Jeremiah 50:41

Behold, a people shall come from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. BEHOLD, A PEOPLE SHALL COME FORTH FROM THE NORTH ... THEY SHALL HOLD THE BOW ... THE KING OF BABYLON HATH HEARD THE REPORT ... - (Compare Jeremiah 6:22, where the same expressions are used of the invasion of Judea by the Babylonian king advancing from the north). The very language used to describe the calamities which Babylon inflicted on Zion, is that here employed to describe Babylon's own calamity inflicted by the Medes. Retribution in kind. MANY KINGS - the allies and satraps of the various provinces of the Medo-Persian empire-Armenia, Hyrcania, Lydia, etc. SHALL BE RAISED UP FROM THE COASTS OF THE EARTH - i:e., from the remote pa...

The Prophet again shows whence destruction was to come on the Babylonians. He does not indeed mention Cyrus, as Isaiah does (Isaiah 44:28), nor does he mention the Persians; but he evidently points out the Medes, when he says that a _people _would _come from the north _He adds, _a great nation and many _or powerful _kings; _and lastly, _from the sides of the earth. _It is indeed certain that the war was carried on under the banner and command of Cyrus and Darius. Cyrus was the chief, but Darius, on account of his age, was deemed the king. To whom then does Jeremiah refer, when he says _many kings, _if we so render the words? even to the satraps or princes, of whom a great number Darius brought with him; for Cyrus came from remote mountains, and from a barbarous nation; but the kingdom of Darius was very wide. There is then no doubt but that he brought with him many kings, who yet obeyed...

33-46 It is Israel's comfort in distress, that, though they are weak, their Redeemer is strong. This may be applied to believers, who complain of the dominion of sin and corruption, and of their own weakness and manifold infirmities. Their Redeemer is able to keep what they commit to him; and sin shall not have dominion over them. He will give them that rest which remains for the people of God. Also here is Babylon's sin, and their punishment. The sins are, idolatry and persecution. He that will not save his people in their sins, never will countenance the wickedness of his open enemies. The judgments of God for these sins will lay them waste. In the judgments denounced against prosperous Babylon, and the mercies promised to afflicted Israel, we learn to choose to suffer affliction with the people of God, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season....

Verse Jeremiah 50:41. _BEHOLD, A PEOPLE SHALL COME FROM THE NORTH_] This and the two following verses are nearly the same with Jeremiah 6:22. But _here_, destroyers against _Babylon_ are intended; _there_, destroyers against _Jerusalem_....

An application to Babylon of the doom against Jerusalem Jeremiah 6:22. Jeremiah 50:41 THE COASTS OF THE EARTH - See the Jeremiah 6:22 note....

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

BEHOLD, A PEOPLE SHALL COME FROM THE NORTH, AND A GREAT NATION,.... The Modes and Persians, whose country lay north of Babylon: Jeremiah 50:9; AND MANY KINGS SHALL BE RAISED UP FROM THE COASTS OF THE EARTH; the kings of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz, Jeremiah 51:27; and of the Armenians and other nations that Cyrus had subdued and brought with him in his army against Babylon, as Xenophon s relates. Ten kings shall be raised up against mystical Babylon, and hate her, and burn her with fire, Revelation 17:12. s Cyropaedia, l. 5. c. 15....

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

A GREAT NATION: i.e. Medo-Persia. COASTS. sides: i.e. remote parts....