Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Jeremiah 50:41-46
The Invaders From The North Before Whom Babylon Will Quail And Who Will Finally Take Babylon (Jeremiah 50:41).
We must not judge ancient descriptions in terms of modern geography. They had no atlases to guide them. To the Jews Egypt and North Africa was the South. The Great Sea (the Mediterranean), and the people beyond it, was to the West. The Arabian desert was to the East. All else was to the North. And major trouble always came on them from the North. The ‘people come from the north' thus indicated peoples ‘north' of Palestine in their eyes, and to them Persians, Medes, Elamites and the rest were ‘people of the north', whilst any beyond them were ‘the furthest parts of the earth'.
“Behold, a people come from the north,
And a great nation and many kings will be stirred up from the furthest parts of the earth.
They lay hold on bow and spear,
They are cruel, and have no mercy,
Their voice roars like the sea,
And they ride on horses,
Every one set in array,
As a man to the battle, against you, O daughter of Babylon.”
‘The people come from the north' here represent the Persian and Median empires made up of a great many nations and kings. They will arrive well armed with bow and spear, shouting their battlecries (‘their voice roaring like the sea'), mounted on horses whose thundering hooves would add to the ‘roaring', prepared for battle, totally merciless, and their one aim will be the taking of Babylon, where Belshazzar (Bel-sar-usur) the crown prince was in control (Daniel 5). All the emphasis is on the terrible nature of the invaders.
Babylon was at this time under the rule of Belshazzar. The ruling king, Nabonidus (Nabu-naid), was campaigning in Arabia, where he remained in a kind of isolation, possibly to pursue his studies, at the oasis of Teima (the details are obscure), having, according to the Nabonidus Chronicles. ‘entrusted the army and the kingship' to Belshazzar. Belshazzar died at the taking of Babylon, Nabonidus was arrested on his later return
“The king of Babylon has heard the reports of them,
And his hands grow feeble,
Anguish has taken hold of him,
Pangs as of a woman in travail.”
Such would be the terrible nature of the enemy that when the king of Babylon (the crown prince) heard of them he would be rendered helpless, and would suffer agonies of fear. Indeed he tried to solace himself by holding a great feast, confident that the great walls of Babylon would keep the invader at bay, little realising that at that very moment they were creeping into the city along the dried up water-course. Note the heightening of the narrative in these verses. There is an apocalyptic feel to it. The emphasis is on the fact that Babylon is doomed, just as all that sets itself against God is doomed. It is on the fact of God's inevitable final triumph.
“Behold, they will come up like a lion from the pride of the Jordan,
Against the strong habitation,
For I will suddenly make them run away from it,
And whoever is chosen, him will I appoint over it,
For who is like me? and who will appoint me a time?
And who is the shepherd who can stand before me?”
Nothing was more feared by shepherds than the season when lions, maddened by hunger, would emerge from the thicketed area by the Jordan (the ‘pride of Jordan') in order to find food. For these verses compare Jeremiah 49:19 spoken of what would happen to Edom.
The ‘pride of Jordan' was the description used of the area of thick jungle thickets on the banks of the Jordan in which many wild beasts found refuge. It was notorious for the lions that came from there seeking prey when they were hungry through shortage of prey in the thickets, when they could be a danger to men as they desperately sought for food, even entering towns and villages in their search. Compare Jeremiah 12:5; Jeremiah 25:38; Hosea 13:7. As soon as lone men saw them they ran away. They knew just how dangerous they could be under those circumstances. The picture is a vivid one as the adversary is pictured as emerging from the thickets, hungry in his quest for prey. He is the chosen of YHWH, YHWH's shepherd, emerging in YHWH's time, a time which no one else can appoint and He alone will decide.
‘And whoever is chosen, him will I appoint over it.' This may indicate YHWH's chosen candidate, who has been chosen by YHWH to take Babylon. Or it may be a challenge to Babylon to choose for themselves a champion so that YHWH may set him over them, indicating at the same time that any such appointment would be useless.
‘Strong habitation.' This may refer to their invasion of towns and villages. Alternately we may render it as ‘evergreen pasturage' or ‘secure encampment', indicating the areas where the shepherds fed their flocks, for the word here rendered ‘habitation' is used in Jeremiah 6:3 to indicate the places where shepherds encamped.
‘And who is the shepherd who will stand before me?” This could refer to the predator arising as ‘the shepherd who stands before YHWH', that is, as His true and reliable close servant, the question indicating that his identity is as yet to be seen as unknown. In this case he is YHWH's shepherd. But more likely it is questioning as to what shepherd could prevent YHWH from carrying out His purpose, the idea being that no shepherd of Babylon could hope to outface or resist Him, any more than they could hope to outface a hungry lion who had seized one of their sheep. Of course there were exceptional shepherds who did outface lions (compare 1 Samuel 17:34). But the point here is that there is no one who can outface YHWH.
“Therefore hear you the counsel of YHWH,
That he has taken against Babylon,
And his purposes, that he has purposed,
Against the land of the Chaldeans.
Surely they will drag them away,
The little ones of the flock,
Surely he will make their habitation,
Desolate over them.
At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembles,
And the cry is heard among the nations.”
The picture of the hungry lion continues as we learn of what YHWH has determined against Babylon, and what He has purposed against Babylonia. Babylon will see her young ones dragged away, in the same way as the remorseless hungry lions drag away the young of the flock, that is the more vulnerable who found it most difficult to escape. Many habitations in Babylonia would have been rendered desolate by the invaders, and even in Babylon itself, though its major buildings were preserved, the rampaging soldiery would think nothing of tearing down or burning the dwellings of the poor as they sought for spoils.
‘At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembles, and the cry is heard among the nations.' This is, of course, hyperbole. It is saying that the taking of Babylon was an earth-shaking event which changed the whole course of the history of the time, and caused men to cry out to each other ‘Babylon has been taken'. It probably seemed unbelievable. But the world was transformed almost overnight as a new more benevolent ruling power took over the empire. What represented all that was anti-God had been utterly defeated.