Jeremiah 50:42

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...

Jeremiah again speaks especially of armor, to intimate that the Babylonians would not be able to sustain the assault of their enemies. He then says that they would be armed with the _bow _and the _shield_; (78) and adds, that they would be _cruel. _It is certain that the Persians were very bloody; for it was a barbarous nation; and where barbarity rules, there is no feeling of mercy. Cyrus indeed wished to appear a magnanimous prince, and not a savage; but it is sufficiently evident that he was very cruel, though Xenophon in his Life speaks of him otherwise; but he is not a true historian, for he tells many false things in favor of Cyrus. But when any one reads all that has been recorded, he will readily find out that Cyrus was a barbarian, who delighted in slaughter and carnage. As to the Medes, they were given to luxuries, and were not a warlike nation. Darius, however, brought with hi...

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....

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

THEY SHALL HOLD THE BOW AND THE LANCE,.... Or "spear". The Targum interprets it, "shields"; as many in Cyrus's army had t; the one an offensive, the other a defensive weapon; or, if bow and lance, the one is used at a distance, the other when near. The Medes and Persians were well skilled in handling the bow, as once and again observed: this very properly describes the armour of the Persians; which were, as Herodotus u says, large bows and short spears; and Xenophon w observes, that, besides bows and arrows, they had two javelins or lances, one of which they cast, and the other they held and used in their hands, as they found necessary; and so Cyrus x, in a speech of his, says that they had breast plates to cover their bodies, and lances or javelins which they could use by throwing or holding, as they pleased: THEY [ARE] CRUEL, AND WILL NOT SHOW MERCY: not even to infants, but dash them...

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 repetition, with the necessary changes, of Jeremiah 6:22-24, where Jerusalem is the object of the threat. See notes there....

B. Ruthless Destruction Jeremiah 50:41 to Jeremiah 51:5 TRANSLATION (41) Behold, a people shall come from the north, a great nation and many kings shall be stirred up from the distant parts of the earth. (42) They grasp bow and spear; they are cruel and show no mercy; the noise they make sounds like the roaring sea. They ride on horses arrayed as a man for battle against you, O daughter of Babylon. (43) The king of Babylon has heard the news and his hands grow feeble, distress takes hold of him, pangs as a woman in childbirth. (44) Behold, like a lion going up from the pride of Jordan unto the perennial pasture, so will I suddenly make them run from it. The one who is chosen I will appoint over it. For who is like Me? And who will challenge Me? And who is the shepherd who can stand before M