Chapter 51
2024 - I notice in vs. 2 that the destroyer that comes against Babylon will come from "every side". Remember that previous prophecy said the attack would be from the north, so perhaps this is now the demarcation of the prophecy of the fall of Judah switching over to the future Babylon. In 3 it says the archers shouldn't shoot where previously it was adamant that they should. And 5 says BOTH Israel and Judah are not forgotten. In the time of Cyrus, it was only Judah that returned, Israel was long gone.
2024 - I don't think I have noticed before that there are all these prophecies that Israel, divorced Israel, is not forgotten and will also be avenged. This says Babylon will fall partly as vengeance for what they did to Israel.
2025 - There is no doubt. Israel AND Judah will return:
5 For Israel and Judah have not been forsaken by their God, the LORD of hosts, but the land of the Chaldeans is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. [Jer 51:5 ESV]
Continues with the fall of Babylon. This verse:
5 ...the land of the Chaldeans is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. [Jer 51:5 ESV]
And this one:
6 "Flee from the midst of Babylon; let every one save his life! Be not cut off in her punishment, for this is the time of the LORD's vengeance, the repayment he is rendering her. [Jer 51:6 ESV]
There was a verse like this previously, saying to get out of Babylon before she is destroyed. That one, like this, would seem to be addressed to those taken captive from Judah, and still there when Cyrus comes. But it may also have a far fulfillment in the end times. When Babylon is destroyed at that time, won't there be a few good people in it? A remnant perhaps of some of these other countries that have been named here?
2023 - I don't think the Babylon in Revelation is ever warned to flee what was coming. That seems a pretty strong indicator that this Babylon in Jeremiah is literal Babylon.
2024 - And this year, I don't think it is reasonable for Jeremiah to be telling the captives from Judah now enslaved in Babylon to flee. Slaves are not being told to leave their masters here. This is about a future Babylon.
And also this:
7 Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD's hand, making all the earth drunken; the nations drank of her wine; therefore the nations went mad. [Jer 51:7 ESV]
Really want to compare this language to Revelation.
8 Another angel, a second, followed, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality." [Rev 14:8 ESV] This is right after the sealing of the 144,000 when the three angels make their proclamations.
2 with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk." [Rev 17:2 ESV]
3 For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living." [Rev 18:3 ESV]
Is this the wine that flows freely from Babylon? Is this the characteristic that identifies her? Makes me think of all the "Utopia" books I've read. So many of them include throwing out the "old morality" and everyone having a go with everyone else. The 60's in this country were headed that way. Perhaps Babylon will be a world system that has dispensed with morality where sex is concerned. Also makes me think of Epstein's island. Will Babylon be a place like that, where any perversion is indulged? And was this island the first stab at it? You have to assume that this same characteristic was there back then, perhaps it overflowed with temple prostitutes for all its pagan gods. But I've never really heard much about that. And the next few verses say "old" Babylon was destroyed for what Neb did to the Temple in Jerusalem. God, though He used them to carry out His wrath, could not let the destruction of His own Temple pass unavenged.
2026 - Vs 7 (Jeremiah 51) above might well be like Isaiah 7:14 in that the near fulfilment is just an example of what is to come in the future. As there would have been a baby born in Isaiah's time, and Ahab's, else it would not have been a sign, maybe the fall of the original Babylon is a foreshadowing of that Babylon in Revelation.
Further, it seems to me today that the sexual immorality of future Babylon is indeed the indulgence of any urge, and it is likely a worldwide lack of sexual morality. LGBTQ is already expanding to include any and all sorts of immorality, and it is unlikely to stop. We have seen attempts to normalize pedophilia before, in France, in the Greek man/boy homosexuality and so on. Future Babylon may be fully populated with the worst kinds of sexual perverts, all patting each other on the back for their "freedom" from patriarchal mores that restricted what was just natural.
That makes sense...until you ask what any of that has to do with the collapse of an economic system. Why would the merchants weep when such a place collapsed? Unless the immorality is based in and expands from Babylon, the seat of the world government at that time, which we already know is going to control all commerce with that mark.
Of course it will be such a place and stand for such things as it controls the commerce of the world!
2023 - In relating the "fall of Babylon" here in Jeremiah, to the one in Revelation, I think it is important to note that there is NOTHING currently located. So today, it seems clear that the Babylon of Revelation is symbolic, at least to that extent. It may still be a literal city, it may be just a world economic system, it may be a corrupt world government, but it is not a place between the Tigris and Euphrates. I don't think we are close enough to the time of Babylon's fall in Revelation to unravel what those verses mean. But I think it will clear up with time. This may also mean that these prophecies in Jeremiah were about the fall of Babylon back then. Because these verses in Jeremiah have some geographical references that seem to make it pretty certain WHERE the prophecies would be fulfilled.
2023 Later - Saw a YouTube video of the "new" Babylon. It is a tourist attraction. I don't think it has residents, but there is a lot more there than nothing.
2022 - It may well be that Chapters 50,51 are near/far. They surely were about the coming demise of Babylon back in that day, but they may be even more profoundly about some future Babylon as the correlative verses above seem to indicate. Where is that future Babylon? What is it? I just don't think it is certain. I don't think Dad was certain either. Even John MacArthur feels obliged to justify his position.
Also, this verse:
11 "Sharpen the arrows! Take up the shields! The LORD has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose concerning Babylon is to destroy it, for that is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance for his temple. [Jer 51:11 ESV]
The Medes named as the coming conquerors of Babylon, so most definitely a near fulfillment of these prophecies about Babylon. And why does Babylon fall? Because they desecrated the Temple of God. They robbed it of it's treasures, it's vessels, it's gold and brass. And then they burned it. This cannot stand. Though God raised them up to do His will and lay waste to Judah, yet they must pay for their own deeds. vs thirteen mentions "...You who dwell by many waters..." Didn't think that was true of ancient Babylon, but then it was between the Tigris and the Euphrates, wasn't it? Yes...very near the Euphrates, and there is a fork in the Euphrates there. Well...A modern map shows the fork quite a ways north of Babylon. Further, the western fork is called the Euphrates. I'm not finding a name for the fork where Babylon was located. Satellite shows a dam where the fork is today. Not sure it is at the same place.
2022 - This, mixed right in, must certainly refer to the ancient fall of ancient Babylon. 2024 - Yes! This is already done. I am not finding any "formula" that separates the predictions. Perhaps the key is that when these prophecies about Babylon began in Chapter 50, it read as if this is a collection about place, not necessarily in chronological order. I think they should still be separable, and that would be an interesting exercise, but perhaps trying to apply a restriction that makes THIS organization first show the near prophecies and then gathers the far all together is not going to ever apply to geographical organization. Jeremiah could have received these prophecies over an entire lifetime, first about near, then about far, then near again. It would be a big job, but I think a worthwhile job, to snip them apart and see if a more "comprehensible" picture would emerge.
2023 - This verse:
13 O you who dwell by many waters, rich in treasures, your end has come; the thread of your life is cut. [Jer 51:13 ESV]. "by many waters" is a reference to the Tigris and Euphrates. These verses are about a physical geographical location.
2025 - I read somewhere - and it may show up later in these notes - that the area around ancient Babylon would flood, and the place would be literally surrounded by flood waters. If so, then again this prophecy ties itself directly and uniquely to that ancient fall of Babylon. It would not be about the Babylon of Revelation.
Vss 15, 16, creation:
15 "It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. 16 When he utters his voice there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses. [Jer 51:15-16 ESV]
2024 - What in the world is going on in this verse:
19 Not like these is he who is the portion of Jacob, for he is the one who formed all things, and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance; the LORD of hosts is his name. [Jer 51:19 ESV]. The only way I can see to read this is to understand Israel as the combined nation, "Jacob", as it was before the kingdom split. We have seen Jeremiah name both Israel and Judah in some places, but I don't see how in this verse that Israel alone, excluding Judah, could be what he means. Surely Jacob includes them both.
Ok, I get it now...God is described in vss 15-16. Then those who live in Babylon are shown to be stupid, and the goldsmiths who live there hammer out idols that do not breathe. False gods. Then in 19, it says God is not like those man-made gods. He is instead the God of Jacob, the God of Israel. Then in vs 20, we hear more about the historic purpose of Babylon in God's hands, as below. Babylon is the hammer.
In vss 20-23, God tells Babylon "You are my hammer..." Babylon was just a tool God used to carry out judgment on the many nations that had done evil - not just against Israel, but in worshiping idols, in not recognizing Israel's God as the true God. Great as Babylon was, she was just God's judgment.
2024 - Beginning in 2024 we see Babylon promised the same demise as was Assyria. Though these two nations were used of God to carry out his plans, they are heathen and horrible and merciless, and for "enjoying" their occupation of conquest, especially the "crimes" against Israel and Judah, they must fall.
2024 - Uh oh....this is perhaps the longest chapter I've seen so far! Sunday morning, so I need to get moving.
2023 - Another geographical reference:
32 the fords have been seized, the marshes are burned with fire, and the soldiers are in panic. [Jer 51:32 ESV]. You wouldn't say this about a world government falling.
2022 - This last part of this verse is mentioned below, but look at the beginning of it:
26 No stone shall be taken from you for a corner and no stone for a foundation, but you shall be a perpetual waste, declares the LORD. [Jer 51:26 ESV]
The idea seems to be that even though God chose Babylon, among the nations, to carry out His will and purpose, He has not made them His covenant people. They are not a replacement for Israel as His nation, but a tool to correct His true chosen. No Messiah is going to come out of Babylon. The Messiah must needs arise only from the descendants of David.
vs 26 - you shall be a perpetual waste.
The Medes and their many allies to overthrow Babylon.
vs 29 - Babylon to be desolate, without inhabitant. So it will be razed, not just conquered.
2025 -This keeps coming up. MSB, and many others, point out that all this Babylon stuff is near/far because when Babylon fell it went with a whimper. No breached gates and blood running in the streets, just a fall, and there were the Medes. What we need to remember is that the Babylon of today can be described very well by these things that didn't apply the day the Medes moved in. But over time, the wall of Babylon came down, the people were scattered, and the place fell into ruin. It became uninhabited and uninhabitable. That's how it is to day. So we do not need the Babylon of Revelation to fulfill these prophecies as near/far. They are fulfilled, and literally so. I am reminded again that we have very few clues as to the "how" of the fall of future Babylon as described in Revelation, we just know that it will fall and that the Kings and nations that had bought into what she was selling are appalled and afraid by it's fall - these are evil kings, evil nations, defying and rebelling against God even as his wrath is poured out on the whole world for the final time. These are pagans, worshiping themselves, worshiping the SoP, the false prophet, and the idol that speaks. In that sense, we can see a correlation between the cities of Babylon, old and new. But Jeremiah is NOT talking about the Babylon of Revelation, and I think we waste much time trying to make them both pieces of the same puzzle.
2022 - It seems like Jeremiah is talking in first person starting at vs 34.
vs 37 - a heap of ruins, the haunt of jackals, a horror and a hissing without inhabitant. Surely it is like this today. This has not changed. So where is the Babylon of Revelations.
A very long chapter, repeating the coming destruction, and the consequences many times.
2022 - Compare these verses:
6 "Flee from the midst of Babylon; let every one save his life! Be not cut off in her punishment, for this is the time of the LORD's vengeance, the repayment he is rendering her. [Jer 51:6 ESV]
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; [Rev 18:4 ESV]
45 "Go out of the midst of her, my people! Let every one save his life from the fierce anger of the LORD! [Jer 51:45 ESV]
39 While they are inflamed I will prepare them a feast and make them drunk, that they may become merry, then sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the LORD. [Jer 51:39 ESV]
2 with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk." [Rev 17:2 ESV]
41 "How Babylon is taken, the praise of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become a horror among the nations! [Jer 51:41 ESV]
10 They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, "Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come." [Rev 18:10 ESV]
How can we read this as anything but Jeremiah's vision of events during t/gt? The words are too similar, the images interchangeable. Jeremiah is giving us a more detailed view of what John is going to summarize later. If we would read Jeremiah with a view to these prophecies of Babylon being in great measure about still future events, might we learn more about what the Babylon of Revelation truly is? Look at this stuff in vs 46:
46 Let not your heart faint, and be not fearful at the report heard in the land, when a report comes in one year and afterward a report in another year, and violence is in the land, and ruler is against ruler. [Jer 51:46 ESV]
Surely this signifies that the fall of Babylon will be recognizable as imminent to those who know what to look for? A report, and then another report, and then widespread war as the "powerful" nation is assaulted by her neighbors? This surely seems like a real place, a real city/state that will be prominent during t/gt. Note this verse from Revelation:
16 And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, [Rev 17:16 ESV]
Even the beast will hate Babylon. She will be no part of him, but he too will war against her. This Babylon will be a place/thing apart from all else that is going on during t/gt. I will make a note in my Rev 17 notes about this. It is also interesting that Jeremiah devotes two chapters to the fall, as does Rev. I realize that chapters are "man-made", but it is still interesting to me.
2024 - The verse comparisons above are a great place to start unraveling Jeremiah's near and far prophecies...and possibly even using Revelation to confirm that we have it right!
2025 - No. At this point I do not believe they are the same at all except in the sense of God pouring out his wrath - in a physical worldly sense - on those with whom he is fed up because of their arrogance and sins and worship of almost anything so long as it is not the God to whom they owe their worship. The Babylon of Jeremiah and of Revelation can be compared to show us that when God is out of patience, things happen quickly. Places fall. No one sees it coming, they just wake up one morning and it is all over. That's how the Babylon of Jeremiah's time fell, and t hen overtime the whole area, cursed by God's wrath, falls into desolation, as Sodom and Gomorrah, as Moab, and Edom, and Philistia and Damascus. Think of what all these places cursed and prophesied about in the OT look like today. All the same. And even Israel for the most part looks just like its neighbors. Most of these prophecies are entirely and completely fulfilled. What remains are those last sentences in each one...even so she will be restored and phrases like that. They are devastated, but they will one day rise again. Egypt certainly will.
2022 - Vs 44:
44 And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and take out of his mouth what he has swallowed. The nations shall no longer flow to him; the wall of Babylon has fallen. [Jer 51:44 ESV]
Another instance of the god of a pagan nation being the object of God's wrath.
Vs 45 - 45 "Go out of the midst of her, my people! Let every one save his life from the fierce anger of the LORD! [Jer 51:45 ESV] So some of God's people will be in Babylon at the time of her fall. Easy to see this when the Medes invade. What about Revelation? Does it apply to that time?
Vs 54 sounds a lot like Revelation -
54 "A voice! A cry from Babylon! The noise of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! [Jer 51:54 ESV] In Rev 18 there are several "cries" about the fall of Babylon. In vss 10, 14, 16, 18, 19.
This verse seems to be the last one about Babylon, and speaks to the futility of man's efforts:
58 "Thus says the LORD of hosts: The broad wall of Babylon shall be leveled to the ground, and her high gates shall be burned with fire. The peoples labor for nothing, and the nations weary themselves only for fire." [Jer 51:58 ESV] 2025 - Clearly about Babylon of old.
In vs 59, a complete change. Words now from God through Jeremiah given to Seraiah for Zedekiah when Z went to Babylon. This would be after the second (?) fall of Jerusalem to Babylon? The words were that Babylon their captor was destined also to fall, and very soon. Some comfort, I suppose, for Z and those with him. Perhaps this is a tie to when Jeremiah actually received this particular prophecy about Babylon. Look at what Seraiah was to do after he had read this prophecy in Babylon itself:
63 When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, 64 and say, 'Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted.'" Thus far are the words of Jeremiah. [Jer 51:63-64 ESV]
2023 - Since this prophesy was to be taken to Babylon itself, to the great city, and it's coming destruction proclaimed, these prophecies in Jeremiah MUST have been about that old Babylon. It makes very little sense to read it otherwise. So then, what is Revelation about. Look at the verse below from Revelation!
And look at what happens in Revelation:
21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, "So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more; [Rev 18:21 ESV]
2023 - So what is it that the Babylon of old and the Babylon of the future have so much in common that the prophecy in Revelation superimposes itself so well with the ones of Jeremiah? What is the same? Old Babylon was about idols. New Babylon...the same? The abomination of desolation that the world is forced to worship? The home city of that idol and all its priesthood are what get destroyed in Revelation, a false religion with an idol at its head? That makes a kind of sense. I surely don't know what else it would be. Won't that idol be in Ezekiel's temple, which will be someplace besides Jerusalem? Starts to get complicated again really quickly.
There is a "continuation" of Jeremiah's prophecy about Babylon, but since the Babylon of Jeremiah's time still lies in ruins, I do not see what Revelation is talking about. I don't see how it can be the same place.