Jeremiah 50:1-10

CHAPTER NINETEEN

GOD AND BABYLON

Jeremiah 50:1 to Jeremiah 51:64 e

Eichorn was the first to deny the authenticity of Chapter s 50-51 and he has been followed by most modern critics. Cornill affirms in regard to these Chapter s that their non-genuineness has been so convincingly demonstrated that now hardly anyone can be found to defend their authenticity.[400] The critics generally consider the oracle against Babylon to be a great conglomeration which cannot possibly be traced back to Jeremiah,[401] They think these Chapter s to be the work of an anonymous prophet of the later period of the captivity who by artistic copying and imitation attempted to pass off his writing as the work of Jeremiah.[402] Pfeiffer contends that the forger concocted this poem in order to supply the missing book Jeremiah is said to have sent to the exiles in Babylon (Jeremiah 51:59-64).[403]

[400] Carl Corhill, Introduction to the Canonical Books of the Old Testament (New York: Williams and Norgate, 1907), p. 308.

[401] Lawrence Cord Hay, The Oracles Against Foreign Nations in Jeremiah 46-51 (unpublished doctoral thesis, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, 1960), p. 187.
[402] Heinrich Ewald, Commentary on the Prophets of the Old Testament (1880), V, 1.

[403] Pfeiffer, op. cit., p. 607.

The critics contend that the historical situation of the Babylon oracle is not that of Zedekiah's fourth year as claimed in Jeremiah 51:59. The people are in exile (Jeremiah 50:4-5; Jeremiah 51:54), the Temple has been destroyed (Jeremiah 50:23; Jeremiah 51:11), the author looks for a speedy overthrow of Babylon (Jeremiah 50:8-10; Jeremiah 51:24). All of these considerations lead the critics to suggest a date of about 540 B.C., long after the time of Jeremiah, as the date for the composition of this poem.

This critical objection can be met by the simple hypothesis of E. J. Young.[404] Young proposes that Jeremiah wrote a first draft of this oracle in the fourth year of Zedekiah and sent it to Babylon by Seraiah precisely as recorded in Jeremiah 51:19-61. But during his days in Egypt, after the Temple had been destroyed and the nation had gone completely into exile, Jeremiah expanded that original draft to form the oracle as it stands in the Hebrew Bible. Another possibility is that Jeremiah regarded the exile as already in progress and considered the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple as so certain that he could speak of it having already occurred in the fourth year of Zedekiah. The present writer tends to follow this latter alternative.

[404] Young, op. cit., p. 228.

A second critical contention is that the Babylon oracle is inconsistent with Jeremiah's attitude concerning Babylon. Jeremiah considered Babylon to be the servant of the Lord, appointed by God to rule the world. The Babylon oracle could hardly have come from the pen of a Chaldean sympathizer like Jeremiah. Here the critics have an erroneous view of Jeremiah's attitude toward Babylon. Jeremiah had not predicted the successes of the Chaldeans because of sympathy or admiration for them but because that nation was to be used as God's instrument of judgment upon the nations of his day. Jeremiah certainly did not regard the world rule of Babylon as interminable. He placed a limit of seventy years on Chaldean supremacy. After other nations had tasted of the wine of God's wrath then the king of Babylon must drink also. In the light of Jeremiah 25:12; Jeremiah 25:26, it is appropriate that the section of foreign nation oracles should conclude with an oracle against Babylon. It would be puzzling if such an oracle were absent.

The argument is made that an oracle against Babylon would only serve to undercut the strong emphasis in Chapter s 27-29 that the exile would be of long duration. The delusion of an imminent overthrow of Babylon was rampant among the Jewish captives and Jeremiah had done all that he could to dispel the delusion. If this oracle was sent to Babylon shortly after the deportation of 597 B.C. it would only serve to reinforce that very delusion. But the text specifically declares that the Babylon oracle was not circulated throughout the exilic community but was sunk in a symbolic act in the river Euphrates.
The critics think that the length of the Babylon oracle argues against its genuineness. It is twice as long as the somewhat lengthy oracle against Moab. Furthermore, the Babylon oracle is marked by frequent repetitions: the approach of desolation is mentioned eleven times; the capture and destruction of Babylon nine times; Israel's flight and return to Jerusalem seven times. Surely if this oracle as it stands is the product of the pen of Jeremiah it lacks originality. In reply to this criticism it should be pointed out that repetition is characteristic of the Book of Jeremiah. Surely it is not critically sound to declare a passage spurious because it can be found elsewhere in the writings of the same author. As for the length of this oracle, it is not surprising that it should be the longest. Babylon exerted a tremendous influence on tiny Judah and thus would demand from the prophet more than a passing allusion. Furthermore, it was necessary for this oracle to be included in the Book of Jeremiah so that later generations might be able to properly evaluate his attitudes toward the Chaldean conquerors.

The question of the genuineness of the Babylon oracle should not require much debate since the text itself (Jeremiah 50:1 and Jeremiah 51:60) attributes these Chapter s to Jeremiah.[405] Even the most determined negative critics admit that many Jeremian utterances, turns of thought and ideas appear in these Chapter s,[406] Furthermore, the narrative epilogue (Jeremiah 51:59-64), the genuineness of which is generally conceded, presupposes the existence of an extended anti-Babylon prophecy by Jeremiah[407] Finally, the appearance of the Medes as the conquerors (Jeremiah 51:11; Jeremiah 51:28) may be taken as proof that the oracle was written a long time before the end of the exile when the participation of the Persians would of necessity have been mentioned. On the basis of these several lines of thought the Jeremianic authorship of the oracle against Babylon appears to be fully vindicated.

[405] While the Babylon oracle is attributed to Jeremiah in the Hebrew text, the Septuagint translation omits by the hand of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 50:1.

[406] Ewald, op. cit., V, 1.

[407] C. von Orelli, The Prophecies of Jeremiah (1889), pp. 374-75.

The background of the Babylon oracle is related in Jeremiah 51:59-64. Seraiah, Zedekiah's chief chamberlain, was about to accompany his king on a trip to Babylon. Jeremiah, taking advantage of this opportunity, wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon. Seraiah is commanded to read the prophetic message aloud in the face of the city. Then the book containing the message is to be sunk in the Euphrates river. By the first act Seraiah testifies that the Lord has now declared to the city its fate; by the second, that the city will sink like the stone, never to rise again. It is clearly implied that the message read by Seraiah over the doomed city was the Babylon oracle of Jeremiah 50:1 to Jeremiah 51:58.

The material in the Babylon oracle is put together in an unusual fashion. The oracle consists of a series of poems with prose sections interspersed here and there. The basic theme is the destruction of Babylon and the deliverance of Israel. Following almost every message of doom for Babylon is a message of hope for Israel. Logical progression in the theme is difficult to detect as the prophet chooses to drive home again and again his basic point. Any outline of the oracle is arbitrary and in the very nature of the case the subdivisions will overlap.

I. THE DEFEAT OF BABYLON Jeremiah 50:1-34

In the first part of the Babylon oracle the major theme of Babylon's defeat and the minor theme of Israel's return are skillfully blended. A four-fold breakdown is observable: (1) Babylon's destruction and Israel's deliverance (Jeremiah 50:2-10); (2) Babylon's desolation and Israel's restoration (Jeremiah 50:11-20); (3) Babylon's visitation and Israel's vindication (Jeremiah 50:21-28); and (4) Babylon's recompense and Israel's redemption (Jeremiah 50:29-34).

A. Babylon's Destruction ad Israel's Deliverance

Jeremiah 50:1-10

TRANSLATION

(1) The word which the LORD spoke against Babylon, against the land of the Chaldeans by the hand of Jeremiah the prophet. (2) Declare among the nations! Publish! Do not conceal it: Babylon is captured, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is dismayed; her images are put to shame, her idols are dismayed. (3) For a nation from the north has gone up against her. He shall make her land a desolation with no inhabitant in it. Both man and beast flee, they go away. (4) In those days and in that time (oracle of the LORD) the children of Israel and the children of Judah together shall go on their way weeping and the LORD their God they shall seek. (5) They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces turned in that direction: Come! Let us join ourselves unto the LORD in an eternal covenant which shall not be forgotten. (6) My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray on the mountains; they have turned them to the mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their fold. (7) All who found them devoured them, and their adversaries said; We are not guilty because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of righteousness, the hope of their fathers. (8) Flee from the midst of Babylon and from the land of the Chaldeans go forth! Be like the he-goats before the flock. (9) For I am about to stir up and bring up against Babylon a company of great nations from the land of the north. They shall set themselves in array against her; from there she shall be taken. Their arrows shall be like a skillful warrior who does not return empty handed. (10) And the Chaldeans shall be spoiled; all of her spoilers shall be satisfied (oracle of the LORD).

COMMENTS

The oracle begins with an announcement to all the nations of the destruction of Babylon. The news spreads like wild fire as signal standards are raised in the market places of lands under Babylonian hegemony. Bel-Merodach (Marduk), the chief god of Babylon, has been shamed by what has happened to his city. The idols and images of man's making are absolutely useless when God begins to intervene in human history (Jeremiah 50:2). In spite of all those gods can do, an army attacking from the north, the Medo-Persian armies led by Cyrus the Great, have defeated Babylon. The picture is so plain in the mind of the prophet that he can describe those events in 539 B.C. as though they had already taken place. The defeat of Babylon by Cyrus was the first in a long series of disasters which that city would suffer and the place would eventually become an uninhabited desolation (Jeremiah 50:3). Jeremiah 50:3 is actually a generic prophecy, a prophetic snapshot of the fall of Babylon considered as a whole, Centuries would elapse between the events predicted in the first half of the verse and the desolation pictured in the second half of the verse.

The overthrow of Babylon is the signal for the deliverance and return of Israel and Judah. The passage is devastating to the Anglo-Israel theory which contends that Israel, the Northern Kingdom, migrated to Europe after the collapse of the Assyrian empire. Here both of the former kingdoms join together in returning in repentance to the Lord their God (Jeremiah 50:4) and to Zion the holy city. Jeremiah hears the remnant of Israel exhorting one another to join themselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten (Jeremiah 50:5). The prophecy of Israel's deliverance began to be fulfilled when Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, issued a decree granting the captives the right to return home. From that remnant which returned, God raised Up the promised Messiah who established with spiritual Israel the New Covenant, the everlasting covenant, for Which the remnant yearns in this verse.

How did God's people come to be captives in far off Babylon? Like lost sheep abandoned by their shepherds (their spiritual and political leaders) Israel had wandered away from the fold. on the mountains of Palestine they worshiped their pagan gods with immoral acts. Their resting place, the habitation of righteousness, the hope of their fathers was completely forgotten (Jeremiah 50:6). The enemies of Israel used this apostasy as an excuse for their heartless and cruel oppression of the people of God (Jeremiah 50:7). But now Jeremiah foresees an end to that dreary period of Israel's history. The hour of deliverance will come, for the Lord will stir up a company of great nations from the north country (Jeremiah 50:9) who will defeat and plunder Babylon (Jeremiah 50:10). For this reason Israel is urged to flee from the midst of Babylon, to be as he-goats who lead the flock (Jeremiah 50:8). When Cyrus conquered Babylon he allowed all peoples held captive in Babylon to return to their native lands. Israel is urged to be among the first to take advantage of this gracious act, to lead the way.