Jeremiah 50:23

How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! THE HAMMER OF THE WHOLE EARTH - i:e., Babylon, so called because of its ponderous destructive power; just as 'Martel,' i:e., a little hammer, was the surname of a king of the Franks ()....

Here, in the first place, Jeremiah asks in astonishment how it happened that _the hammer of the whole earth was broken, _when it had before broken all nations. God afterwards gives an answer, even because “I am he who have taken Babylon.” The question availed to rouse the people to a greater attention. We neglect God’s judgments or are blind to them, even because we do not carefully consider them; for little things often excite us, when that which God works in an unusual manner is deemed by us as nothing. As then our apathy as to the works of God is so great, it is necessary to stimulate us. And this is what is done now by Jeremiah, when he says in astonishment, _How? _for he intimates that to cut down Babylon would be incredible, for no one could have thought that that monarchy could have ever fallen; for it had arrived to the highest _eminence, _and was surrounded on all sides by so ma...

21-32 The forces are mustered and empowered to destroy Babylon. Let them do what God demands, and they shall bring to pass what he threatens. The pride of men's hearts sets God against them, and ripens them apace for ruin. Babylon's pride must be her ruin; she has been proud against the Holy One of Israel; who can keep those up whom God will throw down?...

Verse Jeremiah 50:23. _THE HAMMER OF THE WHOLE EARTH_] Nebuchadnezzar dashed to pieces the nations against whom he warred. He was the scourge of the Lord....

THE HAMMER - Babylon, by whose instrumentality Yahweh had crushed the nations, is now cut asunder, i. e., the head of iron or bronze is cut away from the wooden handle, and broken....

Jeremiah 50:1. AND 51. ON BABYLON. EXPOSITION We have now reached a point at which some reference is necessary to the centre versies of the so called "higher criticism." An attempt must be made to put the reader in possession of the data which are so variously estimated by critics of different schools. Theological considerations need not, and therefore ought not, to be admitted; like every other critical question, that which we are now approaching can be argued out on purely literary grounds. At first sight, indeed, it would appear not to require a long debate, seeing that in Jeremiah 1:1 and Jeremiah 51:60 the prophecy is expressly attributed t

HOW IS THE HAMMER OF THE WHOLE EARTH CUT ASUNDER AND BROKEN!.... The Targum is, "how is the king cut down and broken that moved the whole earth!'' The king of Babylon, or the kingdom of Babylon, which was like a hammer for its hardness and strength; and being an instrument, in the hand of God, of beating to pieces and destroying the kingdoms and nations around it; but is now destroyed itself. These are the words either of the prophet, or rather of the people of other nations, wondering how this destruction came about, and rejoicing at it; HOW IS BABYLON BECOME A DESOLATION AMONG THE NATIONS! this explains who and what is meant by the hammer of the earth, and by its being cut asunder and broken; even the utter destruction of the city and kingdom of Babylon....

CHAPTER S 50-51 BABYLON These two final Chapter s contain a great prophecy concerning Babylon, her overthrow and doom. The fifty-first chapter closes with the statement “thus far are the words of Jeremiah.” There is a direct statement that Jeremiah wrote all these words. We find it at the close of Jeremiah 51:59. “Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon.” It would be a brazen infidelity which says Jeremiah did not write all these words. Yet the almost universally accepted view of the critics is that these Chapter s cannot be the work of Jeremiah. The German infidel, Professor Eichhorn, the man who coined the phrase “higher criticism,” started this denial; Kuenen, Budde and others have followed in his steps. Others have modified this radical view and concede the possibility that Jeremiah may have b

JEREMIAH 50:1 TO JEREMIAH 51:58. BABYLON. This long and monotonous prophecy, which is without order or logical development of ideas, is largely a compilation from the prophetic writings of Jeremiah and others (_cf., e.g.,_ Jeremiah 50:41 ff., Jeremiah 51:15). It presupposes the destruction of Jerusalem, apparently as a remote rather than a recent event. Its idea of Babylon is that of a cruel tyrant to be punished by Yahweh, not that of a Divinely commissioned agent of Yahweh's wrath against Israel, as Jeremiah teaches. We are not at liberty to make it contemporaneous with such exilic writings as Isaiah 13, 40-55, because

_the hammer_ For the figure cp. Jeremiah 23:29, and for its application to Babylon Jeremiah 51:20-23. Cp. for the title, as given in later days, Charles _Martel_(hammer), who was grandfather of Charles the Great, and conquered the Saracens in a decisive battle at Tours in 732 a.d., and Edward I of England, on whose tomb at Westminster Abbey are inscribed the words "Scotorum _Malleus_....