Jeremiah 51:1

CHAPTER LI

Sequel of the prophecies of Jeremiah against Babylon. The

dreadful, sudden, and final ruin that shall fall upon the

Chaldeans, who have compelled the nations to receive their

idolatrous rites, (see an instance in the third chapter of

Daniel,) set forth by a variety of beautiful figures; with a

command to the people of God, (who have made continual

intercession for the conversion of their heathen rulers,) to

flee from the impending vengeance, 1-14.

Jehovah, Israel's God, whose infinite power, wisdom and

understanding are every where visible in the works of creation,

elegantly contrasted with the utterly contemptible objects of

the Chaldean worship, 15-19.

Because of their great oppression of God's people, the

Babylonians shall be visited with cruel enemies from the north,

whose innumerable hosts shall fill the land, and utterly

extirpate the original inhabitants, 20-44.

One of the figures by which this formidable invasion is

represented is awfully sublime. "The SEA is come up upon

Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of the waves

thereof." And the account of the sudden desolation produced by

this great armament of a multitude of nations, (which the

prophet, dropping the figure, immediately subjoins,) is deeply

afflictive. "Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a

wilderness; a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any

son of man pass thereby." The people of God a third time

admonished to escape from Babylon, lest they be overtaken with

her plagues, 45, 46.

Other figures setting forth in a variety of lights the awful

judgments with which the Chaldeans shall be visited on account

of their very gross idolatries, 47-58.

The significant emblem with which the chapter concludes, of

Seraiah, after having read the book of the Prophet Jeremiah

against Babylon, binding a stone to it, and casting it into the

river Euphrates, thereby prefiguring the very sudden downfall

of the Chaldean city and empire, 59-64,

is beautifully improved by the writer of the Apocalypse,

Revelation 18:21,

in speaking of Babylon the GREAT, of which the other was a most

expressive type; and to which many of the passages interspersed

throughout the Old Testament Scriptures relative to Babylon

must be ultimately referred, if we would give an interpretation

in every respect equal to the terrible import of the language

in which these prophecies are conceived.

NOTES ON CHAP. LI

Verse Jeremiah 51:1. Thus saith the Lord] This chapter is a continuation of the preceding prophecy.

A destroying wind.] Such as the pestilential winds in the east; and here the emblem of a destroying army, carrying all before them, and wasting with fire and sword.