Jeremiah 25:26

of the world rightly omitted by LXX. It is clear that Jeremiah 25:25 bear traces of modification in consonance with later Jewish views as to the end of the dispensation.

which are upon the face of the earth This would not suggest to the Jewish ear, as it does to us, the thought of absolutely universal dominion on the part of Babylon. This we see from such passages as Daniel 2:38; Daniel 4:22, where the sense intended to be conveyed cannot be in accordance with the sense of the words taken literally.

Sheshach, etc.] This clause also is absent from LXX, and doubtless is a later insertion. Sheshach=Babel(Babylon) in accordance with a system of cypher writing. It took different forms, of which this (called Atbash) consists in substituting the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet for the first, the last but one for the second and so on. ShShCh will on this principle take the places of BBL. Cp. Jeremiah 51:41, where Sheshach and Babylon occur in parallel clauses. See also in Jeremiah 51:1, where the Hebrew (Le B Ka Ma Y) becomes, when thus transmuted, CaSDIM = Chaldaeans, the actual rendering of the Septuagint. They omit Sheshach in Jeremiah 51:41. The word to the Hebrew ear suggested sinking, humiliation, and thus alluded to Babylon's eventual punishment, which, however, is foreign to the thought of the passage.

shall drink after them The turn of Babylon itself shall come to perish.