Jeremiah 51:53

53 Though Babylon reaches as high as the heavens and makes her fortifications incredibly strong, I will still send enemies to plunder her. I, the LORD, have spoken!

Jeremiah 51:53 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 51:53

Though Babylon should mount up to heaven
Could the walls of it, which were very high, two hundred cubits high, as Herodotus F16 says, be carried up as high as heaven; or the towers of it, which were exceeding high, ten foot higher than the walls, as Curtius F17 says, likewise be raised to the same height: and though she should fortify the height of her strength:
make her walls and towers as strong as they were high; unless this is to be understood particularly of the temple of Bel, in which was a solid tower, in length and thickness about six hundred and sixty feet; and upon this tower another; and so on to the number of eight, towers; and in the last of them a large temple, as the above historian F18 relates: but if these towers could have been piled up in a greater number, even so as to reach to heaven, it would have availed nothing against the God of heaven, to secure from his vengeance. The Targum is,

``if Babylon should be built with buildings as high as heaven, and should fortify the strong holds on high:''
[yet] from me shall spoilers come, saith the Lord;
the Medes and Persians, sent and commissioned by him, who would pull down and destroy her walls and towers, be they ever so high and strong.
FOOTNOTES:

F16 L. 1. sive Clio, c. 178.
F17 Hist. l. 5. c. 1.
F18 Herodot. l. 1. c. 181.

Jeremiah 51:53 In-Context

51 “We are ashamed,” the people say. “We are insulted and disgraced because the LORD ’s Temple has been defiled by foreigners.”
52 “Yes,” says the LORD, “but the time is coming when I will destroy Babylon’s idols. The groans of her wounded people will be heard throughout the land.
53 Though Babylon reaches as high as the heavens and makes her fortifications incredibly strong, I will still send enemies to plunder her. I, the LORD, have spoken!
54 “Listen! Hear the cry of Babylon, the sound of great destruction from the land of the Babylonians.
55 For the LORD is destroying Babylon. He will silence her loud voice. Waves of enemies pound against her; the noise of battle rings through the city.
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