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Chaldea Punished; Israel Redeemed
v. 1. The word that the Lord spake against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah, the prophet, when Seraiah, to whom it was committed, was sent to Babylon, 51:59-60. It seems that the various prophecies against Babylon were collected at this time, to be sent as one message, partly to pronounce the doom of the oppressor, 25:12, partly to console the captive Jews and to remind them of the eventual end of their captivity.
v. 2. Declare ye among the nations and publish and set up a standard, to call the attention of all men to the importance and the significance of this announcement; publish, and conceal not; say, Babylon is taken; Bel, the chief deity of the Chaldeans, is confounded; Merodach, another name for the same idol, is broken in pieces. Her idols are confounded, covered with shame and confusion, her images are broken in pieces, powerless before the almighty power of Jehovah.
v. 3. For out of the North, whence the army of the Modes approached some sixty years later, there cometh up a nation against her which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein; they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast, making the former populous land a desolate waste.
v. 4. In those days and in that time, when the punishment would strike Babylon, saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, the members of the Lord's Church of believers among His chosen people, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping, with tears of joy over the restoration which had been almost beyond their hopes; they shall go and seek the Lord, their God, with a repentant heart.
v. 5. They shall ask the way to Zion, the habitation of Jehovah, with their faces thitherward, set with steadfast purpose not to be daunted or to be turned aside by difficulties along the way, saying, Come and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten, as the first covenant had been act aside by an apostate nation.
v. 6. My people hath been lost sheep; their shepherds have caused them to go astray, the very men who were entrusted with their care being guilty of this gross neglect; they have turned them away on the mountains, the places of idolatry; they have gone from mountain to hill, from one altar of idolatrous worship to the next; they have forgotten their resting-place, in the care of Jehovah, where they could lie down in safety.
v. 7. All that found them have devoured them, the enemies everywhere making a practice of preying on the Lord's people; and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the Lord, the Habitation of justice, He who is the essence of righteousness, the Fountain of Israel's salvation, even the Lord, the Hope of their fathers, in whom the true believers had ever trusted for help. Their adversaries felt that they incurred no guilt, that they were, in fact, justified in taking advantage of the children of Israel.
v. 8. Remove out of the midst of Babylon, so all Israelites in truth are now warned, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, where they were as yet held in captivity, and be as the he-goats before the flocks, the leaders of all oppressed nations, as they now turned to flee.
v. 9. For, lo, I will raise, and cause to come up, against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the North country, an army composed of representatives of many nations; and they shall set themselves in array against her, with full equipment for warfare; from thence, or "there," she shall be taken, namely, where the hostile nations have assembled themselves; their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man, one well versed in the art of warfare; none shall return in vain, none of them would fail to perform its deadly work.
v. 10. And Chaldea shall be a spoil, a prey ready for the invaders; all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the Lord, since they were getting all that their heart desired in the way of rich booty. In this sense the Lord now turns directly to Babylon in pronouncing sentence upon the Chaldean Empire.
v. 11. Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of Mine heritage, the Chaldeans called so on account of the pillage committed by them in destroying Judah, because ye are grown fat as the heifer at grass, skipping like a threshing calf or heifer, with proud insolence, and bellow as bulls, or, "neigh as steeds," in overweening, challenging pride,
v. 12. your mother shall be sore confounded, the nation as such being heaped with disgrace; she that bare you shall be ashamed, blushing with the shame of it all. Behold, the hindermost of the nations, for this was the station to which Babylon had now been reduced, shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert, the nation itself, of course, having been destroyed.
v. 13. Because of the wrath of the Lord it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate, since His anger had caused the inhabitants to be driven away or slaughtered; every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished and hiss at all her plagues, in sneering derision. In order to carry out this judgment upon Babylon, the nations everywhere are now called upon to take the city.
v. 14. Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about, to surround the city and to attack her from all sides simultaneously; all ye that bend the bow, the archers representing the entire army of the enemy, shoot at her, spare no arrows; for she hath sinned against the Lord, she has fully deserved the punishment being meted out to her.
v. 15. Shout against her round about, encouraging one another with loud and fierce battle-cries; she hath given her hand, thereby submitting to the conquerors; her foundations are fallen, the fortifications in which she trusted for safety, her walls are thrown down, so that she is now helpless before the invaders; for it is the vengeance of the Lord, the destruction of Babylon was a punishment determined by Him; take vengeance upon her, retaliation being permitted in this instance; as she hath done, do unto her.
v. 16. Cut off the sower from Babylon and him that handleth the sickle, or scythe, in the time of harvest, so that both sowers and reapers would be destroyed, and there could be no harvesting in the entire country; for fear of the oppressing sword they shall turn every one to his people, and they shall flee every one to his own land, the strangers in the country getting ready to preserve their lives before the threatening catastrophe comes. Over against this fate of Babylon is placed the deliverance of Judah from oppression and exile.
v. 17. Israel is a scattered sheep, like a lonely sheep driven away from its flock, the lions have driven him away, the enemies chasing him far from his homeland; first, the king of Assyria hath devoured him, especially in the campaigns at the time of Hezekiah; and last, this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath broken his bones, like a beast of prey striking down his victim.
v. 18. Therefore, thus saith the Lord 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, whose judgment had already been brought about.
v. 19. And I will bring Israel, His own congregation, again to his habitation, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, occupying the richest sections of his fertile land, and his soul shall be satisfied upon Mount Ephraim and Gilead, the northern part of Canaan, which included the rich Valley of Jezreel.
v. 20. In those days and in that time, saith the Lord, the prophecy now again turning to the Messianic trend, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none, no longer any guilt would be charged against it; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found; for I will pardon them whom I reserve, granting them forgiveness and pardon by virtue of the Messiah's merits. If enemies of the Lord, whom He, for any reason whatever, has used as His instruments to carry out His plans, become overbearing and insolent as a consequence, He readily plunges them from the height of their pride to the depths of humiliation and confusion.