Jeremiah 51:34-35

The Cry Of Jerusalem For Vengeance (Jeremiah 51:34).

In these two verses we have the words of ‘the inhabitants of Zion', the words of ‘Jerusalem' as they remind God of what Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, had done to them. Jerusalem lay in ruins, the Temple destroyed and emptied of its treasures, the choicest of the people carried away into exile, the whole land utterly devastated. What was more they had watched as their babies' heads had been smashed against the walls of their houses, their choicest young women, and even their older women and wives, had been ceaselessly raped and left for dead, and their sons had been slaughtered. They were totally distraught.

Jeremiah 51:34

“Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me,

He has crushed me,

He has made me an empty vessel,

He has, like a monster, swallowed me up,

He has filled his maw with my delicacies,

He has cast me out.

The violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon,

Will the inhabitant of Zion say,

And, ‘My blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea,'

Will Jerusalem say.”

The cry of God's people that YHWH would see what Nebuchadrezzar had done and would avenge it on Babylon and Babylonia, is raised to YHWH. It is hugely descriptive. Nebuchadrezzar is depicted as a fearsome monster who has devoured them, who has crushed them, who has drained them of all that they had (made them like an empty vessel), who has swallowed them up, filling himself up on all their choicest things, and has then cast them away violently as unwanted scraps. And they pray that Babylon will reap the consequences of what it has done, and that their blood may be avenged on the whole of Babylonia as it thrived on its ill-gotten gains.

We must recognise that this cry was founded on what they saw as the basis of all justice, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth', neither more nor less. That was true justice. It was not until the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that the possibility was mooted that there should be forgiveness, even for such things under all circumstances, something which He Himself illustrated as He cried out on behalf of those who had crucified Him, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do'. Justice had been overridden by mercy.