©Michael Player
Chapter 51:25-58 (ESV) - “Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain,
declares the LORD,
which destroys the whole earth;
I will stretch out my hand against you,
and roll you down from the crags,
and make you a burnt mountain.
No stone shall be taken from you for a corner
and no stone for a foundation,
but you shall be a perpetual waste,
declares the LORD.
“Set up a standard on the earth;
blow the trumpet among the nations;
prepare the nations for war against her;
summon against her the kingdoms,
Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz;
appoint a marshal against her;
bring up horses like bristling locusts.
Prepare the nations for war against her,
the kings of the Medes, with their governors and deputies,
and every land under their dominion.
The land trembles and writhes in pain,
for the LORD's purposes against Babylon stand,
to make the land of Babylon a desolation,
without inhabitant.
The warriors of Babylon have ceased fighting;
they remain in their strongholds;
their strength has failed;
they have become women;
her dwellings are on fire;
her bars are broken.
One runner runs to meet another,
and one messenger to meet another,
to tell the king of Babylon
that his city is taken on every side;
the fords have been seized,
the marshes are burned with fire,
and the soldiers are in panic.
For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor
at the time when it is trodden;
yet a little while
and the time of her harvest will come.”
“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me;
he has crushed me;
he has made me an empty vessel;
he has swallowed me like a monster;
he has filled his stomach with my delicacies;
he has rinsed me out.
The violence done to me and to my kinsmen be upon Babylon,”
let the inhabitant of Zion say.
“My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
let Jerusalem say.
Therefore thus says the LORD:
“Behold, I will plead your cause
and take vengeance for you.
I will dry up her sea
and make her fountain dry,
and Babylon shall become a heap of ruins,
the haunt of jackals,
a horror and a hissing,
without inhabitant.
“They shall roar together like lions;
they shall growl like lions' cubs.
While they are inflamed I will prepare them a feast
and make them drunk, that they may become merry,
then sleep a perpetual sleep
and not wake, declares the LORD.
I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams and male goats.
“How Babylon is taken,
the praise of the whole earth seized!
How Babylon has become
a horror among the nations!
The sea has come up on Babylon;
she is covered with its tumultuous waves.
Her cities have become a horror,
a land of drought and a desert,
a land in which no one dwells,
and through which no son of man passes.
And I will punish Bel in Babylon,
and take out of his mouth what he has swallowed.
The nations shall no longer flow to him;
the wall of Babylon has fallen.
“Go out of the midst of her, my people!
Let every one save his life
from the fierce anger of the LORD!
Let not your heart faint, and be not fearful
at the report heard in the land,
when a report comes in one year
and afterward a report in another year,
and violence is in the land,
and ruler is against ruler.
“Therefore, behold, the days are coming
when I will punish the images of Babylon;
her whole land shall be put to shame,
and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.
Then the heavens and the earth,
and all that is in them,
shall sing for joy over Babylon,
for the destroyers shall come against them out of the north,
declares the LORD.
Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel,
just as for Babylon have fallen the slain of all the earth.
“You who have escaped from the sword,
go, do not stand still!
Remember the LORD from far away,
and let Jerusalem come into your mind:
‘We are put to shame, for we have heard reproach;
dishonor has covered our face,
for foreigners have come
into the holy places of the LORD's house.’
“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD,
when I will execute judgment upon her images,
and through all her land
the wounded shall groan.
Though Babylon should mount up to heaven,
and though she should fortify her strong height,
yet destroyers would come from me against her,
declares the LORD.
“A voice! A cry from Babylon!
The noise of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!
For the LORD is laying Babylon waste
and stilling her mighty voice.
Their waves roar like many waters;
the noise of their voice is raised,
for a destroyer has come upon her,
upon Babylon;
her warriors are taken;
their bows are broken in pieces,
for the LORD is a God of recompense;
he will surely repay.
I will make drunk her officials and her wise men,
her governors, her commanders, and her warriors;
they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake,
declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.
“Thus says the LORD of hosts:
The broad wall of Babylon
shall be leveled to the ground,
and her high gates
shall be burned with fire.
The peoples labor for nothing,
and the nations weary themselves only for fire.”
Question to consider: Why was the LORD going to destroy the temple of Babylon?
Like the rest of the prophecies given to Jeremiah which were told from different angles (the land, the kings, the temple, etc.), the final word against Babylon in today’s passage is being told from the perspective of the mountain and land. The mountain of Babylon (a reference to its center of worship) would be utterly destroyed for Nebuchadnezzar had done the same to mount Zion (the temple mountain in Jerusalem).
While the land of Judah was to remain desolate for seventy years in order to fulfill its sabbath rest, it was the LORD’s decree to restore the people to the land in peace at the end of these days. It was ok for Babylon to cart off the instruments of the temple and keep them until the time of this restoration, but as I pointed out a couple of days ago, king Belshazzar defiled the cups in one of his feasts and received the word of judgment.
There would come a time in which it would be the LORD’s intent to fully and finally destroy the temple (not one stone upon another) in AD 70 to give way to the everlasting Mount Zion in the heavenly Jerusalem (see Hebrews 12:18-24), but this was not it. As a result, the LORD would raise up the Medes to utterly destroy Babylon.
While it is true that Saddam Hussein tried to reconstruct Babylon in modern-day Iraq, he did not succeed in doing so. Even if he had, the city never would have regained its former glory. At best, it would have been like a tourist attraction or museum highlighting the original. This prophecy came to Jeremiah during the height of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. It must have seemed incredible to believe that their monstrous, sky-scraping temple and hanging gardens (which are considered one of the seven wonders of the world) would be destroyed to the point where not even the corner stones could be used to build another temple. Nebuchadnezzar had conquered the world. It would have seemed impossible for another nation to be able to rise up and overtake the Chaldeans.
The LORD called for His people to flee at that time, and it would have taken great faith to accept that this was going to happen. This word is reminiscent of Christ’s word to His disciples concerning the fall of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70 (Luke 21 probably being the clearest). I’d argue that Christ's words in Luke 21:6, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down,” were to refer His disciples back to today’s passage so they could understand that the same thing was going to happen to the Jerusalem temple as the one in Babylon.
Unlike the gods of the nations which were like petulant children, the LORD is unchanging in His word and character to the point where He was willing to judge His own people of sin and bless any nation who turned to Him in faith. This is good news, for because of His character, God was willing to pour out His wrath even on His own Son who was willing to bear the sins of the world in order to make us holy.
Dear heavenly Father, thank You that You are unchanging in Your word and character, and that You don’t deal with us unjustly or on a whim. Help us to see our suffering in light of Your good purposes so that we can take comfort in the fact that it is not in vain. Amen.