Jeremiah 51:45-46

God's People Are Called On To Flee From Babylon (Jeremiah 51:45).

This is not so much a call to God's people to return from exile, as a call to flee for their lives, deserting Babylon and all that it stood for, because of the catastrophe that was coming on it. Compare Jeremiah 50:8; Jeremiah 51:6. It is saying that Babylon was not the place for God's people to be, because it was subject to the anger of YHWH against its multitudinous sins. They were, however, to bring Jerusalem to mind (Jeremiah 51:50). And the same applies today to the ‘Babylon' represented by this world with its selfish aims and motives, and all its sexual crudeness and ‘liberality'. God's people are to flee from it, for it is under the wrath of God, and instead they are to look to the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22).

Jeremiah 51:45

“My people, go you out of the midst of her,

And save yourselves every man from the fierce anger of YHWH,

And do let not your heart faint,

Nor fear you for the tidings that will be heard in the land,

For tidings will come one year,

And after that in another year, tidings,

And violence in the land,

Ruler against ruler.”

The call, then is for God's people to flee from Babylon. We are reminded of Lot's flight from Sodom (Genesis 19:12). Babylon was subject to the same anger, an anger arising because of the sins of Babylon. God's anger is never arbitrary. It results from His aversion to sin. Note the individuality of the appeal. Each must ensure his own escape. Nor were they to fear the tidings that they would hear from Babylonia, for it was to be subject to a period of great political uncertainty, as year by year tidings of violence flowed from the land, with ruler battling against ruler.

Certainly after the death of Nebuchadrezzar uncertainty reigned in Babylonia. The rising power of the Medes and Persians threatened without, whilst the murder of Nebuchadrezzar's son Evil-merodach (in 560 BC) would be brought about by Neriglissar, Nebuchadrezzar's son-in-law, who would himself be killed fighting against Babylon's enemies (in 555 BC). His infant son Labashi Marduk would also take the throne only to be replaced within months by Nabonidus, father of Belshazzar. And Nabonidus would ‘retire' to Arabia (the details are obscure), leaving his son to rule Babylon. All was uncertainty.