Verse 24
I have laid a snare for thee - It was not by storm that Cyrus took the city. The Euphrates ran through it; he dug a channel for the river in another direction, to divert its stream; he waited for that time in which the inhabitants had delivered themselves up to debauchery: in the dead of the night he turned off the stream, and he and his army entered by the old channel, now void of its waters. This was the snare of which the prophet here speaks. See Nerodotus, lib. i., c. 191.
Verse 26
Open her store-houses - At the time that Cyrus took the city, it was full of provisions and treasures of all kinds; the walls had suffered no injury; and when the inhabitants heard that the enemy was within, they thought they must have arisen out of the earth in the center of the city!
Verse 27
Slay all her bullocks - Princes, magistrates, etc., etc.
Verse 28
Declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord - Zion was desolated by Babylon; tell Zion that God hath desolated the desolator.
The vengeance of his temple - Which Nebuchadnezzar had pillaged, profaned, and demolished, transporting its sacred vessels to Babylon, and putting them in the temple of his god Bel.
Verse 29
Call together the archers - The preceding verses are the prediction: here, God calls the Medes and Persians to fulfill it.
Verse 31
O thou most proud - זדון zadon. Pride in the abstract; proudest of all people.
Verse 32
And the most proud - זדון zadon, as before. Here pride is personified and addressed, as if possessing a being and rational powers.
Verse 34
Their Redeemer is strong - And it was not that he wanted power, and that Nebuchadnezzar had much, that Jerusalem was taken; but because the people had sinned, and would not return; and therefore national sins called for national punishments. These have taken place; and now the Lord of hosts shows them that the power of the Chaldeans is mere weakness against his might.
Verse 35
A sword - War and its calamities, or any grievous plague; and so in the following verses.
Verse 38
A drought is upon her waters - May not this refer to the draining of the channel of the Euphrates, by which the army of Cyrus entered the city. See on [Jer 50:24] (note). The original is, however, חרב chereb, a sword, as in the preceding verses, which signifies war, or any calamity by which the thing on which it falls is ruined.
Verse 39
The wild beasts of the desert - Dahler translates these various terms, "The wild cats, the jackals, and the ostriches." And Blayney the same. Wicklif, "Dragons, woodewoses, and ostriches." Coverdale, "Wild beestes, apes, and estriches."
Verse 40
As God overthrew Sodom - As the very ground on which these cities stood, with all the plain, now lies under the Dead Sea; so Babylon and the adjacent country shall be rendered totally barren and unfruitful, and utterly incapable of being inhabited. And this is the fact concerning both countries. See [Jer 49:18].
Verse 41
Behold, a people shall come from the north - This and the two following verses are nearly the same with [Jer 6:22-24]. But here, destroyers against Babylon are intended; there, destroyers against Jerusalem.
Verse 44
Behold, he shall came up like a lion - The same words as in [Jer 49:19] (note), etc., where see the note.
Verse 46
At the noise of the taking of Babylon - See the note on the parallel place, [Jer 49:21] (note). In the forty-ninth chapter, these words are spoken of Nebuchadnezzar; here, of Cyrus. The taking of Babylon was a wonder to all the surrounding nations. It was thought to be impregnable.
Introduction
Sequel of the prophecies of Jeremiah against Babylon. The dreadful, sudden, and final ruin that shall fall upon the Chaldeans, who have compelled the nations to receive their idolatrous rites, (see an instance in the third chapter of Daniel), set forth by a variety of beautiful figures; with a command to the people of God, (who have made continual intercession for the conversion of their heathen rulers), to flee from the impending vengeance, [Jer 51:1-14]. Jehovah, Israel's God, whose infinite power, wisdom and understanding are every where visible in the works of creation, elegantly contrasted with the utterly contemptible objects of the Chaldean worship, [Jer 51:15-19]. Because of their great oppression of God's people, the Babylonians shall be visited with cruel enemies from the north, whose innumerable hosts shall fill the land, and utterly extirpate the original inhabitants, vv. 20-44. One of the figures by which this formidable invasion is represented is awfully sublime. "The Sea is come up upon Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof." And the account of the sudden desolation produced by this great armament of a multitude of nations, (which the prophet, dropping the figure, immediately subjoins), is deeply afflictive. "Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness; a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby." The people of God a third time admonished to escape from Babylon, lest they be overtaken with her plagues, [Jer 51:45], [Jer 51:46]. Other figures setting forth in a variety of lights the awful judgments with which the Chaldeans shall be visited on account of their very gross idolatries, [Jer 51:47-58]. The significant emblem with which the chapter concludes, of Seraiah, after having read the book of the Prophet Jeremiah against Babylon, binding a stone to it, and casting it into the river Euphrates, thereby prefiguring the very sudden downfall of the Chaldean city and empire, [Jer 51:59-64], is beautifully improved by the writer of the Apocalypse, [Rev 18:21], in speaking of Babylon the Great, of which the other was a most expressive type; and to which many of the passages interspersed throughout the Old Testament Scriptures relative to Babylon must be ultimately referred, if we would give an interpretation in every respect equal to the terrible import of the language in which these prophecies are conceived.
Verse 1
Thus saith the Lord - This chapter is a continuation of the preceding prophecy.
A destroying wind - Such as the pestilential winds in the east; and here the emblem of a destroying army, carrying all before them, and wasting with fire and sword.
Verse 2
And will send - fanners - When the corn is trodden out with the feet of cattle, or crushed out with a heavy wheel armed with iron, with a shovel they throw it up against the wind, that the chaff and broken straw may be separated from it. This is the image used by the prophet; these people shall be trodden, crushed, and fanned by their enemies.
Verse 5
For Israel hath not been forsaken - God still continued his prophets among them; he had never cast them wholly off. Even in the midst of wrath - highly deserved and inflicted punishment, he has remembered mercy; and is now about to crown what he has done by restoring them to their own land. I conceive אשם asham, which we translate sin, as rather signifying punishment, which meaning it often has.
Verse 7
Made all the earth drunken - The cup of God's wrath is the plenitude of punishment, that he inflicts on transgressors. It is represented as intoxicating and making them mad.
Verse 8
Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed - These appear to be the words of some of the spectators of Babylon's misery.
Verse 9
We would have healed Babylon - Had it been in our power, we would have saved her; but we could not turn away the judgment of God.