Jeremiah 51:1-5: “Thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, against those who dwell in Leb Kamai, a destroying wind. And I will send winnowers to Babylon, who shall winnow her and empty her land. For in the day of doom, they shall be against her all around. Against her let the archer bend his bow and lift himself up against her in his armor. Do not spare her young men. Utterly destroy all her army. Thus, the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and those thrust through in her streets. For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, by his God, the Lord of hosts, though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.”
“Raise up a destroying wind” this Hebrew phrase is better translated “arouse the spirit of a destroyer.” These words designate Babylon as the very heart, the life seat, of opposition against the Lord, the antichrist of the Old Testament, and a type of the New Testament antichrist.” [1]
Babylon resisted the wind of God’s Spirit which Daniel, a top official in their midst, had revealed to them. In Daniel 4:18, 5:11-14, two kings and one queen of Babylon acknowledged that the spirit of the holy God was in Daniel, but they did not convert to faith in God.
Babylon rejected the life-giving wind of God and reaped the life-taking wind of Satan. In Job 1:19, the devil sent a wind against a home where Job’s sons and daughters were gathered. His wind took their lives.
God sent winnowers to winnow Babylon. All they found was useless chaff.
Jeremiah 51:6: “Flee from the midst of Babylon, and every one save his life! Do not be cut off in her iniquity, for this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance. He shall recompense her.”
When God pronounces judgments against your nation and your nation refuses to repent, pray! The Lord helped Noah to avoid a flood. He helped Lot to avoid a fire. He helped Joseph, Mary, and Jesus to avoid a sword. In Psalm 32:7, King David wrote, “You [God] are my hiding place.”
Whether pagans or apostates, the Lord advises His faithful ones to come away from those who are about to incur His wrath. In Exodus 32, the people began to worship a golden calf. When Moses discovered the mayhem, he said to the people in Exodus 32:26, “Whoever is on the Lord’s side—come to me!” All the sons of Levi gathered to him. 3,000 men fell that day.
3,000 men died during the rebellion against God in the days of Moses, but 3,000 people were saved and filled with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. These events illustrate what 2 Corinthians 3:6 says, “The letter [of the Law] kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Or as Melancthon put it, “The Law discovers the disease. The Gospel gives the remedy.”
Jeremiah 51:7: “Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, which made all the earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; therefore, the nations are deranged.”
“Babylon’s influence was like strong wine to the nations which idolized Babylon in spite of her cruel arrogance, her avarice, her selfish exploitation.” [2]
Babylon looked good on the outside – gold, but her wine caused derangement. It caused people to see good as evil and evil as good. Her brew was a spirit of lawlessness like Paul mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:7. Her wine made people dark-hearted, debased, evil-minded, and violent.
“Urban missiologist Ray Bakke observes, ‘Throughout the Bible, Babylon is a symbol of the city which is anti-God.’” “As Augustine studied the Bible, he discovered that Babylon represented the City of Man standing against the City of God. Then, as he examined his own culture, he realized that Rome had become the capital City of Man.” [3]
“The most popular idol in Babylon was mammon. The idol makers were chiefly goldsmiths. They plundered gold and jewels from all their enemies and carried them back to their fabulous palaces. Robert Linthicum issues this stinging indictment: ‘Babylon’s greed and lust for wealth and economic security raped the rest of the world, leaving it helpless and destitute, unable to cope either nationally or individually.” [4]
Jeremiah 51:8-9: “Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed. Wail for her! Take balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her and let us go everyone to his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven and is lifted up to the skies.”
The Lord called for lamentation. He called for a healing balm. God loves even His enemies. His messengers would have stayed behind to heal her, but she refused to be healed. So, the Lord advised them to return to their own countries. When a nation’s criminal record is so long that it reaches to heaven, and she refuses to repent, her sentence will be devastating.
Jeremiah 51:10: “The Lord has revealed our righteousness. Come and let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God.”
The Lord revealed that His avenging hand was vindicating His chosen people. He urges His people to return to Zion to proclaim, “the work of the Lord, our God.” [5]
“The cure for Babylon’s disease cannot be purchased at a pharmacy or be discovered at a lab. Her disease was sin. No human can remove sin. Only God can! Amidst the pain and trials of exile, God revealed to His people that righteousness originates with Him. It is God’s work. When anyone turns to the Lord, He accounts their faith in Him as righteousness. Babylon rejected the cure.” [6]
Jeremiah 51:11-12: “Make the arrows bright! Gather the shields! The Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes. For His plan is against Babylon to destroy it because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance for His temple. Set up the standard on the walls of Babylon. Make the guard strong. Set up the watchmen. Prepare the ambushes. For the Lord has both devised and done what He spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.”
The Babylonians destroyed God’s temple in Jerusalem with a sinister delight. The Lord was after them to repent. They refused to repent. Their nation declined. Arrows, shields, and kings came against them to destroy them!
Jeremiah 51:13-16: “O you who dwell by many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your covetousness. The Lord of hosts has sworn by Himself: surely, I will fill you with men, as with locusts, and they shall lift a shout against you. He has made the earth by His power. He has established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heaven by His understanding. When He utters His voice—there is a multitude of waters in the heavens. He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings for the rain. He brings the wind out of His treasuries.”
At the time of this prophesy, all was well with Babylon. They were rich. Their thirst for pleasure was abundantly quenched. But the armies of foreign nations were approaching like a swarm of locusts ready to consume all that Babylon held dear. The Maker of heaven and earth guaranteed it! God was going to channel the winds of change toward Babylon. The Babylon of Revelation 9:7 is also attacked by a locust-like army.
Jeremiah 51:17-19: “Everyone is dull-hearted, without knowledge. Every metalsmith is put to shame by the carved image; for his molded image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are futile, a work of errors. In the time of their punishment, they shall perish. The Portion of Jacob is not like them, for He is the Maker of all things; and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance. The Lord of hosts is His Name.”
Idols are lifeless and worthless. Manmade idols cannot save anyone. The descendants of Jacob had a better portion than their wealthy captors. They had the true and living God. Babylon had built their house on sand. Jacob’s descendants had the Word of God. When Israel returned to the Lord, they were back on a solid foundation. It was only a manner of time until Babylon’s foundation crumbled. Israel’s house would stand and expand.
Jeremiah 51:20-23: “You are My battle-ax and weapons of war: for with you I will break the nation in pieces; with you I will destroy kingdoms; with you I will break in pieces the horse and its rider; with you I will break in pieces the chariot and its rider; with you also I will break in pieces man and woman; with you I will break in pieces old and young; with you I will break in pieces the young man and the maiden; with you also I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; with you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke of oxen; and with you I will break in pieces governors and rulers.”
The Medes became God’s battle-axe to chop down Babylon’s military defenses and to kill her food producers (shepherds and farmers). This word harkens back to the potter who shattered his clay pot and reformed it, as well as to Jeremiah’s calling to uproot and plant.
Jeremiah 51:24-26: “I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion in your sight, says the Lord. Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, who destroys all the earth, says the Lord. And I will stretch out My hand against you, roll you down from the rocks, and make you a burnt mountain. They shall not take from you a stone for a corner nor a stone for a foundation, but you shall be desolate forever, says the Lord.”
What is happening? God is repaying those who have treated His people cruelly. The Lord is against the mountain (the evil empire) that destroys all the earth. He is crumbling her into dust and not leaving one rock upon another.
In Mark 11:22-23, Jesus told His disciples, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” The context of this passage is that Jesus found a mountain of corruption in Jerusalem. By faith in God the sky-high religious hypocrisy in Jerusalem would be removed and cast down.
Revelation 8:8 reveals something like a great mountain burning with fire thrown into the sea. This event illustrates the prophecy that evil will be uprooted before holiness is planted.
Jeremiah 51:27-29: “Set up a banner in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations! Prepare the nations against her, call the kingdoms together against her: Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a general against her; cause the horses to come up like the bristling locusts. Prepare against her the nations, with the kings of the Medes, its governors and all its rulers, all the land of his dominion. And the land will tremble and sorrow; for every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without inhabitant.”
“Jeremiah mentioned the invaders by name. Babylon would be attacked by the Medes and the Ashkenazi, the peoples of Armenia and Kurdistan who were conquered by Cyrus and his Persian army in 550 BC. Their attack would be carefully coordinated.” [7]
Jeremiah 51:30-33: “The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting. They have remained in their strongholds. Their might has failed. They became like women. They have burned her dwelling places. The bars of her gate are broken. One runner will run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on all sides. The passages are blocked. The reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are terrified. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: the daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor when it is time to thresh her; yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come.”
Cowardice is common trait among the armies of nations that God judges. Previously, Babylon’s army conquered the world. Now, they are afraid to come out of their bunkers. They are being threshed like wheat. “They are taking a thrashing.”
Jeremiah 51:34-35: “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has swallowed me up like a monster. He has filled his stomach with my delicacies. He has spit me out. ‘Let the violence done to me and my flesh be upon Babylon,’ the inhabitant of Zion will say; ‘and my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea!’ Jerusalem will say.”
King Nebuchadnezzar is compared to a monster that swallowed and spit God’s people out. This imagery is used in the Book of Daniel and in Revelation to describe the antichrist who enjoys hurting and destroying people.
Daniel 7:7 says, “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth. It was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.”
In Revelation 13:1-2: “I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.”
Jeremiah 51:36-40: “Therefore, thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will plead your case and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry. Babylon shall become a heap, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant. They shall roar together like lions they shall growl like lions’ whelps. In their excitement I will prepare their feasts. I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake, says the Lord. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats.’”
I am glad that the Lord pleads the case of His people and takes vengeance on those who hurt us. Romans 12:19 says, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge. I will repay,’ says the Lord.”
To plead the cause of another is to be their advocate. There’s no better advocate than God. I like to say, “God plus one is a majority.”
God promised to dry up Babylon’s waters and turn her city into ruins. A no man’s land! Instead of God’s people being slaughtered, the Babylonians would be the victims of the slaughter.
Jeremiah 51:41-43: “O, how Sheshach is taken! O, how the praise of the whole earth is seized! How Babylon has become desolate among the nations! The sea has come up over Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of its waves. Her cities are a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness, a land where no one dwells, through which no son of man passes.”
Sheshach is a code word for Babylon. Surprise is expressed that such a great empire could end so abruptly. It was as though a wave washed a sandcastle away. There is a similar cry in the last days when the end times Babylon empire is destroyed. The merchants cry, “Woe… In one hour, such great wealth has been brought to ruin!”
Jeremiah 51:44: “I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth what he has swallowed; and the nations shall not stream to him anymore. Yes, the wall of Babylon shall fall.”
God makes Bel spew out the people he swallowed. As I read this, the book of Jonah came to my mind. Jonah had disobeyed the Lord. He was taken captive in the belly of a great fish, but then, Jonah repented. He prayed. And then, the Lord caused the fish to spew him out on dry land.
Jeremiah 51:45-48: “My people, go out of the midst of her! And let everyone deliver himself from the fierce anger of the Lord. And lest your heart faint, and you fear for the rumor that will be heard in the land (a rumor will come one year, and after that, in another year a rumor will come, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler). Therefore behold, the days are coming that I will bring judgment on the carved images of Babylon. Her whole land shall be ashamed. All her slain shall fall in her midst. Then the heavens and the earth and all that is in them shall sing joyously over Babylon; for the plunderers shall come to her from the north, says the Lord.”
God warned His people a second time to leave Babylon. “Come out of her, my people! Run for your lives! Run from the fierce anger of the Lord.” There’s a similar word in Revelation 18:4-5, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.”
Jeremiah 51:49-53: “As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon the slain of all the earth shall fall. You who have escaped the sword, get away! Do not stand still! Remember the Lord afar off and let Jerusalem come to your mind. We are ashamed because we have heard reproach. Shame has covered our faces, for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of the Lord’s house. Therefore behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will bring judgment on her carved images, and throughout all her land the wounded shall groan. Though Babylon were to mount up to heaven, and though she were to fortify the height of her strength, yet from Me plunderers would come to her, says the Lord.”
“Babylon would meet the same fate as Babel, for ‘man’s attempt to build himself up to the skies ends only in building up his judgment.’” [8]
Jeremiah 51:54-57: “The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans, because the Lord is plundering Babylon and silencing her loud voice, though her waves roar like great waters, and the noise of their voice is uttered, because the plunderer comes against her, against Babylon, and her mighty men are taken. Every one of their bows is broken; for the Lord is the God of recompense. He will surely repay. And I will make drunk her princes and wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men. And they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake, says the King, whose Name is the Lord of hosts.”
The Lord assures His people that Babylon will not arise again. She shall sleep. Israel and Judah are going home. Anyone who has experienced years of abuse may find it hard to believe that it is over when it is over. So, the Lord assures them that it is over. A new day has arrived!
Jeremiah 51:58: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; the people will labor in vain, and the nations, because of the fire; and they shall be weary.”
“The first news seems to refer to the collapse of the defenses outside the city. These were vast. In addition to the two massive walls surrounding the heart of Babylon, an inner one some 21 feet thick and an outer one over 12 feet thick, there were great walls thrown up at intervals beyond the city together with a chain of fortresses north and south of the city.” [9]
“According to Herodotus, the outer walls of Babylon were 300 feet high and seventy-five feet wide, wide enough to drive several chariots abreast. Yet they would all fall down, furnishing more fuel for the flames of divine judgment.” [10]
Jeremiah 51:59-64: “The Word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. And Seraiah was the quartermaster. So, Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that would come upon Babylon, all these Words that are written against Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, ‘When you arrive in Babylon and see it, and read all these words, then you shall say, ‘O Lord, You have spoken against this place to cut it off, so that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but it shall be desolate forever.’ Now it shall be, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall tie a stone to it and throw it out into the Euphrates. Then you shall say, ‘Thus Babylon shall sink and not rise from the catastrophe that I will bring upon her. And they shall be weary.’ Thus far are the Words of Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah instructed his cousin Seraiah to take the scroll to Babylon, read it, and afterwards remind the Lord of His promise to destroy the city. Then, tie a stone to the scroll and throw it into the Euphrates River. After throwing the scroll into the river, he was to declare that Babylon would sink to never rise again. Jeremiah’s prophecy began with words of Babylon’s climb to superpower status and ended it with the promise of Babylon’s demise.
In the last days, an empire like unto Babylon will arise and afterwards be destroyed. Then, New Jerusalem will come down from heaven as a bride prepared for the Lord.
“The similarities between Jeremiah and Revelation are numerous. One might almost say that Revelation 17–19 is based on Jeremiah 50–51. Like Jeremiah, John saw a golden cup in the hand of Babylon. He exposed her idolatry, especially her love for excessive luxuries. He accused her of violence against God’s people. He warned God’s people to flee from her on the Day of Judgment.” [11]
“Most striking of all, John’s vision included a stone cast into the watery depths: ‘Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea and said: ‘With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again.’” [12]
“John’s vision was as heavy as Jeremiah’s prophecy. When Jeremiah caused a stone to be thrown into the Euphrates, he was prophesying about the end of history, when the City of Satan will sink to the bottom of the sea. Jeremiah was among the first to celebrate the victory of Jesus Christ over sin, death, the devil, and all the enemies of God.” [13]
Romans 11:32 says, “God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all.” So, whether a descendant of Israel or a Gentile, God’s mercy saves us.
Paul wrote to the competitive Christians in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “Who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” Salvation is received as a gift from God.
Romans 3:22-24 says, “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
If we are not careful, our greatest strength will become our greatest weakness. Babylon enjoyed superpower status but did not turn to the Lord. They lost everything. Israel incurred captivity but DID turn to Lord. God saved them and restored them to the Promised Land.
[1] Dr. Theo Laetsch, Bible Commentary Jeremiah, Concordia Paperback Edition, 1965, ©, page 360. See also Revelation 17:5.
[2] Dr. Theo Laetsch, Bible Commentary Jeremiah, Concordia Paperback Edition, 1965, ©, pages 361. See also Habakkuk 2:6-17
[3] Dr. Phillip Graham Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations from Sorrow to Hope, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, © 2001, p. 712-714
[4] Ibid
[5] Dr. Theo Laetsch, Bible Commentary Jeremiah, Concordia Paperback Edition, 1965, ©, pages 362.
[6] Ibid
[7] Dr. Phillip Graham Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations from Sorrow to Hope, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, © 2001, p. 703-705
[8] Dr. Phillip Graham Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations from Sorrow to Hope, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, © 2001, p. 709-710
[9] Dr. Phillip Graham Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations from Sorrow to Hope, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, © 2001, p. 707-708
[10] Ibid
[11] Dr. Phillip Graham Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations from Sorrow to Hope, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, © 2001, p. 715-718. See also Revelation 17:4, 18:3-5, 7, 11-21
[12] Ibid
[13] Ibid
Attached is a link to a power point version of this article which I have recorded on my YouTube channel:
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