Jeremiah 51:52-62

52 "Therefore behold, the days are coming," declares the LORD, "When I will punish her ¹idols, And the mortally wounded will groan throughout her land.

53 "Though Babylon should ²ascend to the heavens, And though she should fortify her lofty stronghold, From ³Me destroyers will come to her," declares the LORD.

54 The ⁴sound of an outcry from Babylon, And of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

55 For the LORD is going to destroy Babylon, And He will make her loud noise vanish from her. And their ⁵waves will roar like many waters; The tumult of their voices sounds forth.

56 For the ⁶destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon, And her mighty men will be captured, Their ⁷bows are shattered; For the LORD is a God of ⁸recompense, He will fully repay.

57 "I will ⁹make her princes and her wise men drunk, Her governors, her prefects and her mighty men, That they may sleep a ¹⁰perpetual sleep and not wake up," ¹¹Declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

58 Thus says the LORD of hosts, "The broad ¹²wall of Babylon will be completely razed And her high ¹³gates will be set on fire; So the peoples will ¹⁴toil for nothing, And the nations become ¹⁵exhausted only for fire."

59 The message which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of ¹⁶Neriah, the grandson of Mahseiah, when he went with ¹⁷Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. (Now Seraiah was quartermaster *.)

60 So Jeremiah ¹⁸wrote in a single scroll all the calamity which would come upon Babylon, that is, all these words which have been written concerning Babylon.

61 Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, "As soon as you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words aloud,

62 and say, 'You, O LORD, have promised concerning this place to ¹⁹cut it off, so that there will be ²⁰nothing dwelling in it, whether man or beast, but it will be a perpetual desolation.'

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Jeremiah 51:52-62 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 51

The former part of this chapter is a continuation of the prophecy of the preceding chapter, concerning the destruction of Babylon, Jer 51:1-58; the latter part of it contains a prophecy of Jeremiah sent to the captives in Babylon by the hand of Seraiah, with the copy of the above prophecy against Babylon, and an order to fasten a stone to it, and cast it into the river Euphrates, as a sign, confirming the utter and irreparable ruin of Babylon, Jer 51:59-64.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 20

1. Jeremiah 50:38
2. Genesis 11:4; Job 20:6; Psalms 139:8-10; Isaiah 14:12-14; Jeremiah 49:16; Amos 9:2; Obadiah 4
3. Isaiah 13:3
4. Jeremiah 48:3-5; Jeremiah 50:22, 46
5. Psalms 18:4; Psalms 69:2; Psalms 124:2, 4, 5; Jeremiah 51:42
6. Jeremiah 51:48, 53; Habakkuk 2:8
7. Psalms 46:9; Psalms 76:3
8. Deuteronomy 32:35; Psalms 94:1, 2; Jeremiah 51:6, 24
9. Jeremiah 25:27
10. Psalms 76:5, 6
11. Jeremiah 46:18; Jeremiah 48:15
12. Jeremiah 50:15
13. Isaiah 45:1, 2
14. Habakkuk 2:13
15. Jeremiah 9:5; Jeremiah 51:64; Lamentations 5:5
16. Jeremiah 32:12; Jeremiah 36:4; Jeremiah 45:1
17. Jeremiah 28:1; Jeremiah 52:1
18. Isaiah 30:8; Jeremiah 30:2, 3; Jeremiah 36:2, 4, 32
19. Isaiah 13:19-22; Isaiah 14:22, 23; Jer 50:3, 13, 39, 40
20. Jeremiah 51:43; Ezekiel 35:9

Footnotes 7

[a]. Lit "the height of her strength"
[b]. Or "voice"
[c]. Lit "is given"
[d]. Lit "word"
[e]. Or "book"
[f]. Lit "spoken"
[g]. Lit "from man even to beast"