Bible Commentaries

3. THE CHASTISEMENT OF THE CHASTISER

Jeremiah 50:6-13

6 A lost herd³ was⁴ my people:

Their shepherds had led them astray on seductive mountains,⁵

From mountain to hill they went,

Forgat their fold.

7 Whoever found them devoured them,

And their oppressors said: We incur no guilt,

Because they have sinned against Jehovah,

The true pasturage and their fathers’ hope, Jehovah.

8 Flee out of Babylon and—

Let them go⁶ forth out of the land of the Chaldeans,

And be as the rams before the sheep!

9 For behold, I raise and lead⁷ against Babylon

An assembly of great nations from the north country;

They equip themselves against her, there⁸ she is taken—

Their arrows⁹ like those of a successful¹⁰ hero, who returneth not empty,

10 And Chaldea shall become a prey;

All that plunder her shall be satisfied, saith Jehovah.

11 For thou rejoicedst,¹¹ for thou exultedst, robber of my heritage,

For thou skippedst like a thrashing¹² calf

And neighedst like the strong steeds.

12 Your mother is put to great shame,

She that bare you blushes.

“Behold the last of the nations, wilderness, waste, and steppe,”

13 Because of the wrath of Jehovah it shall be uninhabited,

And shall be wholly a desolation:

Whoever passeth by Babylon is amazed,

And mocks her on account of all her strokes.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Israel has certainly sinned greatly by idolatry ( Jeremiah 50:6), and has therefore been deservedly chastised by his enemies ( Jeremiah 50:7). But now the hour of deliverance strikes ( Jeremiah 50:8). for the Lord sends against Babylon great hosts of nations from the north, who will attack it successfully ( Jeremiah 50:9). In consequence Babylon itself shall become a prey ( Jeremiah 50:10), and receive the punishment for having discharged its office as punisher of Israel with arrogant and malicious joy ( Jeremiah 50:11). It shall thus be the last of nations, and the country be a horrible wilderness ( Jeremiah 50:12-13).

Jeremiah 50:6-7. A lost herd … hope, Jehovah. Comp. Ezekiel 34:4; Ezekiel 34:16; Psalm 119:176; Luke 15:4; Luke 15:6.—Their shepherds. Comp. Jeremiah 10:21; Jeremiah 12:10; Jeremiah 23:1 sqq.—Seductive. The mountains may well be thus called, which by means of the worship of high-places practised upon them, exerted such an irresistible charm on the heart of carnal Israel. Comp. Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:2; Jeremiah 6:23; Jeremiah 17:2.—Whoever found them. Comp. Jeremiah 2:3; Jeremiah 10:25; Jeremiah 30:16. In this expression there is evidently an intimation that Israel has been often devoured. The enemies had a certain degree of justification in this, but in yielding to the illusion that they could not sin against Israel, forsaken by his God, and could therefore do any thing to him, they incurred great guilt, as is seen in what follows.—True pasturage. Zion is called נְוִה־צֶדֶק31:23. Here Jehovah Himself is so called, as elsewhere a fortress ( Psalm 18:3) sun, shield ( Psalm 84:11), shade ( Psalm 121:5).—Father’s hope. Comp. Jeremiah 14:8; Jeremiah 17:13.

Jeremiah 50:8-10. Flee … saith Jehovah. The tables are turned. Babylon must now suffer the punishment of injustice. The hour of deliverance has struck for Israel and the other nations held in bondage. Hence the summons is made to Israel to flee. Comp. Isaiah 48:20; Isaiah 52:11; Zechariah 2:10.—As the rams, etc. The sense is not both that Israel is to press forward in order to save himself before all, but rather that it is to go before all (comp. Jeremiah 50:16) as an example and leader in the flight.—North. Comp. rems. on Jeremiah 50:3.—Like those, etc. Comp. Jeremiah 4:31; Jeremiah 46:22; Naegelsb. Gr., § 65, 3 Anm.—Who returneth, etc. Comp. 2 Samuel 1:22.—Chaldea, Kasdim as the name of the country, as in Jeremiah 51:24; Jeremiah 51:35; Ezekiel 11:24.—A prey. Comp. Jeremiah 49:32.

Jeremiah 50:11-13. For thou rejoicedst … stroke.—I take כִּי simply as “for,” so that Jeremiah 50:11 gives the reason why Chaldea is to become a prey. The imperfects then designate the action as continuing in the past. Comp, Naegelsb. Gr., § 87 f.: Jeremiah 15:9; Jeremiah 36:18.

Jeremiah 50:12-13 conclude the discourse with a lively description, sketched in a few powerful strokes of the condition of Babylon after the attack predicted in Jeremiah 50:9-10. The prophet beholds this as though it had been produced in his presence. Hence the perfects is put to shame, and blushes ( Jeremiah 15:9), Observe that the prophet here addresses the single individuals of the nation. Hence your mother and last of the nations. Comp. Psalm 139:9; Amos 9:1; Jeremiah 31:7.—Waste (ציה). Comp. Jeremiah 51:43.—Uninhabited. Comp. Isaiah 13:20; Jeremiah 17:6; Jeremiah 17:25; Jeremiah 30:18.—Whoever passeth. Comp. Jeremiah 18:16; Jeremiah 19:8; Jeremiah 49:17.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. “Daniel’s Babylonian empire resumes, as it were, the thread which was broken off with the tower-erection and kingdom of Nimrod. In the Babylonian tower-building the whole of the then existing humanity was united against God; with the Babylonian kingdom began the period of the universal monarchies, which again aspired after an atheistical union of entire humanity. Babylon has since and even to the Revelation ( Jeremiah 18) remained the standing type of this world.” Auberlen, Der proph. Daniel, S. 230.

2. For what reason does Babylon appear as a type of the world? Why not Nineveh, or Persepolis, or Tyre, or Memphis, or Rome? Certainly not because Babylon was greater, more glorious, more powerful or prouder and more ungodly than those cities and kingdoms. Nineveh especially was still greater than Babylon (comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. S. 474, 5), and Assyria was not less hostile to the theocracy, having carried away into captivity the northern and larger half of the people of Israel. Babylon is qualified for this representation in two ways: 1. because it is the home of worldly princedom and titanic arrogance ( Genesis 10:8; Genesis 11:1-4); 2. because Babylon destroyed the centre of the theocracy, Jerusalem, the temple and the theocratic kingdom, and first assumed to be the single supreme power of the globe.

3. “When God has used a superstitious, wicked and tyrannical nation long enough as His rod, He breaks it in pieces and finally throws it into the fire. For even those whom He formerly used as His chosen anointed instruments He then regards as but the dust in the streets or as chaff before the wind.” Cramer.

4. “No monarch is too rich, too wicked, too strong for God the Lord. And He can soon enlist and engage soldiers whom He can use against His declared enemies.” Cramer.

5. “Israel was founded on everlasting foundations, even God’s word and promise. The sins of the people brought about that it was laid low in the dust, but not without hope of a better resurrection. Babylon, on the other hand, must perish forever, for in it is the empire of evil come to its highest bloom. Jeremiah owns the nothingness of all worldly kingdoms, since they are all under this national order to serve only for a time. We are to be subject to them and seek their welfare for the sake of the souls of men, whom God is educating therein; a Christian however cannot be enthusiastic for them after the manner of the ancient heathen nor of ancient Israel, for here we have no abiding city, our citizenship is in heaven. The kingdoms of this world are no sanctuaries for us and we supplicate their continuance only with the daily bread of the fourth petition. Jeremiah applies many words and figures to Babylon which he has already used in the judgments on other nations, thus to intimate that in Babylon all the heathenism of the world culminates, and that here also must be the greatest anguish. What, however, is here declared of Babylon must be fulfilled again on all earthly powers in so far as, treading in its footprints, they take flesh for their arm and regard the material of this world as power, whether they be called states or churches.” Diedrich.

6. On Jeremiah 50:2. In putting into the mouth of Israel, returning from Babylon, the call to an everlasting covenant with Jehovah, the prophet causes them1. to confess that they have forgotten the first covenant; 2. he shows us that the time of the new covenant begins with the redemption from the Babylonish captivity. He was far, however, from supposing that this redemption would be only a weak beginning, that the appearance of the Saviour would be deferred for centuries, that Israel would sink still deeper as an external πολιτεία, and that finally the Israel of the new covenant would itself appear as a μυστήριον, εἰς ὃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ἄγγελοι παρακύψαι ( 1 Peter 1:9-12).

7. From what Jeremiah has already said in Jeremiah 31:31-34 of the new covenant we see that its nature and its difference from the old is not unknown to him. Yet he knows the new covenant only in general. He knows that it will be deeply spiritual and eternal, but how and why it will be so is still to him part of the μυστήριον.

8. On Jeremiah 50:6. Jeremiah here points back to Jeremiah 23. Priests, kings and prophets, who should discharge the office of shepherds, prove to be wolves. Yea, they are the worst of wolves, who go about in official clothing. There is therefore no more dangerous doctrine than that of an infallible office. Jeremiah 14:14; Matthew 7:15; Matthew 23:2-12.

9. On Jeremiah 50:7. It is the worst condition into which a church of God can come, when the enemies who desolate it can maintain that they are in the right in doing so. It is, however, a just nemesis when those who will not hear the regular messengers of God must be told by the extraordinary messengers of God what they should have done. Comp. Jeremiah 40:2-3.

10. On Jeremiah 50:8. “Babylon is opened, and it must be abandoned not clung to, for the captivity is a temporary chastisement, not the divine arrangement for the children of God. God’s people must in the general redemption go like rams before the herd of the nations, that these may also attach themselves to Israel, as this was fulfilled at the time of Christ in the first churches and the apostles, who now draw the whole heathen world after them to eternal life. Here the prophet recognizes the new humanity, which proceeds from the ruins of the old, in which also ancient Israel leads the way; thus all, who follow it, become Israel.” Diedrich.—“The heathen felt somewhat of the divine punishment when they overcame so easily the usually so strongly protected nation. But Jeremiah shows them still how they deceived themselves in thinking that God had wholly rejected His people, for of the eternal covenant of grace they certainly understood nothing.” Heim and Hoffmann on the Major Prophets.

11. On Jeremiah 50:18. “The great powers of the world form indeed the history of the world, but they have no future. Israel, however, always returns home to the dear and glorious land. The Jews might as a token of this return under Cyrus; the case is however this, that the true Holy One in Israel, Christ, guides us back to Paradise, when we flee to His hand from the Babylon of this world and let it be crucified for us.” Diedrich.

12. On Jeremiah 50:23. “Although the Chaldeans were called of God for the purpose of making war on the Jewish nation on account of their multitudinous sins, yet they are punished because they did it not as God with a pure intention, namely, to punish the wrong in them and keep them for reformation; for they were themselves greater sinners than the Jews and continued with impenitence in their sins. Therefore they could not go scot-free and remain unpunished. Moreover, they acted too roughly and dealt with the Jews more harshly than God had commanded, for which He therefore fairly punished them. As God the Lord Himself says ( Isaiah 47:6): When I was angry with My people I gave them into thine hands; but thou shewedst them no mercy. Therefore it is not enough that God’s will be accomplished, but there must be the good intention in it, which God had, otherwise such a work may be a sin and call down the divine punishment upon it.” Würtemb. Summ.

13. On Jeremiah 50:31-34. “God calls Babylon Thou Pride, for pride was their inward force and impulse in all their actions. But worldly pride makes a Babylon and brings on a Babylon’s fate .… Pride must fall, for it is in itself a lie against God, and all its might must perish in the fire; thus will the humble and meek remain in possession of the earth: this has a wide application through all times, even to eternity.” Diedrich.

14. On Jeremiah 51:33. “Israel is indeed weak and must suffer in a time of tyranny; it cannot help itself, nor needs it to do Song of Solomon, for its Redeemer is strong, His name The Lord Zebaoth—and He is, now, having assumed our flesh, among us and conducts our cause so that the world trembles.” Diedrich.

15. On Jeremiah 50:45. “An emblem of the destruction of anti-christian Babylon, which was also the true hammer of the whole world. This has God also broken and must and will do it still more. And this will the shepherd-boys do, as is said here in Jeremiah 51:45 (according to Luther’s translation), that is, all true teachers and preachers.” Cramer.

16. On Jeremiah 51. “The doctrines accord in all points with the previous chapter. And the prophet Jeremiah both in this and the previous chapter does nothing else but make out for the Babylonians their final discharge and passport, because they behaved so valiantly and well against the people of Judah, that they might know they would not go unrecompensed. For payment is according to service. And had they done better it would have gone better with them. It is well that when tyrants succeed in their evil undertakings they should not suppose they are God’s dearest children and lean on His bosom, since they will yet receive the recompense on their crown, whatever they have earned.” Cramer.

17. [“Though in the hand of Babylon is a golden cup; she chooses such a cup, in order that men’s eyes may be dazzled with the glitter of the gold, and may not inquire what it contains. But mark well, in the golden cup of Babylon is the poison of idolatry, the poison of false doctrines, which destroy the souls of men. I have often seen such a golden cup, in fair speeches of seductive eloquence: and when I have examined the venomous ingredients of the golden chalice, I have recognized the cup of Babylon.” Origen in Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]

“The seat and throne of Anti-christ is expressly named Babylon, namely, the city of Rome, built on the seven hills ( Revelation 17:9). Just as Babylon brought so many lands and kingdoms under its sway and ruled them with great pomp and pride (the golden cup, which made all the world drunk, was Babylon in the hand of the Lord ( Jeremiah 51:7), and all the heathen drank of the wine and became mad)—so has the spiritual Babylon a cup in its hand, full of the abomination and uncleanness of its whoredom, of which the kings of the earth and all who dwell on the earth have been made drunk. As it is said of Babylon that she dwells by great waters and has great treasures, so writes John of the Romish Babylon, that it is clothed in silk and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls ( Revelation 18:12). Of Babylon it is said that the slain in Israel were smitten by her; so also the spiritual Babylon is become drunk with the blood of the saints ( Revelation 17:6). Just, however, as the Chaldean Babylon is a type of the spiritual in its pride and despotism, so also is it a type of the destruction which will come upon it. Many wished to heal Babylon but she would not be healed; so many endeavor to support the ruinous anti-christian Babylon, but all in vain. For as Babylon was at last so destroyed as to be a heap of stones and abode of dragons, so will it be with anti-christian Babylon. Of this it is written in Revelation 14:8 : She is fallen, fallen, that great city, for she has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. And again, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and a hold of all foul and hateful birds ( Revelation 18:2). As the inhabitants of Babylon were admonished to flee from her, that every man might deliver his soul ( Jeremiah 51:6)—and again, My people, go ye out from the midst of her and deliver every man his soul, etc. ( Jeremiah 51:45)—so the Holy Spirit admonishes Christians almost in the same words to go out from the spiritual Babylon, that they be not polluted by her sins and at the same time share in her punishment. For thus it is written in Revelation 18:4, I heard, says John, a voice from heaven saying, Go ye out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins reach unto heaven and God remembers her iniquities.” Wurtemb. Summarien.

18. On Jeremiah 51:5. “A monarch can sooner make an end of half a continent than draw a nail from a hut which the Lord protects.—And if it is true that Kaiser Rudolph, when he revoked the toleration of the Picards and the same day lost one of his principal forts, said, ‘I thought it would be Song of Solomon, for I grasped at God’s sceptre’ (Weismanni, Hist. Eccl. Tom. II. p320)—this was a sage remark, a supplement to the words of the wise.” Zinzendorf.

19. On Jeremiah 51:9. We heal Babylon, but she will not be healed. Babylon is an outwardly beautiful but inwardly worm-eaten apple. Hence sooner or later the foulness must become noticeable. So is it with all whose heart and centre is not God. All is inwardly hollow and vain. When this internal vacuity begins to render itself externally palpable, when here and there a rent or foul spot becomes visible, then certainly come the friends and admirers of the unholy form and would improve, cover up, sew up, heal. But it does not avail. When once there is death in the body no physician can effect a cure.

20. On Jeremiah 51:17; Jeremiah 51:19-20. “The children of God have three causes why they may venture on Him. 1. All men are fools, their treasure is it not; 2. The Lord is their hammer; He breaks through everything, and3, they are an instrument in His hand, a heritage; in this there is happiness.” Zinzendorf.

21. On Jeremiah 51:41-44. “How was Sheshach thus won, the city renowned in all the world thus taken? No one would have thought it possible, but God does it. He rules with wonders and with wonders He makes His church free. Babylon is a wonder no longer for its power, but for its weakness. We are to know the world’s weakness even where it still appears strong. A sea of hostile nations has covered Babylon. Her land is now a desolation. God takes Bel and the Dragon, the principal idol of Babylon, symbolizing its whole civil powers in hand, and snatches his prey from his teeth. Our God is stronger than all worldly forces, and never leaves us to them.” Diedrich.

22. On Jeremiah 51:58. “Yea, so it is with all walls and towers, in which God’s word is not the vital force, even though they be entitled churches and cathedrals … God’s church alone possesses permanence through His pure word.” Diedrich.

23. On Jeremiah 51:60-64. When we wish to preserve an archive safely, we deposit it in a record-office where it is kept in a dry place that no moisture may get to it. Seraiah throws his book-roll into the waters of the Euphrates, which must wash it away, dissolve and destroy it. But this was of no account. The main point was that Hebrews, Seraiah, as representative of the holy nation had taken solemn stock of the word of God against Babylon, and as it were taken God at His word, and reminded Him of it. In this manner the matter was laid up in the most enduring and safest archive that could be imagined; it was made a case of honor with the omniscient and omnipotent God. Such matters can, however, neither be forgotten, nor remain in dead silence, nor be neglected. They must be brought to such an end as the honor of God requires.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. On Jeremiah 50:2. This text may be used on the feast of the Reformation, or any other occasion with reference to a rem bene gestam. The Triumph of the Good Cause, 1. over what enemies it is gained; 2. to what it should impel us; (a) to the avoidance of that over which we new triumph; (b) to the grateful proclamation of what the Lord has done for us, by word and by deed.

2. On Jeremiah 50:4-8. The deliverance of Israel from the Babylonian captivity a type of the deliverance of the Church1. The Church must humbly acknowledge the captivity suffered as a judgment of God2. She must turn like Israel inwardly with an upright heart unto the Lord; 3. She must become like Israel to all men a pattern and leader to freedom.

3. On Jeremiah 50:5. A confirmation sermon. “What is the hour of confirmation? 1. An hour which calls to separation; 2. an hour which leads to new connections; 3. an hour which fixes forever the old covenant with the soul’s friend.” Florey, 1853.

4. On Jeremiah 50:18-20. Assyria and Babylon the types of all the spiritual enemies of the church as of individual Christians. Every one has his Assyria and his Babylon. Sin is the destruction of men. Forgiveness of sins is the condition of life, for only where forgiveness of sins is, is there life and blessedness. In Christ we find the forgiveness of sins. He destroys the handwriting. He washes us clean. He is also the good shepherd who leads our souls into green pastures, to the spiritual Carmel.

5. On Jeremiah 50:31-32. Warning against pride. Babylon was very strong and powerful, rich and splendid. It seemed invincible by nature and by art. Had it not then a certain justification in being proud, at least towards men? No; for no one has to contend only with men. Every one who contends has the Lord either for his friend or his enemy. It is the Lord from whom cometh victory ( Proverbs 21:31). He it is who teacheth our hands to fight ( Psalm 18:35; Psalm 144:1). His strength is made perfect in weakness ( 2 Corinthians 12:9). He can make the lame ( Isaiah 33:23; Micah 4:7) and mortally wounded ( Jeremiah 37:10) so strong that they overmaster the sound (comp. Jeremiah 51:45). He can make one man put to flight a thousand ( Deuteronomy 32:30; Isaiah 30:17). With him can one dash in pieces a troop and leap over a wall ( Psalm 18:29). No one accordingly should be proud. The word of the Lord, “I am against thee, thou proud one!” is a terrible word which no one should conjure up against himself.

6. On Jeremiah 50:33-34. The consolation of the Church in persecution1. It suffers violence and injustice2. Its redeemer is strong.

7. On Jeremiah 51:5. God the Lord manifests such favor to Israel as to declare Himself her husband ( Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:1). But now that Israel and Judah are in exile, it seems as if they were rejected or widowed women. This, however, is only appearance. Israel’s husband does not die. He may well bring a period of chastisement, of purification and trial on His people, but when this period is over, the Lord turns the handle, and smites those through whom He chastised Israel, when they had forgotten that they were not to satisfy their own desire, but only to accomplish the Lord’s will on Israel.

8. On Jeremiah 51:6. A time may come when it is well to separate one’s self. For although it is said in Proverbs 18:1; he who separateth himself, seeketh that which pleaseth him and opposeth all that is good—and therefore separation, as the antipodes of churchliness, i.e., of churchly communion and humble subjection to the law of the co-operation of members ( 1 Corinthians 12:25 sqq.) is to be repudiated, yet there may come moments in the life of the church, when it will be a duty to leave the community and separate one’s self. Such a moment is come when the community has become a Babylon. It should, however, be noted that one should not be too ready with such a decision. For even the life of the church is subject to many vacillations. There are periods of decay, obscurations, as it were, comparable to eclipses of the stars, but to these, so long as the foundations only subsist, must always follow a restoration and return to the original brightness. No one is to consider the church a Babylon on account of such a passing state of disease. It is this only when it has withheld the objective divine foundations, the means of grace, the word and sacrament, altogether and permanently in their saving efficacy. Then, when the soul can no longer find in the church the pure and divine bread of life; it is well “to deliver the soul that it perish not in the iniquity of the church.” From this separation from the church is, however, to be carefully distinguished the separation within the church, from all that which is opposed to the healthy life of the church, and is therefore to be regarded as a diseased part of the ecclesiastical body. Such separation is the daily duty of the Christian. He has to perform it with respect to his private life in all the manifold relations, indicated to us in Matthew 18:17; Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9 sqq.; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; Titus 3:10; 2 John 1:10-11.—Comp. the article on Sects, by Palmer in Herzog, R-Enc., XXI, S. 21, 22.

9. On Jeremiah 51:10. The righteousness which avails before God1. Its origin (not our work or merit, but God’s grace in Christ); 2. Its fruit, praise of that which the Lord has wrought in us (a) by words, (b) by works.

10. On Jeremiah 51:50. This text may be used at the sending out of missionaries or the departure of emigrants. Occasion may be taken to speak1, of the gracious help and deliverance, which the Lord has hitherto shown to the departing; 2, they may be admonished to remain united in their distant land with their brethren at home by (a) remembering the Lord, i.e., ever remaining sincerely devoted to the Lord as the common shield of salvation; (b) faithfuly serving Jerusalem, i.e., the common mother of us all ( Galatians 4:26), the church, with all our powers in the proper place and measure, and ever keeping her in our hearts.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. “Daniel’s Babylonian empire resumes, as it were, the thread which was broken off with the tower-erection and kingdom of Nimrod. In the Babylonian tower-building the whole of the then existing humanity was united against God; with the Babylonian kingdom began the period of the universal monarchies, which again aspired after an atheistical union of entire humanity. Babylon has since and even to the Revelation ( Jeremiah 18) remained the standing type of this world.” Auberlen, Der proph. Daniel, S. 230.

2. For what reason does Babylon appear as a type of the world? Why not Nineveh, or Persepolis, or Tyre, or Memphis, or Rome? Certainly not because Babylon was greater, more glorious, more powerful or prouder and more ungodly than those cities and kingdoms. Nineveh especially was still greater than Babylon (comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. S. 474, 5), and Assyria was not less hostile to the theocracy, having carried away into captivity the northern and larger half of the people of Israel. Babylon is qualified for this representation in two ways: 1. because it is the home of worldly princedom and titanic arrogance ( Genesis 10:8; Genesis 11:1-4); 2. because Babylon destroyed the centre of the theocracy, Jerusalem, the temple and the theocratic kingdom, and first assumed to be the single supreme power of the globe.

3. “When God has used a superstitious, wicked and tyrannical nation long enough as His rod, He breaks it in pieces and finally throws it into the fire. For even those whom He formerly used as His chosen anointed instruments He then regards as but the dust in the streets or as chaff before the wind.” Cramer.

4. “No monarch is too rich, too wicked, too strong for God the Lord. And He can soon enlist and engage soldiers whom He can use against His declared enemies.” Cramer.

5. “Israel was founded on everlasting foundations, even God’s word and promise. The sins of the people brought about that it was laid low in the dust, but not without hope of a better resurrection. Babylon, on the other hand, must perish forever, for in it is the empire of evil come to its highest bloom. Jeremiah owns the nothingness of all worldly kingdoms, since they are all under this national order to serve only for a time. We are to be subject to them and seek their welfare for the sake of the souls of men, whom God is educating therein; a Christian however cannot be enthusiastic for them after the manner of the ancient heathen nor of ancient Israel, for here we have no abiding city, our citizenship is in heaven. The kingdoms of this world are no sanctuaries for us and we supplicate their continuance only with the daily bread of the fourth petition. Jeremiah applies many words and figures to Babylon which he has already used in the judgments on other nations, thus to intimate that in Babylon all the heathenism of the world culminates, and that here also must be the greatest anguish. What, however, is here declared of Babylon must be fulfilled again on all earthly powers in so far as, treading in its footprints, they take flesh for their arm and regard the material of this world as power, whether they be called states or churches.” Diedrich.

6. On Jeremiah 50:2. In putting into the mouth of Israel, returning from Babylon, the call to an everlasting covenant with Jehovah, the prophet causes them1. to confess that they have forgotten the first covenant; 2. he shows us that the time of the new covenant begins with the redemption from the Babylonish captivity. He was far, however, from supposing that this redemption would be only a weak beginning, that the appearance of the Saviour would be deferred for centuries, that Israel would sink still deeper as an external πολιτεία, and that finally the Israel of the new covenant would itself appear as a μυστήριον, εἰς ὃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ἄγγελοι παρακύψαι ( 1 Peter 1:9-12).

7. From what Jeremiah has already said in Jeremiah 31:31-34 of the new covenant we see that its nature and its difference from the old is not unknown to him. Yet he knows the new covenant only in general. He knows that it will be deeply spiritual and eternal, but how and why it will be so is still to him part of the μυστήριον.

8. On Jeremiah 50:6. Jeremiah here points back to Jeremiah 23. Priests, kings and prophets, who should discharge the office of shepherds, prove to be wolves. Yea, they are the worst of wolves, who go about in official clothing. There is therefore no more dangerous doctrine than that of an infallible office. Jeremiah 14:14; Matthew 7:15; Matthew 23:2-12.

9. On Jeremiah 50:7. It is the worst condition into which a church of God can come, when the enemies who desolate it can maintain that they are in the right in doing so. It is, however, a just nemesis when those who will not hear the regular messengers of God must be told by the extraordinary messengers of God what they should have done. Comp. Jeremiah 40:2-3.

10. On Jeremiah 50:8. “Babylon is opened, and it must be abandoned not clung to, for the captivity is a temporary chastisement, not the divine arrangement for the children of God. God’s people must in the general redemption go like rams before the herd of the nations, that these may also attach themselves to Israel, as this was fulfilled at the time of Christ in the first churches and the apostles, who now draw the whole heathen world after them to eternal life. Here the prophet recognizes the new humanity, which proceeds from the ruins of the old, in which also ancient Israel leads the way; thus all, who follow it, become Israel.” Diedrich.—“The heathen felt somewhat of the divine punishment when they overcame so easily the usually so strongly protected nation. But Jeremiah shows them still how they deceived themselves in thinking that God had wholly rejected His people, for of the eternal covenant of grace they certainly understood nothing.” Heim and Hoffmann on the Major Prophets.

11. On Jeremiah 50:18. “The great powers of the world form indeed the history of the world, but they have no future. Israel, however, always returns home to the dear and glorious land. The Jews might as a token of this return under Cyrus; the case is however this, that the true Holy One in Israel, Christ, guides us back to Paradise, when we flee to His hand from the Babylon of this world and let it be crucified for us.” Diedrich.

12. On Jeremiah 50:23. “Although the Chaldeans were called of God for the purpose of making war on the Jewish nation on account of their multitudinous sins, yet they are punished because they did it not as God with a pure intention, namely, to punish the wrong in them and keep them for reformation; for they were themselves greater sinners than the Jews and continued with impenitence in their sins. Therefore they could not go scot-free and remain unpunished. Moreover, they acted too roughly and dealt with the Jews more harshly than God had commanded, for which He therefore fairly punished them. As God the Lord Himself says ( Isaiah 47:6): When I was angry with My people I gave them into thine hands; but thou shewedst them no mercy. Therefore it is not enough that God’s will be accomplished, but there must be the good intention in it, which God had, otherwise such a work may be a sin and call down the divine punishment upon it.” Würtemb. Summ.

13. On Jeremiah 50:31-34. “God calls Babylon Thou Pride, for pride was their inward force and impulse in all their actions. But worldly pride makes a Babylon and brings on a Babylon’s fate .… Pride must fall, for it is in itself a lie against God, and all its might must perish in the fire; thus will the humble and meek remain in possession of the earth: this has a wide application through all times, even to eternity.” Diedrich.

14. On Jeremiah 51:33. “Israel is indeed weak and must suffer in a time of tyranny; it cannot help itself, nor needs it to do Song of Solomon, for its Redeemer is strong, His name The Lord Zebaoth—and He is, now, having assumed our flesh, among us and conducts our cause so that the world trembles.” Diedrich.

15. On Jeremiah 50:45. “An emblem of the destruction of anti-christian Babylon, which was also the true hammer of the whole world. This has God also broken and must and will do it still more. And this will the shepherd-boys do, as is said here in Jeremiah 51:45 (according to Luther’s translation), that is, all true teachers and preachers.” Cramer.

16. On Jeremiah 51. “The doctrines accord in all points with the previous chapter. And the prophet Jeremiah both in this and the previous chapter does nothing else but make out for the Babylonians their final discharge and passport, because they behaved so valiantly and well against the people of Judah, that they might know they would not go unrecompensed. For payment is according to service. And had they done better it would have gone better with them. It is well that when tyrants succeed in their evil undertakings they should not suppose they are God’s dearest children and lean on His bosom, since they will yet receive the recompense on their crown, whatever they have earned.” Cramer.

17. [“Though in the hand of Babylon is a golden cup; she chooses such a cup, in order that men’s eyes may be dazzled with the glitter of the gold, and may not inquire what it contains. But mark well, in the golden cup of Babylon is the poison of idolatry, the poison of false doctrines, which destroy the souls of men. I have often seen such a golden cup, in fair speeches of seductive eloquence: and when I have examined the venomous ingredients of the golden chalice, I have recognized the cup of Babylon.” Origen in Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]

“The seat and throne of Anti-christ is expressly named Babylon, namely, the city of Rome, built on the seven hills ( Revelation 17:9). Just as Babylon brought so many lands and kingdoms under its sway and ruled them with great pomp and pride (the golden cup, which made all the world drunk, was Babylon in the hand of the Lord ( Jeremiah 51:7), and all the heathen drank of the wine and became mad)—so has the spiritual Babylon a cup in its hand, full of the abomination and uncleanness of its whoredom, of which the kings of the earth and all who dwell on the earth have been made drunk. As it is said of Babylon that she dwells by great waters and has great treasures, so writes John of the Romish Babylon, that it is clothed in silk and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls ( Revelation 18:12). Of Babylon it is said that the slain in Israel were smitten by her; so also the spiritual Babylon is become drunk with the blood of the saints ( Revelation 17:6). Just, however, as the Chaldean Babylon is a type of the spiritual in its pride and despotism, so also is it a type of the destruction which will come upon it. Many wished to heal Babylon but she would not be healed; so many endeavor to support the ruinous anti-christian Babylon, but all in vain. For as Babylon was at last so destroyed as to be a heap of stones and abode of dragons, so will it be with anti-christian Babylon. Of this it is written in Revelation 14:8 : She is fallen, fallen, that great city, for she has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. And again, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and a hold of all foul and hateful birds ( Revelation 18:2). As the inhabitants of Babylon were admonished to flee from her, that every man might deliver his soul ( Jeremiah 51:6)—and again, My people, go ye out from the midst of her and deliver every man his soul, etc. ( Jeremiah 51:45)—so the Holy Spirit admonishes Christians almost in the same words to go out from the spiritual Babylon, that they be not polluted by her sins and at the same time share in her punishment. For thus it is written in Revelation 18:4, I heard, says John, a voice from heaven saying, Go ye out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins reach unto heaven and God remembers her iniquities.” Wurtemb. Summarien.

18. On Jeremiah 51:5. “A monarch can sooner make an end of half a continent than draw a nail from a hut which the Lord protects.—And if it is true that Kaiser Rudolph, when he revoked the toleration of the Picards and the same day lost one of his principal forts, said, ‘I thought it would be Song of Solomon, for I grasped at God’s sceptre’ (Weismanni, Hist. Eccl. Tom. II. p320)—this was a sage remark, a supplement to the words of the wise.” Zinzendorf.

19. On Jeremiah 51:9. We heal Babylon, but she will not be healed. Babylon is an outwardly beautiful but inwardly worm-eaten apple. Hence sooner or later the foulness must become noticeable. So is it with all whose heart and centre is not God. All is inwardly hollow and vain. When this internal vacuity begins to render itself externally palpable, when here and there a rent or foul spot becomes visible, then certainly come the friends and admirers of the unholy form and would improve, cover up, sew up, heal. But it does not avail. When once there is death in the body no physician can effect a cure.

20. On Jeremiah 51:17; Jeremiah 51:19-20. “The children of God have three causes why they may venture on Him. 1. All men are fools, their treasure is it not; 2. The Lord is their hammer; He breaks through everything, and3, they are an instrument in His hand, a heritage; in this there is happiness.” Zinzendorf.

21. On Jeremiah 51:41-44. “How was Sheshach thus won, the city renowned in all the world thus taken? No one would have thought it possible, but God does it. He rules with wonders and with wonders He makes His church free. Babylon is a wonder no longer for its power, but for its weakness. We are to know the world’s weakness even where it still appears strong. A sea of hostile nations has covered Babylon. Her land is now a desolation. God takes Bel and the Dragon, the principal idol of Babylon, symbolizing its whole civil powers in hand, and snatches his prey from his teeth. Our God is stronger than all worldly forces, and never leaves us to them.” Diedrich.

22. On Jeremiah 51:58. “Yea, so it is with all walls and towers, in which God’s word is not the vital force, even though they be entitled churches and cathedrals … God’s church alone possesses permanence through His pure word.” Diedrich.

23. On Jeremiah 51:60-64. When we wish to preserve an archive safely, we deposit it in a record-office where it is kept in a dry place that no moisture may get to it. Seraiah throws his book-roll into the waters of the Euphrates, which must wash it away, dissolve and destroy it. But this was of no account. The main point was that Hebrews, Seraiah, as representative of the holy nation had taken solemn stock of the word of God against Babylon, and as it were taken God at His word, and reminded Him of it. In this manner the matter was laid up in the most enduring and safest archive that could be imagined; it was made a case of honor with the omniscient and omnipotent God. Such matters can, however, neither be forgotten, nor remain in dead silence, nor be neglected. They must be brought to such an end as the honor of God requires.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. On Jeremiah 50:2. This text may be used on the feast of the Reformation, or any other occasion with reference to a rem bene gestam. The Triumph of the Good Cause, 1. over what enemies it is gained; 2. to what it should impel us; (a) to the avoidance of that over which we new triumph; (b) to the grateful proclamation of what the Lord has done for us, by word and by deed.

2. On Jeremiah 50:4-8. The deliverance of Israel from the Babylonian captivity a type of the deliverance of the Church1. The Church must humbly acknowledge the captivity suffered as a judgment of God2. She must turn like Israel inwardly with an upright heart unto the Lord; 3. She must become like Israel to all men a pattern and leader to freedom.

3. On Jeremiah 50:5. A confirmation sermon. “What is the hour of confirmation? 1. An hour which calls to separation; 2. an hour which leads to new connections; 3. an hour which fixes forever the old covenant with the soul’s friend.” Florey, 1853.

4. On Jeremiah 50:18-20. Assyria and Babylon the types of all the spiritual enemies of the church as of individual Christians. Every one has his Assyria and his Babylon. Sin is the destruction of men. Forgiveness of sins is the condition of life, for only where forgiveness of sins is, is there life and blessedness. In Christ we find the forgiveness of sins. He destroys the handwriting. He washes us clean. He is also the good shepherd who leads our souls into green pastures, to the spiritual Carmel.

5. On Jeremiah 50:31-32. Warning against pride. Babylon was very strong and powerful, rich and splendid. It seemed invincible by nature and by art. Had it not then a certain justification in being proud, at least towards men? No; for no one has to contend only with men. Every one who contends has the Lord either for his friend or his enemy. It is the Lord from whom cometh victory ( Proverbs 21:31). He it is who teacheth our hands to fight ( Psalm 18:35; Psalm 144:1). His strength is made perfect in weakness ( 2 Corinthians 12:9). He can make the lame ( Isaiah 33:23; Micah 4:7) and mortally wounded ( Jeremiah 37:10) so strong that they overmaster the sound (comp. Jeremiah 51:45). He can make one man put to flight a thousand ( Deuteronomy 32:30; Isaiah 30:17). With him can one dash in pieces a troop and leap over a wall ( Psalm 18:29). No one accordingly should be proud. The word of the Lord, “I am against thee, thou proud one!” is a terrible word which no one should conjure up against himself.

6. On Jeremiah 50:33-34. The consolation of the Church in persecution1. It suffers violence and injustice2. Its redeemer is strong.

7. On Jeremiah 51:5. God the Lord manifests such favor to Israel as to declare Himself her husband ( Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:1). But now that Israel and Judah are in exile, it seems as if they were rejected or widowed women. This, however, is only appearance. Israel’s husband does not die. He may well bring a period of chastisement, of purification and trial on His people, but when this period is over, the Lord turns the handle, and smites those through whom He chastised Israel, when they had forgotten that they were not to satisfy their own desire, but only to accomplish the Lord’s will on Israel.

8. On Jeremiah 51:6. A time may come when it is well to separate one’s self. For although it is said in Proverbs 18:1; he who separateth himself, seeketh that which pleaseth him and opposeth all that is good—and therefore separation, as the antipodes of churchliness, i.e., of churchly communion and humble subjection to the law of the co-operation of members ( 1 Corinthians 12:25 sqq.) is to be repudiated, yet there may come moments in the life of the church, when it will be a duty to leave the community and separate one’s self. Such a moment is come when the community has become a Babylon. It should, however, be noted that one should not be too ready with such a decision. For even the life of the church is subject to many vacillations. There are periods of decay, obscurations, as it were, comparable to eclipses of the stars, but to these, so long as the foundations only subsist, must always follow a restoration and return to the original brightness. No one is to consider the church a Babylon on account of such a passing state of disease. It is this only when it has withheld the objective divine foundations, the means of grace, the word and sacrament, altogether and permanently in their saving efficacy. Then, when the soul can no longer find in the church the pure and divine bread of life; it is well “to deliver the soul that it perish not in the iniquity of the church.” From this separation from the church is, however, to be carefully distinguished the separation within the church, from all that which is opposed to the healthy life of the church, and is therefore to be regarded as a diseased part of the ecclesiastical body. Such separation is the daily duty of the Christian. He has to perform it with respect to his private life in all the manifold relations, indicated to us in Matthew 18:17; Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9 sqq.; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; Titus 3:10; 2 John 1:10-11.—Comp. the article on Sects, by Palmer in Herzog, R-Enc., XXI, S. 21, 22.

9. On Jeremiah 51:10. The righteousness which avails before God1. Its origin (not our work or merit, but God’s grace in Christ); 2. Its fruit, praise of that which the Lord has wrought in us (a) by words, (b) by works.

10. On Jeremiah 51:50. This text may be used at the sending out of missionaries or the departure of emigrants. Occasion may be taken to speak1, of the gracious help and deliverance, which the Lord has hitherto shown to the departing; 2, they may be admonished to remain united in their distant land with their brethren at home by (a) remembering the Lord, i.e., ever remaining sincerely devoted to the Lord as the common shield of salvation; (b) faithfuly serving Jerusalem, i.e., the common mother of us all ( Galatians 4:26), the church, with all our powers in the proper place and measure, and ever keeping her in our hearts.

Footnotes

4. THE VENGEANCE OF JEHOVAH

Jeremiah 50:14-16

14 Array yourselves against Babylon round about, all ye archers,

Shoot¹³ at her, spare not¹⁴ the arrows,

For against Jehovah hath she sinned.

15 Cry against her round about!

She stretches forth¹⁵ her hand;

Fallen are her bastions,¹⁶

Thrown down are her walls.

For Jehovah’s vengeance it is.

Avenge yourselves on her!

As she hath done, do also unto her.

16 Exterminate the sower from Babylon,

And him that handleth the sickle at the time of harvest.

Before the destroying sword let every one turn to his people,

And every one flee into his own land.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

This picture is a supplement to the foregoing, and a further delineation of particular features. (a) The attack is described more in detail ( Jeremiah 50:14-15 a); (b) the connection between the fall of Babylon and its malignant pride ( Jeremiah 50:11) traced through the idea of recompense and vengeance of Jehovah ( Jeremiah 50:14 b, 15b); and (c) the desolation of Babylon, described generally in Jeremiah 50:12-13, is rendered more palpable in Jeremiah 50:16 by the setting forth of single characteristic features.

Jeremiah 50:14-15. Array … unto her.—Array evidently refers to equip (עָרְכוּ), Jeremiah 50:9, but as the attack was only ordered therein general, the manner of it is here more specially designated. Comp. Jeremiah 50:29; Jeremiah 46:9.—Both these verses correspond exactly in their structure. Each begins with a summons to attack, and closes with a causal sentence of the purport that this warlike proceeding is an act of Jehovah’s vengeance. Yet there is a gradation in the two, for while in Jeremiah 50:14 the attack is described in only its first stage, Jeremiah 50:15 brings before us the last decisive storm in the words Cry against her, which has the surrender for its immediate consequence. That the words are to be understood in this sense, seems to me clear from round about. Comp. Jeremiah 50:14. The triumphant cry sounds not from the environs, but from within the city.—Stretches forth her hand. This is a token of subjection. Det manus vincique se patiatur. Cicero, De Amic. Cap. 26 fin. Comp. 2 Chronicles 30:8; Lamentations 5:6.—For Jehovah’s, etc. This point also is here expressed more strongly than in Jeremiah 50:14 b, and thus forms the transition from Jeremiah 50:14 to the threatening of judgment. Babylon has called forth the vengeance of Jehovah by its malicious pleasure and arrogant violence. Comp. Jeremiah 50:28; Jeremiah 51:6; Jeremiah 51:11; Jeremiah 51:36; Jeremiah 46:10.—As she hath done. Comp. Jeremiah 50:29; Psalm 137:8; Revelation 18:6-7.

Jeremiah 50:16. Exterminate … his own land. This verse also specializes a general idea expressed in the previous context, viz., that of desolation, and this from two points of view. It is first said that what had hitherto been an ornament of the city, and had increased their power of resistance, viz., the fields inside the walls (Diod. Sic, II:9; Curt. Jeremiah 5:4; Plin.Hist. Nat., XVIII:17), will be given up to desolation for lack of men. It is evident that the prophet had these fields within the city in view from the fact that he is describing the siege of the city of Babylon throughout. Then, however, he predicts the flight of all who are not Babylonians (for the Babylonians will fall by the sword), Israel at their head ( Jeremiah 50:8). Comp. Jeremiah 46:16; Isaiah 13:14.—Destroying sword. Comp. Jeremiah 25:38; Jeremiah 46:16. In the latter passage the LXX. translates as here, μάχαιρα ἑλληνική, which Theodoret explains: πρὸ τῆς Βαβυλῶνος Λυδοὺς ὁ Κῦρος κατεστρέψατο καὶ Ἴωνας καὶ Αἰολέας. Another explanation is given by Walton (Polyglott, Lond, Tom. I, pag. 47. Introd.): Ira columbæ ( Jeremiah 25:38), gladius columbæ designant iram et gladium Chaldæorum, in quorum labaro erat columba argentea pennis inauratis Semiramidem repræsentans.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. “Daniel’s Babylonian empire resumes, as it were, the thread which was broken off with the tower-erection and kingdom of Nimrod. In the Babylonian tower-building the whole of the then existing humanity was united against God; with the Babylonian kingdom began the period of the universal monarchies, which again aspired after an atheistical union of entire humanity. Babylon has since and even to the Revelation ( Jeremiah 18) remained the standing type of this world.” Auberlen, Der proph. Daniel, S. 230.

2. For what reason does Babylon appear as a type of the world? Why not Nineveh, or Persepolis, or Tyre, or Memphis, or Rome? Certainly not because Babylon was greater, more glorious, more powerful or prouder and more ungodly than those cities and kingdoms. Nineveh especially was still greater than Babylon (comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. S. 474, 5), and Assyria was not less hostile to the theocracy, having carried away into captivity the northern and larger half of the people of Israel. Babylon is qualified for this representation in two ways: 1. because it is the home of worldly princedom and titanic arrogance ( Genesis 10:8; Genesis 11:1-4); 2. because Babylon destroyed the centre of the theocracy, Jerusalem, the temple and the theocratic kingdom, and first assumed to be the single supreme power of the globe.

3. “When God has used a superstitious, wicked and tyrannical nation long enough as His rod, He breaks it in pieces and finally throws it into the fire. For even those whom He formerly used as His chosen anointed instruments He then regards as but the dust in the streets or as chaff before the wind.” Cramer.

4. “No monarch is too rich, too wicked, too strong for God the Lord. And He can soon enlist and engage soldiers whom He can use against His declared enemies.” Cramer.

5. “Israel was founded on everlasting foundations, even God’s word and promise. The sins of the people brought about that it was laid low in the dust, but not without hope of a better resurrection. Babylon, on the other hand, must perish forever, for in it is the empire of evil come to its highest bloom. Jeremiah owns the nothingness of all worldly kingdoms, since they are all under this national order to serve only for a time. We are to be subject to them and seek their welfare for the sake of the souls of men, whom God is educating therein; a Christian however cannot be enthusiastic for them after the manner of the ancient heathen nor of ancient Israel, for here we have no abiding city, our citizenship is in heaven. The kingdoms of this world are no sanctuaries for us and we supplicate their continuance only with the daily bread of the fourth petition. Jeremiah applies many words and figures to Babylon which he has already used in the judgments on other nations, thus to intimate that in Babylon all the heathenism of the world culminates, and that here also must be the greatest anguish. What, however, is here declared of Babylon must be fulfilled again on all earthly powers in so far as, treading in its footprints, they take flesh for their arm and regard the material of this world as power, whether they be called states or churches.” Diedrich.

6. On Jeremiah 50:2. In putting into the mouth of Israel, returning from Babylon, the call to an everlasting covenant with Jehovah, the prophet causes them1. to confess that they have forgotten the first covenant; 2. he shows us that the time of the new covenant begins with the redemption from the Babylonish captivity. He was far, however, from supposing that this redemption would be only a weak beginning, that the appearance of the Saviour would be deferred for centuries, that Israel would sink still deeper as an external πολιτεία, and that finally the Israel of the new covenant would itself appear as a μυστήριον, εἰς ὃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ἄγγελοι παρακύψαι ( 1 Peter 1:9-12).

7. From what Jeremiah has already said in Jeremiah 31:31-34 of the new covenant we see that its nature and its difference from the old is not unknown to him. Yet he knows the new covenant only in general. He knows that it will be deeply spiritual and eternal, but how and why it will be so is still to him part of the μυστήριον.

8. On Jeremiah 50:6. Jeremiah here points back to Jeremiah 23. Priests, kings and prophets, who should discharge the office of shepherds, prove to be wolves. Yea, they are the worst of wolves, who go about in official clothing. There is therefore no more dangerous doctrine than that of an infallible office. Jeremiah 14:14; Matthew 7:15; Matthew 23:2-12.

9. On Jeremiah 50:7. It is the worst condition into which a church of God can come, when the enemies who desolate it can maintain that they are in the right in doing so. It is, however, a just nemesis when those who will not hear the regular messengers of God must be told by the extraordinary messengers of God what they should have done. Comp. Jeremiah 40:2-3.

10. On Jeremiah 50:8. “Babylon is opened, and it must be abandoned not clung to, for the captivity is a temporary chastisement, not the divine arrangement for the children of God. God’s people must in the general redemption go like rams before the herd of the nations, that these may also attach themselves to Israel, as this was fulfilled at the time of Christ in the first churches and the apostles, who now draw the whole heathen world after them to eternal life. Here the prophet recognizes the new humanity, which proceeds from the ruins of the old, in which also ancient Israel leads the way; thus all, who follow it, become Israel.” Diedrich.—“The heathen felt somewhat of the divine punishment when they overcame so easily the usually so strongly protected nation. But Jeremiah shows them still how they deceived themselves in thinking that God had wholly rejected His people, for of the eternal covenant of grace they certainly understood nothing.” Heim and Hoffmann on the Major Prophets.

11. On Jeremiah 50:18. “The great powers of the world form indeed the history of the world, but they have no future. Israel, however, always returns home to the dear and glorious land. The Jews might as a token of this return under Cyrus; the case is however this, that the true Holy One in Israel, Christ, guides us back to Paradise, when we flee to His hand from the Babylon of this world and let it be crucified for us.” Diedrich.

12. On Jeremiah 50:23. “Although the Chaldeans were called of God for the purpose of making war on the Jewish nation on account of their multitudinous sins, yet they are punished because they did it not as God with a pure intention, namely, to punish the wrong in them and keep them for reformation; for they were themselves greater sinners than the Jews and continued with impenitence in their sins. Therefore they could not go scot-free and remain unpunished. Moreover, they acted too roughly and dealt with the Jews more harshly than God had commanded, for which He therefore fairly punished them. As God the Lord Himself says ( Isaiah 47:6): When I was angry with My people I gave them into thine hands; but thou shewedst them no mercy. Therefore it is not enough that God’s will be accomplished, but there must be the good intention in it, which God had, otherwise such a work may be a sin and call down the divine punishment upon it.” Würtemb. Summ.

13. On Jeremiah 50:31-34. “God calls Babylon Thou Pride, for pride was their inward force and impulse in all their actions. But worldly pride makes a Babylon and brings on a Babylon’s fate .… Pride must fall, for it is in itself a lie against God, and all its might must perish in the fire; thus will the humble and meek remain in possession of the earth: this has a wide application through all times, even to eternity.” Diedrich.

14. On Jeremiah 51:33. “Israel is indeed weak and must suffer in a time of tyranny; it cannot help itself, nor needs it to do Song of Solomon, for its Redeemer is strong, His name The Lord Zebaoth—and He is, now, having assumed our flesh, among us and conducts our cause so that the world trembles.” Diedrich.

15. On Jeremiah 50:45. “An emblem of the destruction of anti-christian Babylon, which was also the true hammer of the whole world. This has God also broken and must and will do it still more. And this will the shepherd-boys do, as is said here in Jeremiah 51:45 (according to Luther’s translation), that is, all true teachers and preachers.” Cramer.

16. On Jeremiah 51. “The doctrines accord in all points with the previous chapter. And the prophet Jeremiah both in this and the previous chapter does nothing else but make out for the Babylonians their final discharge and passport, because they behaved so valiantly and well against the people of Judah, that they might know they would not go unrecompensed. For payment is according to service. And had they done better it would have gone better with them. It is well that when tyrants succeed in their evil undertakings they should not suppose they are God’s dearest children and lean on His bosom, since they will yet receive the recompense on their crown, whatever they have earned.” Cramer.

17. [“Though in the hand of Babylon is a golden cup; she chooses such a cup, in order that men’s eyes may be dazzled with the glitter of the gold, and may not inquire what it contains. But mark well, in the golden cup of Babylon is the poison of idolatry, the poison of false doctrines, which destroy the souls of men. I have often seen such a golden cup, in fair speeches of seductive eloquence: and when I have examined the venomous ingredients of the golden chalice, I have recognized the cup of Babylon.” Origen in Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]

“The seat and throne of Anti-christ is expressly named Babylon, namely, the city of Rome, built on the seven hills ( Revelation 17:9). Just as Babylon brought so many lands and kingdoms under its sway and ruled them with great pomp and pride (the golden cup, which made all the world drunk, was Babylon in the hand of the Lord ( Jeremiah 51:7), and all the heathen drank of the wine and became mad)—so has the spiritual Babylon a cup in its hand, full of the abomination and uncleanness of its whoredom, of which the kings of the earth and all who dwell on the earth have been made drunk. As it is said of Babylon that she dwells by great waters and has great treasures, so writes John of the Romish Babylon, that it is clothed in silk and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls ( Revelation 18:12). Of Babylon it is said that the slain in Israel were smitten by her; so also the spiritual Babylon is become drunk with the blood of the saints ( Revelation 17:6). Just, however, as the Chaldean Babylon is a type of the spiritual in its pride and despotism, so also is it a type of the destruction which will come upon it. Many wished to heal Babylon but she would not be healed; so many endeavor to support the ruinous anti-christian Babylon, but all in vain. For as Babylon was at last so destroyed as to be a heap of stones and abode of dragons, so will it be with anti-christian Babylon. Of this it is written in Revelation 14:8 : She is fallen, fallen, that great city, for she has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. And again, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and a hold of all foul and hateful birds ( Revelation 18:2). As the inhabitants of Babylon were admonished to flee from her, that every man might deliver his soul ( Jeremiah 51:6)—and again, My people, go ye out from the midst of her and deliver every man his soul, etc. ( Jeremiah 51:45)—so the Holy Spirit admonishes Christians almost in the same words to go out from the spiritual Babylon, that they be not polluted by her sins and at the same time share in her punishment. For thus it is written in Revelation 18:4, I heard, says John, a voice from heaven saying, Go ye out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins reach unto heaven and God remembers her iniquities.” Wurtemb. Summarien.

18. On Jeremiah 51:5. “A monarch can sooner make an end of half a continent than draw a nail from a hut which the Lord protects.—And if it is true that Kaiser Rudolph, when he revoked the toleration of the Picards and the same day lost one of his principal forts, said, ‘I thought it would be Song of Solomon, for I grasped at God’s sceptre’ (Weismanni, Hist. Eccl. Tom. II. p320)—this was a sage remark, a supplement to the words of the wise.” Zinzendorf.

19. On Jeremiah 51:9. We heal Babylon, but she will not be healed. Babylon is an outwardly beautiful but inwardly worm-eaten apple. Hence sooner or later the foulness must become noticeable. So is it with all whose heart and centre is not God. All is inwardly hollow and vain. When this internal vacuity begins to render itself externally palpable, when here and there a rent or foul spot becomes visible, then certainly come the friends and admirers of the unholy form and would improve, cover up, sew up, heal. But it does not avail. When once there is death in the body no physician can effect a cure.

20. On Jeremiah 51:17; Jeremiah 51:19-20. “The children of God have three causes why they may venture on Him. 1. All men are fools, their treasure is it not; 2. The Lord is their hammer; He breaks through everything, and3, they are an instrument in His hand, a heritage; in this there is happiness.” Zinzendorf.

21. On Jeremiah 51:41-44. “How was Sheshach thus won, the city renowned in all the world thus taken? No one would have thought it possible, but God does it. He rules with wonders and with wonders He makes His church free. Babylon is a wonder no longer for its power, but for its weakness. We are to know the world’s weakness even where it still appears strong. A sea of hostile nations has covered Babylon. Her land is now a desolation. God takes Bel and the Dragon, the principal idol of Babylon, symbolizing its whole civil powers in hand, and snatches his prey from his teeth. Our God is stronger than all worldly forces, and never leaves us to them.” Diedrich.

22. On Jeremiah 51:58. “Yea, so it is with all walls and towers, in which God’s word is not the vital force, even though they be entitled churches and cathedrals … God’s church alone possesses permanence through His pure word.” Diedrich.

23. On Jeremiah 51:60-64. When we wish to preserve an archive safely, we deposit it in a record-office where it is kept in a dry place that no moisture may get to it. Seraiah throws his book-roll into the waters of the Euphrates, which must wash it away, dissolve and destroy it. But this was of no account. The main point was that Hebrews, Seraiah, as representative of the holy nation had taken solemn stock of the word of God against Babylon, and as it were taken God at His word, and reminded Him of it. In this manner the matter was laid up in the most enduring and safest archive that could be imagined; it was made a case of honor with the omniscient and omnipotent God. Such matters can, however, neither be forgotten, nor remain in dead silence, nor be neglected. They must be brought to such an end as the honor of God requires.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. On Jeremiah 50:2. This text may be used on the feast of the Reformation, or any other occasion with reference to a rem bene gestam. The Triumph of the Good Cause, 1. over what enemies it is gained; 2. to what it should impel us; (a) to the avoidance of that over which we new triumph; (b) to the grateful proclamation of what the Lord has done for us, by word and by deed.

2. On Jeremiah 50:4-8. The deliverance of Israel from the Babylonian captivity a type of the deliverance of the Church1. The Church must humbly acknowledge the captivity suffered as a judgment of God2. She must turn like Israel inwardly with an upright heart unto the Lord; 3. She must become like Israel to all men a pattern and leader to freedom.

3. On Jeremiah 50:5. A confirmation sermon. “What is the hour of confirmation? 1. An hour which calls to separation; 2. an hour which leads to new connections; 3. an hour which fixes forever the old covenant with the soul’s friend.” Florey, 1853.

4. On Jeremiah 50:18-20. Assyria and Babylon the types of all the spiritual enemies of the church as of individual Christians. Every one has his Assyria and his Babylon. Sin is the destruction of men. Forgiveness of sins is the condition of life, for only where forgiveness of sins is, is there life and blessedness. In Christ we find the forgiveness of sins. He destroys the handwriting. He washes us clean. He is also the good shepherd who leads our souls into green pastures, to the spiritual Carmel.

5. On Jeremiah 50:31-32. Warning against pride. Babylon was very strong and powerful, rich and splendid. It seemed invincible by nature and by art. Had it not then a certain justification in being proud, at least towards men? No; for no one has to contend only with men. Every one who contends has the Lord either for his friend or his enemy. It is the Lord from whom cometh victory ( Proverbs 21:31). He it is who teacheth our hands to fight ( Psalm 18:35; Psalm 144:1). His strength is made perfect in weakness ( 2 Corinthians 12:9). He can make the lame ( Isaiah 33:23; Micah 4:7) and mortally wounded ( Jeremiah 37:10) so strong that they overmaster the sound (comp. Jeremiah 51:45). He can make one man put to flight a thousand ( Deuteronomy 32:30; Isaiah 30:17). With him can one dash in pieces a troop and leap over a wall ( Psalm 18:29). No one accordingly should be proud. The word of the Lord, “I am against thee, thou proud one!” is a terrible word which no one should conjure up against himself.

6. On Jeremiah 50:33-34. The consolation of the Church in persecution1. It suffers violence and injustice2. Its redeemer is strong.

7. On Jeremiah 51:5. God the Lord manifests such favor to Israel as to declare Himself her husband ( Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:1). But now that Israel and Judah are in exile, it seems as if they were rejected or widowed women. This, however, is only appearance. Israel’s husband does not die. He may well bring a period of chastisement, of purification and trial on His people, but when this period is over, the Lord turns the handle, and smites those through whom He chastised Israel, when they had forgotten that they were not to satisfy their own desire, but only to accomplish the Lord’s will on Israel.

8. On Jeremiah 51:6. A time may come when it is well to separate one’s self. For although it is said in Proverbs 18:1; he who separateth himself, seeketh that which pleaseth him and opposeth all that is good—and therefore separation, as the antipodes of churchliness, i.e., of churchly communion and humble subjection to the law of the co-operation of members ( 1 Corinthians 12:25 sqq.) is to be repudiated, yet there may come moments in the life of the church, when it will be a duty to leave the community and separate one’s self. Such a moment is come when the community has become a Babylon. It should, however, be noted that one should not be too ready with such a decision. For even the life of the church is subject to many vacillations. There are periods of decay, obscurations, as it were, comparable to eclipses of the stars, but to these, so long as the foundations only subsist, must always follow a restoration and return to the original brightness. No one is to consider the church a Babylon on account of such a passing state of disease. It is this only when it has withheld the objective divine foundations, the means of grace, the word and sacrament, altogether and permanently in their saving efficacy. Then, when the soul can no longer find in the church the pure and divine bread of life; it is well “to deliver the soul that it perish not in the iniquity of the church.” From this separation from the church is, however, to be carefully distinguished the separation within the church, from all that which is opposed to the healthy life of the church, and is therefore to be regarded as a diseased part of the ecclesiastical body. Such separation is the daily duty of the Christian. He has to perform it with respect to his private life in all the manifold relations, indicated to us in Matthew 18:17; Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9 sqq.; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; Titus 3:10; 2 John 1:10-11.—Comp. the article on Sects, by Palmer in Herzog, R-Enc., XXI, S. 21, 22.

9. On Jeremiah 51:10. The righteousness which avails before God1. Its origin (not our work or merit, but God’s grace in Christ); 2. Its fruit, praise of that which the Lord has wrought in us (a) by words, (b) by works.

10. On Jeremiah 51:50. This text may be used at the sending out of missionaries or the departure of emigrants. Occasion may be taken to speak1, of the gracious help and deliverance, which the Lord has hitherto shown to the departing; 2, they may be admonished to remain united in their distant land with their brethren at home by (a) remembering the Lord, i.e., ever remaining sincerely devoted to the Lord as the common shield of salvation; (b) faithfuly serving Jerusalem, i.e., the common mother of us all ( Galatians 4:26), the church, with all our powers in the proper place and measure, and ever keeping her in our hearts.

Footnotes

5. THE HAPPY TURN

Jeremiah 50:17-20

17 A scattered sheep is Israel, which the lions chased.¹⁷

First the king of Assyria devoured him,

And last this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones.¹⁸

18 Therefore thus saith Jehovah Zebaoth, the God of Israel;

Behold, I visit the king of Babylon and his land

As I have visited the king of Assyria.

19 And I bring Israel home to his pasturage,

To pasture on Carmel and Bashan,

And on mount Ephraim and Gilead his soul shall be satisfied.

20 In those days, at that time, saith Jehovah,

The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for,¹⁹—and it is gone!

And the sins of Judah—but thou findest them not.²⁰

For I will pardon him whom I reserve.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Hitherto Israel has been a poor frightened sheep, driven and devoured by two mighty wild animals, Assyria and Babylon ( Jeremiah 50:17); but the tables are to be turned. Assyria has already received its chastisement. That of Babylon will not be deferred ( Jeremiah 50:18). Then will Israel again feed peaceably on his own pasture ( Jeremiah 50:19). The reason of this wonderful change consists in this, that the Lord will show kindness to His people and forgive them all their iniquity ( Jeremiah 50:20).

Jeremiah 50:17-19. A scattered … be satisfied. Assyria destroyed the northern, Babylon the southern kingdom. In both cases the destruction was complete, and consequently represented by the figure of devouring, only with this difference that as a still higher degree the breaking of the bones is mentioned in the second case. After the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes the kingdom of Judah still remained as the skeleton of the theocracy. In destroying Jerusalem and the temple Nebuchadnezzar, as it were, broke its bones.—As I have visited. Comp. Jeremiah 46:25. The then already long past destruction of Nineveh is thus the type and pledge of the destruction of Babylon.—Bring Israel home. Comp. Ezekiel 38:4; Ezekiel 39:2.—Pasturage. Comp. Jeremiah 23:3; Jeremiah 22:6; Micah 7:14; Isaiah 33:9; Nahum 1:4; Ezekiel 34:13-14.

Jeremiah 50:20. In those days … reserve. Comp. Jeremiah 50:4. As in the mention of Assyria and Babylon, Jeremiah 50:17-18, there was a reference to the community of the two halves of the theocratic nation in misfortune, so here their union in prosperity is expressly set forth. Comp. rems. on Jeremiah 50:4. The reason of their restoration to prosperity is here mentioned; Jehovah’s grace which will grant forgiveness to the survivors, and cause their guilt to disappear without a trace.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. “Daniel’s Babylonian empire resumes, as it were, the thread which was broken off with the tower-erection and kingdom of Nimrod. In the Babylonian tower-building the whole of the then existing humanity was united against God; with the Babylonian kingdom began the period of the universal monarchies, which again aspired after an atheistical union of entire humanity. Babylon has since and even to the Revelation ( Jeremiah 18) remained the standing type of this world.” Auberlen, Der proph. Daniel, S. 230.

2. For what reason does Babylon appear as a type of the world? Why not Nineveh, or Persepolis, or Tyre, or Memphis, or Rome? Certainly not because Babylon was greater, more glorious, more powerful or prouder and more ungodly than those cities and kingdoms. Nineveh especially was still greater than Babylon (comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. S. 474, 5), and Assyria was not less hostile to the theocracy, having carried away into captivity the northern and larger half of the people of Israel. Babylon is qualified for this representation in two ways: 1. because it is the home of worldly princedom and titanic arrogance ( Genesis 10:8; Genesis 11:1-4); 2. because Babylon destroyed the centre of the theocracy, Jerusalem, the temple and the theocratic kingdom, and first assumed to be the single supreme power of the globe.

3. “When God has used a superstitious, wicked and tyrannical nation long enough as His rod, He breaks it in pieces and finally throws it into the fire. For even those whom He formerly used as His chosen anointed instruments He then regards as but the dust in the streets or as chaff before the wind.” Cramer.

4. “No monarch is too rich, too wicked, too strong for God the Lord. And He can soon enlist and engage soldiers whom He can use against His declared enemies.” Cramer.

5. “Israel was founded on everlasting foundations, even God’s word and promise. The sins of the people brought about that it was laid low in the dust, but not without hope of a better resurrection. Babylon, on the other hand, must perish forever, for in it is the empire of evil come to its highest bloom. Jeremiah owns the nothingness of all worldly kingdoms, since they are all under this national order to serve only for a time. We are to be subject to them and seek their welfare for the sake of the souls of men, whom God is educating therein; a Christian however cannot be enthusiastic for them after the manner of the ancient heathen nor of ancient Israel, for here we have no abiding city, our citizenship is in heaven. The kingdoms of this world are no sanctuaries for us and we supplicate their continuance only with the daily bread of the fourth petition. Jeremiah applies many words and figures to Babylon which he has already used in the judgments on other nations, thus to intimate that in Babylon all the heathenism of the world culminates, and that here also must be the greatest anguish. What, however, is here declared of Babylon must be fulfilled again on all earthly powers in so far as, treading in its footprints, they take flesh for their arm and regard the material of this world as power, whether they be called states or churches.” Diedrich.

6. On Jeremiah 50:2. In putting into the mouth of Israel, returning from Babylon, the call to an everlasting covenant with Jehovah, the prophet causes them1. to confess that they have forgotten the first covenant; 2. he shows us that the time of the new covenant begins with the redemption from the Babylonish captivity. He was far, however, from supposing that this redemption would be only a weak beginning, that the appearance of the Saviour would be deferred for centuries, that Israel would sink still deeper as an external πολιτεία, and that finally the Israel of the new covenant would itself appear as a μυστήριον, εἰς ὃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ἄγγελοι παρακύψαι ( 1 Peter 1:9-12).

7. From what Jeremiah has already said in Jeremiah 31:31-34 of the new covenant we see that its nature and its difference from the old is not unknown to him. Yet he knows the new covenant only in general. He knows that it will be deeply spiritual and eternal, but how and why it will be so is still to him part of the μυστήριον.

8. On Jeremiah 50:6. Jeremiah here points back to Jeremiah 23. Priests, kings and prophets, who should discharge the office of shepherds, prove to be wolves. Yea, they are the worst of wolves, who go about in official clothing. There is therefore no more dangerous doctrine than that of an infallible office. Jeremiah 14:14; Matthew 7:15; Matthew 23:2-12.

9. On Jeremiah 50:7. It is the worst condition into which a church of God can come, when the enemies who desolate it can maintain that they are in the right in doing so. It is, however, a just nemesis when those who will not hear the regular messengers of God must be told by the extraordinary messengers of God what they should have done. Comp. Jeremiah 40:2-3.

10. On Jeremiah 50:8. “Babylon is opened, and it must be abandoned not clung to, for the captivity is a temporary chastisement, not the divine arrangement for the children of God. God’s people must in the general redemption go like rams before the herd of the nations, that these may also attach themselves to Israel, as this was fulfilled at the time of Christ in the first churches and the apostles, who now draw the whole heathen world after them to eternal life. Here the prophet recognizes the new humanity, which proceeds from the ruins of the old, in which also ancient Israel leads the way; thus all, who follow it, become Israel.” Diedrich.—“The heathen felt somewhat of the divine punishment when they overcame so easily the usually so strongly protected nation. But Jeremiah shows them still how they deceived themselves in thinking that God had wholly rejected His people, for of the eternal covenant of grace they certainly understood nothing.” Heim and Hoffmann on the Major Prophets.

11. On Jeremiah 50:18. “The great powers of the world form indeed the history of the world, but they have no future. Israel, however, always returns home to the dear and glorious land. The Jews might as a token of this return under Cyrus; the case is however this, that the true Holy One in Israel, Christ, guides us back to Paradise, when we flee to His hand from the Babylon of this world and let it be crucified for us.” Diedrich.

12. On Jeremiah 50:23. “Although the Chaldeans were called of God for the purpose of making war on the Jewish nation on account of their multitudinous sins, yet they are punished because they did it not as God with a pure intention, namely, to punish the wrong in them and keep them for reformation; for they were themselves greater sinners than the Jews and continued with impenitence in their sins. Therefore they could not go scot-free and remain unpunished. Moreover, they acted too roughly and dealt with the Jews more harshly than God had commanded, for which He therefore fairly punished them. As God the Lord Himself says ( Isaiah 47:6): When I was angry with My people I gave them into thine hands; but thou shewedst them no mercy. Therefore it is not enough that God’s will be accomplished, but there must be the good intention in it, which God had, otherwise such a work may be a sin and call down the divine punishment upon it.” Würtemb. Summ.

13. On Jeremiah 50:31-34. “God calls Babylon Thou Pride, for pride was their inward force and impulse in all their actions. But worldly pride makes a Babylon and brings on a Babylon’s fate .… Pride must fall, for it is in itself a lie against God, and all its might must perish in the fire; thus will the humble and meek remain in possession of the earth: this has a wide application through all times, even to eternity.” Diedrich.

14. On Jeremiah 51:33. “Israel is indeed weak and must suffer in a time of tyranny; it cannot help itself, nor needs it to do Song of Solomon, for its Redeemer is strong, His name The Lord Zebaoth—and He is, now, having assumed our flesh, among us and conducts our cause so that the world trembles.” Diedrich.

15. On Jeremiah 50:45. “An emblem of the destruction of anti-christian Babylon, which was also the true hammer of the whole world. This has God also broken and must and will do it still more. And this will the shepherd-boys do, as is said here in Jeremiah 51:45 (according to Luther’s translation), that is, all true teachers and preachers.” Cramer.

16. On Jeremiah 51. “The doctrines accord in all points with the previous chapter. And the prophet Jeremiah both in this and the previous chapter does nothing else but make out for the Babylonians their final discharge and passport, because they behaved so valiantly and well against the people of Judah, that they might know they would not go unrecompensed. For payment is according to service. And had they done better it would have gone better with them. It is well that when tyrants succeed in their evil undertakings they should not suppose they are God’s dearest children and lean on His bosom, since they will yet receive the recompense on their crown, whatever they have earned.” Cramer.

17. [“Though in the hand of Babylon is a golden cup; she chooses such a cup, in order that men’s eyes may be dazzled with the glitter of the gold, and may not inquire what it contains. But mark well, in the golden cup of Babylon is the poison of idolatry, the poison of false doctrines, which destroy the souls of men. I have often seen such a golden cup, in fair speeches of seductive eloquence: and when I have examined the venomous ingredients of the golden chalice, I have recognized the cup of Babylon.” Origen in Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]

“The seat and throne of Anti-christ is expressly named Babylon, namely, the city of Rome, built on the seven hills ( Revelation 17:9). Just as Babylon brought so many lands and kingdoms under its sway and ruled them with great pomp and pride (the golden cup, which made all the world drunk, was Babylon in the hand of the Lord ( Jeremiah 51:7), and all the heathen drank of the wine and became mad)—so has the spiritual Babylon a cup in its hand, full of the abomination and uncleanness of its whoredom, of which the kings of the earth and all who dwell on the earth have been made drunk. As it is said of Babylon that she dwells by great waters and has great treasures, so writes John of the Romish Babylon, that it is clothed in silk and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls ( Revelation 18:12). Of Babylon it is said that the slain in Israel were smitten by her; so also the spiritual Babylon is become drunk with the blood of the saints ( Revelation 17:6). Just, however, as the Chaldean Babylon is a type of the spiritual in its pride and despotism, so also is it a type of the destruction which will come upon it. Many wished to heal Babylon but she would not be healed; so many endeavor to support the ruinous anti-christian Babylon, but all in vain. For as Babylon was at last so destroyed as to be a heap of stones and abode of dragons, so will it be with anti-christian Babylon. Of this it is written in Revelation 14:8 : She is fallen, fallen, that great city, for she has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. And again, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and a hold of all foul and hateful birds ( Revelation 18:2). As the inhabitants of Babylon were admonished to flee from her, that every man might deliver his soul ( Jeremiah 51:6)—and again, My people, go ye out from the midst of her and deliver every man his soul, etc. ( Jeremiah 51:45)—so the Holy Spirit admonishes Christians almost in the same words to go out from the spiritual Babylon, that they be not polluted by her sins and at the same time share in her punishment. For thus it is written in Revelation 18:4, I heard, says John, a voice from heaven saying, Go ye out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins reach unto heaven and God remembers her iniquities.” Wurtemb. Summarien.

18. On Jeremiah 51:5. “A monarch can sooner make an end of half a continent than draw a nail from a hut which the Lord protects.—And if it is true that Kaiser Rudolph, when he revoked the toleration of the Picards and the same day lost one of his principal forts, said, ‘I thought it would be Song of Solomon, for I grasped at God’s sceptre’ (Weismanni, Hist. Eccl. Tom. II. p320)—this was a sage remark, a supplement to the words of the wise.” Zinzendorf.

19. On Jeremiah 51:9. We heal Babylon, but she will not be healed. Babylon is an outwardly beautiful but inwardly worm-eaten apple. Hence sooner or later the foulness must become noticeable. So is it with all whose heart and centre is not God. All is inwardly hollow and vain. When this internal vacuity begins to render itself externally palpable, when here and there a rent or foul spot becomes visible, then certainly come the friends and admirers of the unholy form and would improve, cover up, sew up, heal. But it does not avail. When once there is death in the body no physician can effect a cure.

20. On Jeremiah 51:17; Jeremiah 51:19-20. “The children of God have three causes why they may venture on Him. 1. All men are fools, their treasure is it not; 2. The Lord is their hammer; He breaks through everything, and3, they are an instrument in His hand, a heritage; in this there is happiness.” Zinzendorf.

21. On Jeremiah 51:41-44. “How was Sheshach thus won, the city renowned in all the world thus taken? No one would have thought it possible, but God does it. He rules with wonders and with wonders He makes His church free. Babylon is a wonder no longer for its power, but for its weakness. We are to know the world’s weakness even where it still appears strong. A sea of hostile nations has covered Babylon. Her land is now a desolation. God takes Bel and the Dragon, the principal idol of Babylon, symbolizing its whole civil powers in hand, and snatches his prey from his teeth. Our God is stronger than all worldly forces, and never leaves us to them.” Diedrich.

22. On Jeremiah 51:58. “Yea, so it is with all walls and towers, in which God’s word is not the vital force, even though they be entitled churches and cathedrals … God’s church alone possesses permanence through His pure word.” Diedrich.

23. On Jeremiah 51:60-64. When we wish to preserve an archive safely, we deposit it in a record-office where it is kept in a dry place that no moisture may get to it. Seraiah throws his book-roll into the waters of the Euphrates, which must wash it away, dissolve and destroy it. But this was of no account. The main point was that Hebrews, Seraiah, as representative of the holy nation had taken solemn stock of the word of God against Babylon, and as it were taken God at His word, and reminded Him of it. In this manner the matter was laid up in the most enduring and safest archive that could be imagined; it was made a case of honor with the omniscient and omnipotent God. Such matters can, however, neither be forgotten, nor remain in dead silence, nor be neglected. They must be brought to such an end as the honor of God requires.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. On Jeremiah 50:2. This text may be used on the feast of the Reformation, or any other occasion with reference to a rem bene gestam. The Triumph of the Good Cause, 1. over what enemies it is gained; 2. to what it should impel us; (a) to the avoidance of that over which we new triumph; (b) to the grateful proclamation of what the Lord has done for us, by word and by deed.

2. On Jeremiah 50:4-8. The deliverance of Israel from the Babylonian captivity a type of the deliverance of the Church1. The Church must humbly acknowledge the captivity suffered as a judgment of God2. She must turn like Israel inwardly with an upright heart unto the Lord; 3. She must become like Israel to all men a pattern and leader to freedom.

3. On Jeremiah 50:5. A confirmation sermon. “What is the hour of confirmation? 1. An hour which calls to separation; 2. an hour which leads to new connections; 3. an hour which fixes forever the old covenant with the soul’s friend.” Florey, 1853.

4. On Jeremiah 50:18-20. Assyria and Babylon the types of all the spiritual enemies of the church as of individual Christians. Every one has his Assyria and his Babylon. Sin is the destruction of men. Forgiveness of sins is the condition of life, for only where forgiveness of sins is, is there life and blessedness. In Christ we find the forgiveness of sins. He destroys the handwriting. He washes us clean. He is also the good shepherd who leads our souls into green pastures, to the spiritual Carmel.

5. On Jeremiah 50:31-32. Warning against pride. Babylon was very strong and powerful, rich and splendid. It seemed invincible by nature and by art. Had it not then a certain justification in being proud, at least towards men? No; for no one has to contend only with men. Every one who contends has the Lord either for his friend or his enemy. It is the Lord from whom cometh victory ( Proverbs 21:31). He it is who teacheth our hands to fight ( Psalm 18:35; Psalm 144:1). His strength is made perfect in weakness ( 2 Corinthians 12:9). He can make the lame ( Isaiah 33:23; Micah 4:7) and mortally wounded ( Jeremiah 37:10) so strong that they overmaster the sound (comp. Jeremiah 51:45). He can make one man put to flight a thousand ( Deuteronomy 32:30; Isaiah 30:17). With him can one dash in pieces a troop and leap over a wall ( Psalm 18:29). No one accordingly should be proud. The word of the Lord, “I am against thee, thou proud one!” is a terrible word which no one should conjure up against himself.

6. On Jeremiah 50:33-34. The consolation of the Church in persecution1. It suffers violence and injustice2. Its redeemer is strong.

7. On Jeremiah 51:5. God the Lord manifests such favor to Israel as to declare Himself her husband ( Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:1). But now that Israel and Judah are in exile, it seems as if they were rejected or widowed women. This, however, is only appearance. Israel’s husband does not die. He may well bring a period of chastisement, of purification and trial on His people, but when this period is over, the Lord turns the handle, and smites those through whom He chastised Israel, when they had forgotten that they were not to satisfy their own desire, but only to accomplish the Lord’s will on Israel.

8. On Jeremiah 51:6. A time may come when it is well to separate one’s self. For although it is said in Proverbs 18:1; he who separateth himself, seeketh that which pleaseth him and opposeth all that is good—and therefore separation, as the antipodes of churchliness, i.e., of churchly communion and humble subjection to the law of the co-operation of members ( 1 Corinthians 12:25 sqq.) is to be repudiated, yet there may come moments in the life of the church, when it will be a duty to leave the community and separate one’s self. Such a moment is come when the community has become a Babylon. It should, however, be noted that one should not be too ready with such a decision. For even the life of the church is subject to many vacillations. There are periods of decay, obscurations, as it were, comparable to eclipses of the stars, but to these, so long as the foundations only subsist, must always follow a restoration and return to the original brightness. No one is to consider the church a Babylon on account of such a passing state of disease. It is this only when it has withheld the objective divine foundations, the means of grace, the word and sacrament, altogether and permanently in their saving efficacy. Then, when the soul can no longer find in the church the pure and divine bread of life; it is well “to deliver the soul that it perish not in the iniquity of the church.” From this separation from the church is, however, to be carefully distinguished the separation within the church, from all that which is opposed to the healthy life of the church, and is therefore to be regarded as a diseased part of the ecclesiastical body. Such separation is the daily duty of the Christian. He has to perform it with respect to his private life in all the manifold relations, indicated to us in Matthew 18:17; Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9 sqq.; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; Titus 3:10; 2 John 1:10-11.—Comp. the article on Sects, by Palmer in Herzog, R-Enc., XXI, S. 21, 22.

9. On Jeremiah 51:10. The righteousness which avails before God1. Its origin (not our work or merit, but God’s grace in Christ); 2. Its fruit, praise of that which the Lord has wrought in us (a) by words, (b) by works.

10. On Jeremiah 51:50. This text may be used at the sending out of missionaries or the departure of emigrants. Occasion may be taken to speak1, of the gracious help and deliverance, which the Lord has hitherto shown to the departing; 2, they may be admonished to remain united in their distant land with their brethren at home by (a) remembering the Lord, i.e., ever remaining sincerely devoted to the Lord as the common shield of salvation; (b) faithfuly serving Jerusalem, i.e., the common mother of us all ( Galatians 4:26), the church, with all our powers in the proper place and measure, and ever keeping her in our hearts.

Footnotes

6. ONE HAMMER CRUSHED BY THE OTHER

Jeremiah 50:21-23

21 Against the land of Double-defiance;21

Go up against it and against the inhabitants of Visitation!

Slay22 and burn after them, saith Jehovah,

And do according to all that I commanded thee!

22 Cry of war in the land and great ruin!

23 How is the hammer of the whole earth crushed and broken!

How is Babylon become a horror of desolation among the nations!

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

A complete picture, the specific element of which is the prophet’s showing how the Lord sends a chosen instrument to crush Babylon, which has hitherto served Him as such in the chastisement of mankind. In brief but powerful lines is described the summons to the instrument ( Jeremiah 50:21), the execution of the commission ( Jeremiah 50:22), the result ( Jeremiah 50:23).

Jeremiah 50:21-23. Against the land … among the nations. “What is meant by the double defiance it is difficult to say. We may regard it not inappropriately as the double visitation of the theocratic nation by Assyria and Babylon ( Jeremiah 50:17-18). The name, however, is given only to Babylon, which according to this view represents only half the defiance. The connection seems to require an interpretation according to which Babylon itself receives the whole reproach, and here, as it seems to me, two points may be observed: 1. The defiance which Babylon manifested both towards man and God, in revolting against the king of Assyria its master, and in sinning against Jehovah by its arrogant demeanor towards Israel2. The double defiance, which Babylon manifested in the earliest period in the erection of the tower of Babel and the founding of the first worldly kingdom ( Genesis 10:8 sqq.), and in later times by its behaviour towards the theocracy. I formerly inclined to the latter view, but now give the former the preference, because it is more natural and presents more clearly the element of doubleness. For the sin of Babylon against the Lord in earlier and more recent times is too entirely one and the same for it to be represented as a double one.—Against it. Comp. Jeremiah 50:3. The singular appears to me to be due to a different reason from that in Jeremiah 50:3, for there we find גוי, nation, which according to what follows is to be taken as collective. Here, however, the subject is left indefinite. This is the more surprising, as previously the enemies of Babylon are always called upon in the plural ( Jeremiah 50:14-16). When then in the following Jeremiah 50:23 Babylon is designated as the crushed hammer, i.e. as the instrument of Jehovah, which He Himself has destroyed, is it not most natural to regard as the subject of the imperative in Jeremiah 50:21 the instrument of which the Lord will make use in the destruction of His former instrument? Then, however, it is natural to place over against the Babylonian hammer (פַטִישׁ, comp. Grotiusad loc.), viz., Nebuchadnezzar, another hammer, i.e. over against the already known and mentioned ( Jeremiah 50:17) representative of the first empire, the representative (certainly only sometimes present in idea) of the other empire called to its destruction. Comp. Jeremiah 51:20.—Visitation is also a name formed ad hoc, and given to Babylon in antithesis to its double-defiance, which deserves visitation. Thus the former name designates Babylon’s guilt, the latter its punishment. Comp. Jeremiah 50:18; Jeremiah 50:31 and Ezekiel 23:23, which passage is based on this. Comp. Haevernick on the passage.—Burn. Comp. Jeremiah 25:9.—Cry of war, etc. Comp. Jeremiah 4:6; Jeremiah 6:1; Jeremiah 14:17; Jeremiah 48:3; Jeremiah 51:54.—How, etc. Comp. Isaiah 14:12; Jeremiah 51:20; Jeremiah 51:41.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. “Daniel’s Babylonian empire resumes, as it were, the thread which was broken off with the tower-erection and kingdom of Nimrod. In the Babylonian tower-building the whole of the then existing humanity was united against God; with the Babylonian kingdom began the period of the universal monarchies, which again aspired after an atheistical union of entire humanity. Babylon has since and even to the Revelation ( Jeremiah 18) remained the standing type of this world.” Auberlen, Der proph. Daniel, S. 230.

2. For what reason does Babylon appear as a type of the world? Why not Nineveh, or Persepolis, or Tyre, or Memphis, or Rome? Certainly not because Babylon was greater, more glorious, more powerful or prouder and more ungodly than those cities and kingdoms. Nineveh especially was still greater than Babylon (comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. S. 474, 5), and Assyria was not less hostile to the theocracy, having carried away into captivity the northern and larger half of the people of Israel. Babylon is qualified for this representation in two ways: 1. because it is the home of worldly princedom and titanic arrogance ( Genesis 10:8; Genesis 11:1-4); 2. because Babylon destroyed the centre of the theocracy, Jerusalem, the temple and the theocratic kingdom, and first assumed to be the single supreme power of the globe.

3. “When God has used a superstitious, wicked and tyrannical nation long enough as His rod, He breaks it in pieces and finally throws it into the fire. For even those whom He formerly used as His chosen anointed instruments He then regards as but the dust in the streets or as chaff before the wind.” Cramer.

4. “No monarch is too rich, too wicked, too strong for God the Lord. And He can soon enlist and engage soldiers whom He can use against His declared enemies.” Cramer.

5. “Israel was founded on everlasting foundations, even God’s word and promise. The sins of the people brought about that it was laid low in the dust, but not without hope of a better resurrection. Babylon, on the other hand, must perish forever, for in it is the empire of evil come to its highest bloom. Jeremiah owns the nothingness of all worldly kingdoms, since they are all under this national order to serve only for a time. We are to be subject to them and seek their welfare for the sake of the souls of men, whom God is educating therein; a Christian however cannot be enthusiastic for them after the manner of the ancient heathen nor of ancient Israel, for here we have no abiding city, our citizenship is in heaven. The kingdoms of this world are no sanctuaries for us and we supplicate their continuance only with the daily bread of the fourth petition. Jeremiah applies many words and figures to Babylon which he has already used in the judgments on other nations, thus to intimate that in Babylon all the heathenism of the world culminates, and that here also must be the greatest anguish. What, however, is here declared of Babylon must be fulfilled again on all earthly powers in so far as, treading in its footprints, they take flesh for their arm and regard the material of this world as power, whether they be called states or churches.” Diedrich.

6. On Jeremiah 50:2. In putting into the mouth of Israel, returning from Babylon, the call to an everlasting covenant with Jehovah, the prophet causes them1. to confess that they have forgotten the first covenant; 2. he shows us that the time of the new covenant begins with the redemption from the Babylonish captivity. He was far, however, from supposing that this redemption would be only a weak beginning, that the appearance of the Saviour would be deferred for centuries, that Israel would sink still deeper as an external πολιτεία, and that finally the Israel of the new covenant would itself appear as a μυστήριον, εἰς ὃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ἄγγελοι παρακύψαι ( 1 Peter 1:9-12).

7. From what Jeremiah has already said in Jeremiah 31:31-34 of the new covenant we see that its nature and its difference from the old is not unknown to him. Yet he knows the new covenant only in general. He knows that it will be deeply spiritual and eternal, but how and why it will be so is still to him part of the μυστήριον.

8. On Jeremiah 50:6. Jeremiah here points back to Jeremiah 23. Priests, kings and prophets, who should discharge the office of shepherds, prove to be wolves. Yea, they are the worst of wolves, who go about in official clothing. There is therefore no more dangerous doctrine than that of an infallible office. Jeremiah 14:14; Matthew 7:15; Matthew 23:2-12.

9. On Jeremiah 50:7. It is the worst condition into which a church of God can come, when the enemies who desolate it can maintain that they are in the right in doing so. It is, however, a just nemesis when those who will not hear the regular messengers of God must be told by the extraordinary messengers of God what they should have done. Comp. Jeremiah 40:2-3.

10. On Jeremiah 50:8. “Babylon is opened, and it must be abandoned not clung to, for the captivity is a temporary chastisement, not the divine arrangement for the children of God. God’s people must in the general redemption go like rams before the herd of the nations, that these may also attach themselves to Israel, as this was fulfilled at the time of Christ in the first churches and the apostles, who now draw the whole heathen world after them to eternal life. Here the prophet recognizes the new humanity, which proceeds from the ruins of the old, in which also ancient Israel leads the way; thus all, who follow it, become Israel.” Diedrich.—“The heathen felt somewhat of the divine punishment when they overcame so easily the usually so strongly protected nation. But Jeremiah shows them still how they deceived themselves in thinking that God had wholly rejected His people, for of the eternal covenant of grace they certainly understood nothing.” Heim and Hoffmann on the Major Prophets.

11. On Jeremiah 50:18. “The great powers of the world form indeed the history of the world, but they have no future. Israel, however, always returns home to the dear and glorious land. The Jews might as a token of this return under Cyrus; the case is however this, that the true Holy One in Israel, Christ, guides us back to Paradise, when we flee to His hand from the Babylon of this world and let it be crucified for us.” Diedrich.

12. On Jeremiah 50:23. “Although the Chaldeans were called of God for the purpose of making war on the Jewish nation on account of their multitudinous sins, yet they are punished because they did it not as God with a pure intention, namely, to punish the wrong in them and keep them for reformation; for they were themselves greater sinners than the Jews and continued with impenitence in their sins. Therefore they could not go scot-free and remain unpunished. Moreover, they acted too roughly and dealt with the Jews more harshly than God had commanded, for which He therefore fairly punished them. As God the Lord Himself says ( Isaiah 47:6): When I was angry with My people I gave them into thine hands; but thou shewedst them no mercy. Therefore it is not enough that God’s will be accomplished, but there must be the good intention in it, which God had, otherwise such a work may be a sin and call down the divine punishment upon it.” Würtemb. Summ.

13. On Jeremiah 50:31-34. “God calls Babylon Thou Pride, for pride was their inward force and impulse in all their actions. But worldly pride makes a Babylon and brings on a Babylon’s fate .… Pride must fall, for it is in itself a lie against God, and all its might must perish in the fire; thus will the humble and meek remain in possession of the earth: this has a wide application through all times, even to eternity.” Diedrich.

14. On Jeremiah 51:33. “Israel is indeed weak and must suffer in a time of tyranny; it cannot help itself, nor needs it to do Song of Solomon, for its Redeemer is strong, His name The Lord Zebaoth—and He is, now, having assumed our flesh, among us and conducts our cause so that the world trembles.” Diedrich.

15. On Jeremiah 50:45. “An emblem of the destruction of anti-christian Babylon, which was also the true hammer of the whole world. This has God also broken and must and will do it still more. And this will the shepherd-boys do, as is said here in Jeremiah 51:45 (according to Luther’s translation), that is, all true teachers and preachers.” Cramer.

16. On Jeremiah 51. “The doctrines accord in all points with the previous chapter. And the prophet Jeremiah both in this and the previous chapter does nothing else but make out for the Babylonians their final discharge and passport, because they behaved so valiantly and well against the people of Judah, that they might know they would not go unrecompensed. For payment is according to service. And had they done better it would have gone better with them. It is well that when tyrants succeed in their evil undertakings they should not suppose they are God’s dearest children and lean on His bosom, since they will yet receive the recompense on their crown, whatever they have earned.” Cramer.

17. [“Though in the hand of Babylon is a golden cup; she chooses such a cup, in order that men’s eyes may be dazzled with the glitter of the gold, and may not inquire what it contains. But mark well, in the golden cup of Babylon is the poison of idolatry, the poison of false doctrines, which destroy the souls of men. I have often seen such a golden cup, in fair speeches of seductive eloquence: and when I have examined the venomous ingredients of the golden chalice, I have recognized the cup of Babylon.” Origen in Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]

“The seat and throne of Anti-christ is expressly named Babylon, namely, the city of Rome, built on the seven hills ( Revelation 17:9). Just as Babylon brought so many lands and kingdoms under its sway and ruled them with great pomp and pride (the golden cup, which made all the world drunk, was Babylon in the hand of the Lord ( Jeremiah 51:7), and all the heathen drank of the wine and became mad)—so has the spiritual Babylon a cup in its hand, full of the abomination and uncleanness of its whoredom, of which the kings of the earth and all who dwell on the earth have been made drunk. As it is said of Babylon that she dwells by great waters and has great treasures, so writes John of the Romish Babylon, that it is clothed in silk and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls ( Revelation 18:12). Of Babylon it is said that the slain in Israel were smitten by her; so also the spiritual Babylon is become drunk with the blood of the saints ( Revelation 17:6). Just, however, as the Chaldean Babylon is a type of the spiritual in its pride and despotism, so also is it a type of the destruction which will come upon it. Many wished to heal Babylon but she would not be healed; so many endeavor to support the ruinous anti-christian Babylon, but all in vain. For as Babylon was at last so destroyed as to be a heap of stones and abode of dragons, so will it be with anti-christian Babylon. Of this it is written in Revelation 14:8 : She is fallen, fallen, that great city, for she has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. And again, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and a hold of all foul and hateful birds ( Revelation 18:2). As the inhabitants of Babylon were admonished to flee from her, that every man might deliver his soul ( Jeremiah 51:6)—and again, My people, go ye out from the midst of her and deliver every man his soul, etc. ( Jeremiah 51:45)—so the Holy Spirit admonishes Christians almost in the same words to go out from the spiritual Babylon, that they be not polluted by her sins and at the same time share in her punishment. For thus it is written in Revelation 18:4, I heard, says John, a voice from heaven saying, Go ye out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins reach unto heaven and God remembers her iniquities.” Wurtemb. Summarien.

18. On Jeremiah 51:5. “A monarch can sooner make an end of half a continent than draw a nail from a hut which the Lord protects.—And if it is true that Kaiser Rudolph, when he revoked the toleration of the Picards and the same day lost one of his principal forts, said, ‘I thought it would be Song of Solomon, for I grasped at God’s sceptre’ (Weismanni, Hist. Eccl. Tom. II. p320)—this was a sage remark, a supplement to the words of the wise.” Zinzendorf.

19. On Jeremiah 51:9. We heal Babylon, but she will not be healed. Babylon is an outwardly beautiful but inwardly worm-eaten apple. Hence sooner or later the foulness must become noticeable. So is it with all whose heart and centre is not God. All is inwardly hollow and vain. When this internal vacuity begins to render itself externally palpable, when here and there a rent or foul spot becomes visible, then certainly come the friends and admirers of the unholy form and would improve, cover up, sew up, heal. But it does not avail. When once there is death in the body no physician can effect a cure.

20. On Jeremiah 51:17; Jeremiah 51:19-20. “The children of God have three causes why they may venture on Him. 1. All men are fools, their treasure is it not; 2. The Lord is their hammer; He breaks through everything, and3, they are an instrument in His hand, a heritage; in this there is happiness.” Zinzendorf.

21. On Jeremiah 51:41-44. “How was Sheshach thus won, the city renowned in all the world thus taken? No one would have thought it possible, but God does it. He rules with wonders and with wonders He makes His church free. Babylon is a wonder no longer for its power, but for its weakness. We are to know the world’s weakness even where it still appears strong. A sea of hostile nations has covered Babylon. Her land is now a desolation. God takes Bel and the Dragon, the principal idol of Babylon, symbolizing its whole civil powers in hand, and snatches his prey from his teeth. Our God is stronger than all worldly forces, and never leaves us to them.” Diedrich.

22. On Jeremiah 51:58. “Yea, so it is with all walls and towers, in which God’s word is not the vital force, even though they be entitled churches and cathedrals … God’s church alone possesses permanence through His pure word.” Diedrich.

23. On Jeremiah 51:60-64. When we wish to preserve an archive safely, we deposit it in a record-office where it is kept in a dry place that no moisture may get to it. Seraiah throws his book-roll into the waters of the Euphrates, which must wash it away, dissolve and destroy it. But this was of no account. The main point was that Hebrews, Seraiah, as representative of the holy nation had taken solemn stock of the word of God against Babylon, and as it were taken God at His word, and reminded Him of it. In this manner the matter was laid up in the most enduring and safest archive that could be imagined; it was made a case of honor with the omniscient and omnipotent God. Such matters can, however, neither be forgotten, nor remain in dead silence, nor be neglected. They must be brought to such an end as the honor of God requires.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. On Jeremiah 50:2. This text may be used on the feast of the Reformation, or any other occasion with reference to a rem bene gestam. The Triumph of the Good Cause, 1. over what enemies it is gained; 2. to what it should impel us; (a) to the avoidance of that over which we new triumph; (b) to the grateful proclamation of what the Lord has done for us, by word and by deed.

2. On Jeremiah 50:4-8. The deliverance of Israel from the Babylonian captivity a type of the deliverance of the Church1. The Church must humbly acknowledge the captivity suffered as a judgment of God2. She must turn like Israel inwardly with an upright heart unto the Lord; 3. She must become like Israel to all men a pattern and leader to freedom.

3. On Jeremiah 50:5. A confirmation sermon. “What is the hour of confirmation? 1. An hour which calls to separation; 2. an hour which leads to new connections; 3. an hour which fixes forever the old covenant with the soul’s friend.” Florey, 1853.

4. On Jeremiah 50:18-20. Assyria and Babylon the types of all the spiritual enemies of the church as of individual Christians. Every one has his Assyria and his Babylon. Sin is the destruction of men. Forgiveness of sins is the condition of life, for only where forgiveness of sins is, is there life and blessedness. In Christ we find the forgiveness of sins. He destroys the handwriting. He washes us clean. He is also the good shepherd who leads our souls into green pastures, to the spiritual Carmel.

5. On Jeremiah 50:31-32. Warning against pride. Babylon was very strong and powerful, rich and splendid. It seemed invincible by nature and by art. Had it not then a certain justification in being proud, at least towards men? No; for no one has to contend only with men. Every one who contends has the Lord either for his friend or his enemy. It is the Lord from whom cometh victory ( Proverbs 21:31). He it is who teacheth our hands to fight ( Psalm 18:35; Psalm 144:1). His strength is made perfect in weakness ( 2 Corinthians 12:9). He can make the lame ( Isaiah 33:23; Micah 4:7) and mortally wounded ( Jeremiah 37:10) so strong that they overmaster the sound (comp. Jeremiah 51:45). He can make one man put to flight a thousand ( Deuteronomy 32:30; Isaiah 30:17). With him can one dash in pieces a troop and leap over a wall ( Psalm 18:29). No one accordingly should be proud. The word of the Lord, “I am against thee, thou proud one!” is a terrible word which no one should conjure up against himself.

6. On Jeremiah 50:33-34. The consolation of the Church in persecution1. It suffers violence and injustice2. Its redeemer is strong.

7. On Jeremiah 51:5. God the Lord manifests such favor to Israel as to declare Himself her husband ( Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:1). But now that Israel and Judah are in exile, it seems as if they were rejected or widowed women. This, however, is only appearance. Israel’s husband does not die. He may well bring a period of chastisement, of purification and trial on His people, but when this period is over, the Lord turns the handle, and smites those through whom He chastised Israel, when they had forgotten that they were not to satisfy their own desire, but only to accomplish the Lord’s will on Israel.

8. On Jeremiah 51:6. A time may come when it is well to separate one’s self. For although it is said in Proverbs 18:1; he who separateth himself, seeketh that which pleaseth him and opposeth all that is good—and therefore separation, as the antipodes of churchliness, i.e., of churchly communion and humble subjection to the law of the co-operation of members ( 1 Corinthians 12:25 sqq.) is to be repudiated, yet there may come moments in the life of the church, when it will be a duty to leave the community and separate one’s self. Such a moment is come when the community has become a Babylon. It should, however, be noted that one should not be too ready with such a decision. For even the life of the church is subject to many vacillations. There are periods of decay, obscurations, as it were, comparable to eclipses of the stars, but to these, so long as the foundations only subsist, must always follow a restoration and return to the original brightness. No one is to consider the church a Babylon on account of such a passing state of disease. It is this only when it has withheld the objective divine foundations, the means of grace, the word and sacrament, altogether and permanently in their saving efficacy. Then, when the soul can no longer find in the church the pure and divine bread of life; it is well “to deliver the soul that it perish not in the iniquity of the church.” From this separation from the church is, however, to be carefully distinguished the separation within the church, from all that which is opposed to the healthy life of the church, and is therefore to be regarded as a diseased part of the ecclesiastical body. Such separation is the daily duty of the Christian. He has to perform it with respect to his private life in all the manifold relations, indicated to us in Matthew 18:17; Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9 sqq.; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; Titus 3:10; 2 John 1:10-11.—Comp. the article on Sects, by Palmer in Herzog, R-Enc., XXI, S. 21, 22.

9. On Jeremiah 51:10. The righteousness which avails before God1. Its origin (not our work or merit, but God’s grace in Christ); 2. Its fruit, praise of that which the Lord has wrought in us (a) by words, (b) by works.

10. On Jeremiah 51:50. This text may be used at the sending out of missionaries or the departure of emigrants. Occasion may be taken to speak1, of the gracious help and deliverance, which the Lord has hitherto shown to the departing; 2, they may be admonished to remain united in their distant land with their brethren at home by (a) remembering the Lord, i.e., ever remaining sincerely devoted to the Lord as the common shield of salvation; (b) faithfuly serving Jerusalem, i.e., the common mother of us all ( Galatians 4:26), the church, with all our powers in the proper place and measure, and ever keeping her in our hearts.

21] Jeremiah 50:21.—Ewald has well remarked that the word מְרָתַיִם is used in antithesis to אֲרַס־נַהֲרַיִם, Mesopotamia. Not Double-river, but Double defiance (comp. Zweibrücken [Bipontes] in Germany) was to be Babylon’s title. For similar names comp. e.g., Micah 1:10. The word does not occur elsewhere. It may be derived from מְרִי, although the mention of Israel by this name ( Ezekiel 2:7; Ezekiel 44:6) may be regarded as analogous to, or an imitation of (comp. פְקוֹד, ver21,and Ezekiel 23:23) this expression. A singular מָרָה from מָרָה, rebellis fuit, also does not occur. מְרָתַיִם is new form made by the prophet. Fuerst would derive it from מְרָת, to which he ascribes the meaning of “lordship.” But the analogies מוֹרֶה ( Job 36:22; Aram. מַר,מָרֵא), מָרוֹת,מִרְיָם ( Micah 1:12) are very uncertain, and admit of another explanation. The word מָרָה, rebellis fuit, is always used elsewhere of Israel, hut this limitation of the use is not necessarily founded in the radical signification. There is no reason then why a word formed from the root, new and specially ad hoc., should not be applied in another case. In regard to the dual it is ungrammatical to attribute to it the significance of a climax, which it never has elsewhere.

22] Jeremiah 50:21.—חֲרֹב a denominative from חֶרֶב. Comp. Jeremiah 50:27; 2 Kings 3:23.

7. BABYLON SURPRISED AND DESTROYED, ISRAEL LIBERATED

Jeremiah 50:24-28

24 I have placed23 a net for thee and thou art also taken,

O Babylon, and thou knowest it not.

Thou art found and also caught,

For against Jehovah hast thou striven.24

25 Jehovah hath opened his arsenal,

And brought forth the weapons of his wrath;

For the Lord Jehovah Zebaoth hath a work in the land of the Chaldeans.

26 Come hither even the last, open her storehouses,25

Cast it up as heaps of rubbish and burn it,26

Let there be nothing left of it.

27 Slay all her bullocks,

Down with them to the slaughter-house!

Woe unto them, for their day is come,

The time of their visitation.

28 Hark! the fleeing and escaped from the land of Babylon,

To proclaim in Zion the vengeance of Jehovah, our God,

The vengeance of his sanctuary.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

In this picture the element of secrecy and surprise as excluding all resistance, which will prevail at the capture of Babylon, is made prominent (ver, 24). This mode of capture is rendered possible by the Lord’s having opened His armory and brought into use all the means of attack which it affords. He has done this because He would manage the business with Babylon as a matter of the highest importance ( Jeremiah 50:25). As now, however, the Lord has emptied His arsenal against Babylon, so also shall all store-houses in Babylon be emptied and all living and dead treasures contained therein be destroyed ( Jeremiah 50:26-27). The escaped of Zion, however, shall bring home the joyful tidings of Jehovah’s vengeance ( Jeremiah 50:28). We see that these verses also furnish a complete picture progressing from the beginning to the close with special prominence of single specific elements.

Jeremiah 50:24. I have placed … striven. In this placing of a net or snare lies the element of commencement on account of which we regard this verse as the commencement of a new picture. This must be so the rather as Jeremiah 50:23 evidently contains a conclusion. The prophet in spirit sees Babylon unexpectedly caught in a net or snare. How literally this would be fulfilled Jeremiah himself might have no idea (comp. 1 Peter 1:11). Twice was Babylon taken by stratagem, and both times so that the city was in the power of its enemies, before it was aware. Herodotus says (I:191), with reference to the capture by Cyrus, that if the Babylonians had known or observed his plan (the diversion of the Euphrates) they could have inflicted great injury on the Persians. But these came upon them quite unexpectedly (ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτον σφιπαρώστησαν οἱ ΙΙέρσαι), the outer parts of the city being already taken before those who dwelt in the central parts had observed what was going on (τοὺς τὸ μέσον οἰκεοντος οὐ μανθάνειν ἑαλωκότας). With reference to the capture by Darius Hystaspis, however, he says (III:158) that a part of the Babylonians, who saw the entrance of the Persians through the gate opened by Zopyrus, fled, the rest remaining every one in his place till they also perceived that they were betrayed (ἐς ο͂ δὴ καὶ οὐτσι ἔμαθον προδεομένοι).

Jeremiah 50:25-28. Jehovah … sanctuary. The capture of a city like Babylon by an overwhelming surprise is not possible without great means. Such are now provided by Jehovah, for He opens His arsenal (comp. Jeremiah 10:13; Jeremiah 51:16) to take from it all necessary implements of war (comp. Isaiah 13:5). This He does because He has a מְלאכה, a business in the land of the Chaldeans. A business or work of Jehovah is always a great and important matter, and is therefore not to be performed negligently ( Jeremiah 48:10). To the execution of this work He now summons His servants and instruments ( Jeremiah 50:26), who are to come מִקֵּץ. If we refer this to the city (attacked from the end, not from the middle) the meaning is feeble and unsuitable, for a city can only be attacked from without and thus from the ends of it. If it be rendered “from all ends” (round about, Jeremiah 50:15; Jeremiah 50:29) we miss the word for “all.” Hence it is best to take it with Ewald and Graf=ad unum omnes. If the outermost come, all come. Come. Genesis 19:4; Genesis 47:2; Isaiah 56:11; Ezekiel 33:2. To the opening of the arsenal of Jehovah is to correspond the violent breaking open and emptying of the storehouses of Babylon.—Slay all, etc. The bullocks are the representatives and chief personages of the human population. Comp. Isaiah 34:6-7; Jeremiah 48:15; Jeremiah 51:40.—The time, etc. Comp. Jeremiah 46:21.—Fleeing. Comp. Jeremiah 50:4; Jeremiah 50:8.—Vengeance. Comp. Jeremiah 50:15; Jeremiah 51:11.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. “Daniel’s Babylonian empire resumes, as it were, the thread which was broken off with the tower-erection and kingdom of Nimrod. In the Babylonian tower-building the whole of the then existing humanity was united against God; with the Babylonian kingdom began the period of the universal monarchies, which again aspired after an atheistical union of entire humanity. Babylon has since and even to the Revelation ( Jeremiah 18) remained the standing type of this world.” Auberlen, Der proph. Daniel, S. 230.

2. For what reason does Babylon appear as a type of the world? Why not Nineveh, or Persepolis, or Tyre, or Memphis, or Rome? Certainly not because Babylon was greater, more glorious, more powerful or prouder and more ungodly than those cities and kingdoms. Nineveh especially was still greater than Babylon (comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. S. 474, 5), and Assyria was not less hostile to the theocracy, having carried away into captivity the northern and larger half of the people of Israel. Babylon is qualified for this representation in two ways: 1. because it is the home of worldly princedom and titanic arrogance ( Genesis 10:8; Genesis 11:1-4); 2. because Babylon destroyed the centre of the theocracy, Jerusalem, the temple and the theocratic kingdom, and first assumed to be the single supreme power of the globe.

3. “When God has used a superstitious, wicked and tyrannical nation long enough as His rod, He breaks it in pieces and finally throws it into the fire. For even those whom He formerly used as His chosen anointed instruments He then regards as but the dust in the streets or as chaff before the wind.” Cramer.

4. “No monarch is too rich, too wicked, too strong for God the Lord. And He can soon enlist and engage soldiers whom He can use against His declared enemies.” Cramer.

5. “Israel was founded on everlasting foundations, even God’s word and promise. The sins of the people brought about that it was laid low in the dust, but not without hope of a better resurrection. Babylon, on the other hand, must perish forever, for in it is the empire of evil come to its highest bloom. Jeremiah owns the nothingness of all worldly kingdoms, since they are all under this national order to serve only for a time. We are to be subject to them and seek their welfare for the sake of the souls of men, whom God is educating therein; a Christian however cannot be enthusiastic for them after the manner of the ancient heathen nor of ancient Israel, for here we have no abiding city, our citizenship is in heaven. The kingdoms of this world are no sanctuaries for us and we supplicate their continuance only with the daily bread of the fourth petition. Jeremiah applies many words and figures to Babylon which he has already used in the judgments on other nations, thus to intimate that in Babylon all the heathenism of the world culminates, and that here also must be the greatest anguish. What, however, is here declared of Babylon must be fulfilled again on all earthly powers in so far as, treading in its footprints, they take flesh for their arm and regard the material of this world as power, whether they be called states or churches.” Diedrich.

6. On Jeremiah 50:2. In putting into the mouth of Israel, returning from Babylon, the call to an everlasting covenant with Jehovah, the prophet causes them1. to confess that they have forgotten the first covenant; 2. he shows us that the time of the new covenant begins with the redemption from the Babylonish captivity. He was far, however, from supposing that this redemption would be only a weak beginning, that the appearance of the Saviour would be deferred for centuries, that Israel would sink still deeper as an external πολιτεία, and that finally the Israel of the new covenant would itself appear as a μυστήριον, εἰς ὃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ἄγγελοι παρακύψαι ( 1 Peter 1:9-12).

7. From what Jeremiah has already said in Jeremiah 31:31-34 of the new covenant we see that its nature and its difference from the old is not unknown to him. Yet he knows the new covenant only in general. He knows that it will be deeply spiritual and eternal, but how and why it will be so is still to him part of the μυστήριον.

8. On Jeremiah 50:6. Jeremiah here points back to Jeremiah 23. Priests, kings and prophets, who should discharge the office of shepherds, prove to be wolves. Yea, they are the worst of wolves, who go about in official clothing. There is therefore no more dangerous doctrine than that of an infallible office. Jeremiah 14:14; Matthew 7:15; Matthew 23:2-12.

9. On Jeremiah 50:7. It is the worst condition into which a church of God can come, when the enemies who desolate it can maintain that they are in the right in doing so. It is, however, a just nemesis when those who will not hear the regular messengers of God must be told by the extraordinary messengers of God what they should have done. Comp. Jeremiah 40:2-3.

10. On Jeremiah 50:8. “Babylon is opened, and it must be abandoned not clung to, for the captivity is a temporary chastisement, not the divine arrangement for the children of God. God’s people must in the general redemption go like rams before the herd of the nations, that these may also attach themselves to Israel, as this was fulfilled at the time of Christ in the first churches and the apostles, who now draw the whole heathen world after them to eternal life. Here the prophet recognizes the new humanity, which proceeds from the ruins of the old, in which also ancient Israel leads the way; thus all, who follow it, become Israel.” Diedrich.—“The heathen felt somewhat of the divine punishment when they overcame so easily the usually so strongly protected nation. But Jeremiah shows them still how they deceived themselves in thinking that God had wholly rejected His people, for of the eternal covenant of grace they certainly understood nothing.” Heim and Hoffmann on the Major Prophets.

11. On Jeremiah 50:18. “The great powers of the world form indeed the history of the world, but they have no future. Israel, however, always returns home to the dear and glorious land. The Jews might as a token of this return under Cyrus; the case is however this, that the true Holy One in Israel, Christ, guides us back to Paradise, when we flee to His hand from the Babylon of this world and let it be crucified for us.” Diedrich.

12. On Jeremiah 50:23. “Although the Chaldeans were called of God for the purpose of making war on the Jewish nation on account of their multitudinous sins, yet they are punished because they did it not as God with a pure intention, namely, to punish the wrong in them and keep them for reformation; for they were themselves greater sinners than the Jews and continued with impenitence in their sins. Therefore they could not go scot-free and remain unpunished. Moreover, they acted too roughly and dealt with the Jews more harshly than God had commanded, for which He therefore fairly punished them. As God the Lord Himself says ( Isaiah 47:6): When I was angry with My people I gave them into thine hands; but thou shewedst them no mercy. Therefore it is not enough that God’s will be accomplished, but there must be the good intention in it, which God had, otherwise such a work may be a sin and call down the divine punishment upon it.” Würtemb. Summ.

13. On Jeremiah 50:31-34. “God calls Babylon Thou Pride, for pride was their inward force and impulse in all their actions. But worldly pride makes a Babylon and brings on a Babylon’s fate .… Pride must fall, for it is in itself a lie against God, and all its might must perish in the fire; thus will the humble and meek remain in possession of the earth: this has a wide application through all times, even to eternity.” Diedrich.

14. On Jeremiah 51:33. “Israel is indeed weak and must suffer in a time of tyranny; it cannot help itself, nor needs it to do Song of Solomon, for its Redeemer is strong, His name The Lord Zebaoth—and He is, now, having assumed our flesh, among us and conducts our cause so that the world trembles.” Diedrich.

15. On Jeremiah 50:45. “An emblem of the destruction of anti-christian Babylon, which was also the true hammer of the whole world. This has God also broken and must and will do it still more. And this will the shepherd-boys do, as is said here in Jeremiah 51:45 (according to Luther’s translation), that is, all true teachers and preachers.” Cramer.

16. On Jeremiah 51. “The doctrines accord in all points with the previous chapter. And the prophet Jeremiah both in this and the previous chapter does nothing else but make out for the Babylonians their final discharge and passport, because they behaved so valiantly and well against the people of Judah, that they might know they would not go unrecompensed. For payment is according to service. And had they done better it would have gone better with them. It is well that when tyrants succeed in their evil undertakings they should not suppose they are God’s dearest children and lean on His bosom, since they will yet receive the recompense on their crown, whatever they have earned.” Cramer.

17. [“Though in the hand of Babylon is a golden cup; she chooses such a cup, in order that men’s eyes may be dazzled with the glitter of the gold, and may not inquire what it contains. But mark well, in the golden cup of Babylon is the poison of idolatry, the poison of false doctrines, which destroy the souls of men. I have often seen such a golden cup, in fair speeches of seductive eloquence: and when I have examined the venomous ingredients of the golden chalice, I have recognized the cup of Babylon.” Origen in Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]

“The seat and throne of Anti-christ is expressly named Babylon, namely, the city of Rome, built on the seven hills ( Revelation 17:9). Just as Babylon brought so many lands and kingdoms under its sway and ruled them with great pomp and pride (the golden cup, which made all the world drunk, was Babylon in the hand of the Lord ( Jeremiah 51:7), and all the heathen drank of the wine and became mad)—so has the spiritual Babylon a cup in its hand, full of the abomination and uncleanness of its whoredom, of which the kings of the earth and all who dwell on the earth have been made drunk. As it is said of Babylon that she dwells by great waters and has great treasures, so writes John of the Romish Babylon, that it is clothed in silk and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls ( Revelation 18:12). Of Babylon it is said that the slain in Israel were smitten by her; so also the spiritual Babylon is become drunk with the blood of the saints ( Revelation 17:6). Just, however, as the Chaldean Babylon is a type of the spiritual in its pride and despotism, so also is it a type of the destruction which will come upon it. Many wished to heal Babylon but she would not be healed; so many endeavor to support the ruinous anti-christian Babylon, but all in vain. For as Babylon was at last so destroyed as to be a heap of stones and abode of dragons, so will it be with anti-christian Babylon. Of this it is written in Revelation 14:8 : She is fallen, fallen, that great city, for she has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. And again, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and a hold of all foul and hateful birds ( Revelation 18:2). As the inhabitants of Babylon were admonished to flee from her, that every man might deliver his soul ( Jeremiah 51:6)—and again, My people, go ye out from the midst of her and deliver every man his soul, etc. ( Jeremiah 51:45)—so the Holy Spirit admonishes Christians almost in the same words to go out from the spiritual Babylon, that they be not polluted by her sins and at the same time share in her punishment. For thus it is written in Revelation 18:4, I heard, says John, a voice from heaven saying, Go ye out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins reach unto heaven and God remembers her iniquities.” Wurtemb. Summarien.

18. On Jeremiah 51:5. “A monarch can sooner make an end of half a continent than draw a nail from a hut which the Lord protects.—And if it is true that Kaiser Rudolph, when he revoked the toleration of the Picards and the same day lost one of his principal forts, said, ‘I thought it would be Song of Solomon, for I grasped at God’s sceptre’ (Weismanni, Hist. Eccl. Tom. II. p320)—this was a sage remark, a supplement to the words of the wise.” Zinzendorf.

19. On Jeremiah 51:9. We heal Babylon, but she will not be healed. Babylon is an outwardly beautiful but inwardly worm-eaten apple. Hence sooner or later the foulness must become noticeable. So is it with all whose heart and centre is not God. All is inwardly hollow and vain. When this internal vacuity begins to render itself externally palpable, when here and there a rent or foul spot becomes visible, then certainly come the friends and admirers of the unholy form and would improve, cover up, sew up, heal. But it does not avail. When once there is death in the body no physician can effect a cure.

20. On Jeremiah 51:17; Jeremiah 51:19-20. “The children of God have three causes why they may venture on Him. 1. All men are fools, their treasure is it not; 2. The Lord is their hammer; He breaks through everything, and3, they are an instrument in His hand, a heritage; in this there is happiness.” Zinzendorf.

21. On Jeremiah 51:41-44. “How was Sheshach thus won, the city renowned in all the world thus taken? No one would have thought it possible, but God does it. He rules with wonders and with wonders He makes His church free. Babylon is a wonder no longer for its power, but for its weakness. We are to know the world’s weakness even where it still appears strong. A sea of hostile nations has covered Babylon. Her land is now a desolation. God takes Bel and the Dragon, the principal idol of Babylon, symbolizing its whole civil powers in hand, and snatches his prey from his teeth. Our God is stronger than all worldly forces, and never leaves us to them.” Diedrich.

22. On Jeremiah 51:58. “Yea, so it is with all walls and towers, in which God’s word is not the vital force, even though they be entitled churches and cathedrals … God’s church alone possesses permanence through His pure word.” Diedrich.

23. On Jeremiah 51:60-64. When we wish to preserve an archive safely, we deposit it in a record-office where it is kept in a dry place that no moisture may get to it. Seraiah throws his book-roll into the waters of the Euphrates, which must wash it away, dissolve and destroy it. But this was of no account. The main point was that Hebrews, Seraiah, as representative of the holy nation had taken solemn stock of the word of God against Babylon, and as it were taken God at His word, and reminded Him of it. In this manner the matter was laid up in the most enduring and safest archive that could be imagined; it was made a case of honor with the omniscient and omnipotent God. Such matters can, however, neither be forgotten, nor remain in dead silence, nor be neglected. They must be brought to such an end as the honor of God requires.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. On Jeremiah 50:2. This text may be used on the feast of the Reformation, or any other occasion with reference to a rem bene gestam. The Triumph of the Good Cause, 1. over what enemies it is gained; 2. to what it should impel us; (a) to the avoidance of that over which we new triumph; (b) to the grateful proclamation of what the Lord has done for us, by word and by deed.

2. On Jeremiah 50:4-8. The deliverance of Israel from the Babylonian captivity a type of the deliverance of the Church1. The Church must humbly acknowledge the captivity suffered as a judgment of God2. She must turn like Israel inwardly with an upright heart unto the Lord; 3. She must become like Israel to all men a pattern and leader to freedom.

3. On Jeremiah 50:5. A confirmation sermon. “What is the hour of confirmation? 1. An hour which calls to separation; 2. an hour which leads to new connections; 3. an hour which fixes forever the old covenant with the soul’s friend.” Florey, 1853.

4. On Jeremiah 50:18-20. Assyria and Babylon the types of all the spiritual enemies of the church as of individual Christians. Every one has his Assyria and his Babylon. Sin is the destruction of men. Forgiveness of sins is the condition of life, for only where forgiveness of sins is, is there life and blessedness. In Christ we find the forgiveness of sins. He destroys the handwriting. He washes us clean. He is also the good shepherd who leads our souls into green pastures, to the spiritual Carmel.

5. On Jeremiah 50:31-32. Warning against pride. Babylon was very strong and powerful, rich and splendid. It seemed invincible by nature and by art. Had it not then a certain justification in being proud, at least towards men? No; for no one has to contend only with men. Every one who contends has the Lord either for his friend or his enemy. It is the Lord from whom cometh victory ( Proverbs 21:31). He it is who teacheth our hands to fight ( Psalm 18:35; Psalm 144:1). His strength is made perfect in weakness ( 2 Corinthians 12:9). He can make the lame ( Isaiah 33:23; Micah 4:7) and mortally wounded ( Jeremiah 37:10) so strong that they overmaster the sound (comp. Jeremiah 51:45). He can make one man put to flight a thousand ( Deuteronomy 32:30; Isaiah 30:17). With him can one dash in pieces a troop and leap over a wall ( Psalm 18:29). No one accordingly should be proud. The word of the Lord, “I am against thee, thou proud one!” is a terrible word which no one should conjure up against himself.

6. On Jeremiah 50:33-34. The consolation of the Church in persecution1. It suffers violence and injustice2. Its redeemer is strong.

7. On Jeremiah 51:5. God the Lord manifests such favor to Israel as to declare Himself her husband ( Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:1). But now that Israel and Judah are in exile, it seems as if they were rejected or widowed women. This, however, is only appearance. Israel’s husband does not die. He may well bring a period of chastisement, of purification and trial on His people, but when this period is over, the Lord turns the handle, and smites those through whom He chastised Israel, when they had forgotten that they were not to satisfy their own desire, but only to accomplish the Lord’s will on Israel.

8. On Jeremiah 51:6. A time may come when it is well to separate one’s self. For although it is said in Proverbs 18:1; he who separateth himself, seeketh that which pleaseth him and opposeth all that is good—and therefore separation, as the antipodes of churchliness, i.e., of churchly communion and humble subjection to the law of the co-operation of members ( 1 Corinthians 12:25 sqq.) is to be repudiated, yet there may come moments in the life of the church, when it will be a duty to leave the community and separate one’s self. Such a moment is come when the community has become a Babylon. It should, however, be noted that one should not be too ready with such a decision. For even the life of the church is subject to many vacillations. There are periods of decay, obscurations, as it were, comparable to eclipses of the stars, but to these, so long as the foundations only subsist, must always follow a restoration and return to the original brightness. No one is to consider the church a Babylon on account of such a passing state of disease. It is this only when it has withheld the objective divine foundations, the means of grace, the word and sacrament, altogether and permanently in their saving efficacy. Then, when the soul can no longer find in the church the pure and divine bread of life; it is well “to deliver the soul that it perish not in the iniquity of the church.” From this separation from the church is, however, to be carefully distinguished the separation within the church, from all that which is opposed to the healthy life of the church, and is therefore to be regarded as a diseased part of the ecclesiastical body. Such separation is the daily duty of the Christian. He has to perform it with respect to his private life in all the manifold relations, indicated to us in Matthew 18:17; Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9 sqq.; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; Titus 3:10; 2 John 1:10-11.—Comp. the article on Sects, by Palmer in Herzog, R-Enc., XXI, S. 21, 22.

9. On Jeremiah 51:10. The righteousness which avails before God1. Its origin (not our work or merit, but God’s grace in Christ); 2. Its fruit, praise of that which the Lord has wrought in us (a) by words, (b) by works.

10. On Jeremiah 51:50. This text may be used at the sending out of missionaries or the departure of emigrants. Occasion may be taken to speak1, of the gracious help and deliverance, which the Lord has hitherto shown to the departing; 2, they may be admonished to remain united in their distant land with their brethren at home by (a) remembering the Lord, i.e., ever remaining sincerely devoted to the Lord as the common shield of salvation; (b) faithfuly serving Jerusalem, i.e., the common mother of us all ( Galatians 4:26), the church, with all our powers in the proper place and measure, and ever keeping her in our hearts.

Footnotes:

23] Jeremiah 50:24.—The verb יקשׁ is not found elsewhere in Jeremiah. But compare יָקוּשׁ, Jeremiah 5:26.

24] Jeremiah 50:24.—התנרית. This word does not occur elsewhere in Jeremiah. Comp. Deuteronomy 2:5; Deuteronomy 2:19; Deuteronomy 2:24; Proverbs 28:4

25] Jeremiah 50:26.—מאבסיה. This word is ἅπ. λεγ.

26] Jeremiah 50:26.—The suffix in סָלּוּהָ and הַ‍ֽחֲרִימוּהָ may be referred to the land or more fitly to the contents of the store houses. Comp. Jeremiah 33:2-3; Naegelsb. Gr., § 60, 6, b.

8. THE PUNISHMENT OF PRIDE

Jeremiah 50:29-32

29 Call against Babylon archers;27

All ye that bend the bow camp against it round about!28

No escape! Recompense her according to her work,

Just as she hath done, do ye also unto her,

For against Jehovah was she proud,

Against the Holy One of Israel.

30 Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets,

And all her warriors shall be cut off in that day, saith Jehovah.

31 Behold I come to thee, O Pride, saith the Lord, Jehovah Zebaoth.

For come is thy day, the time of thy visitation.

32 Then Pride totters and falls,

And none helps him up;

And I kindle a fire in his cities,

Which shall devour all round about.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Warriors are summoned to recompense Babylon for the pride which it has manifested towards Jehovah ( Jeremiah 50:20). Its men shall perish ( Jeremiah 50:31). Thus will toe Lord on the day of recompense bring their pride to totter and fall; no one will raise it up, fire will consume all its power ( Jeremiah 50:31-32).

Jeremiah 50:29. Call … of Israel.Convocatio militum initium belli. Comp. Jeremiah 50:14. השׁמיצו is taken by most commentators and translators in the sense of vocare, convocare, as in Jeremiah 51:27; 1 Kings 15:22 coll. 1 Samuel 15:4.—All ye, etc. Comp. Jeremiah 50:14.—Recompense, etc. Comp. Jeremiah 50:15; Jeremiah 25:14.—Proud. Deserved humiliation of the pride of Babylon is predicted by earlier prophets: Isaiah 13:11; Isaiah 14:13 sqq.; Isaiah 47:7-8; Habakkuk 2:5; Habakkuk 2:8.—Holy One of Israel. Comp. Jeremiah 51:5. This expression is peculiar to Isaiah. “All Isaiah’s prophecies bear this name of God as their peculiar stamp. It occurs twelve times in chh. Jeremiah 50:39., seventeen times in chh40–66.” Delitzsch on Isaiah 6:3.

Jeremiah 50:30-32. Therefore … round about. Jeremiah 50:30 is repeated almost verbatim from Jeremiah 49:26. The only difference is that here we have herwarriors for the warriors. The verse is not necessary, but rather disturbing, for Jeremiah 50:31, is closely connected by Pride with Jeremiah 50:29 (proud). It may have been a gloss.—Behold I come,etc. Comp. Jeremiah 21:13; Jeremiah 23:30 sqq.; Jeremiah 51:25.—Pride. “In nominis proprii formam transiit.” J. D. Michaelis.—Thy day. Comp. Jeremiah 50:27; Jeremiah 49:8.—Totters, etc. Comp. Isaiah 31:3; Jeremiah 46:6.—I kindle, etc. Comp. Jeremiah 21:14; Jeremiah 17:27; Jeremiah 49:27.—Him in Jeremiah 50:32 refers to Pride.—Babylon is regarded as the metropolis. Comp. Jeremiah 50:12; Jeremiah 51:43; Jeremiah 9:10, etc.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. “Daniel’s Babylonian empire resumes, as it were, the thread which was broken off with the tower-erection and kingdom of Nimrod. In the Babylonian tower-building the whole of the then existing humanity was united against God; with the Babylonian kingdom began the period of the universal monarchies, which again aspired after an atheistical union of entire humanity. Babylon has since and even to the Revelation ( Jeremiah 18) remained the standing type of this world.” Auberlen, Der proph. Daniel, S. 230.

2. For what reason does Babylon appear as a type of the world? Why not Nineveh, or Persepolis, or Tyre, or Memphis, or Rome? Certainly not because Babylon was greater, more glorious, more powerful or prouder and more ungodly than those cities and kingdoms. Nineveh especially was still greater than Babylon (comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. S. 474, 5), and Assyria was not less hostile to the theocracy, having carried away into captivity the northern and larger half of the people of Israel. Babylon is qualified for this representation in two ways: 1. because it is the home of worldly princedom and titanic arrogance ( Genesis 10:8; Genesis 11:1-4); 2. because Babylon destroyed the centre of the theocracy, Jerusalem, the temple and the theocratic kingdom, and first assumed to be the single supreme power of the globe.

3. “When God has used a superstitious, wicked and tyrannical nation long enough as His rod, He breaks it in pieces and finally throws it into the fire. For even those whom He formerly used as His chosen anointed instruments He then regards as but the dust in the streets or as chaff before the wind.” Cramer.

4. “No monarch is too rich, too wicked, too strong for God the Lord. And He can soon enlist and engage soldiers whom He can use against His declared enemies.” Cramer.

5. “Israel was founded on everlasting foundations, even God’s word and promise. The sins of the people brought about that it was laid low in the dust, but not without hope of a better resurrection. Babylon, on the other hand, must perish forever, for in it is the empire of evil come to its highest bloom. Jeremiah owns the nothingness of all worldly kingdoms, since they are all under this national order to serve only for a time. We are to be subject to them and seek their welfare for the sake of the souls of men, whom God is educating therein; a Christian however cannot be enthusiastic for them after the manner of the ancient heathen nor of ancient Israel, for here we have no abiding city, our citizenship is in heaven. The kingdoms of this world are no sanctuaries for us and we supplicate their continuance only with the daily bread of the fourth petition. Jeremiah applies many words and figures to Babylon which he has already used in the judgments on other nations, thus to intimate that in Babylon all the heathenism of the world culminates, and that here also must be the greatest anguish. What, however, is here declared of Babylon must be fulfilled again on all earthly powers in so far as, treading in its footprints, they take flesh for their arm and regard the material of this world as power, whether they be called states or churches.” Diedrich.

6. On Jeremiah 50:2. In putting into the mouth of Israel, returning from Babylon, the call to an everlasting covenant with Jehovah, the prophet causes them1. to confess that they have forgotten the first covenant; 2. he shows us that the time of the new covenant begins with the redemption from the Babylonish captivity. He was far, however, from supposing that this redemption would be only a weak beginning, that the appearance of the Saviour would be deferred for centuries, that Israel would sink still deeper as an external πολιτεία, and that finally the Israel of the new covenant would itself appear as a μυστήριον, εἰς ὃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ἄγγελοι παρακύψαι ( 1 Peter 1:9-12).

7. From what Jeremiah has already said in Jeremiah 31:31-34 of the new covenant we see that its nature and its difference from the old is not unknown to him. Yet he knows the new covenant only in general. He knows that it will be deeply spiritual and eternal, but how and why it will be so is still to him part of the μυστήριον.

8. On Jeremiah 50:6. Jeremiah here points back to Jeremiah 23. Priests, kings and prophets, who should discharge the office of shepherds, prove to be wolves. Yea, they are the worst of wolves, who go about in official clothing. There is therefore no more dangerous doctrine than that of an infallible office. Jeremiah 14:14; Matthew 7:15; Matthew 23:2-12.

9. On Jeremiah 50:7. It is the worst condition into which a church of God can come, when the enemies who desolate it can maintain that they are in the right in doing so. It is, however, a just nemesis when those who will not hear the regular messengers of God must be told by the extraordinary messengers of God what they should have done. Comp. Jeremiah 40:2-3.

10. On Jeremiah 50:8. “Babylon is opened, and it must be abandoned not clung to, for the captivity is a temporary chastisement, not the divine arrangement for the children of God. God’s people must in the general redemption go like rams before the herd of the nations, that these may also attach themselves to Israel, as this was fulfilled at the time of Christ in the first churches and the apostles, who now draw the whole heathen world after them to eternal life. Here the prophet recognizes the new humanity, which proceeds from the ruins of the old, in which also ancient Israel leads the way; thus all, who follow it, become Israel.” Diedrich.—“The heathen felt somewhat of the divine punishment when they overcame so easily the usually so strongly protected nation. But Jeremiah shows them still how they deceived themselves in thinking that God had wholly rejected His people, for of the eternal covenant of grace they certainly understood nothing.” Heim and Hoffmann on the Major Prophets.

11. On Jeremiah 50:18. “The great powers of the world form indeed the history of the world, but they have no future. Israel, however, always returns home to the dear and glorious land. The Jews might as a token of this return under Cyrus; the case is however this, that the true Holy One in Israel, Christ, guides us back to Paradise, when we flee to His hand from the Babylon of this world and let it be crucified for us.” Diedrich.

12. On Jeremiah 50:23. “Although the Chaldeans were called of God for the purpose of making war on the Jewish nation on account of their multitudinous sins, yet they are punished because they did it not as God with a pure intention, namely, to punish the wrong in them and keep them for reformation; for they were themselves greater sinners than the Jews and continued with impenitence in their sins. Therefore they could not go scot-free and remain unpunished. Moreover, they acted too roughly and dealt with the Jews more harshly than God had commanded, for which He therefore fairly punished them. As God the Lord Himself says ( Isaiah 47:6): When I was angry with My people I gave them into thine hands; but thou shewedst them no mercy. Therefore it is not enough that God’s will be accomplished, but there must be the good intention in it, which God had, otherwise such a work may be a sin and call down the divine punishment upon it.” Würtemb. Summ.

13. On Jeremiah 50:31-34. “God calls Babylon Thou Pride, for pride was their inward force and impulse in all their actions. But worldly pride makes a Babylon and brings on a Babylon’s fate .… Pride must fall, for it is in itself a lie against God, and all its might must perish in the fire; thus will the humble and meek remain in possession of the earth: this has a wide application through all times, even to eternity.” Diedrich.

14. On Jeremiah 51:33. “Israel is indeed weak and must suffer in a time of tyranny; it cannot help itself, nor needs it to do Song of Solomon, for its Redeemer is strong, His name The Lord Zebaoth—and He is, now, having assumed our flesh, among us and conducts our cause so that the world trembles.” Diedrich.

15. On Jeremiah 50:45. “An emblem of the destruction of anti-christian Babylon, which was also the true hammer of the whole world. This has God also broken and must and will do it still more. And this will the shepherd-boys do, as is said here in Jeremiah 51:45 (according to Luther’s translation), that is, all true teachers and preachers.” Cramer.

16. On Jeremiah 51. “The doctrines accord in all points with the previous chapter. And the prophet Jeremiah both in this and the previous chapter does nothing else but make out for the Babylonians their final discharge and passport, because they behaved so valiantly and well against the people of Judah, that they might know they would not go unrecompensed. For payment is according to service. And had they done better it would have gone better with them. It is well that when tyrants succeed in their evil undertakings they should not suppose they are God’s dearest children and lean on His bosom, since they will yet receive the recompense on their crown, whatever they have earned.” Cramer.

17. [“Though in the hand of Babylon is a golden cup; she chooses such a cup, in order that men’s eyes may be dazzled with the glitter of the gold, and may not inquire what it contains. But mark well, in the golden cup of Babylon is the poison of idolatry, the poison of false doctrines, which destroy the souls of men. I have often seen such a golden cup, in fair speeches of seductive eloquence: and when I have examined the venomous ingredients of the golden chalice, I have recognized the cup of Babylon.” Origen in Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]

“The seat and throne of Anti-christ is expressly named Babylon, namely, the city of Rome, built on the seven hills ( Revelation 17:9). Just as Babylon brought so many lands and kingdoms under its sway and ruled them with great pomp and pride (the golden cup, which made all the world drunk, was Babylon in the hand of the Lord ( Jeremiah 51:7), and all the heathen drank of the wine and became mad)—so has the spiritual Babylon a cup in its hand, full of the abomination and uncleanness of its whoredom, of which the kings of the earth and all who dwell on the earth have been made drunk. As it is said of Babylon that she dwells by great waters and has great treasures, so writes John of the Romish Babylon, that it is clothed in silk and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls ( Revelation 18:12). Of Babylon it is said that the slain in Israel were smitten by her; so also the spiritual Babylon is become drunk with the blood of the saints ( Revelation 17:6). Just, however, as the Chaldean Babylon is a type of the spiritual in its pride and despotism, so also is it a type of the destruction which will come upon it. Many wished to heal Babylon but she would not be healed; so many endeavor to support the ruinous anti-christian Babylon, but all in vain. For as Babylon was at last so destroyed as to be a heap of stones and abode of dragons, so will it be with anti-christian Babylon. Of this it is written in Revelation 14:8 : She is fallen, fallen, that great city, for she has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. And again, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and a hold of all foul and hateful birds ( Revelation 18:2). As the inhabitants of Babylon were admonished to flee from her, that every man might deliver his soul ( Jeremiah 51:6)—and again, My people, go ye out from the midst of her and deliver every man his soul, etc. ( Jeremiah 51:45)—so the Holy Spirit admonishes Christians almost in the same words to go out from the spiritual Babylon, that they be not polluted by her sins and at the same time share in her punishment. For thus it is written in Revelation 18:4, I heard, says John, a voice from heaven saying, Go ye out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins reach unto heaven and God remembers her iniquities.” Wurtemb. Summarien.

18. On Jeremiah 51:5. “A monarch can sooner make an end of half a continent than draw a nail from a hut which the Lord protects.—And if it is true that Kaiser Rudolph, when he revoked the toleration of the Picards and the same day lost one of his principal forts, said, ‘I thought it would be Song of Solomon, for I grasped at God’s sceptre’ (Weismanni, Hist. Eccl. Tom. II. p320)—this was a sage remark, a supplement to the words of the wise.” Zinzendorf.

19. On Jeremiah 51:9. We heal Babylon, but she will not be healed. Babylon is an outwardly beautiful but inwardly worm-eaten apple. Hence sooner or later the foulness must become noticeable. So is it with all whose heart and centre is not God. All is inwardly hollow and vain. When this internal vacuity begins to render itself externally palpable, when here and there a rent or foul spot becomes visible, then certainly come the friends and admirers of the unholy form and would improve, cover up, sew up, heal. But it does not avail. When once there is death in the body no physician can effect a cure.

20. On Jeremiah 51:17; Jeremiah 51:19-20. “The children of God have three causes why they may venture on Him. 1. All men are fools, their treasure is it not; 2. The Lord is their hammer; He breaks through everything, and3, they are an instrument in His hand, a heritage; in this there is happiness.” Zinzendorf.

21. On Jeremiah 51:41-44. “How was Sheshach thus won, the city renowned in all the world thus taken? No one would have thought it possible, but God does it. He rules with wonders and with wonders He makes His church free. Babylon is a wonder no longer for its power, but for its weakness. We are to know the world’s weakness even where it still appears strong. A sea of hostile nations has covered Babylon. Her land is now a desolation. God takes Bel and the Dragon, the principal idol of Babylon, symbolizing its whole civil powers in hand, and snatches his prey from his teeth. Our God is stronger than all worldly forces, and never leaves us to them.” Diedrich.

22. On Jeremiah 51:58. “Yea, so it is with all walls and towers, in which God’s word is not the vital force, even though they be entitled churches and cathedrals … God’s church alone possesses permanence through His pure word.” Diedrich.

23. On Jeremiah 51:60-64. When we wish to preserve an archive safely, we deposit it in a record-office where it is kept in a dry place that no moisture may get to it. Seraiah throws his book-roll into the waters of the Euphrates, which must wash it away, dissolve and destroy it. But this was of no account. The main point was that Hebrews, Seraiah, as representative of the holy nation had taken solemn stock of the word of God against Babylon, and as it were taken God at His word, and reminded Him of it. In this manner the matter was laid up in the most enduring and safest archive that could be imagined; it was made a case of honor with the omniscient and omnipotent God. Such matters can, however, neither be forgotten, nor remain in dead silence, nor be neglected. They must be brought to such an end as the honor of God requires.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. On Jeremiah 50:2. This text may be used on the feast of the Reformation, or any other occasion with reference to a rem bene gestam. The Triumph of the Good Cause, 1. over what enemies it is gained; 2. to what it should impel us; (a) to the avoidance of that over which we new triumph; (b) to the grateful proclamation of what the Lord has done for us, by word and by deed.

2. On Jeremiah 50:4-8. The deliverance of Israel from the Babylonian captivity a type of the deliverance of the Church1. The Church must humbly acknowledge the captivity suffered as a judgment of God2. She must turn like Israel inwardly with an upright heart unto the Lord; 3. She must become like Israel to all men a pattern and leader to freedom.

3. On Jeremiah 50:5. A confirmation sermon. “What is the hour of confirmation? 1. An hour which calls to separation; 2. an hour which leads to new connections; 3. an hour which fixes forever the old covenant with the soul’s friend.” Florey, 1853.

4. On Jeremiah 50:18-20. Assyria and Babylon the types of all the spiritual enemies of the church as of individual Christians. Every one has his Assyria and his Babylon. Sin is the destruction of men. Forgiveness of sins is the condition of life, for only where forgiveness of sins is, is there life and blessedness. In Christ we find the forgiveness of sins. He destroys the handwriting. He washes us clean. He is also the good shepherd who leads our souls into green pastures, to the spiritual Carmel.

5. On Jeremiah 50:31-32. Warning against pride. Babylon was very strong and powerful, rich and splendid. It seemed invincible by nature and by art. Had it not then a certain justification in being proud, at least towards men? No; for no one has to contend only with men. Every one who contends has the Lord either for his friend or his enemy. It is the Lord from whom cometh victory ( Proverbs 21:31). He it is who teacheth our hands to fight ( Psalm 18:35; Psalm 144:1). His strength is made perfect in weakness ( 2 Corinthians 12:9). He can make the lame ( Isaiah 33:23; Micah 4:7) and mortally wounded ( Jeremiah 37:10) so strong that they overmaster the sound (comp. Jeremiah 51:45). He can make one man put to flight a thousand ( Deuteronomy 32:30; Isaiah 30:17). With him can one dash in pieces a troop and leap over a wall ( Psalm 18:29). No one accordingly should be proud. The word of the Lord, “I am against thee, thou proud one!” is a terrible word which no one should conjure up against himself.

6. On Jeremiah 50:33-34. The consolation of the Church in persecution1. It suffers violence and injustice2. Its redeemer is strong.

7. On Jeremiah 51:5. God the Lord manifests such favor to Israel as to declare Himself her husband ( Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:1). But now that Israel and Judah are in exile, it seems as if they were rejected or widowed women. This, however, is only appearance. Israel’s husband does not die. He may well bring a period of chastisement, of purification and trial on His people, but when this period is over, the Lord turns the handle, and smites those through whom He chastised Israel, when they had forgotten that they were not to satisfy their own desire, but only to accomplish the Lord’s will on Israel.

8. On Jeremiah 51:6. A time may come when it is well to separate one’s self. For although it is said in Proverbs 18:1; he who separateth himself, seeketh that which pleaseth him and opposeth all that is good—and therefore separation, as the antipodes of churchliness, i.e., of churchly communion and humble subjection to the law of the co-operation of members ( 1 Corinthians 12:25 sqq.) is to be repudiated, yet there may come moments in the life of the church, when it will be a duty to leave the community and separate one’s self. Such a moment is come when the community has become a Babylon. It should, however, be noted that one should not be too ready with such a decision. For even the life of the church is subject to many vacillations. There are periods of decay, obscurations, as it were, comparable to eclipses of the stars, but to these, so long as the foundations only subsist, must always follow a restoration and return to the original brightness. No one is to consider the church a Babylon on account of such a passing state of disease. It is this only when it has withheld the objective divine foundations, the means of grace, the word and sacrament, altogether and permanently in their saving efficacy. Then, when the soul can no longer find in the church the pure and divine bread of life; it is well “to deliver the soul that it perish not in the iniquity of the church.” From this separation from the church is, however, to be carefully distinguished the separation within the church, from all that which is opposed to the healthy life of the church, and is therefore to be regarded as a diseased part of the ecclesiastical body. Such separation is the daily duty of the Christian. He has to perform it with respect to his private life in all the manifold relations, indicated to us in Matthew 18:17; Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9 sqq.; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; Titus 3:10; 2 John 1:10-11.—Comp. the article on Sects, by Palmer in Herzog, R-Enc., XXI, S. 21, 22.

9. On Jeremiah 51:10. The righteousness which avails before God1. Its origin (not our work or merit, but God’s grace in Christ); 2. Its fruit, praise of that which the Lord has wrought in us (a) by words, (b) by works.

10. On Jeremiah 51:50. This text may be used at the sending out of missionaries or the departure of emigrants. Occasion may be taken to speak1, of the gracious help and deliverance, which the Lord has hitherto shown to the departing; 2, they may be admonished to remain united in their distant land with their brethren at home by (a) remembering the Lord, i.e., ever remaining sincerely devoted to the Lord as the common shield of salvation; (b) faithfuly serving Jerusalem, i.e., the common mother of us all ( Galatians 4:26), the church, with all our powers in the proper place and measure, and ever keeping her in our hearts.

Footnotes

9. ISRAEL FREE, THE SWORD UPON BABYLON

Jeremiah 50:33-40

33 Thus saith Jehovah Zebaoth:

Oppressed are the children of Israel and the children of Judah together,

And all their captors hold them fast,

They refuse to let them go.

34 Their Redeemer is strong, Jehovah Zebaoth is his name.

He will well prosecute their cause,

That he may give rest²⁹ to the land,

And procure disquiet to the inhabitants of Babylon.

35 A sword upon the Chaldeans, saith Jehovah,

And upon the inhabitants of Babylon,

And upon her princes and upon her wise men.

36 A sword upon the coxcombs, that they become fools,

A sword upon her heroes, that they be dismayed.

37 A sword upon their horses and their chariots,

And upon all her auxiliaries in her midst, that they become as women,

A sword upon her treasures, that they be plundered.

38 Drought³⁰ upon her waters, that they dry up;

For it is a land of idols,

And on objects of horror³¹ they foolishly trust.

39 Therefore shall wild-beasts³² dwell there with the jackals,4

And the daughters of the ostrich shall dwell there;

And never more will it be inhabited further,

Nor dwelt in from generation to generation.

40 As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbors, saith Jehovah,

A man shall not dwell there,

Nor a son of man sojourn in her.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Proceeding from the condition of bondage in which Judah and Israel are found ( Jeremiah 50:33), the prophet predicts deliverance by the strong hand of Jehovah ( Jeremiah 50:34), which to Babylon signifies destruction of all that supports its power and glory: the inevitable fate of an idolatrous people ( Jeremiah 50:35-38). In consequence of this Babylonia will become a deserted and horrible waste ( Jeremiah 50:39-40).

Jeremiah 50:33-34. Thus saith … inhabitants of Babylon. The prophet, who knows the exile of Israel as an accomplished fact and has predicted for years the exile of Judah as impending, may well describe Judah and Israel as oppressed, held fast by their captors (שֹׁבים, captivatores, Isaiah 14:2; 1 Kings 8:46 sqq.; Psalm 137:3). It is the same thought which lies at the foundation of the summons to flight ( Jeremiah 50:8 coll. Jeremiah 50:4; Jeremiah 50:28).—They refuse, etc. As Pharaoh, Exodus 7:14-25; Exodus 9:2.—The strong captor is, however, opposed by a still stronger deliverer of Israel,—Jehovah. With the exception of the words “Jehovah Zebaoth is His name” ( Jeremiah 10:16; Jeremiah 31:35; Jeremiah 32:18; Jeremiah 33:2), the first half of Jeremiah 50:34 is taken from Proverbs 23:11 coll. Jeremiah 22:23; Isaiah 47:4; Isaiah 48:20.—That he may give rest, etc. Since it may be appropriately declared of Babylon, as the “hammer of the whole earth,” Jeremiah 50:23, that it has disquieted the earth ( Isaiah 14:16), and that consequently its disquieting must contribute to the peace of the earth, I agree with those who take הִרְגִּיעַ in its usual meaning, “to make rest, quiet” ( Deuteronomy 28:65; Isaiah 34:14; Isaiah 51:4; Jeremiah 31:2).

Jeremiah 50:35-38. A sword … foolishly trust. In these verses it is specially shown how the Lord will conduct His cause with Babylon and bring disquiet upon it. The sword is as it were cited to exercise the office of avenger, both in general and in particular. For as its objects are designated: 1. the Chaldeans in general; 2. the inhabitants of the capital, with the resident princes, wise men (counsellors of the king), Magians (בַּדִּים, “talk, chattering,” Jeremiah 48:30; Isaiah 16:6; Job 11:3; here personally the lying prophets, astrologers, Isaiah 44:25, comp. Delitzschad loc.; Isaiah 47:13, Isaiah 19:13) and warriors; 3. horses, chariots and auxiliaries ( Jeremiah 25:20; comp. Niebuhr, Ass. u. Bab, S. 206 Anm. 2and the article “Griechen” in the Register S. 519; Jeremiah 51:30); 4. treasures and water, on which last the power and safety of Babylon in great measure depended. (Comp. Jeremiah 51:13; Jeremiah 51:36; Isaiah 21:1 and Delitzschad loc.).—For it is a land, etc. This sentence corresponds to Jeremiah 50:34. As there the positive reason of the destruction breaking over Babylon is stated, so here the negative. The positive ground is the strength of Jehovah (הזק, Jeremiah 50:34), the negative is the powerlessness of the idols. Comp. Jeremiah 51:47; Jeremiah 51:52.—Foolishly trust. The prefix בְּ [on] may designate either the means and instrument, or the supporting or moving reason. The former yields the conception that the idol-images served as the instruments of mad behaviour, the latter that they were the ground thereof. Without doubt the latter is the more correct. The senseless, inflated, arrogant behaviour of the Babylonians was supported by their belief in idols. Comp. נִבָּא with בְּ in Jeremiah 2:8 and the Greek μαίνεσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ. Herod4:79.

Jeremiah 50:39-40. Therefore shall … sojourn in her. The first half of Jeremiah 50:39 is composed of reminiscences from Isaiah ( Isaiah 13:21-22; Isaiah 34:14). The second half of the verse is taken verbatim from Isaiah 13:20. Comp. Jeremiah 50:13; Jeremiah 17:6. Jeremiah 50:40 is a repetition of Jeremiah 49:18, but taken originally from Isaiah 13:19 coll. Amos 4:11. The original passage on which all these prophetic utterances are based is Deuteronomy 29:22.—Comp. Jeremiah 49:33; Jeremiah 51:43.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. “Daniel’s Babylonian empire resumes, as it were, the thread which was broken off with the tower-erection and kingdom of Nimrod. In the Babylonian tower-building the whole of the then existing humanity was united against God; with the Babylonian kingdom began the period of the universal monarchies, which again aspired after an atheistical union of entire humanity. Babylon has since and even to the Revelation ( Jeremiah 18) remained the standing type of this world.” Auberlen, Der proph. Daniel, S. 230.

2. For what reason does Babylon appear as a type of the world? Why not Nineveh, or Persepolis, or Tyre, or Memphis, or Rome? Certainly not because Babylon was greater, more glorious, more powerful or prouder and more ungodly than those cities and kingdoms. Nineveh especially was still greater than Babylon (comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. S. 474, 5), and Assyria was not less hostile to the theocracy, having carried away into captivity the northern and larger half of the people of Israel. Babylon is qualified for this representation in two ways: 1. because it is the home of worldly princedom and titanic arrogance ( Genesis 10:8; Genesis 11:1-4); 2. because Babylon destroyed the centre of the theocracy, Jerusalem, the temple and the theocratic kingdom, and first assumed to be the single supreme power of the globe.

3. “When God has used a superstitious, wicked and tyrannical nation long enough as His rod, He breaks it in pieces and finally throws it into the fire. For even those whom He formerly used as His chosen anointed instruments He then regards as but the dust in the streets or as chaff before the wind.” Cramer.

4. “No monarch is too rich, too wicked, too strong for God the Lord. And He can soon enlist and engage soldiers whom He can use against His declared enemies.” Cramer.

5. “Israel was founded on everlasting foundations, even God’s word and promise. The sins of the people brought about that it was laid low in the dust, but not without hope of a better resurrection. Babylon, on the other hand, must perish forever, for in it is the empire of evil come to its highest bloom. Jeremiah owns the nothingness of all worldly kingdoms, since they are all under this national order to serve only for a time. We are to be subject to them and seek their welfare for the sake of the souls of men, whom God is educating therein; a Christian however cannot be enthusiastic for them after the manner of the ancient heathen nor of ancient Israel, for here we have no abiding city, our citizenship is in heaven. The kingdoms of this world are no sanctuaries for us and we supplicate their continuance only with the daily bread of the fourth petition. Jeremiah applies many words and figures to Babylon which he has already used in the judgments on other nations, thus to intimate that in Babylon all the heathenism of the world culminates, and that here also must be the greatest anguish. What, however, is here declared of Babylon must be fulfilled again on all earthly powers in so far as, treading in its footprints, they take flesh for their arm and regard the material of this world as power, whether they be called states or churches.” Diedrich.

6. On Jeremiah 50:2. In putting into the mouth of Israel, returning from Babylon, the call to an everlasting covenant with Jehovah, the prophet causes them1. to confess that they have forgotten the first covenant; 2. he shows us that the time of the new covenant begins with the redemption from the Babylonish captivity. He was far, however, from supposing that this redemption would be only a weak beginning, that the appearance of the Saviour would be deferred for centuries, that Israel would sink still deeper as an external πολιτεία, and that finally the Israel of the new covenant would itself appear as a μυστήριον, εἰς ὃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ἄγγελοι παρακύψαι ( 1 Peter 1:9-12).

7. From what Jeremiah has already said in Jeremiah 31:31-34 of the new covenant we see that its nature and its difference from the old is not unknown to him. Yet he knows the new covenant only in general. He knows that it will be deeply spiritual and eternal, but how and why it will be so is still to him part of the μυστήριον.

8. On Jeremiah 50:6. Jeremiah here points back to Jeremiah 23. Priests, kings and prophets, who should discharge the office of shepherds, prove to be wolves. Yea, they are the worst of wolves, who go about in official clothing. There is therefore no more dangerous doctrine than that of an infallible office. Jeremiah 14:14; Matthew 7:15; Matthew 23:2-12.

9. On Jeremiah 50:7. It is the worst condition into which a church of God can come, when the enemies who desolate it can maintain that they are in the right in doing so. It is, however, a just nemesis when those who will not hear the regular messengers of God must be told by the extraordinary messengers of God what they should have done. Comp. Jeremiah 40:2-3.

10. On Jeremiah 50:8. “Babylon is opened, and it must be abandoned not clung to, for the captivity is a temporary chastisement, not the divine arrangement for the children of God. God’s people must in the general redemption go like rams before the herd of the nations, that these may also attach themselves to Israel, as this was fulfilled at the time of Christ in the first churches and the apostles, who now draw the whole heathen world after them to eternal life. Here the prophet recognizes the new humanity, which proceeds from the ruins of the old, in which also ancient Israel leads the way; thus all, who follow it, become Israel.” Diedrich.—“The heathen felt somewhat of the divine punishment when they overcame so easily the usually so strongly protected nation. But Jeremiah shows them still how they deceived themselves in thinking that God had wholly rejected His people, for of the eternal covenant of grace they certainly understood nothing.” Heim and Hoffmann on the Major Prophets.

11. On Jeremiah 50:18. “The great powers of the world form indeed the history of the world, but they have no future. Israel, however, always returns home to the dear and glorious land. The Jews might as a token of this return under Cyrus; the case is however this, that the true Holy One in Israel, Christ, guides us back to Paradise, when we flee to His hand from the Babylon of this world and let it be crucified for us.” Diedrich.

12. On Jeremiah 50:23. “Although the Chaldeans were called of God for the purpose of making war on the Jewish nation on account of their multitudinous sins, yet they are punished because they did it not as God with a pure intention, namely, to punish the wrong in them and keep them for reformation; for they were themselves greater sinners than the Jews and continued with impenitence in their sins. Therefore they could not go scot-free and remain unpunished. Moreover, they acted too roughly and dealt with the Jews more harshly than God had commanded, for which He therefore fairly punished them. As God the Lord Himself says ( Isaiah 47:6): When I was angry with My people I gave them into thine hands; but thou shewedst them no mercy. Therefore it is not enough that God’s will be accomplished, but there must be the good intention in it, which God had, otherwise such a work may be a sin and call down the divine punishment upon it.” Würtemb. Summ.

13. On Jeremiah 50:31-34. “God calls Babylon Thou Pride, for pride was their inward force and impulse in all their actions. But worldly pride makes a Babylon and brings on a Babylon’s fate .… Pride must fall, for it is in itself a lie against God, and all its might must perish in the fire; thus will the humble and meek remain in possession of the earth: this has a wide application through all times, even to eternity.” Diedrich.

14. On Jeremiah 51:33. “Israel is indeed weak and must suffer in a time of tyranny; it cannot help itself, nor needs it to do Song of Solomon, for its Redeemer is strong, His name The Lord Zebaoth—and He is, now, having assumed our flesh, among us and conducts our cause so that the world trembles.” Diedrich.

15. On Jeremiah 50:45. “An emblem of the destruction of anti-christian Babylon, which was also the true hammer of the whole world. This has God also broken and must and will do it still more. And this will the shepherd-boys do, as is said here in Jeremiah 51:45 (according to Luther’s translation), that is, all true teachers and preachers.” Cramer.

16. On Jeremiah 51. “The doctrines accord in all points with the previous chapter. And the prophet Jeremiah both in this and the previous chapter does nothing else but make out for the Babylonians their final discharge and passport, because they behaved so valiantly and well against the people of Judah, that they might know they would not go unrecompensed. For payment is according to service. And had they done better it would have gone better with them. It is well that when tyrants succeed in their evil undertakings they should not suppose they are God’s dearest children and lean on His bosom, since they will yet receive the recompense on their crown, whatever they have earned.” Cramer.

17. [“Though in the hand of Babylon is a golden cup; she chooses such a cup, in order that men’s eyes may be dazzled with the glitter of the gold, and may not inquire what it contains. But mark well, in the golden cup of Babylon is the poison of idolatry, the poison of false doctrines, which destroy the souls of men. I have often seen such a golden cup, in fair speeches of seductive eloquence: and when I have examined the venomous ingredients of the golden chalice, I have recognized the cup of Babylon.” Origen in Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]

“The seat and throne of Anti-christ is expressly named Babylon, namely, the city of Rome, built on the seven hills ( Revelation 17:9). Just as Babylon brought so many lands and kingdoms under its sway and ruled them with great pomp and pride (the golden cup, which made all the world drunk, was Babylon in the hand of the Lord ( Jeremiah 51:7), and all the heathen drank of the wine and became mad)—so has the spiritual Babylon a cup in its hand, full of the abomination and uncleanness of its whoredom, of which the kings of the earth and all who dwell on the earth have been made drunk. As it is said of Babylon that she dwells by great waters and has great treasures, so writes John of the Romish Babylon, that it is clothed in silk and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls ( Revelation 18:12). Of Babylon it is said that the slain in Israel were smitten by her; so also the spiritual Babylon is become drunk with the blood of the saints ( Revelation 17:6). Just, however, as the Chaldean Babylon is a type of the spiritual in its pride and despotism, so also is it a type of the destruction which will come upon it. Many wished to heal Babylon but she would not be healed; so many endeavor to support the ruinous anti-christian Babylon, but all in vain. For as Babylon was at last so destroyed as to be a heap of stones and abode of dragons, so will it be with anti-christian Babylon. Of this it is written in Revelation 14:8 : She is fallen, fallen, that great city, for she has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. And again, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and a hold of all foul and hateful birds ( Revelation 18:2). As the inhabitants of Babylon were admonished to flee from her, that every man might deliver his soul ( Jeremiah 51:6)—and again, My people, go ye out from the midst of her and deliver every man his soul, etc. ( Jeremiah 51:45)—so the Holy Spirit admonishes Christians almost in the same words to go out from the spiritual Babylon, that they be not polluted by her sins and at the same time share in her punishment. For thus it is written in Revelation 18:4, I heard, says John, a voice from heaven saying, Go ye out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins reach unto heaven and God remembers her iniquities.” Wurtemb. Summarien.

18. On Jeremiah 51:5. “A monarch can sooner make an end of half a continent than draw a nail from a hut which the Lord protects.—And if it is true that Kaiser Rudolph, when he revoked the toleration of the Picards and the same day lost one of his principal forts, said, ‘I thought it would be Song of Solomon, for I grasped at God’s sceptre’ (Weismanni, Hist. Eccl. Tom. II. p320)—this was a sage remark, a supplement to the words of the wise.” Zinzendorf.

19. On Jeremiah 51:9. We heal Babylon, but she will not be healed. Babylon is an outwardly beautiful but inwardly worm-eaten apple. Hence sooner or later the foulness must become noticeable. So is it with all whose heart and centre is not God. All is inwardly hollow and vain. When this internal vacuity begins to render itself externally palpable, when here and there a rent or foul spot becomes visible, then certainly come the friends and admirers of the unholy form and would improve, cover up, sew up, heal. But it does not avail. When once there is death in the body no physician can effect a cure.

20. On Jeremiah 51:17; Jeremiah 51:19-20. “The children of God have three causes why they may venture on Him. 1. All men are fools, their treasure is it not; 2. The Lord is their hammer; He breaks through everything, and3, they are an instrument in His hand, a heritage; in this there is happiness.” Zinzendorf.

21. On Jeremiah 51:41-44. “How was Sheshach thus won, the city renowned in all the world thus taken? No one would have thought it possible, but God does it. He rules with wonders and with wonders He makes His church free. Babylon is a wonder no longer for its power, but for its weakness. We are to know the world’s weakness even where it still appears strong. A sea of hostile nations has covered Babylon. Her land is now a desolation. God takes Bel and the Dragon, the principal idol of Babylon, symbolizing its whole civil powers in hand, and snatches his prey from his teeth. Our God is stronger than all worldly forces, and never leaves us to them.” Diedrich.

22. On Jeremiah 51:58. “Yea, so it is with all walls and towers, in which God’s word is not the vital force, even though they be entitled churches and cathedrals … God’s church alone possesses permanence through His pure word.” Diedrich.

23. On Jeremiah 51:60-64. When we wish to preserve an archive safely, we deposit it in a record-office where it is kept in a dry place that no moisture may get to it. Seraiah throws his book-roll into the waters of the Euphrates, which must wash it away, dissolve and destroy it. But this was of no account. The main point was that Hebrews, Seraiah, as representative of the holy nation had taken solemn stock of the word of God against Babylon, and as it were taken God at His word, and reminded Him of it. In this manner the matter was laid up in the most enduring and safest archive that could be imagined; it was made a case of honor with the omniscient and omnipotent God. Such matters can, however, neither be forgotten, nor remain in dead silence, nor be neglected. They must be brought to such an end as the honor of God requires.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. On Jeremiah 50:2. This text may be used on the feast of the Reformation, or any other occasion with reference to a rem bene gestam. The Triumph of the Good Cause, 1. over what enemies it is gained; 2. to what it should impel us; (a) to the avoidance of that over which we new triumph; (b) to the grateful proclamation of what the Lord has done for us, by word and by deed.

2. On Jeremiah 50:4-8. The deliverance of Israel from the Babylonian captivity a type of the deliverance of the Church1. The Church must humbly acknowledge the captivity suffered as a judgment of God2. She must turn like Israel inwardly with an upright heart unto the Lord; 3. She must become like Israel to all men a pattern and leader to freedom.

3. On Jeremiah 50:5. A confirmation sermon. “What is the hour of confirmation? 1. An hour which calls to separation; 2. an hour which leads to new connections; 3. an hour which fixes forever the old covenant with the soul’s friend.” Florey, 1853.

4. On Jeremiah 50:18-20. Assyria and Babylon the types of all the spiritual enemies of the church as of individual Christians. Every one has his Assyria and his Babylon. Sin is the destruction of men. Forgiveness of sins is the condition of life, for only where forgiveness of sins is, is there life and blessedness. In Christ we find the forgiveness of sins. He destroys the handwriting. He washes us clean. He is also the good shepherd who leads our souls into green pastures, to the spiritual Carmel.

5. On Jeremiah 50:31-32. Warning against pride. Babylon was very strong and powerful, rich and splendid. It seemed invincible by nature and by art. Had it not then a certain justification in being proud, at least towards men? No; for no one has to contend only with men. Every one who contends has the Lord either for his friend or his enemy. It is the Lord from whom cometh victory ( Proverbs 21:31). He it is who teacheth our hands to fight ( Psalm 18:35; Psalm 144:1). His strength is made perfect in weakness ( 2 Corinthians 12:9). He can make the lame ( Isaiah 33:23; Micah 4:7) and mortally wounded ( Jeremiah 37:10) so strong that they overmaster the sound (comp. Jeremiah 51:45). He can make one man put to flight a thousand ( Deuteronomy 32:30; Isaiah 30:17). With him can one dash in pieces a troop and leap over a wall ( Psalm 18:29). No one accordingly should be proud. The word of the Lord, “I am against thee, thou proud one!” is a terrible word which no one should conjure up against himself.

6. On Jeremiah 50:33-34. The consolation of the Church in persecution1. It suffers violence and injustice2. Its redeemer is strong.

7. On Jeremiah 51:5. God the Lord manifests such favor to Israel as to declare Himself her husband ( Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:1). But now that Israel and Judah are in exile, it seems as if they were rejected or widowed women. This, however, is only appearance. Israel’s husband does not die. He may well bring a period of chastisement, of purification and trial on His people, but when this period is over, the Lord turns the handle, and smites those through whom He chastised Israel, when they had forgotten that they were not to satisfy their own desire, but only to accomplish the Lord’s will on Israel.

8. On Jeremiah 51:6. A time may come when it is well to separate one’s self. For although it is said in Proverbs 18:1; he who separateth himself, seeketh that which pleaseth him and opposeth all that is good—and therefore separation, as the antipodes of churchliness, i.e., of churchly communion and humble subjection to the law of the co-operation of members ( 1 Corinthians 12:25 sqq.) is to be repudiated, yet there may come moments in the life of the church, when it will be a duty to leave the community and separate one’s self. Such a moment is come when the community has become a Babylon. It should, however, be noted that one should not be too ready with such a decision. For even the life of the church is subject to many vacillations. There are periods of decay, obscurations, as it were, comparable to eclipses of the stars, but to these, so long as the foundations only subsist, must always follow a restoration and return to the original brightness. No one is to consider the church a Babylon on account of such a passing state of disease. It is this only when it has withheld the objective divine foundations, the means of grace, the word and sacrament, altogether and permanently in their saving efficacy. Then, when the soul can no longer find in the church the pure and divine bread of life; it is well “to deliver the soul that it perish not in the iniquity of the church.” From this separation from the church is, however, to be carefully distinguished the separation within the church, from all that which is opposed to the healthy life of the church, and is therefore to be regarded as a diseased part of the ecclesiastical body. Such separation is the daily duty of the Christian. He has to perform it with respect to his private life in all the manifold relations, indicated to us in Matthew 18:17; Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9 sqq.; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; Titus 3:10; 2 John 1:10-11.—Comp. the article on Sects, by Palmer in Herzog, R-Enc., XXI, S. 21, 22.

9. On Jeremiah 51:10. The righteousness which avails before God1. Its origin (not our work or merit, but God’s grace in Christ); 2. Its fruit, praise of that which the Lord has wrought in us (a) by words, (b) by works.

10. On Jeremiah 51:50. This text may be used at the sending out of missionaries or the departure of emigrants. Occasion may be taken to speak1, of the gracious help and deliverance, which the Lord has hitherto shown to the departing; 2, they may be admonished to remain united in their distant land with their brethren at home by (a) remembering the Lord, i.e., ever remaining sincerely devoted to the Lord as the common shield of salvation; (b) faithfuly serving Jerusalem, i.e., the common mother of us all ( Galatians 4:26), the church, with all our powers in the proper place and measure, and ever keeping her in our hearts.

Footnotes

10. NON TU, SED TIBI

Jeremiah 50:41-46

41 Behold, a people cometh from the north,

And a great host and many kings break up from the ends of the earth.

42 Bow and lance they bear,

Cruel are they³³ and without compassion.

Their sound roareth like the sea,

And on horses they ride equipped like a man for the battle

Against thee, thou daughter of Babylon.

43 The king of Babylon hath heard the report of them,

And his hands are feeble;

Anguish hath seized him, trembling as a parturient.

44 Behold, like a lion he ascends

From the pride of Jordan to the evergreen pasturage,

For in a twinkling I drive her³⁴ from thence,

And—who is chosen? Him I set over her.

For who is like me, and who will order me?

And who is the shepherd who may stand before me?

45 Therefore hear the counsel of Jehovah that he hath counselled against Babylon,

And his thoughts which he hath thought against the land of the Chaldeans:

Yea, they will be dragged away, the weak little sheep,

Yea, the pasturage will be amazed concerning them.

46 With the cry, “Babylon is taken,” the earth trembles,

And a crying is heard³⁵ among the nations.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

This entire passage consists of quotations, Jeremiah 50:41-43 being taken from Jeremiah 6:22-24, Jeremiah 50:44-46 from Jeremiah 49:19-21. As the prophet has already repeatedly designated the enemy as one coming from the north, it was natural to apply the former prophecy of the enemy threatening Judah from the north to Babylon, and it must also be admitted that the prophet would find it appropriate to transfer the prophecy of the chosen instrument for the destruction of Edom ( Jeremiah 49:19-21) to the similarly chosen instrument of the destruction of Babylon. Although thus the quotations here are accumulated to a degree greater than heretofore, I am yet convinced (contrary to my former view in Der proph. Jer. u. Bab, S. 128 ff.) that the passage is genuine and original. The idea of the unity of God’s judgments and of just recompense was to be represented here. This would receive no detriment, even if every single feature of the former prophecies did not seem adapted to be applied to Babylon. This, however, is not the case, for we find in the text such modifications as the application to Babylon required; daughter of Babylon, Jeremiah 50:42; King of Babylon, Jeremiah 50:43; against Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans, Jeremiah 50:45; Babylon is taken, Jeremiah 50:46; among the nations, for, in the Red Sea, Jeremiah 50:46. What is not altered is not then opposed, according to the author’s judgment, to its application to Babylon. The figure in Jeremiah 50:44 a is therefore not inappropriate. The pride of Jordan and evergreen pasturage belong to the picture. The lion, which, from the reed-thickets on the Jordan, falls upon the flocks feeding near the bank (comp. rems. on Jeremiah 49:19), is a figure which may be applied to any case of overpowering hostile attack. Likewise the description of the northern people ( Jeremiah 6:23) is by no means so special that it may not be applied to any people advancing with warlike impetuosity. Moreover, Jeremiah, when he wrote Jeremiah 6:22-24, neither had the Chaldeans specially in view, nor are they so very different from their neighbors, the Medes.

The addition and many kings in Jeremiah 50:41 is thus explained, that in the conception of the prophet the picture was present of a host of enemies, composed of many different elements (comp. Jeremiah 51:27-28).

Footnotes