Jeremiah 51:32-42

32 The passages are blocked, The reeds they have burned with fire, And the men of war are terrified.
33 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor When it is time to thresh her; Yet a little while And the time of her harvest will come."
34 "Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon Has devoured me, he has crushed me; He has made me an empty vessel, He has swallowed me up like a monster; He has filled his stomach with my delicacies, He has spit me out.
35 Let the violence done to me and my flesh be upon Babylon," The inhabitant of Zion will say; "And my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea!" Jerusalem will say.
36 Therefore thus says the Lord: "Behold, I will plead your case and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry.
37 Babylon shall become a heap, A dwelling place for jackals, An astonishment and a hissing, Without an inhabitant.
38 They shall roar together like lions, They shall growl like lions' whelps.
39 In their excitement I will prepare their feasts; I will make them drunk, That they may rejoice, And sleep a perpetual sleep And not awake," says the Lord.
40 "I will bring them down Like lambs to the slaughter, Like rams with male goats.
41 "Oh, how Sheshach is taken! Oh, how the praise of the whole earth is seized! How Babylon has become desolate among the nations!
42 The sea has come up over Babylon; She is covered with the multitude of its waves.

Jeremiah 51:32-42 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.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. A code word for Babylon (compare Jeremiah 25:26)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.