Jeremiah 50:35-40

The Coming Judgment On Babylon In Accordance With YHWH's Purpose (Jeremiah 50:35).

The opening verses could be called ‘the Song of the Sword'. The sword is mentioned five times.

Jeremiah 50:35

“A sword is upon the Chaldeans,

The word of YHWH,

And upon the inhabitants of Babylon,

And upon her princes,

And upon her wise men.

A sword is upon the boasters,

And they will become fools,

A sword is upon her mighty men,

And they will be dismayed.”

A sword is upon their horses,

And upon their chariots,

And on all the mingled people who are in the midst of her,

And they will become as women,

A sword is upon her treasures,

And they will be robbed.”

The sword will bereft Babylon and Babylonia (the Chaldeans) of all that it holds dear, in accordance with the prophetic word of YHWH, whether they be princes, wise men, mighty men, battle horses, chariots, foreign mercenaries or treasures. Their boasters will become fools, because their boasting will prove to be folly; their mighty men will lose heart and shrink before the enemy; their foreign mercenaries will become like weak women, pathetic and clinging to each other in the face of what is coming; their great treasures will be stolen. All in which they gloried will collapse. Let us not be in any doubt. This is the destiny of all those who oppose God.

Jeremiah 50:38

A drought is upon her waters,

And they will be dried up,

For it is a land of graven images,

And they are mad over idols.

Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wolves will dwell there,

And the ostriches shall dwell in it,

And it will be no more inhabited for ever,

Nor will it be dwelt in from generation to generation.

As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,

And their neighbouring cities,

The word of YHWH,

So will no man dwell there,

Nor will any son of man sojourn in it.”

Because Babylonia was a major centre of idolatry and all that that involved (compare Isaiah 47:9; Isaiah 47:12) it will become barren. Its waters will be dried up (irrigation will cease), its choice places will become the habitat of wild beasts, it will cease to be inhabited, in the same way as no one ever again dwelt in Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring cities whose fate it to some extent shares.

There is a play on words in that ‘drought' (horeb) is very similar to the word ‘sword' (hereb) emphasised in Jeremiah 50:35. Both sword and drought were familiar means of YHWH inflicting punishment. For drought as such an instrument see Deuteronomy 28:22; Amos 4:7. Some would indeed repoint the original consonants to mean ‘sword', but drought fits the illustration better. Once a nation became disorganised one of the first things to suffer were its systems of irrigation, systems which were so important in the Mesopotamian region in order to make use of the great rivers.

‘Mad over idols.' The word used here for ‘idols' signifies ‘objects of terror' and possibly even ‘gigantic objects of terror'. See its use in Psalms 88:16; Job 20:25; Genesis 14:5; Deuteronomy 2:10. The idea is probably that in the same way as they have allowed themselves to be terrified by their gigantic idols, so now they will be terrified by YHWH.

We are not sure what kind of creatures were involved in the words used in Jeremiah 50:39. Various translations give various renderings. But the point is the same. Wild creatures will have taken over from man. The comparison with Sodom and Gomorrah is common among the prophets (e.g. Jeremiah 23:14; Jeremiah 49:18; Isaiah 1:9; Isaiah 13:19; Amos 4:11; Zephaniah 2:9). They were a symbol of God's utter judgment. Compare for these verses Isaiah 13:19 (of Babylon); Jeremiah 34:11 (of Edom).