Jeremiah 51:57

57 ¹I will make drunk her officials and her wise men, ²her governors, her commanders, and her warriors; they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares ³the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

Jeremiah 51:57 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 51:57

And I will make drunk her princes
With the wine of divine wrath; that is, slay them; though there may be an allusion to their being drunk with wine at the feast Belshazzar made for his thousand lords; who are the princes here intended, together with the king and his royal family, ( Daniel 5:1 Daniel 5:4 ) ; and her wise [men], her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men:
the counsellors of state, priests, magicians, and astrologers; officers in the army, superior and inferior ones; and the soldiers and warriors, whom Cyrus and his men slew; when they entered the city; compare with this ( Revelation 19:18 ) ; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake;
be all asleep in their drunken fits, and be slain therein; and so never wake, or live more. The Targum is,

``and they shall die the second death, and not come into the world to come;''

(See Gill on Jeremiah 51:39); saith the king, whose name [is] the Lord of hosts;
the King of kings and Lord of lords; the Lord of armies in heaven and earth; and can do, and does, what he pleases in both worlds.

Jeremiah 51:57 In-Context

55 For the LORD is laying Babylon waste and stilling her mighty voice. Their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is raised,

56 for a destroyer has come upon her, upon Babylon; her warriors are taken; their bows are broken in pieces, for the LORD is a God of recompense; he will surely repay.

57 I will make drunk her officials and her wise men, her governors, her commanders, and her warriors; they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

58 "Thus says the LORD of hosts: The broad wall of Babylon shall be leveled to the ground, and her high gates shall be burned with fire. The peoples labor for nothing, and the nations weary themselves only for fire."

59 The word that Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign. Seraiah was the quartermaster.

Cross References

• 1. ver. 39
• 2. ver. 23, 28
• 3. See Jeremiah 46:18