Jeremiah 50:24

24 I laid a bird snare for you, and you were caught, [O] Babylon. But you yourself [did] not know. You were discovered and seized, because with Yahweh you measured yourself.

Jeremiah 50:24 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 50:24

I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O
Babylon
Retorting to the stratagem that Cyrus used, in draining the river Euphrates, and marching his army up through it into the midst of the city of Babylon, and took it by surprise, while the inhabitants at night were feasting and revelling: this is said to be a snare laid by the Lord, because it was according to the counsel of his will, and through his directing and overruling providence: and thou wast not aware;
of what the enemy had done, of his march into the city, and taking of it; for, as Herodotus and Aristotle report, one part of the city was seized and taken before the other knew anything of it: thou art found, and also caught;
as wild beasts in a net, or birds in a snare. The Targum is,

``thy sins are sought, and are found, and also thou art taken:''

because thou hast striven against the Lord;
as persons litigate a point with each other in courts of judicature, or as warriors strive against each other in battle; she sinned against the Lord, and offended him, not only by her idolatry and luxury, but by her oppression of his people, and profaning the vessels of his house; as Belshazzar did, the night Babylon was taken. The Targum is,

``for with the people of the Lord thou hast strove.''

Jeremiah 50:24 In-Context

22 [The] sound of battle [is] in the land, and great destruction.

23 How the blacksmith's hammer of all the earth is cut down and broken! How Babylon has become as a horror among the nations!

24 I laid a bird snare for you, and you were caught, [O] Babylon. But you yourself [did] not know. You were discovered and seized, because with Yahweh you measured yourself.

25 Yahweh has opened his armory, and he has brought out the weapons of his wrath, for it [is] a word for my Lord Yahweh of hosts in the land of [the] Chaldeans.

26 Come against her from [the] end, open her granaries. Pile her up like heaps and destroy her. Let there be no remnant for her.