching to Zion, for the purpose of joining themselves to Him in an eternal covenant. The fall of Babylon has the deliverance of Israel as its direct result. The prophet views this in such a way, that all the steps in the fulfilment (the return from Babylon, the reunion of the tribes previously separated, their sincere return to the Lord, and the making of a new covenant that shall endure for ever), which will actually follow successively in long periods, are taken together into one view. By the statement made regarding the time, "In those days, and at that time," the fall of Babylon and the deliverance of Israel (which Jeremiah sees in the spirit as already begun) are marked out as belonging to the future. Israel and Judah come together, divided no more; cf. Jeremiah 3:18. "Going and weeping they go," i.e., they always go further on, weeping: cf. Jeremiah 41:6; 2 Samuel 3:16; Ewald, §280, b . Cf. also Jeremiah 3:21; Jeremiah 31:9. Seeking the Lord their God, they ask for Zion, i.e., they ask after the way thither; for in Zion Jahveh has His throne. "The way hither" (i.e., to Jerusalem) "is their face," sc. directed. "Hither" points to the place of the speaker, Jerusalem. באוּ are imperatives, and words with which those who are returning encourage one another to a close following of the Lord their God. נלווּ is imperative for ילּווּ , like נקבּצוּ in Isaiah 43:9, Joel 3:11; cf. Ewald, §226, c . It cannot be the imperfect, because the third person gives no sense; hence Graf would change the vowels, and read נלוה . But suspicion is raised against this by the very fact that, excepting Ecclesiastes 8:15, לוה , in the sense of joining oneself to, depending on, occurs only in the Niphal. בּרית עולם is a modal accusative: "in an eternal covenant which shall not be forgotten," i.e., which we will not forget, will not break again. In fact, this is the new covenant which the Lord, according to Jeremiah 31:31., will make in time to come with His people. But here this side of the matter is withdrawn from consideration; for the point treated of is merely what Israel, in his repentant frame and returning to God, vows he shall do.

Israel comes to this determination in consequence of the misery into which he has fallen because of his sins, Jeremiah 50:5-7. Israel was like a flock of lost sheep which their shepherds had led astray. צאן , a flock of sheep that are going to ruin. The participle in the plural is joined with the collective noun ad sensum , to show what is imminent or is beginning to happen. The verb היה points to the subject צאן ; hence the Qeri היוּ is unnecessary. The plural suffixes of the following clause refer to עמּי as a collective. The shepherds led the people of God astray on הרים שׁובבים (a local accusative; on the Kethib שׁובבים , cf. Jeremiah 31:32; Jeremiah 49:4; it is not to be read שׁובבים ), mountains that render people faithless. These mountains were so designated because they were the seats of that idolatry which had great power of attraction for a sinful people, so that the seduction or alienation of the people from their God is ascribed to them. שׁובב is used in the sense which the verb has in Isaiah 47:10. The Qeri שׁובבוּם gives the less appropriate idea, "the shepherds made the sheep stray." Hitzig's translation, "they drove them along the mountain," does to suit the verb שׁובב . Moreover, the mountains in themselves do not form unsuitable pasture-ground for sheep, and הרים does not mean "a bare, desolate mountain-range." The objection to our view of הרים , that there is no very evident proof that worship on high places is referred to (Graf), is pure fancy, and the reverse only is true. For the words which follow, "they (the sheep) went from mountain to hill, and forgot their resting-place," have no meaning whatever, unless they are understood of the idolatrous dealings of Israel. The resting-place of the sheep ( רבחם , the place where the flocks lie down to rest), according to Jeremiah 50:7, is Jahveh, the hope of their fathers. Their having forgotten this resting-place is the result of their going from mountain to hill: these words undeniably point to the idolatry of the people on every high hill (Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:2; Jeremiah 17:2, etc.).

Jeremiah 50:7

The consequence of this going astray on the part of Israel was, that every one who found them devoured them, and while doing so, cherished the thought that they were not incurring guilt, because Israel had been given up to their enemies on account of their apostasy from God; while the fact was, that every offence against Israel, as the holy people of the Lord, brought on guilt; cf. Jeremiah 2:3. This befell Israel because they have sinned against Jahveh. נוה צדק , "the habitation (or pasture-ground) of righteousness." So, in Jeremiah 31:23, Zion is called the mountain on which Jahveh sits enthroned in His sanctuary. As in other places Jahveh Himself is called a fortress, Psalms 18:3; a sun, shield, Psalms 84:12; a shade, Psalms 121:5; so here He is called the One in whom is contained that righteousness which is the source of Israel's salvation. As such, He was the hope of the fathers, the God upon whom the fathers put their trust; cf. Jeremiah 14:8; Jeremiah 17:13; Psalms 22:5. The repetition of יהוה at the end is intended to give an emphatic conclusion to the sentence.

Jeremiah 50:8-10

To escape from this misery, Israel is to flee from Babylon; for the judgment of conquest and plunder by enemies is breaking over Babylon. The summons to flee out of Babylon is a reminiscence of Isaiah 38:20. The Kethib יצאוּ may be vindicated, because the direct address pretty often makes a sudden transition into the language of the third person. They are to depart from the land of the Chaldeans. No more will then be necessary than to change והיוּ into והיוּ . The simile, "like he-goats before the flock," does not mean that Israel is to press forward that he may save himself before any one else (Graf), but that Israel is to go before all, as an example and leader in the flight (Nägelsbach).

Jeremiah 50:9-10

For the Lord arouses and leads against Babylon a crowd of nations, i.e., an army consisting of a multitude of nations. As mee עיר reminds us of Isaiah 13:17, so קהל גּוים גּ remind us of ממלכות גּוים נאספים in Isaiah 13:4. ערך ל , to make preparations against. משּׁם is not used of time (Rosenmüller, Nägelsbach, etc.), for this application of the word has not been established from the actual occurrence of instances, but it has a local meaning, and refers to the "crowd of nations:" from that place where the nations that come out of the north have assembled before Babylon. In the last clause, the multitude of great nations is taken together, as if they formed one enemy: "his arrows are like the arrows of a wisely dealing (i.e., skilful) warrior."

(Note: Instead of משׂכּיל , J. H. Michaelis, in his Biblia Halens ., has accepted the reading משּׁכּיל on the authority of three Erfurt codices and three old editions (a Veneta of 1618; Buxtorf's Rabbinic Bible, printed at Basle, 1720; and the London Polyglott). J. D. Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Maurer, and Umbreit have decided for this reading, and point to the rendering of the Vulgate, interfectoris , and of the Targum, מתכּיל , orbans . On the other hand, the lxx and Syriac have read and rendered משׂכּיל ; and this reading is not merely presented by nonnulli libri , as Maurer states, but by twelve codices of de Rossi, and all the more ancient editions of the Bible, of which de Rossi in his variae lectiones mentions forty-one. The critical witnesses are thus overwhelming for משׂכּיל ; and against משּׁכּיל there lies the further consideration, that שׁכל has the meaning orbare , to render childless, only in the Piel, but in the Hiphil means abortare , to cause or have miscarriages, as is shown by רחם משּׁכּיל , Hosea 9:14.)

The words לא ישׁוּב do not permit of being referred, on the strength of 2 Samuel 1:22, to one particular arrow which does not come back empty; for the verb שׁוּב , though perhaps suitable enough for the sword, which is drawn back when it has executed the blow, is inappropriate for the arrow, which does not return. The subject to ישׁוּב is גּבּור si , the hero, who does not turn or return without having accomplished his object; cf. Isaiah 55:11. In Jeremiah 50:10, כּשׂדּים is the name of the country, "Chaldeans;" hence it is construed as a feminine. The plunderers of Chaldea will be able to satisfy themselves with the rich booty of that country.

The devastation of Babylon and glory of Israel. - Jeremiah 50:11. "Thou ye rejoice, though ye exult, O ye plunderers of mine inheritance, though ye leap proudly like a heifer threshing, and neigh like strong horses, Jeremiah 50:12. Your mother will be very much ashamed; she who bare you will blush: behold, the last of the nations [will be] a wilderness, a desert, and a steppe. Jeremiah 50:13. Because of the indignation of Jahveh it shall not be inhabited, and it shall become a complete desolation. Every one passing by Babylon will be astonished, and hiss because of all her plagues. Jeremiah 50:14. Make preparations against Babylon round about, all ye that bend the bow; shoot at her, do not spare an arrow, for she hath sinned against Jahveh. Jeremiah 50:15. Shout against her round about; she hath given herself up: her battlements are fallen, her walls are pulled down; for it is Jahveh's vengeance: revenge yourselves on her; as she hath done, do ye to her. Jeremiah 50:16. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him that handles the sickle in the time of harvest. From before the oppressing sword each one will turn to his own nation, and each one will flee to his own land. Jeremiah 50:17. Israel is a scattered sheep [which] lions have driven away: the first [who] devoured him [was] the king of Babylon; and this, the last, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, hath broken his bones. Jeremiah 50:18. Therefore thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon ad his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria. Jeremiah 50:19. And I will bring back Israel to his pasture- ground, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and on the mountains of Ephraim his soul shall be satisfied. Jeremiah 50:20. In those days, and at that time, saith Jahveh, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, but it shall not be; and the sins of Judah, but they shall not be found: for I will pardon those whom I will leave remaining."

Jeremiah 50:11-13

Jeremiah 50:11 does not permit of being so closely connected with what precedes as to separate it from Jeremiah 50:12 (De Wette, Nהgelsbach). Not only is the translation, "for thou didst rejoice," etc., difficult to connect with the imperfects of all the verbs in the verse, but the direct address also does not suit Jeremiah 50:10, and rather demands connection with Jeremiah 50:12, where it is continued. כּי , of course, introduces the reason, yet not in such a way that Jeremiah 50:11 states the cause why Chaldea shall become a spoil, but rather so that Jeremiah 50:11 and Jeremiah 50:12 together give the reason for the threatening uttered. The different clauses of Jeremiah 50:11 are the protases, to which Jeremiah 50:12 brings the apodosis. "You may go on making merry over the defeat of Israel, but shame will follow for this." The change of the singular forms of the verbs into plurals ( Qeri ) has been caused by the plural ' שׁסי , but is unnecessary, because Babylon is regarded as a collective, and its people are gathered into the unity of a person; see on Jeremiah 13:20. "Spoilers of mine inheritance," i.e., of the people and land of the Lord; cf. Jeremiah 12:7; Isaiah 17:14. On פּוּשׁ , to gallop (of a horse, Habakkuk 1:8), hop, spring (of a calf, Mal. 3:20), see on Habakkuk 1:8. דּשׁא is rendered by the lxx ἐν βοτάνη , by the Vulgate super herbam ; after these, Ewald also takes the meaning of springing like a calf through the grass, since he explains דּשׁא as exhibiting the correct punctuation, and remarks that פּוּשׁ , like הלך , can stand with an object directly after it; see §282, a . Most modern expositors, on the other hand, take דּשׁא as the fem. participle from דּוּשׁ , written with א instead of ה : "like a threshing heifer." On this, A Schultens, in his Animadv. philol. , on this passage, remarks: Comparatio petita est a vitula, quae in area media inter frumenta, ore ex lege non ligato (Deuteronomy 25:10), prae pabuli abundantia gestit ex exsultat . This explanation also gives a suitable meaning, without compelling us to do violence to the language and to alter the text. As to אבּירים , stallions, strong horses (Luther), see on Jeremiah 8:16 and Jeremiah 47:3. "Your mother" is the whole body of the people, the nation considered as a unity (cf. Isaiah 50:1; Hosea 2:4; Hosea 4:5), the individual members of which are called her sons; cf. Jeremiah 5:7, etc. In Jeremiah 50:12 , the disgrace that is to fall on Babylon is more distinctly specified. The thought is gathered up into a sententious saying, in imitation of the sayings of Balaam. "The last of the nations" is the antithesis of "the first of the nations," as Balaam calls Amalek, Numbers 24:20, because they were the first heathen nation that began to fight against the people of Israel. In like manner, Jeremiah calls Babylon the last of the heathen nations. As the end of Amalek is ruin (Numbers 24:20), so the end of the last heathen nation that comes forward against Israel will be a wilderness, desert, steppe. The predicates (cf. Jeremiah 2:6) refer to the country and kingdom of Babylon. But if the end of the kingdom is a desert, then the people must have perished. The devastation of Babylon is further portrayed in Jeremiah 50:13, together with a statement of the cause: "Because of the anger of Jahveh it shall not be inhabited;" cf. Isaiah 13:20. The words from והיתה onwards are imitated from Jeremiah 49:17 and Jeremiah 19:8.

Jeremiah 50:14-16

In order to execute this judgment on Babylon, the nations are commanded to conquer and destroy the city. The archers are to place themselves round about Babylon, and shoot at the city unsparingly. ערך does not mean to prepare oneself, but to prepare מלחמה , the battle, combat. The archers are mentioned by synecdoche, because the point in question is the siege and bombardment of Babylon; cf. Isaiah 13:18, where the Medes are mentioned as archers. ידה is used only here, in Kal, of the throwing, i.e., the shooting of arrows, instead of ירה , which is elsewhere the usual word for this; and, indeed, some codices have the latter word in this passage. "Spare not the arrow," i.e., do not spare an arrow; cf. Jeremiah 51:3. הריע , to cry aloud; here, to raise a battle-cry; cf. Joshua 6:16. The effect and result of the cry is, "she hath given her hand," i.e., given herself up. נתן יד usually signifies the giving of the hand as a pledge of faithfulness (2 Kings 10:15; Ezekiel 17:18; Ezra 10:19), from which is derived the meaning of giving up, delivering up oneself; cf. 2 Chronicles 30:8. Cf. Cornelius Nepos, Hamilc . c. 1, donec victi manum dedissent . The ἁπ. λεγ . אשׁויתיה (the Kethib is either to be read אשׁויּתיה , as if from a noun אשׁוית , or to be viewed as an error in transcription for אשׁיותיה , which is the Qeri ) signifies "supports," and comes from אשׁה , Arab. asâ , to support, help; then the supports of a building, its foundations; cf. אשּׁיּא , Ezra 4:12. Here the word signifies the supports of the city, i.e., the fortifications of Babylon, ἐπάλξεις , propugnacula, pinnae , the battlements of the city wall, not the foundations of the walls, for which נפל is unsuitable. "It (sc., the destruction of Babylon) is the vengeance of Jahveh." "The vengeance of Jahveh" is an expression derived from Numbers 31:3. "Avenge yourselves on her," i.e., take retribution for what Babylon has done to other nations, especially to the people of God; cf. 27f. and Jeremiah 51:11. The words, "cut off out of Babylon the sower and the reaper," are not to be restricted to the fields, which, according to the testimonies of Diod. Sic. ii. 7, Pliny xviii. 17, and Curtius Jeremiah 51:1, lay within the wall round Babylon, but "Babylon" is the province together with its capital; and the objection of Nägelsbach, that the prophet, in the whole context, is describing the siege of the city of Babylon, is invalid, because Jeremiah 50:12 plainly shows that not merely the city, but the province of Babylon, is to become a wilderness, desert, and steppe. The further threat, also, "every one flees to his own people from before the oppressing sword" (cf. Jeremiah 25:38; Jeremiah 46:16), applies not merely to the strangers residing in Babylon, but generally to those in Babylonia. Hitzig would arbitrarily refer these words merely to the husbandmen and field-workers. The fundamental passage, Isaiah 13:14, which Jeremiah had before his mind and repeats verbatim , tells decidedly against this view; cf. also Jeremiah 51:9, Jeremiah 51:44.

Jeremiah 50:17-19

This judgment comes on Babylon because of her oppression and scattering of the people of Israel, whom the Lord will now feed in peace again on their native soil. Israel is like שׂה פזוּרה , a sheep which, having been scared away out of its stall or fold, is hunted into the wide world; cf. פּזּרוּ בגּוים , Joel 3:2. Although פּזר , "to scatter," implies the conception of a flock, yet we cannot take שׂה as a collective (Graf), since it is nomen unitatis . The point in the comparison lies on the fact that Israel has been hunted, like a solitary sheep, up and down among the beasts of the earth; and pizeer is more exactly specified by the following clause, "lions have chased after it." The object of הדּיחוּ is easily derived from the context, so that we do not need to follow Hitzig in changing הדּיחוּ הראשׁון into הדּיחוּה ראשׁון . These kings are, the king of Assyria first, and the king of Babylon last. The former has dispersed the ten tribes among the heathen; the latter, by destroying the kingdom of Judah, and carrying away its inhabitants, has shattered the theocracy. The verbs apply to the figure of the lion, and the suffixes refer to Israel. אכל is used of the devouring of the flesh; עצּם is a denominative from עצם , and means the same as גּרם , Numbers 24:8, to break bones in pieces, not merely gnaw them. So long as the flesh only is eaten, the skeleton of bones remains; if these also be broken, the animal is quite destroyed.

Jeremiah 50:18-20

The Assyrian has already received his punishment for that-the Assyrian kingdom has been destroyed; Babylon will meet with the same punishment, and then (Jeremiah 50:19) Israel will be led back to his pasture-ground. נוה , pasture-ground, grass-plot, where sheep feed, is the land of Israel. Israel, led back thither, will feed on Carmel and Bashan, the most fertile tracts of the country, and the mountains of Ephraim and Gilead, which also furnish fodder in abundance for sheep. As to Gilead, see Numbers 32:1; Micah 7:14; and in regard to the mountains of Ephraim, Exodus 34:13., where the feeding on the mountains of Israel and in the valleys is depicted as fat pasture. The mountains of Israel here signify the northern portion of the land generally, including the large and fertile plain of Jezreel, and the different valleys between the several ranges of mountains, which here and there show traces of luxuriant vegetation even yet; cf. Robinson's Physical Geography , p. 120. Then also the guilt of the sins of Israel and Judah shall be blotted out, because the Lord grants pardon to the remnant of His people. This promise points to the time of the New Covenant; cf. Jeremiah 31:34 and Jeremiah 33:8. The deliverance of Israel from Babylon coincides with the view given of the regeneration of the people by the Messiah, just as we find throughout the second portion of Isaiah. On the construction ' יבקּשׁ את־עון ישׂ , cf. 35:14, and Gesenius, §143, 1. On the form תּמּצאינה , with y after the manner of verbs ה '' ל , cf. Ewald, §198, b .

The pride and power of Babylon are broken, as a punishment for the sacrilege he committed at the temple of the Lord. Jeremiah 50:21. "Against the land, - Double-rebellion, - go up against it, and against the inhabitants of visitation; lay waste and devote to destruction after them, saith Jahveh, and do according to all that I have commanded thee. Jeremiah 50:22. A sound of war [is] in the land, and great destruction. Jeremiah 50:23. How the hammer of the whole earth is cut and broken! how Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! Jeremiah 50:24. I laid snares for thee, yea, and thou hast been taken, O Babylon; but thou didst not know: thou wast found, and also seized, because thou didst strive against Jahveh. Jeremiah 50:25. Jahveh hath opened His treasure-house, and brought out the instruments of His wrath; for the Lord, Jahveh of hosts, hath a work in the land of the Chaldeans. Jeremiah 50:26. Come against her, [all of you], from the last to the first; open her storehouses: case her up in heaps, like ruins, and devote her to destruction; let there be no remnant left to her. Jeremiah 50:27. Destroy all her oxen; let them go down to the slaughter: woe to them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation. Jeremiah 50:28. [There is] a sound of those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Jahveh our God, the vengeance of His temple."