7 All the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his own land come: and then many nations and great kings shall make him their bondservant.
For thus says Yahweh of hosts: 'For honor he has sent me to the nations which plundered you; for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye. For, behold, I will shake my hand over them, and they will be a spoil to those who served them; and you will know that Yahweh of Hosts has sent me.
that you shall take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers; who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that none restrained.
This is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God has numbered your kingdom, and brought it to an end; TEKEL; you are weighed in the balances, and are found wanting. PERES; your kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. Then commanded Belshazzar, 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 Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain. Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.
He cried with a mighty voice, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and she has become a habitation of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality, the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from the abundance of her luxury." I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don't receive of her plagues, for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities. Return to her just as she returned, and repay her double as she did, and according to her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her double. However much she glorified herself, and grew wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, 'I sit a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see mourning.' Therefore in one day her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire; for the Lord God who has judged her is strong.
The ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the prostitute, and will make her desolate, and will make her naked, and will eat her flesh, and will burn her utterly with fire. For God has put in their hearts to do what he has in mind, and to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God should be accomplished.
Another angel came out from the temple, crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, "Send forth your sickle, and reap; for the hour to reap has come; for the harvest of the earth is ripe!" He who sat on the cloud thrust his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. Another angel came out from the temple which is in heaven. He also had a sharp sickle. Another angel came out from the altar, he who has power over fire, and he called with a great voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, "Send forth your sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for the earth's grapes are fully ripe!" The angel thrust his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. The winepress was trodden outside of the city, and blood came out from the winepress, even to the bridles of the horses, as far as one thousand six hundred stadia.{1600 stadia = 296 kilometers or 184 miles}
A mouth speaking great things and blasphemy was given to him. Authority to make war for forty-two months was given to him. He opened his mouth for blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his dwelling, those who dwell in heaven. It was given to him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. Authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been killed. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. If anyone has captivity, he will go. If anyone is with the sword, he must be killed.{TR reads "If anyone leads into captivity, into captivity he goes. If anyone will kill with the sword, he must be killed with a sword." instead of "If anyone has captivity, he goes away. If anyone is with the sword, he must be killed."} Here is the endurance and the faith of the saints.
Those who had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths: [for] as long as it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
The word that Yahweh spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet. Declare you among the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and don't conceal: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is disappointed, Merodach is dismayed; her images are disappointed, her idols are dismayed. For out of the north there comes up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they are fled, they are gone, both man and animal. In those days, and in that time, says Yahweh, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; they shall go on their way weeping, and shall seek Yahweh their God. They shall inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned toward it, [saying], Come you, and join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten. My people have been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray; they have turned them away on the mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting-place. All who found them have devoured them; and their adversaries said, We are not guilty, because they have sinned against Yahweh, the habitation of righteousness, even Yahweh, 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 male goats before the flocks. For, behold, I will stir up and cause to come up against Babylon a company of great nations from the north country; and they shall set themselves in array against her; from there she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of an expert mighty man; none shall return in vain. Chaldea shall be a prey: all who prey on her shall be satisfied, says Yahweh. Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out [the grain], and neigh as strong horses; your mother shall be utterly disappointed; she who bore you shall be confounded: behold, she shall be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. Because of the wrath of Yahweh she shall not be inhabited, but she shall be wholly desolate: everyone who goes by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues. Set yourselves in array against Babylon round about, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she has sinned against Yahweh. Shout against her round about: she has submitted herself; her bulwarks are fallen, her walls are thrown down; for it is the vengeance of Yahweh: take vengeance on her; as she has done, do to her. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him who handles the sickle in the time of harvest: for fear of the oppressing sword they shall turn everyone to his people, and they shall flee everyone to his own land. Israel is a hunted sheep; the lions have driven him away: first, the king of Assyria devoured him; and now at last Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones. Therefore thus says Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria. I will bring Israel again to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead. In those days, and in that time, says Yahweh, 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 them whom I leave as a remnant. Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod: kill and utterly destroy after them, says Yahweh, and do according to all that I have commanded you. A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction. How is the hammer of the whole earth cut apart and broken! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! I have laid a snare for you, and you are also taken, Babylon, and you weren't aware: you are found, and also caught, because you have striven against Yahweh. Yahweh has opened his armory, and has brought forth the weapons of his indignation; for the Lord, Yahweh of Hosts, has a work [to do] in the land of the Chaldeans. Come against her from the utmost border; open her store-houses; cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly; let nothing of her be left. Kill all her bulls; let them go down to the slaughter: woe to them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation. The voice of those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh our God, the vengeance of his temple. Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow; encamp against her round about; let none of it escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel. Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets, and all her men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, says Yahweh. Behold, I am against you, you proud one, says the Lord, Yahweh of Hosts; for your day is come, the time that I will visit you. The proud one shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up; and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all who are round about him. Thus says Yahweh of hosts: The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together; and all who took them captive hold them fast; they refuse to let them go. Their Redeemer is strong; Yahweh of Hosts is his name: he will thoroughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon. A sword is on the Chaldeans, says Yahweh, and on the inhabitants of Babylon, and on her princes, and on her wise men. A sword is on the boasters, and they shall become fools; a sword is on her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed. A sword is on their horses, and on their chariots, and on all the mixed people who are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is on her treasures, and they shall be robbed. A drought is on her waters, and they shall be dried up; for it is a land of engraved images, and they are mad over idols. Therefore the wild animals of the desert with the wolves shall dwell there, and the ostriches shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited forever; neither shall it be lived in from generation to generation. As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbor cities of it, says Yahweh, so shall no man dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein. Behold, a people comes from the north; and a great nation and many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Babylon. The king of Babylon has heard the news of them, and his hands wax feeble: anguish has taken hold of him, [and] pangs as of a woman in travail. Behold, [the enemy] shall come up like a lion from the pride of the Jordan against the strong habitation: for I will suddenly make them run away from it; and whoever is chosen, him will I appoint over it: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd who can stand before me? Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh, that he has taken against Babylon; and his purposes, that he has purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely they shall drag them away, [even] the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate over them. At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembles, and the cry is heard among the nations.
This whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. It shall happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says Yahweh, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it desolate forever. I will bring on that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall make bondservants of them, even of them; 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 without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans: for you shall no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones, and grind meal; remove your veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers. Your nakedness shall be uncovered, yes, your shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and will spare no man. Our Redeemer, Yahweh of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. Sit you silent, and get you into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans; for you shall no more be called The mistress of kingdoms.
I will rise up against them, says Yahweh of Hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son's son, says Yahweh. I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction, says Yahweh of Hosts.
and they shall be dismayed; pangs and sorrows shall take hold [of them]; they shall be in pain as a woman in travail: they shall look in amazement one at another; their faces [shall be] faces of flame. Behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy the sinners of it out of it. For the stars of the sky and the constellations of it shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in its going forth, and the moon shall not cause its light to shine. I will punish the world for [their] evil, and the wicked for their iniquity: and I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more rare than fine gold, even a man than the pure gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens to tremble, and the earth shall be shaken out of its place, in the wrath of Yahweh of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. It shall happen, that as the chased roe, and as sheep that no man gathers, they shall turn every man to his own people, and shall flee every man to his own land. Everyone who is found shall be thrust through; and everyone who is taken shall fall by the sword. Their infants also shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be rifled, and their wives ravished. Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not regard silver, and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. [Their] bows shall dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children. 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 lived in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. But wild animals of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and ostriches shall dwell there, and wild goats shall dance there. Wolves shall cry in their castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces: 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).