Jeremiah 51

36–44 Here the Lord reassures the Jewish exiles that He will defend their cause; He will avenge them (verse 36). And then He proceeds to describe further the ways in which Babylon will be punished.¹³⁹

45–48 Again God tells the exiles to flee (verse 45). Their deliverance is not automatic or inevitable; the exiles must take an active part in their deliverance: they must run and not lose heart (verse 46).

49–50 Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain. Once again we see that the Babylonians’ mistreatment of God’s people has brought God’s judgment down upon their heads (see Jeremiah 50:1 and comment).

51–53 The exiles speak: they are disgraced, because foreigners (Babylonians) have entered the Lord’s temple (verse 51). But let the exiles be assured: the day is coming when Babylon will be punished (verses 52–53).

A copy of this prophecy was eventually brought to Babylon and read aloud to the exiles, but whether they believed it and were encouraged by it is uncertain (see verses 59–64 and comment). They should have believed it, because everything else Jeremiah had prophesied thus far had come true. Surely those exiles who did believe it would have received great encouragement from these words of the Lord spoken through His prophet Jeremiah.

54–58 In these verses, the Lord envisions the punishment of Babylon as having already begun: The sound of a cry comes from Babylon (verse 54). Babylon was about to be utterly destroyed.¹⁴⁰

59–64 In these final verses, Jeremiah describes how he gave a scroll containing his judgments against Babylon to Seraiah—the brother of Baruch, Jeremiah’s secretary (Jeremiah 32:12). Seraiah was about to go to Babylon on official business, and so Jeremiah asked him to read the scroll aloud in Babylon itself (verse 61). Then Seraiah was to throw the scroll into the Euphrates River, and as it sank, he was to say: “So will Babylon sink” (verse 64).

It’s important to recall that when Jeremiah wrote this prophecy about the fall of Babylon and when Seraiah read it aloud in the city, Babylon was at the height of its power and greatness. It surely seemed to the people living at the time that Babylon would never fall. Those who heard Seraiah read the scroll must have thought he was a madman. And yet, within fifty years the words he read would all come true!

Modern readers may wonder what Babylon has to do with them. First, the judgment upon Babylon reveals a great deal about God’s justice and His dealings with sinful human beings. But second, and more important, Babylon represents the “world”—the world of human power, pride and wealth.¹⁴¹ Babylon—the “world”—can get inside people’s hearts, and lead them to worship the things of the world— “idols”¹⁴²—rather than God Himself. It’s no wonder, then, that the Apostle John has told us: Do not love the world (1 John 2:15–17). Do not love Babylon. Indeed, says Jeremiah, “Flee from Babylon!” (verse 6). Flee from the idols of the world¹⁴³ (1 John 5:21).