{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"JER","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Jeremiah","commonName":"Jeremiah","introduction":"The Prophecies of Jeremiah\n\nIntroduction\n\n1. The Times of Jeremiah\n\nIt was in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, b.c. 629, that Jeremiah was called to be a prophet. At that time the kingdom of Judah enjoyed unbroken peace. Since the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib's host before the gates of Jerusalem in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign, b.c. 714, Judah had no longer had much to fear from the imperial power of Assyria. The reverse then sustained before Jerusalem, just eight years after the overthrow of the kingdom of Israel, had terribly crushed the might of the great empire. It was but a few years after that disaster till the Medes under Deoces asserted their independence against Assyria; and the Babylonians too, though soon reduced to subjection again, rose in insurrection against Sennacherib. Sennacherib's energetic son and successor Esarhaddon did indeed succeed in re-establishing for a time the tottering throne. While holding Babylon, Elam, Susa, and Persia to their allegiance, he restored the ascendency of the empire in the western provinces, and brought lower Syria, the districts of Syria that lay on the sea coast, under the Assyrian yoke. But the rulers who succeeded him, Samuges and the second Sardanapalus, were wholly unable to offer any effective resistance to the growing power of the Medes, or to check the steady decline of the once so mighty empire. Cf. M. Duncker, Gesch. des Alterth. i. S. 707ff. of 3 Aufl. Under Esarhaddon an Assyrian marauding army again made an inroad into Judah, and carried King Manasseh captive to Babylon; but, under what circumstances we know not, he soon regained his freedom, and was permitted to return to Jerusalem and remount his throne (Ch2 33:11-13). From this time forward the Assyrians appeared no more in Judah. Nor did it seem as if Judah had any danger to apprehend from Egypt, the great southern empire; for the power of Egypt had been greatly weakened by intestine dissensions and civil wars. It is true that Psammetichus, after the overthrow of the dodecarchy, began to raise Egypt's head amongst the nations once more, and to extend his sway beyond the boundaries of the country; but we learn much as to his success in this direction from the statement of Herodotus (ii. 157), that the capture of the Philistine city of Ashdod was not accomplished until after a twenty-nine years' siege. Even if, with Duncker, we refer the length of time here mentioned to the total duration of the war against the Philistines, we are yet enabled clearly to see that Egypt had not then so far recovered her former might as to be able to menace the kingdom of Judah with destruction, had Judah but faithfully adhered to the Lord its God, and in Him sought its strength. This, unhappily, Judah utterly filed to do, notwithstanding all the zeal wherewith the godly King Josiah laboured to secure for his kingdom that foremost element of its strength.\n\nIn the eighth year of his reign, \"while he was yet young,\" i.e., when but a lad of sixteen years of age, he began to seek the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year of his reign he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places and Astartes, and the carved and molten images (Ch2 34:3). He carried on the work of reforming the public worship without intermission, until every public trace of idolatry was removed, and the lawful worship of Jahveh was re-established. In the eighteenth year of his reign, upon occasion of some repairs in the temple, the book of the law of Moses was discovered there, was brought and read before him. Deeply agitated by the curses with which the transgressors of the law were threatened, he then, together with the elders of Judah and the people itself, solemnly renewed the covenant with the Lord. To set a seal upon the renewal of the covenant, he instituted a passover, to which not only all Judah was invited, but also all remnants of the ten tribes that had been left behind in the land of Israel (2 Kings 22:3-23:24; 2 Chron 34:4-35:19). To Josiah there is given in Kg2 23:25 the testimony that like unto him there was no king before him, that turned to Jahveh with all his heart, all his soul, and all his might, according to all the law of Moses; yet this most godly of all the kings of Judah was unable to heal the mischief which his predecessors Manasseh and Amon had by their wicked government created, or to crush the germs of spiritual and moral corruption which could not fail to bring about the ruin of the kingdom. And so the account of Josiah's reign and of his efforts towards the revival of the worship of Jahveh, given in Kg2 23:26, is concluded: \"Yet Jahveh ceased not from His great wrath wherewith He was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations wherewith Manasseh provoked Him; and Jahveh said: Judah also will I put away from my face as I have put away Israel, and will cast off this city which I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall dwell there.\"\n\nThe kingdom of Israel had come to utter ruin in consequence of its apostasy from the Lord its God, and on account of the calf-worship which had been established by Jeroboam, the founder of the kingdom, and to which, from political motives, all his successors adhered. The history of Judah too is summed up in a perpetual alternation of apostasy from the Lord and return to Him. As early as the time of heathen-hearted Ahaz idolatry had raised itself to all but unbounded ascendency; and through the untheocratic policy of this wicked king, Judah had sunk into a dependency of Assyria. It would have shared the fate of the sister kingdom even then, had not the accession of Hezekiah, Ahaz's godly son, brought about a return to the faithful covenant God. The reformation then inaugurated not only turned aside the impending ruin, but converted this very ruin into a glorious deliverance such as Israel had not seen since its exodus from Egypt. The marvellous overthrow of the vast Assyrian host at the very gates of Jerusalem, wrought by the angel of the Lord in one night by means of a sore pestilence, abundantly testified that Judah, despite its littleness and inconsiderable earthly strength, might have been able to hold its own against all the onsets of the great empire, if it had only kept true to the covenant God and looked for its support from His almighty hand alone. But the repentant loyalty to the faithful and almighty God of the covenant hardly lasted until Hezekiah's death. The heathen party amongst the people gained again the upper hand under Hezekiah's son Manasseh, who ascended the throne in his twelfth year; and idolatry, which had been only outwardly suppressed, broke out anew and, during the fifty-five years' reign of this most godless of all the kings of Israel, reached a pitch Judah had never yet known. Manasseh not only restored the high places and altars of Baal which is father had destroyed, he built altars to the whole host of heaven in both courts of the temple, and went so far as to erect an image of Asherah in the house of the Lord; he devoted his son to Moloch, practised witchcraft and soothsaying more than ever the Amorites had done, and by his idols seduced Israel to sin. Further, by putting to death such prophets and godly persons as resisted his impious courses, he shed very much innocent blood, until he had filled Jerusalem therewith from end to end (2 Kings 21:1-16; Ch2 33:1-10). His humbling himself before God when in captivity in Babylon, and his removal of the images out of the temple upon his return to Jerusalem and to his throne (Ch2 33:11., Ch2 33:15.), passed by and left hardly a trace behind; and his godless son Amon did but continue his father's sins and multiply the guilt (Kg2 21:19-23; Ch2 33:21-23). Thus Judah's spiritual and moral strength was so broken that a thorough-going conversion of the people at large to the Lord and His law was no longer to be looked for. Hence the godly Josiah accomplished by his reformation nothing more than the suppression of the grosser forms of idol-worship and the restoration of the formal temple-services; he could neither put an end to the people's estrangement at heart from God, nor check with any effect that moral corruption which was the result of the heart's forsaking the living God. And so, even after Josiah's reform of public worship, we find Jeremiah complaining: \"As many as are thy cities, so many are thy gods, Judah; and as many as are the streets in Jerusalem, so many altars have ye made to shame, to burn incense to Baal\" (Jer 2:28; Jer 11:13). And godlessness showed itself in all classes of the people. \"Go about in the streets of Jerusalem,\" Jeremiah exclaims, \"and look and search if there is one that doeth right and asks after honesty, and I will pardon her (saith the Lord). I thought, it is but the meaner sort that are foolish, for they know not the way of Jahveh, the judgment of their God. I will then get me to the great, and will speak with them, for they know the way of Jahveh, the right of their God. But they have all broken the yoke, burst the bonds\" (Jer 5:1-5). \"Small and great are greedy for gain; prophet and priest use deceit\" (Jer 6:13). This being the spiritual condition of the people, we cannot wonder that immediately after the death of Josiah, unblushing apostasy appeared again as well in public idolatry as in injustice and sin of every kind. Jehoiakim did that which was evil in the eyes of Jahveh even as his fathers had done (Kg2 23:37; Ch2 36:6). His eyes and his heart were set upon nothing but on gain and on innocent blood, to shed it, and on oppression and on violence, to do it, Jer 22:17. And his successors on the throne, both his son Jehoiachin and his brother Zedekiah, walked in his footsteps (Kg2 24:5, Kg2 24:19; Ch2 36:9, Ch2 36:12), although Zedekiah did not equal his brother Jehoiakim in energy for carrying out evil, but let himself be ruled by those who were about him. For Judah's persistence in rebellion against God and His law, the Lord ceased not from His great wrath; but carried out the threatening proclamation to king and people by the prophetess Hulda, when Josiah sent to consult her for himself, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of the newly found book of the law: \"Behold, I bring evil in this place, and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read: because that they have forsaken me, and burnt incense to other gods, to provoke me with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath is kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched\" (Kg2 22:16.).\n\nThis evil began to fall on the kingdom in Jehoiakim's days. Josiah was not to see the coming of it. Because, when he heard the curses of the law, he humbled himself before the Lord, rent his raiment and wept before Him, the Lord vouchsafed to him the promise that He would gather him to his fathers in peace, that his eyes should not look on the evil God would bring on Jerusalem (Kg2 22:19.); and this pledge God fulfilled to him, although they that were to execute God's righteous justice were already equipped, and though towards the end of his reign the storm clouds of judgment were gathering ominously over Judah.\n\nWhile Josiah was labouring in the reformation of public worship, there had taken place in Central Asia the events which brought about the fall of the Assyrian empire. the younger son of Esarhaddon, the second Sardanapalus, had been succeeded in the year 626 by his son Saracus. Since the victorious progress of the Medes under Cyaxares, his dominion had been limited to the cradle of the empire, Assyria, to Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Cilicia. To all appearance in the design of preserving Babylonia to the empire, Saracus appointed Nabopolassar, a Babylonian by birth and sprung from the Chaldean stock, to be governor of that province. This man found opportunity to aggrandize himself during a war between the Medes and the Lydians. An eclipse of the sun took place on the 30th September 610, while a battle was going on. Both armies in terror gave up the contest; and, seconded by Syennesis, who governed Cilicia under the Assyrian supremacy, Nabopolassar made use of the favourable temper which the omen had excited in both camps to negotiate a peace between the contending peoples, and to institute a coalition of Babylonia and Media against Assyria. To confirm this alliance, Amytis, the daughter of Cyaxares, was given in marriage to Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar; and the war against Assyria was opened without delay by the advance against Nineveh in the spring of 609 of the allied armies of Medes and Babylonians. But two years had been spent in the siege of that most impregnable city, and two battles had been lost, before they succeeded by a night attack in utterly routing the Assyrians, pursuing the fugitives to beneath the city walls. The fortification would long have defied their assaults, had not a prodigious spring flood of the Tigris, in the third year of the war, washed down a part of the walls lying next the river, and so made it possible for the besiegers to enter the city, to take it, and reduce it to ashes. The fall of Nineveh in the year 607 overthrew the Assyrian empire; and when the conquerors proceeded to distribute their rich booty, all the land lying on the western bank of the Tigris fell to the share of Nabopolassar of Babylon. But the occupation by the Babylonians of the provinces which lay west of the Euphrates was contested by the Egyptians. Before the campaign of the allied Medes and Babylonians against Nineveh, Pharaoh Necho, the warlike son of Psammetichus, had advanced with his army into Palestine, having landed apparently in the bay of Acco, on his way to war by the Euphrates with Assyria, Egypt's hereditary enemy. To oppose his progress King Josiah marched against the Egyptian; fearing as he did with good reason, that if Syria fell into Necho's power, the end had come to the independence of Judah as a kingdom. A battle was fought in the plain near Megiddo; the Jewish army was defeated, and Josiah mortally wounded, so that he died on the way to Jerusalem (Kg2 23:29.; Ch2 35:20.). In his stead the people of the land raised his second son Jehoahaz to the throne; but Pharaoh came to Jerusalem, took Jehoahaz prisoner, and had him carried to Egypt, where he closed his life in captivity, imposed a fine on the country, and set up Eliakim, Josiah's eldest son, to be king as his vassal under the name of Jehoiakim (Kg2 23:30-35; Ch2 36:1-4). Thereafter Necho pursued his march through Syria, and subject to himself the western provinces of the Assyrian empire; and he had penetrated to the fortified town of Carchemish (Kirkesion) on the Euphrates when Nineveh succumbed to the united Medes and Babylonians. - Immediately upon the dissolution of the Assyrian empire, Nabopolassar, now an old man no longer able to sustain the fatigues of a new campaign, entrusted the command of the army to his vigorous son Nebuchadnezzar, to the end that he might wage war against Pharaoh Necho and wrest from the Egyptians the provinces they had possessed themselves of (cf. Berosi fragm. in Joseph. Antt. x. 11. 1, and c. Ap. i. 19). In the year 607, the third year of Jehoiakim's reign, Nebuchadnezzar put the army entrusted to him in motion, and in the next year, the fourth of Jehoiakim's reign, b.c. 606, he crushed Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish on the Euphrates. Pursuing the fleeing enemy, he pressed irresistibly forwards into Syria and Palestine, took Jerusalem in the same year, made Jehoiakim his dependant, and carried off to Babel a number of the Jewish youths of highest rank, young Daniel amongst them, together with part of the temple furniture (Kg2 24:1; Ch2 36:6.; Dan 1:1.). He had done as far on his march as the boundaries of Egypt when he heard of the death of his father Nabopolassar at Babylon. In consequence of this intelligence he hastened to Babylon the shortest way through the desert, with but few attendants, with the view of mounting the throne and seizing the reins of government, while he caused the army to follow slowly with the prisoners and the booty (Beros. l.c.).\n\nThis, the first taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, is the commencement of the seventy years of Judah's Chaldean bondage, foretold by Jeremiah in Jer 25:11, shortly before the Chaldeans invaded Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim; and with the subjection of Judah to Nebuchadnezzar's supremacy the dissolution of the kingdom began. For three years Jehoiakim remained subject to the king of Babylon; in the fourth year he rebelled against him. Nebuchadnezzar, who with the main body of his army was engaged in the interior of Asia, lost no time in sending into the rebellious country such forces of Chaldeans as were about the frontiers, together with contingents of Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites; and these troops devastated Judah through out the remainder of Jehoiakim's reign (Kg2 24:1-2). But immediately upon the death of Jehoiakim, just as his son had mounted the throne, Nebuchadnezzar's generals advanced against Jerusalem with a vast army and invested the city in retribution for Jehoiakim's defection. During the siege Nebuchadnezzar joined the army. Jehoiachin, seeing the impossibility of holding out any longer against the besiegers, resolved to go out to the king of Babylon, taking with him the queen-mother, the princes of the kingdom, and the officers of the court, and to make unconditional surrender of himself and the city. Nebuchadnezzar made the king and his train prisoners; and, after plundering the treasures of the royal palace and the temple, carried captive to Babylon the king, the leading men of the country, the soldiers, the smiths and artisans, and, in short, every man in Jerusalem who was capable of bearing arms. He left in the land only the poorest sort of the people, from whom no insurrectionary attempts were to be feared; and having taken an oath of fealty from Mattaniah, the uncle of the captive king, he installed him, under the name of Zedekiah, as vassal king over a land that had been robbed of all that was powerful or noble amongst its inhabitants (Kg2 24:8-17; Ch2 36:10). Nor did Zedekiah either keep true to the oath of allegiance he had sworn and pledged to the king of Babylon. In the fourth year of his reign, ambassadors appeared from the neighbouring states of Edom, Ammon, Moab, Tyre, and Sidon, seeking to organize a vast coalition against the Chaldean supremacy (Jer 27:3; Jer 28:1). Their mission was indeed unsuccessful; for Jeremiah crushed the people's hope of a speedy return of the exiles in Babylon by repeated and emphatic declaration that the Babylonian bondage must last seventy years (Jer 27-29). In the same year Zedekiah visited Babylon, apparently in order to assure his liege lord of his loyalty and to deceive him as to his projects (Jer 51:59). But in Zedekiah's ninth year Hophra (Apries), the grandson of Necho, succeeded to the crown of Egypt; and when he was arming for war against Babylon, Zedekiah, trusting in the help of Egypt (Eze 17:15), broke the oath of fealty he had sworn (Eze 17:16), and tried to shake off the Babylonian yoke. But straightway a mighty Chaldean army marched against Jerusalem, and in the tenth month of that same year established a blockade round Jerusalem (Kg2 25:1). The Egyptian army advanced to relieve the beleaguered city, and for a time compelled the Chaldeans to raise the siege; but it was in the end defeated by the Chaldeans in a pitched battle (Jer 37:5.), and the siege was again resumed with all rigour. For long the Jews made stout resistance, and fought with the courage of despair, Zedekiah and his advisers being compelled to admit that this time Nebuchadnezzar would show no mercy. The Hebrew slaves were set free that they might do military service; the stone buildings were one after another torn down that their materials might serve to strengthen the walls; and in this way for about a year and a half all the enemy's efforts to master the strong city were in vain. Famine had reached its extremity when, in the fourth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the Chaldean battering rams made a breach in the northern wall, and through this the besiegers made their way into the lower city. The defenders withdrew to the temple hill and the city of Zion; and, when the Chaldeans began to storm these strongholds during the night, Zedekiah, under cover of darkness, fled with the rest of his soldiers by the door between the two walls by the king's garden. He was, however, overtaken in the steppes of Jericho by the pursuing Chaldeans, made prisoner, and carried to Riblah in Coele-Syria. Here Nebuchadnezzar had his headquarters during the siege of Jerusalem, and here he pronounced judgment on Zedekiah. His sons and the leading men of Judah were put to death before his eyes; he was then deprived of eyesight and carried in chains to Babylon, where he remained a prisoner till his death (Kg2 25:3-7; Jer 39:2-7; Jer 52:6-11). A month later Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the king of Babylon's guard, came to Jerusalem to destroy the rebellious city. The principal priests and officers of the kingdom and sixty citizens were sent to the king at Riblah, and executed there. Everything of value to be found amongst the utensils of the temple was carried to Babylon, the city with the temple and palace was burnt to the ground, the walls were destroyed, and what able-bodied men were left amongst the people were carried into exile. Nothing was left in the land but a part of the poorer people to serve as vinedressers and husbandmen; and over this miserable remnant, increased a little in numbers by the return of some of those who had fled during the war into the neighbouring countries, Gedaliah the son of Ahikam was appointed governor in the Chaldean interest. Jeremiah chose to stay with him amidst his countrymen. But three months afterwards Gedaliah was murdered, at the instigation of Baalis the king of the Ammonites, by one Ishmael, who was sprung from the royal stock; and thereupon a great part of the remaining population, fearing the vengeance of the Chaldeans, fled, against the prophet's advice, into Egypt (Jer 40-43). And so the banishment of the people was now a total one, and throughout the whole period of the Chaldean domination the land was a wilderness.\n\nJudah was now, like the ten tribes, cast out amongst the heathen out of the land the Lord had given them for an inheritance, because they had forsaken Jahveh, their God, and had despised His statutes. Jerusalem, the city of the great King over all the earth, was in ruins, the house which the Lord had consecrated to His name was burnt with fire, and the people of His covenant had become a scorn and derision to all peoples. But God had not broken His covenant with Israel. Even in the law - Lev. 26 and Deut 30 - He had promised that even when Israel was an outcast from his land amongst the heathen, He would remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and not utterly reject the exiles; but when they had borne the punishment of their sins, would turn again their captivity, and gather them together out of the nations.\n\n2. The Person of the Prophet\n\nConcerning the life and labours of the prophet Jeremiah, we have fuller information than we have as to those of many of the other prophets. The man is very clearly reflected in his prophecies, and his life is closely interwoven with the history of Judah. We consider first the outward circumstances of the prophet's life, and then his character and mental gifts.\n\na. His Outward Circumstances - Jeremiah (ירמיהוּ, contracted ירמיהi, ̔Ιερεμίας, Jeremias) was the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests belonging to the priest-city Anathoth, situated about five miles north of Jerusalem, now a village called Anta. This Hilkiah is not the high priest of that name, mentioned in Kg2 22:4. and Ch2 34:9, as has been supposed by some of the Fathers, Rabbins, and recent commentators. This view is shown to be untenable by the indefinite הכהניםa מןi, Jer 1:1. Besides, it is hardly likely that the high priest could have lived with his household out of Jerusalem, as was the case in Jeremiah's family (Jer 32:8; Jer 37:12.); and we learn from Kg1 2:26 that it was priests of the house of Ithamar that lived in Anathoth, whereas the high priests belonged to the line of Eleazar and the house of Phinehas (Ch1 24:3). Jeremiah, called to be prophet at an early age (נער, Jer 1:6), laboured in Jerusalem from the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign (b.c. 629) until the fall of the kingdom; and after the destruction of Jerusalem he continued his work for some years longer amidst the ruins of Judah, and in Egypt amongst those of his countrymen who had fled thither (Jer 1:2., Jer 25:3; Jer 40:1). His prophetic ministry falls, consequently, into the period of the internal dissolution of the kingdom of Judah, and its destruction by the Chaldeans. He had himself received a mission from the Lord to peoples and kingdoms, as well to break down and destroy, as to build and plant (Jer 1:10). He was to fulfil this mission, in the first place, in the case of Judah, and then to the heathen peoples, in so far forth as they came in contact with the kingdom of God in Judah. The scene of his labours was Jerusalem. Here he proclaimed the word of the Lord in the courts of the temple (e.g., Jer 7:2; Jer 26:1); at the gates of the city (Jer 17:19); in the king's palace (Jer 32:1; Jer 37:17); in the prison (Jer 32:1); and in other places (Jer 18:1., Jer 19:1., Jer 27:2). Some commentators think that he first began as prophet in his native town of Anathoth, and that he wrought there for some time ere he visited Jerusalem; but this is in contradiction to the statement of Jer 2:2, that he uttered almost his very first discourse \"before the ears of Jerusalem.\" Nor does this assumption find any support from Jer 11:21; Jer 12:5. All that can be gathered from these passages is, that during his ministry he occasionally visited his native town, which lay so near Jerusalem, and preached the word of the Lord to his former fellow-citizens.\n\nWhen he began his work as prophet, King Josiah had already taken in hand the extirpation of idolatry and the restoration of the worship of Jahveh in the temple; and Jeremiah was set apart by the Lord to be a prophet that he might support the godly king in this work. His task was to bring back the hearts of the people to the God of their fathers by preaching God's word, and to convert that outward return to the service of Jahveh into a thorough turning of the heart to Him, so as to rescue from destruction all who were willing to convert and be saved. Encouraged by Manasseh's sins, backsliding from the Lord, godlessness, and unrighteousness had reached in Judah such a pitch, that it was no longer possible to turn aside the judgment of rejection from the face of the Lord, to save the backsliding race from being delivered into the power of the heathen. Yet the faithful covenant God, in divine long-suffering, granted to His faithless people still another gracious opportunity for repentance and return to Him; He gave them Josiah's reformation, and sent the prophets, because, though resolved to punish the sinful people for its stiff-necked apostasy, He would not make an utter end of it. This gives us a view point from which to consider Jeremiah's mission, and looking hence, we cannot fail to find sufficient light to enable us to understand the whole course of his labours, and the contents of his discourses.\n\nImmediately after his call, he was made to see, under the emblem of a seething caldron, the evil that was about to break from out of the north upon all the inhabitants of the land: the families of the kingdoms of the north are to come and set their thrones before the gates of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, and through them God is to utter judgment upon Judah for its idolatry (Jer 1:13-16). Accordingly, from the beginning of his work in the days of Josiah onwards, the prophet can never be driven from the maintenance of his position, that Judah and Jerusalem will be laid waste by a hostile nation besetting them from the north, that the people of Judah will fall by the enemy's sword, and go forth into captivity; cf. Jer 4:5, Jer 4:13, Jer 4:27; Jer 5:15, Jer 6:22, etc. This nation, not particularly specified in the prophecies of the earlier period, is none other than that of the Chaldeans, the king of Babylon and his hosts. It is not the nation of the Scythians, as many commentators suppose; see the comm. on Jer 4:5. Nevertheless he unremittingly calls upon all ranks of his people to repent, to do away with the abominable idols, and to cease from its wickedness; to plough up a new soil and not sow among thorns, lest the anger of the Lord break forth in fire and burn unquenchably (Jer 4:1-4; cf. Jer 6:8, Jer 6:16; Jer 7:3., etc.). He is never weary of holding up their sins to the view of the people and its leaders, the corrupt priests, the false prophets, the godless kings and princes; this, too, he does amidst much trial both from within and from without, and without seeing any fruit of his labours (cf. Jer 25:3-8). After twenty-three years of indefatigable expostulation with the people, the judgment of which he had so long warned them burst upon the incorrigible race. The fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign (b.c. 606) forms a turning point not only in the history of the kingdom, but also in Jeremiah's work as prophet. In the year in which Jerusalem was taken for the first time, and Judah made tributary to the Chaldeans, those devastations began with which Jeremiah had so often threatened his hardened hearers; and together with it came the fulfilment of what Jeremiah had shortly before foretold, the seventy years' dominion of Babylon over Judah, and over Egypt and the neighbouring peoples (Jer 25:19). For seventy years these nations are to serve the king of Babylon; but when these years are out, the king and land of the Chaldeans shall be visited, Judah shall be set free from its captivity, and shall return into its own land (Jer 25:11., Jer 37:6., Jer 29:10).\n\nThe progressive fulfilment of Jeremiah's warning prophecies vindicated his character as prophet of the Lord; yet, notwithstanding, it was now that the sorest days of trial in his calling were to come. At the first taking of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar had contented himself with reducing Jehoiakim under his sway and imposing a tribute on the land, and king and people but waited and plotted for a favourable opportunity to shake off the Babylonian yoke. In this course they were encouraged by the lying prophecies of the false prophets, and the work done by these men prepared for Jeremiah sore controversies and bitter trials. At the very beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, the priests, the prophets, and the people assembled in the temple, laid hands on Jeremiah, because he had declared that Zion should share the fate of Shiloh, and that Jerusalem should be destroyed. He was by them found worthy of death, and he escaped from the power of his enemies only by the mediation of the princes of Judah, who hastened to his rescue, and reminded the people that in Hezekiah's days the prophet Micah had uttered a like prophecy, and yet had suffered nothing at the hand of the king, because he feared God. At the same time, Uriah, who had foretold the same issue of affairs, and who had fled to Egypt to escape Jehoiakim's vengeance, was forced back thence by an envoy of the king and put to death (Jer 26). Now it was that Jeremiah, by command of God, caused his assistant Baruch to write all the discourses he had delivered into a roll-book, and to read it before the assembled people on the day of the fast, observed in the ninth month of the fifty year of Jehoiakim's reign. When the king had word of it, he caused the roll to be brought and read to him. But when two or three passages had been read, he cut the roll in pieces and cast the fragments into a brasier that was burning before him. He ordered Jeremiah and Baruch to be brought; but by the advice of the friendly princes they had concealed themselves, and God hid them so that they were not found (Jer 36). It does not appear that the prophet suffered any further persecution under Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin. Two years after the fast above mentioned, Jehoiakim rose against Nebuchadnezzar. The result was, that Jerusalem was besieged and taken for the second time in the reign of the next king; Jehoiakim, the leading men, and the flower of the nation were carried into exile to Babylon; and so Jeremiah's prophecy was yet more strikingly affirmed. Jerusalem was","order":24,"numberOfChapters":52,"sha256":"dfdb0290642c834335b02f01eb44cf9ce75daeac2a973d0c4ef3adbe45d778b9","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JER/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JER","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":52,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JER/52.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JER","chapter":52},"totalNumberOfVerses":311},"chapter":{"number":50,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["The title, \"The word which Jahveh spake concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet,\" follows Jer 46:13 in choosing אשׁר דּ instead of the usual אשׁר היה, and deviates from that passage only in substituting \"by the hand of Jeremiah\" for \"to Jeremiah,\" as in Jer 37:2. The preference of the expression \"spake by the hand of\" for \"spake to,\" is connected with the fact that the following prophecy does not contain a message of the Lord which came to Jeremiah, that he might utter it before the people, but a message which he was to write down and send to Babylon, Jer 51:60. The apposition to \"Babylon,\" viz., \"the land of the Chaldeans,\" serves the purpose of more exactly declaring that \"Babylon\" is to be understood not merely of the capital, but also of the kingdom; cf. Jer 50:8, Jer 50:45, and 51, 54. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["The fall of Babylon, and deliverance of Israel. - Jer 50:2. \"Tell it among the nations, and cause it to be heard, and lift up a standard; cause it to be heard, conceal it not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is ashamed, Merodach is confounded; her images are ashamed, her idols are confounded. Jer 50:3. For there hath come up against her a nation out of the north; it will make her land a desolation, and there shall be not an inhabitant in it: from man to beast, [all] have fled, are gone. Jer 50:4. In those days, and at that time, saith Jahveh, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; they shall go, weeping as they go, and shall seek Jahveh their God. Jer 50:5. They shall ask for Zion, with their faces [turned to] the road hitherwards, [saying], Come, and let us join ourselves to Jahveh by an eternal covenant [which] shall not be forgotten. Jer 50:6. My people have been a flock of lost ones; their shepherds have misled them [on] mountains which lead astray: from mountain to hill they went; they forgot their resting-place. Jer 50:7. All who found them have devoured them; and their enemies said, We are not guilty, for they have sinned against Jahveh, the dwelling-place of justice, and the hope of their fathers, Jahveh. Jer 50:8. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and from the land of the Chaldeans; let them go forth, and let them be like he-goats before a flock. Jer 50:9. For, behold, I will stir up, and bring up against Babylon, an assembly of great nations out of the land of the north: and they shall array themselves against her; on that side shall she be taken: his arrows [are] like [those of] a skilful hero [who] does not return empty. Jer 50:10. And [the land of the] Chaldeans shall become a spoil; all those who spoil her shall be satisfied, saith Jahveh.\"\nIn the spirit Jeremiah sees the fall of Babylon, together with its idols, as if it had actually taken place, and gives the command to proclaim among the nations this event, which brings deliverance for Israel and Judah. The joy over this is expressed in the accumulation of the words for the summons to tell the nations what has happened. On the expression, cf. Jer 4:5-6; Jer 46:14. The lifting up of a standard, i.e., of a signal-rod, served for the more rapid spreading of news; cf. Jer 4:6; Jer 6:1, Isa 13:2, etc. \"Cause it to be heard\" is intensified by the addition of \"do not conceal it.\" The thing is to be proclaimed without reserve; cf. Jer 38:14. \"Babylon is taken,\" i.e., conquered, and her idols have become ashamed, inasmuch as, from their inability to save their city, their powerlessness and nullity have come to light. Bel and Merodach are not different divinities, but merely different names for the chief deity of the Babylonians. Bel = Baal, the Jupiter of the Babylonians, was, as Bel-merodach, the tutelary god of Babylon. \"The whole of the Babylonian dynasty,\" says Oppert, Expd. en Msopot. ii. p. 272, \"places him [Merodach] at the head of the gods; and the inscription of Borsippa calls him the king of heaven and earth.\" עצבּים, \"images of idols,\" and גּלּוּלים, properly \"logs,\" an expression of contempt for idols (see on Lev 26:30), are synonymous ideas for designating the nature and character of the Babylonian gods.\nJer 50:3\nBabylon is fallen by a people from the north, that has gone out against her, and makes her land a desolation. This nation is described in Jer 50:9 as a collection, union of great nations, that are enumerated especially in Jer 51:27-28. On \"it [the nation] shall make her land,\" etc., cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 48:9; on the expression \"from man to beast,\" cf. Jer 33:12; Jer 9:9. נדוּ is from נוּד, Jer 50:8 and Jer 49:30 = נדדוּ, from נדד, Jer 9:9.\nJer 50:4-6\nThen, when Babylon shall have fallen, the children of Israel and Judah return out of their captivity, seeking Jahveh their God with tears of repentance, and marching to Zion, for the purpose of joining themselves to Him in an eternal covenant. The fall of Babylon has the deliverance of Israel as its direct result. The prophet views this in such a way, that all the steps in the fulfilment (the return from Babylon, the reunion of the tribes previously separated, their sincere return to the Lord, and the making of a new covenant that shall endure for ever), which will actually follow successively in long periods, are taken together into one view. By the statement made regarding the time, \"In those days, and at that time,\" the fall of Babylon and the deliverance of Israel (which Jeremiah sees in the spirit as already begun) are marked out as belonging to the future. Israel and Judah come together, divided no more; cf. Jer 3:18. \"Going and weeping they go,\" i.e., they always go further on, weeping: cf. Jer 41:6; Sa2 3:16; Ewald, 280, b. Cf. also Jer 3:21; Jer 31:9. Seeking the Lord their God, they ask for Zion, i.e., they ask after the way thither; for in Zion Jahveh has His throne. \"The way hither\" (i.e., to Jerusalem) \"is their face,\" sc. directed. \"Hither\" points to the place of the speaker, Jerusalem. באוּ are imperatives, and words with which those who are returning encourage one another to a close following of the Lord their God. נלווּ is imperative for ילּווּ, like נקבּצוּ in Isa 43:9, Joe 3:11; cf. Ewald, 226, c. It cannot be the imperfect, because the third person gives no sense; hence Graf would change the vowels, and read נלוה. But suspicion is raised against this by the very fact that, excepting Ecc 8:15, לוה, in the sense of joining oneself to, depending on, occurs only in the Niphal. בּרית עולם is a modal accusative: \"in an eternal covenant which shall not be forgotten,\" i.e., which we will not forget, will not break again. In fact, this is the new covenant which the Lord, according to Jer 31:31., will make in time to come with His people. But here this side of the matter is withdrawn from consideration; for the point treated of is merely what Israel, in his repentant frame and returning to God, vows he shall do.\nIsrael comes to this determination in consequence of the misery into which he has fallen because of his sins, Jer 50:5-7. Israel was like a flock of lost sheep which their shepherds had led astray. צאן , a flock of sheep that are going to ruin. The participle in the plural is joined with the collective noun ad sensum, to show what is imminent or is beginning to happen. The verb היה points to the subject צאן; hence the Qeri היוּ is unnecessary. The plural suffixes of the following clause refer to עמּי as a collective. The shepherds led the people of God astray on הרים שׁובבים (a local accusative; on the Kethib שׁובבים, cf. Jer 31:32; Jer 49:4; it is not to be read שׁובבים), mountains that render people faithless. These mountains were so designated because they were the seats of that idolatry which had great power of attraction for a sinful people, so that the seduction or alienation of the people from their God is ascribed to them. שׁובב is used in the sense which the verb has in Isa 47:10. The Qeri שׁובבוּם gives the less appropriate idea, \"the shepherds made the sheep stray.\" Hitzig's translation, \"they drove them along the mountain,\" does to suit the verb שׁובב. Moreover, the mountains in themselves do not form unsuitable pasture-ground for sheep, and הרים does not mean \"a bare, desolate mountain-range.\" The objection to our view of הרים, that there is no very evident proof that worship on high places is referred to (Graf), is pure fancy, and the reverse only is true. For the words which follow, \"they (the sheep) went from mountain to hill, and forgot their resting-place,\" have no meaning whatever, unless they are understood of the idolatrous dealings of Israel. The resting-place of the sheep (רבחם, the place where the flocks lie down to rest), according to Jer 50:7, is Jahveh, the hope of their fathers. Their having forgotten this resting-place is the result of their going from mountain to hill: these words undeniably point to the idolatry of the people on every high hill (Jer 2:20; Jer 3:2; Jer 17:2, etc.).\nJer 50:7\nThe consequence of this going astray on the part of Israel was, that every one who found them devoured them, and while doing so, cherished the thought that they were not incurring guilt, because Israel had been given up to their enemies on account of their apostasy from God; while the fact was, that every offence against Israel, as the holy people of the Lord, brought on guilt; cf. Jer 2:3. This befell Israel because they have sinned against Jahveh. נוה צדק, \"the habitation (or pasture-ground) of righteousness.\" So, in Jer 31:23, Zion is called the mountain on which Jahveh sits enthroned in His sanctuary. As in other places Jahveh Himself is called a fortress, Psa 18:3; a sun, shield, Psa 84:12; a shade, Psa 121:5; so here He is called the One in whom is contained that righteousness which is the source of Israel's salvation. As such, He was the hope of the fathers, the God upon whom the fathers put their trust; cf. Jer 14:8; Jer 17:13; Psa 22:5. The repetition of יהוה at the end is intended to give an emphatic conclusion to the sentence.\nJer 50:8-10\nTo escape from this misery, Israel is to flee from Babylon; for the judgment of conquest and plunder by enemies is breaking over Babylon. The summons to flee out of Babylon is a reminiscence of Isa 38:20. The Kethib יצאוּ may be vindicated, because the direct address pretty often makes a sudden transition into the language of the third person. They are to depart from the land of the Chaldeans. No more will then be necessary than to change והיוּ into והיוּ. The simile, \"like he-goats before the flock,\" does not mean that Israel is to press forward that he may save himself before any one else (Graf), but that Israel is to go before all, as an example and leader in the flight (Ngelsbach).\nJer 50:9-10\nFor the Lord arouses and leads against Babylon a crowd of nations, i.e., an army consisting of a multitude of nations. As meeעיר reminds us of Isa 13:17, so קהל גּוים גּ remind us of ממלכות גּוים נאספים in Isa 13:4. ערך ל, to make preparations against. משּׁם is not used of time (Rosenmller, Ngelsbach, etc.), for this application of the word has not been established from the actual occurrence of instances, but it has a local meaning, and refers to the \"crowd of nations:\" from that place where the nations that come out of the north have assembled before Babylon. In the last clause, the multitude of great nations is taken together, as if they formed one enemy: \"his arrows are like the arrows of a wisely dealing (i.e., skilful) warrior.\"\n(Note: Instead of משׂכּיל, J. H. Michaelis, in his Biblia Halens., has accepted the reading משּׁכּיל on the authority of three Erfurt codices and three old editions (a Veneta of 1618; Buxtorf's Rabbinic Bible, printed at Basle, 1720; and the London Polyglott). J. D. Michaelis, Rosenmller, Maurer, and Umbreit have decided for this reading, and point to the rendering of the Vulgate, interfectoris, and of the Targum, מתכּיל, orbans. On the other hand, the lxx and Syriac have read and rendered משׂכּיל; and this reading is not merely presented by nonnulli libri, as Maurer states, but by twelve codices of de Rossi, and all the more ancient editions of the Bible, of which de Rossi in his variae lectiones mentions forty-one. The critical witnesses are thus overwhelming for משׂכּיל; and against משּׁכּיל there lies the further consideration, that שׁכל has the meaning orbare, to render childless, only in the Piel, but in the Hiphil means abortare, to cause or have miscarriages, as is shown by רחם משּׁכּיל, Hos 9:14.)\nThe words לא ישׁוּב do not permit of being referred, on the strength of Sa2 1:22, to one particular arrow which does not come back empty; for the verb שׁוּב, though perhaps suitable enough for the sword, which is drawn back when it has executed the blow, is inappropriate for the arrow, which does not return. The subject to ישׁוּב is גּבּור si , the hero, who does not turn or return without having accomplished his object; cf. Isa 55:11. In Jer 50:10, כּשׂדּים is the name of the country, \"Chaldeans;\" hence it is construed as a feminine. The plunderers of Chaldea will be able to satisfy themselves with the rich booty of that country. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["The devastation of Babylon and glory of Israel. - Jer 50:11. \"Thou ye rejoice, though ye exult, O ye plunderers of mine inheritance, though ye leap proudly like a heifer threshing, and neigh like strong horses, Jer 50:12. Your mother will be very much ashamed; she who bare you will blush: behold, the last of the nations [will be] a wilderness, a desert, and a steppe. Jer 50:13. Because of the indignation of Jahveh it shall not be inhabited, and it shall become a complete desolation. Every one passing by Babylon will be astonished, and hiss because of all her plagues. Jer 50:14. Make preparations against Babylon round about, all ye that bend the bow; shoot at her, do not spare an arrow, for she hath sinned against Jahveh. Jer 50:15. Shout against her round about; she hath given herself up: her battlements are fallen, her walls are pulled down; for it is Jahveh's vengeance: revenge yourselves on her; as she hath done, do ye to her. Jer 50:16. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him that handles the sickle in the time of harvest. From before the oppressing sword each one will turn to his own nation, and each one will flee to his own land. Jer 50:17. Israel is a scattered sheep [which] lions have driven away: the first [who] devoured him [was] the king of Babylon; and this, the last, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, hath broken his bones. Jer 50:18. Therefore thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon ad his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria. Jer 50:19. And I will bring back Israel to his pasture-ground, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and on the mountains of Ephraim his soul shall be satisfied. Jer 50:20. In those days, and at that time, saith Jahveh, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, but it shall not be; and the sins of Judah, but they shall not be found: for I will pardon those whom I will leave remaining.\"\nJer 50:11-13\nJer 50:11 does not permit of being so closely connected with what precedes as to separate it from Jer 50:12 (De Wette, Ngelsbach). Not only is the translation, \"for thou didst rejoice,\" etc., difficult to connect with the imperfects of all the verbs in the verse, but the direct address also does not suit Jer 50:10, and rather demands connection with Jer 50:12, where it is continued. כּי, of course, introduces the reason, yet not in such a way that Jer 50:11 states the cause why Chaldea shall become a spoil, but rather so that Jer 50:11 and Jer 50:12 together give the reason for the threatening uttered. The different clauses of Jer 50:11 are the protases, to which Jer 50:12 brings the apodosis. \"You may go on making merry over the defeat of Israel, but shame will follow for this.\" The change of the singular forms of the verbs into plurals (Qeri) has been caused by the plural 'שׁסי , but is unnecessary, because Babylon is regarded as a collective, and its people are gathered into the unity of a person; see on Jer 13:20. \"Spoilers of mine inheritance,\" i.e., of the people and land of the Lord; cf. Jer 12:7; Isa 17:14. On פּוּשׁ, to gallop (of a horse, Hab 1:8), hop, spring (of a calf, Mal. 3:20), see on Hab 1:8. דּשׁא is rendered by the lxx ἐν βοτάνη, by the Vulgate super herbam; after these, Ewald also takes the meaning of springing like a calf through the grass, since he explains דּשׁא as exhibiting the correct punctuation, and remarks that פּוּשׁ, like הלך, can stand with an object directly after it; see 282, a. Most modern expositors, on the other hand, take דּשׁא as the fem. participle from דּוּשׁ, written with א instead of ה: \"like a threshing heifer.\" On this, A Schultens, in his Animadv. philol., on this passage, remarks: Comparatio petita est a vitula, quae in area media inter frumenta, ore ex lege non ligato (Deu 25:10), prae pabuli abundantia gestit ex exsultat. This explanation also gives a suitable meaning, without compelling us to do violence to the language and to alter the text. As to אבּירים, stallions, strong horses (Luther), see on Jer 8:16 and Jer 47:3. \"Your mother\" is the whole body of the people, the nation considered as a unity (cf. Isa 50:1; Hos 2:4; Hos 4:5), the individual members of which are called her sons; cf. Jer 5:7, etc. In Jer 50:12, the disgrace that is to fall on Babylon is more distinctly specified. The thought is gathered up into a sententious saying, in imitation of the sayings of Balaam. \"The last of the nations\" is the antithesis of \"the first of the nations,\" as Balaam calls Amalek, Num 24:20, because they were the first heathen nation that began to fight against the people of Israel. In like manner, Jeremiah calls Babylon the last of the heathen nations. As the end of Amalek is ruin (Num 24:20), so the end of the last heathen nation that comes forward against Israel will be a wilderness, desert, steppe. The predicates (cf. Jer 2:6) refer to the country and kingdom of Babylon. But if the end of the kingdom is a desert, then the people must have perished. The devastation of Babylon is further portrayed in Jer 50:13, together with a statement of the cause: \"Because of the anger of Jahveh it shall not be inhabited;\" cf. Isa 13:20. The words from והיתה onwards are imitated from Jer 49:17 and Jer 19:8.\nJer 50:14-16\nIn order to execute this judgment on Babylon, the nations are commanded to conquer and destroy the city. The archers are to place themselves round about Babylon, and shoot at the city unsparingly. ערך does not mean to prepare oneself, but to prepare מלחמה, the battle, combat. The archers are mentioned by synecdoche, because the point in question is the siege and bombardment of Babylon; cf. Isa 13:18, where the Medes are mentioned as archers. ידה is used only here, in Kal, of the throwing, i.e., the shooting of arrows, instead of ירה, which is elsewhere the usual word for this; and, indeed, some codices have the latter word in this passage. \"Spare not the arrow,\" i.e., do not spare an arrow; cf. Jer 51:3. הריע, to cry aloud; here, to raise a battle-cry; cf. Jos 6:16. The effect and result of the cry is, \"she hath given her hand,\" i.e., given herself up. נתן יד usually signifies the giving of the hand as a pledge of faithfulness (Kg2 10:15; Eze 17:18; Ezr 10:19), from which is derived the meaning of giving up, delivering up oneself; cf. Ch2 30:8. Cf. Cornelius Nepos, Hamilc. c. 1, donec victi manum dedissent. The ἁπ. λεγ. אשׁויתיה (the Kethib is either to be read אשׁויּתיה, as if from a noun אשׁוית, or to be viewed as an error in transcription for אשׁיותיה, which is the Qeri) signifies \"supports,\" and comes from אשׁה, Arab. asâ, to support, help; then the supports of a building, its foundations; cf. אשּׁיּא, Ezr 4:12. Here the word signifies the supports of the city, i.e., the fortifications of Babylon, ἐπάλξεις, propugnacula, pinnae, the battlements of the city wall, not the foundations of the walls, for which נפל is unsuitable. \"It (sc., the destruction of Babylon) is the vengeance of Jahveh.\" \"The vengeance of Jahveh\" is an expression derived from Num 31:3. \"Avenge yourselves on her,\" i.e., take retribution for what Babylon has done to other nations, especially to the people of God; cf. 27f. and Jer 51:11. The words, \"cut off out of Babylon the sower and the reaper,\" are not to be restricted to the fields, which, according to the testimonies of Diod. Sic. ii. 7, Pliny xviii. 17, and Curtius Jer 51:1, lay within the wall round Babylon, but \"Babylon\" is the province together with its capital; and the objection of Ngelsbach, that the prophet, in the whole context, is describing the siege of the city of Babylon, is invalid, because Jer 50:12 plainly shows that not merely the city, but the province of Babylon, is to become a wilderness, desert, and steppe. The further threat, also, \"every one flees to his own people from before the oppressing sword\" (cf. Jer 25:38; Jer 46:16), applies not merely to the strangers residing in Babylon, but generally to those in Babylonia. Hitzig would arbitrarily refer these words merely to the husbandmen and field-workers. The fundamental passage, Isa 13:14, which Jeremiah had before his mind and repeats verbatim, tells decidedly against this view; cf. also Jer 51:9, Jer 51:44.\nJer 50:17-19\nThis judgment comes on Babylon because of her oppression and scattering of the people of Israel, whom the Lord will now feed in peace again on their native soil. Israel is like שׂה פזוּרה, a sheep which, having been scared away out of its stall or fold, is hunted into the wide world; cf. פּזּרוּ בגּוים, Joe 3:2. Although פּזר, \"to scatter,\" implies the conception of a flock, yet we cannot take שׂה as a collective (Graf), since it is nomen unitatis. The point in the comparison lies on the fact that Israel has been hunted, like a solitary sheep, up and down among the beasts of the earth; and pizeer is more exactly specified by the following clause, \"lions have chased after it.\" The object of הדּיחוּ is easily derived from the context, so that we do not need to follow Hitzig in changing הדּיחוּ הראשׁון into הדּיחוּה ראשׁון. These kings are, the king of Assyria first, and the king of Babylon last. The former has dispersed the ten tribes among the heathen; the latter, by destroying the kingdom of Judah, and carrying away its inhabitants, has shattered the theocracy. The verbs apply to the figure of the lion, and the suffixes refer to Israel. אכל is used of the devouring of the flesh; עצּם is a denominative from עצם, and means the same as גּרם, Num 24:8, to break bones in pieces, not merely gnaw them. So long as the flesh only is eaten, the skeleton of bones remains; if these also be broken, the animal is quite destroyed.\nJer 50:18-20\nThe Assyrian has already received his punishment for that-the Assyrian kingdom has been destroyed; Babylon will meet with the same punishment, and then (Jer 50:19) Israel will be led back to his pasture-ground. נוה, pasture-ground, grass-plot, where sheep feed, is the land of Israel. Israel, led back thither, will feed on Carmel and Bashan, the most fertile tracts of the country, and the mountains of Ephraim and Gilead, which also furnish fodder in abundance for sheep. As to Gilead, see Num 32:1; Mic 7:14; and in regard to the mountains of Ephraim, Exo 34:13., where the feeding on the mountains of Israel and in the valleys is depicted as fat pasture. The mountains of Israel here signify the northern portion of the land generally, including the large and fertile plain of Jezreel, and the different valleys between the several ranges of mountains, which here and there show traces of luxuriant vegetation even yet; cf. Robinson's Physical Geography, p. 120. Then also the guilt of the sins of Israel and Judah shall be blotted out, because the Lord grants pardon to the remnant of His people. This promise points to the time of the New Covenant; cf. Jer 31:34 and Jer 33:8. The deliverance of Israel from Babylon coincides with the view given of the regeneration of the people by the Messiah, just as we find throughout the second portion of Isaiah. On the construction 'יבקּשׁ את־עון ישׂ, cf. 35:14, and Gesenius, 143, 1. On the form תּמּצאינה, with y after the manner of verbs ה''ל, cf. Ewald, 198, b. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["The pride and power of Babylon are broken, as a punishment for the sacrilege he committed at the temple of the Lord. Jer 50:21. \"Against the land, - Double-rebellion, - go up against it, and against the inhabitants of visitation; lay waste and devote to destruction after them, saith Jahveh, and do according to all that I have commanded thee. Jer 50:22. A sound of war [is] in the land, and great destruction. Jer 50:23. How the hammer of the whole earth is cut and broken! how Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! Jer 50:24. I laid snares for thee, yea, and thou hast been taken, O Babylon; but thou didst not know: thou wast found, and also seized, because thou didst strive against Jahveh. Jer 50:25. Jahveh hath opened His treasure-house, and brought out the instruments of His wrath; for the Lord, Jahveh of hosts, hath a work in the land of the Chaldeans. Jer 50:26. Come against her, [all of you], from the last to the first; open her storehouses: case her up in heaps, like ruins, and devote her to destruction; let there be no remnant left to her. Jer 50:27. Destroy all her oxen; let them go down to the slaughter: woe to them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation. Jer 50:28. [There is] a sound of those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Jahveh our God, the vengeance of His temple.\"\nThe punishment of Babylon will be fearful, corresponding to its crimes. The crimes of Babylon and its punishment Jeremiah has comprised, in Jer 50:21, in two names specially formed for the occasion. The enemy to whom God has entrusted the execution of the punishment is to march against the land מרתים. This word, which is formed by the prophet in a manner analogous to Mizraim, and perhaps also Aram Naharaim, means \"double rebellion,\" or \"double obstinacy.\" It comes from the root מרה, \"to be rebellious\" against Jahveh and His commandments, whence also מרי, \"rebellion;\" Num 17:1-13 :25, Eze 2:5, Eze 2:7, etc. Other interpretations of the word are untenable: such is that of Frst, who follows the Vulgate \"terram dominantium,\" and, comparing the Aramaic מרא, \"Lord,\" renders it by \"dominion\" (Herschaft). Utterly indefensible, too, is the translation of Hitzig, \"the world of men\" (Menschenwelt), which he derives from the Sanskrit martjam, \"world,\" on the basis of the false assumption that the language of the Chaldeans was Indo-Germanic. The only doubtful points are in what respect Babylon showed double obstinacy, and what Jeremiah had in his mind at the time. The view of Hitzig, Maurer, Graf, etc., is certainly incorrect, - that the prophet was thinking of the double punishment of Israel by the Assyrians and by the Babylonians (Jer 50:17 and Jer 50:33); for the name is evidently given to the country which is now about to be punished, and hence to the power of Babylon. Ngelsbach takes a twofold view: (1) he thinks of the defiance shown by Babylon towards both man and God; (2) he thinks of the double obstinacy it exhibited in early times by building the tower, and founding the first worldly kingdom (Gen 10:8.), and in later times by its conduct towards the theocracy: and he is inclined rather to the latter than to the former view, because the offences committed by Babylon in early and in later times were, in their points of origin and aim, too much one and the same for any one to be able to represent them as falling under two divisions. This is certainly correct; but against the first view there is also the important consideration that מרה is pretty constantly used only of opposition to God and the word of God. If any one, notwithstanding this, is inclined to refer the name also to offences against men, he could yet hardly agree with Ngelsbach in thinking of the insurrections of Babylon against the kings of Assyria, their masters; for these revolts had no meaning in reference to the position of Babylon towards God, but rather showed the haughty spirit in which Babylon trod on all the nations.\nThe opinion of Dahler has most in its favour: \"Doubly rebellious, i.e., more rebellious than others, through its idolatry ad its pride, which was exalted it against God, Jer 50:24, Jer 50:29.\" Rosenmller, De Wette, etc., have decided in favour of this view. Although the dual originally expresses the idea of pairing, yet the Hebrew associates with double, twofold, the idea of increase, gradation; cf. Isa 40:2; Isa 66:7. The object is prefixed for the sake of emphasis; and in order to render it still more prominent, it is resumed after the verb in the expression \"against it.\" פּקוד, an infinitive in form, \"to visit with punishment, avenge, punish,\" is also used as a significant name of Babylon: the land that visits with punishment is to be punished. Many expositors take חרב as a denominative from חרב, \"sword,\" in the sense of strangling, murdering; so also in Jer 50:27. But this assumption is far from correct; nor is there any need for making it, because the meaning of destroying is easily obtained from that of being laid waste, or destroying oneself by transferring the word from things to men. החרים, \"to proscribe, put under the ban,\" and in effect \"to exterminate;\" see on Jer 25:9. On \"after them,\" cf. Jer 49:37; Jer 48:2, Jer 48:9,Jer 48:15, etc.\nJer 50:22\nAfter the command there immediately follows its execution. A sound of war is heard in the land. The words are given as an exclamation, without a verb. As to שׁבר, which is an expression much used by Jeremiah, see on Jer 4:6.\nJer 50:23\nBabylon, \"the hammer of the whole earth,\" i.e., with which Jahveh has beaten to pieces the nations and kingdoms of the earth (Jer 51:20), is itself now being beaten to pieces and destroyed. On the subject, cf. Isa 14:5-6. Babylon will become the astonishment of the nations, Jer 51:41. \"How!\" is an exclamation of surprise, as in Zep 2:15 -a passage which probably hovered before the mind of the prophet.\nJer 50:24-28\nThis annihilation will come unexpectedly. As the bird by the snare of the fowler, so shall Babylon be laid hold of by Jahveh, because it has striven against Him. The Lord lays the snare for it, that it may be caught. יקושׁ, \"to lay snares;\" cf. Psa 141:9, where פּח is also found. ולא , \"and thou didst not perceive,\" i.e., didst not mark it: this is a paraphrase of the idea \"unexpectedly,\" suddenly; cf. Jer 51:8; Isa 47:11. This has been literally fulfilled on Babylon. According to Herodotus (i. 191), Cyrus took Babylon by diverting the Euphrates into a trench he had dug. By this stratagem the Persians threw themselves so unexpectedly on the Babylonians (ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτου σφι παρέστησαν οἱ Πέρσαι), that when the outmost portions of the city had been already seized, those who lived in the middle had not observed at all that they were captured (τοὺς τὸ μέσον οἰκέοντας ου ̓ μανθάνειν ἑαλωκότας). Similarly, when the city was taken under Darius Hystaspes, they were surprised that Zopyrus traitorously opened the gates to the besiegers (Herodotus, iii. 158). Babylon has contended against Jahveh, because, in its pride, it refused to let the people of God depart; cf. Jer 50:29 and Jer 50:33. In Jer 50:25 the sudden devastation of Babylon is accounted for. Jahveh opens His armoury, and brings out the instruments of His wrath, in order to execute His work on the land of the Chaldeans. אוצר, \"magazine, treasure-chamber,\" is here applied to an armoury. The \"instruments of His wrath\" are, in Isa 13:5, the nations which execute the judgment of god-here, the instruments of war and weapons with which Jahveh Himself marches into battle against Babylon. On 'מלאכה וגו, cf. Jer 48:10. The business which the Lord has there regards the chastisement of Babylon for its insolence. For the transaction of this business He summons His servants, Jer 50:26. באוּ־להּ, as in Jer 46:22; Jer 49:9, is substantially the same as באוּ עליה, Jer 49:14; Jer 48:8. מקּץ, \"from the end,\" or from the last hitherwards, the same as מקּצה, Jer 51:31, i.e., all together on to the last; cf. Gen 19:4; Gen 47:2, etc. \"Open her (Babylon's) barns\" or granaries; \"heap it up (viz., what was in the granaries) like heaps\" of grain or sheaves, \"and devote it to destruction,\" i.e., consume it with fire, because things on which the curse was imposed must be burnt; cf. Jos 11:12 and Jos 11:13. All the property found in Babylon is to be collected in heaps, and then burnt with the city. The use of the image is occasioned by the granaries. מאבסיה is ἅπ. λεγ., from אבס, to give fodder to cattle, - properly a stall for fodder, then a barn, granary. ערמה is a heap of grain (Sol 7:3), sheaves (Rut 3:7), also of rubbish (Neh. 3:34). As Jer 50:26 declares what is to be done with goods and chattels, so does Jer 50:27 state what is to be done with the population. The figure employed in Jer 50:26 is followed by the representation of the people as oxen destined for slaughter; in this Jeremiah had in his mind the prophecy found in Isa 34, in which the judgment to come on Edom is depicted as a slaughter of lambs, rams, and he-goats: the people of Edom are thus compared to cattle that may be offered in sacrifice. This figure also forms the basis of the expression ירד לטּבח in Jer 48:15, where this style of speaking is used with regard to the youths or the young troops; cf. also Jer 51:40. The פּרים, accordingly, designate not merely the chief among the people, or the men of rank, but represent the whole human population. In the last clause (\"for their day is come,\" etc.), there is a transition in the discourse from the figure to the real subject itself. The suffix in עליהם does not refer to the oxen, but to the men over whose murder there is an exclamation of woe. In like manner, \"their day\" means the day of judgment for men, viz., the time of their visitation with punishment; see on Jer 46:21. Fugitives and escaped ones will bring to Zion, and proclaim the news of the execution of this fearful judgment, that the Lord has fulfilled the vengeance of His temple, i.e., avenged on Babylon the burning of His temple by the Chaldeans. The fugitives and escaped ones are the Israelites, who were summoned to flee from Babylon, Jer 50:3. On \"the vengeance of Jahveh,\" cf. Jer 50:15 and Jer 51:11. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["The pride of Babylon is humbled through the utter destruction of the people and the land. - Jer 50:29. \"Summon archers against Jerusalem, all those who bend the bow; encamp against her round about. Let there be no escape for her; recompense to her according to her work; according to that which she hath done, do ye to her: for she hath presumed against Jahveh, against the Holy One of Israel. Jer 50:30. Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets, and all her men of war shall fail in that day, saith Jahveh. Jer 50:31. Behold, I am against thee, O Pride! said the Lord, Jahveh of hosts; for thy day hath come, the time [when] I visit thee. Jer 50:32. And Pride shall stumble and fall, and he shall have none to lift him up; and I will kindle fire in his cities, and it shall devour all that is round about him. Jer 50:33. Thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the Children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together, and all who led them captive kept hold of them; they refused to let them go. Jer 50:34. Their Redeemer is strong; Jahveh of hosts is His name: He shall surely plead their cause, that He may give rest to the earth, and make the inhabitants of Babylon tremble. Jer 50:35. A sword [is] against the Chaldeans, saith Jahveh, and against the inhabitants of Babylon, and against her princes, and against her wise men. Jer 50:36. A sword [is] against the liars, and they shall become fools; a sword is against her heroes, and they shall be confounded. Jer 50:37. A sword [is] against his horses, and against his chariots, and against all the auxiliaries which [are] in the midst of her, and they shall become women; a sword is against her treasures, and they shall be plundered. Jer 50:38. A drought is against her waters, and they shall become dry; for it is a land of graven images, and they are mad upon idols. Jer 50:39. Therefore shall wild beasts dwell [there] with jackals, and ostriches shall dwell in it; and it shall no more be inhabited for ever, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. Jer 50:40. As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and their inhabitants, saith Jahveh, no man shall dwell there, nor shall a son of man sojourn in it.\"\nFurther description of the execution of God's wrath. Archers shall come and besiege Babylon round about, so that no one shall escape. The summons, \"Call archers hither,\" is a dramatic turn in the thought that the siege is quickly to ensue. השׁמיע is used here as in Jer 51:27, to summon, call by making proclamation, as in Kg1 15:22. רבּים does not signify \"many,\" as the ancient versions give it; this agrees neither with the apposition which follows, \"all that bend the bow,\" nor with Jer 50:26, where all, to the last, are summoned against Babylon. Raschi, followed by all the moderns, more correctly renders it \"archers,\" and derives it from רבה = רבב, Gen 49:23, cf. with Jer 21:10, like רב, Job 16:13. The apposition, \"all those who bend the bow,\" gives additional force. חנה with accus. means to besiege; cf. Psa 53:6. \"Let there be no escape\" is equivalent to saying, \"that none may escape from Babylon.\" The Qeri להּ after יהי is unnecessary, and merely taken from Jer 50:26. On the expression \"render to her,\" etc., cf. Jer 25:14; and on \"according to all,\" etc., f. Jer 50:15. \"For she hath acted presumptuously against Jahveh,\" by burning His temple, and keeping His people captive: in this way has Babylon offended \"against the Holy One of Israel.\" This epithet of God is taken from Isaiah, cf. Isa 51:5. This presumption must be punished.\nJer 50:30-32\nJer 50:30 is a repetition of Jer 49:26. - Jer 50:31. The Lord will now visit the presumption of Babylon. The day of punishment has arrived. On \"behold, I am against thee,\" cf. Jer 21:13. \"O arrogance, pride!\" is directly addressed to Babylon: in Jer 50:32 also there is a like designation of Babylon as the personification of pride. On the words \"for thy day is come,\" cf. Jer 50:27. \"And I will kindle a fire,\" etc., stands as in Jer 21:14, where, however, \"in its forest\" is found instead of \"in his cities.\" The former, indeed, is the reading rendered by the lxx in this passage; but they have acted quite arbitrarily in this, since Jeremiah, for the most part, varies individual words when he repeats a thought. \"In his cities\" does not suit very well, inasmuch as the other cities of the country belonged to Babylon, the μητρόπολις as hers, and in Jer 51:43 they are spoken of as hers; cf. Jer 19:15; Jer 34:1; Jer 49:13, etc.\nJer 50:33-38\nFurther description of the guilt and punishment of Babylon. The presumptuous pride manifests itself in the fact that Israel and Judah still languish in exile. All those who have been seized and carried away they have kept hold of. שׁביהם is used as in Isa 14:2. They refuse to let them go, as Pharaoh once did, Exo 7:14, 27; Exo 9:2; cf. Isa 14:17. Jahveh, the deliverer of Israel, cannot endure this. As the strong One, the God of hosts, He will lead them in the fight; as their advocate, He will obtain their dues for them; cf. Jer 25:31; Isa 49:25. Dahler, Ewald, and Umbreit follow the Vulgate and the Chaldee in taking 'למען הרגּיע as synonymous with הרגּיז, in the sense of shaking, rousing, a meaning which רגע has in the Kal, but which cannot be made out for the Hiphil. In the Hiphil it means to give rest, to come to rest, Deu 28:65; Isa 34:14; Isa 61:4; Jer 31:2; and in the Niphal, to rest, keep quiet, Jer 47:6. This is the meaning given by the Syriac, Raschi, Kimchi, Rosenmller, Maurer, Hitzig, etc., and supported by a comparison with Isa 14:7, Isa 14:3,Isa 14:16. Babylon has hitherto kept the earth in unrest and anxiety (Isa 14:16); now it is to get rest (Isa 14:3, Isa 14:7), and trembling or quaking for fear is to come on Babylon. The two verbs, which have similar sounds, express a contrast. On the form of the infinitive הרגּיע, cf. Ewald, 238, d. In order to conduct the case of Israel as against Babylon, the Lord (Jer 50:35-38) calls for the sword against the Chaldeans, the inhabitants of Babylon, on their princes, wise men, heroes, and the whole army, the treasures and the waters. There is no verb following חרב, but only the object with על, the words being put in the form of an exclamation, on account of the passion pervading them. The sword is to come and show its power on the Chaldeans, i.e., the population of the rural districts, on the inhabitants of the capital, and further, on the princes and wise men (magicians). A special class of the last named are the בּדּים, properly \"babblers,\" those who talk at random, here \"soothsayers\" and lying prophets, the astrologers of Babylon; see Delitzsch on Isa 44:25 [Clark's translation, For. Theol. Lib.]. ונאלוּ, \"And they shall be as fools;\" see on Jer 5:4. Further, on the warriors, the horses, and war-chariots, the main strength of the Asiatic conquerors, cf. Jer 46:9, Isa 43:17; Psa 20:8. כּל־הערב, \"all the mixed multitude\" in the midst of Babylon: these are here the mercenaries ad allies (as to this word, see on Jer 25:20). These shall become women, i.e., weak and incapable of resistance; see Nah 3:13. The last objects of vengeance are the treasures and the waters of Babylon. In Jer 50:38 the Masoretes have pointed חרב, because חרב, \"sword,\" seemed to be inapplicable to the waters. But indeed neither does the sword, in the proper sense of the word, well apply to treasures; it rather stands, by synecdoche, for war. In this improper meaning it might also be used with reference to the waters, in so far as the canals and watercourses, on which the fertility of Babylonia depended, were destroyed by war. Hence many expositors would read חרב here also, and attribute the employment of this word to the rhetorical power connected with enumeration. Others are of opinion that חרב may also mean aridity, drought, in Deu 28:22; but the assumption is erroneous, and cannot be confirmed by that passage. Neither can it be denied, that to confine the reference of the expression \"her waters\" to the canals and artificial watercourses of Babylonia seems unnatural. All these received their water from the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, the volume of water in which remained uninfluenced by war. We therefore follow Hitzig in holding that חרב is the correct punctuation; in the transition from חרב into חרב, with its similar sound, we neither perceive any injury done to rhetorical force, derived from an enumeration of objects, nor any need for referring the following clause, which assigns the reason merely to such rhetorical considerations as Graf does. In the drying up of the water there is no allusion to the diversion of the Euphrates, by which Cyrus opened up for himself an entrance into the city (Herodotus, i. 190); the drying up is merely appointed by God, as a consequence of continued drought, for the purpose of destroying the land. Hitzig's opinion neither suits the context, nor can be justified otherwise; he holds that water is the emblem of the sea on nations, the surging multitude of people in the streets of the city, and he refers for proof to Jer 51:36 and Isa 21:1 (!). The clauses in Jer 50:38, which assign the reason, refer to the whole threatening, Jer 50:35-38. Babylon is to be destroyed, with its inhabitants and all its means of help, because it is a land of idols (cf. Jer 51:52 and Isa 21:9), and its inhabitants suffer themselves to be befooled by false gods. התהולל means to act or behave like a madman, rave, Jer 25:16; here, to let oneself be deprived of reason, not (as Graf thinks) to fall into a sacred frenzy. אימים, terrors, Psa 88:16; here, objects of fear and horror, i.e., idols.\nJer 50:39\nTherefore shall Babylon become an eternal waste, where none but beasts of the desert find shelter, where no human being dwells. This threat is formed out of reminiscences from Isa 13:20-22 and Isa 34:14. For ציּים and איּים, see on Isa 34:14; for בּנות יענה, see on Isa 13:21. The second half of the verse agrees word for word with Isa 13:20.\nJer 50:40\nJer 50:40 is a repetition of Jer 49:18, and in its first half is founded on Isa 13:19. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":41,"content":["The agents who execute the judgment. - Jer 50:41. \"Behold, a people shall come from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be raised up from the most distant sides of the earth. Jer 50:42. Bow and javelin shall they seize: they are cruel, and will not pity; their voice shall sound like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, [each one] arrayed like a man for the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon. Jer 50:43. The king of Babylon hath heard the report concerning them, and his hands have fallen down: distress hath seized him, writing pain, like [that of] the woman in childbirth. Jer 50:44. Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the glory of Jordan to a habitation of rock; but in a moment will I make them run away from her, and will set over her him who is chosen: for who is like me, and who will appoint me a time [to plead my defence]? and what shepherd [is there] that will stand before me? Jer 50:45. Therefore hear ye the counsel of Jahveh which He hath taken against Babylon, and His purposes which He hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Assuredly they shall drag them away, the smallest of the flock; assuredly [their] habitation shall be astonished at them. Jer 50:46. At the cry, 'Babylon is taken,' the earth is shaken, and a cry [for help] is heard among the nations.\nJeremiah 51\nJer 51:1-4\n\"Thus saith Jahveh: Behold, I will stir up against Babylon, and against the inhabitants of [as it were] the heart of mine opponents, the spirit of a destroyer. Jer 51:2. And I will send against Babylon strangers, and they shall winnow her, and empty her land, because they are against her round about in a day of evil. Jer 51:3. Against [him who] bends let the bender bend his bow, and against [him who] lifts up himself in his coat of mail: and do not spare her young men; devote to destruction all her host, Jer 51:4. That slain ones may fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and those that are pierced through in her streets.\"\nThe greater portion of this strophe consists of quotations from former utterances. Jer 51:41-43 are taken from Jer 6:22-24, and Jer 51:44-46 from Jer 49:19-21; here they are applied to Babylon. What is said in Jer 6:22-24 concerning the enemy out of the north who will devastate Judah, is here transferred to the enemy that is to destroy Babylon. For this purpose, after the words \"and a great nation,\" are added \"and many kings,\" in order to set forth the hostile army advancing against Babylon as one composed of many nations; and in consequence of this extension of the subject, the verb יערוּ is used in the plural, and אכזרי is changed into אכזרי המּה. Moreover, the mention of the \"daughter of Babylon\" instead of the \"daughter of Zion\" is attended by a change from the directly communicative form of address in the first person (\"We have heard,\" etc., Jer 51:43) into the third person (\"The king of Babylon hath heard,\" etc.). In applying the expression used in Jer 49:19-21 regarding the instrument chosen for the destruction of Edom, to the instrument selected against Babylon (Jer 51:44-46), the names \"Babylon\" and \"and land of the Chaldeans\" are substituted for \"Edom\" and \"the inhabitants of Teman\" (Jer 49:20); but beyond this, only the last verse is changed, in accordance with the change of circumstances. The thought that, in consequence of the fall of Edom, the earth trembles, and Edom's cry of anguish is heard on the Red Sea, is intensified thus: by the sound or cry, \"Babylon is taken,\" the earth is shaken, and a cry is heard among the nations. The conquest of Babylon, the mistress of the world, puts the whole world in anxiety and fear, while the effects of Edom's fall extend only to the Red Sea. The Kethib ארוצם, Jer 51:44, seems to come from the verb רצץ, in the sense of pushing, so that it is not a mere error in transcription for אריצם. Moreover, such changes made on former utterances, when they are repeated and applied to Babylon, show that these verses are not glosses which a reader has written on the margin, and a later copyist inserted into the text, but that Jeremiah himself has applied these earlier words in his address against Babylon. The two passages are not merely quite appropriately arranged beside one another, but even present in their connection a thought which has not hitherto been met with in the address against Babylon, and which does not recur afterwards. The enemy that is to conquer Babylon is certainly pointed out, so early as v. 9, as an assemblage of great nations out of the north, but not more particularly characterized there; but the nations that are to constitute the hostile army are not further designated till Jer 51:11 and Jer 51:27. The second quotation, Jer 51:44-46, adds the new thought that the appearance of this enemy against Babylon is owing to a decree of the Lord, the execution of which no man can prevent, because there is none like Jahveh. The figurative description of the enemy as a lion coming up out of the thicket of reeds at the Jordan, frightening the herd feeding on their pasture-ground, and carrying off the weakly sheep, is appropriate both to Nebuchadnezzar's expedition against Edom, and to the invasion of Babylonia by the Medes and their allies, for the purpose of laying waste the country of the Chaldeans, smiting the inhabitants of Babylon, and conquering it. Even the expression נוה permits of being applied to Babylonia, which was protected by its canal system and the strong walls of its capital.\nJer 51:1-2\nIn Jer 51:1-4, the terrible character of the hostile nation is further described. Against Babylon and the inhabitants of Chaldea, God stirs up the \"spirit of a destroyer,\" viz., a savage nation that will massacre the Chaldeans without pity. לב , lit., \"the heart of mine adversaries,\" is the word כּשׂדּים, changed, according to the canon Atbash (see on Jer 25:26), for the purpose of obtaining the important meaning that Chaldea is the centre of God's enemies. This explanation of the name involves the thought that all enmity against God the Lord culminates in Babylon; on the basis of this representation Babylon is called, Rev 17:5, \"the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.\" רוּח משׁחית does not mean καύσωνα διαφθείροντα (lxx), ventum pestilentem (Vulgate), \"a sharp wind\" (Luther), nor, as it is usually translated, \"a destroying wind;\" for העיר רוּח is nowhere used of the rousing of a wind, but everywhere means \"to rouse the spirit of any one,\" to stir him up to an undertaking; cf. Hag 1:14; Ch1 5:26; Ch2 21:16, and Ch2 36:22. Jeremiah also employs it thus in Jer 51:11, and this meaning is quite suitable here also. משׁחית is a substantive, as in Jer 4:7 : \"the spirit of a destroyer.\" The figure of winnowing, which follows in Jer 51:2, does not by any means necessarily require the meaning \"wind,\" because the figure contained in the word זרוּה was first called forth by the employment of זרים, \"strangers\" = barbarians. The sending of the זרים to Babylon has no connection with the figure of the wind, and it even remains a question whether זרוּה really means here to winnow, because the word is often used of the scattering of a nation, without any reference to the figure of winnowing; cf. Lev 26:33; Eze 5:10; Eze 12:15, etc., also Jer 49:32, Jer 49:36. However, this thought is suggested by what follows, \"they empty her hand,\" although the clause which assigns the reason, \"because they are against her round about\" (cf. Jer 4:17), does not correspond with this figure, but merely declares that the enemies which attack Babylon on every side disperse its inhabitants and empty the land.\nJer 51:3-4\nThese strangers shall kill, without sparing, every warrior of Babylon, and annihilate its whole military forces. In the first half of the verse the reading is doubtful, since the Masoretes would have the second ידרד (Qeri) expunged, probably because (as Bttcher, N. Aehrenl. ii. S. 166, supposes) they considered it merely a repetition. The meaning is not thereby changed. According to the Qeri, we would require to translate, \"against him who bends the bow, may there be, or come, one who bends his bow;\" according to the Kethib, \"against him who bends the bow, may he who bends his bow bend it.\" As to אל־ידרך with אשׁר omitted, cf. Ch1 15:12; Ch2 1:4, and Ewald, 333, b. יתעל בּס' stands in apposition to אל־ידרך ; יתעל is the Hithpael from עלה, and means to raise oneself: it is to be taken as the shortened form of the imperfect passive; cf. Gesenius, 128, Rem. 2. Certainly, the Hithpael of עלה occurs nowhere else, but it is quite appropriate here; so that it is unnecessary, with Hitzig, to adduce, for explanation, the Arabic tl', to stretch the head out of anything, or, with Ewald, to derive the form from the Aramaic עלל, Arabic gl, to thrust in. Neither is there any foundation for the remark, that the abbreviated form of the imperfect would be admissible only if אל were found instead of אל. Indeed, the Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate have actually read and rendered from אל, which several codices also present, \"Let him not bend his bow, nor stretch himself in his coat of mail.\" But by this reading the first half of the verse is put in contradiction to the second; and this contradiction is not removed by the supposition of J. D. Michaelis and Hitzig, who refer these clauses to the Chaldeans, and find the thought expressed in them, that the Chaldeans, through loss of courage, cannot set themselves for defence. For, in that case, we would be obliged, with Hitzig, to explain as spurious the words that follow, \"and spare ye not her young men;\" but for this there is no valid reason. As to החרימוּ, cf. Jer 50:21, Jer 50:26. On Jer 51:4, cf. Jer 50:30 and Jer 49:26. The suffix in \"her streets\" refers to Babylon. \n"]}]},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JER/50.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JER","chapter":50},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JER/51.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JER","chapter":51},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JER/49.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JER","chapter":49},"numberOfVerses":6}