Jeremiah 51:54

_A SOUND OF A CRY COMETH FROM BABYLON, AND GREAT DESTRUCTION FROM THE LAND OF THE CHALDEANS:_ No JFB commentary on this verse....

Jeremiah in a manner exults over Babylon, in order that the faithful, having had all obstacles removed or surmounted, might feel assured that what the Prophet had predicted of the fall of Babylon would be confirmed, he then brings them to the very scene itself, when he says, that there would be the _voice of a cry from Babylon, _and that there would be _great breaking _or _distress from the land of the Chaldeams _ We, at the same time, may render שבר, _shober, _here “crashing,” so that it may correspond with the previous clause: he had said, _The voice of a cry from Babylon; _now he says,_a crashing from the land of the Chaldeans _They call that sound crashing, which is produced by some great shaking; as when a great mass falls, it does not happen without a great noise. This, then, is properly what the Prophet means. We have already stated why he used these words, even that the faithful...

1-58 The particulars of this prophecy are dispersed and interwoven, and the same things left and returned to again. Babylon is abundant in treasures, yet neither her waters nor her wealth shall secure her. Destruction comes when they did not think of it. Wherever we are, in the greatest depths, at the greatest distances, we are to remember the Lord our God; and in the times of the greatest fears and hopes, it is most needful to remember the Lord. The feeling excited by Babylon's fall is the same with the New Testament Babylon, Revelation 18:9; Revelation 18:19. The ruin of all who support idolatry, infidelity, and superstition, is needful for the revival of true godliness; and the threatening prophecies of Scripture yield comfort in this view. The great seat of antichristian tyranny, idolatry, and su...

A CRY - i. e., the war-cry....

EXPOSITION JEREMIAH 51:1 AGAINST THEM THAT DWELL IN THE MIDST OF THEM THAT RISE UP AGAINST ME. The Hebrew has _lēb-kāmai_, which is _Kasdim_, or _Chaldea, _written in the cypher called Athbash (see on Jeremiah 25:26); just as _Sheshach_ in Jeremiah 51:41 is equivalent to Babel. The question arises whether the prophet himself is responsible for this covert way of writing, or a scribe in later times (so Ewald). In favour of the former view it may be urged that Babylon and Chaldea receive symbolic names (though not in Athbash) in the connected chapter ...

A SOUND OF A CRY [COMETH] FROM BABYLON,.... Of the inhabitants of it upon its being taken; which is said to denote the certainty of it, which was as sure as if the cry of the distressed was then heard: AND GREAT DESTRUCTION FROM THE LAND OF THE CHALDEANS; that is, the report of a great destruction there, was, or would be, carried from thence, and spread all over the world....

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

Cp. Jeremiah 48:3; Jeremiah 50:22....

E. The Final Pronouncement Against Babylon Jeremiah 51:54-58 TRANSLATION (54) Hark! A cry from Babylon, and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans. (55) For the LORD is destroying Babylon, silencing her great noise. Her waves roar like many waters, the noise of their voice is given forth. (56) For a destroyer shall come against her, against Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows shattered, for a God of recompense is the LORD; He will surely recompense. (57) And I will cause her princes, wise. men, governors, leaders and mighty men to drink and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and never awake (oracle of the King, the LORD of hosts is His name). (58) Thus says the LORD of hosts: The wide wall of Babylon shall be utterly razed, and her high gates shall be put to the torch. Thus people labor for nothing and nations get weary only for fire....