Proclaim, and1 set up a standard;
Proclaim—do not conceal it—
Say, ‘Babylon is ataken, bBel is shamed.
Merodach is broken in pieces;
cHer idols are humiliated,
Her images are broken in pieces.’
Which shall make her land desolate,
And no one shall dwell therein.
They shall1 move, they shall depart,
Both man and beast.
“The children of Israel shall come,
aThey and the children of Judah together;
bWith continual weeping they shall come,
cAnd seek the Lord their God.
With their faces toward it, saying,
‘Come and let us join ourselves to the Lord
In aa perpetual covenant
That will not be forgotten.’
Their shepherds have led them bastray;
They have turned them away on cthe mountains.
They have gone from mountain to hill;
They have forgotten their resting place.
And btheir adversaries said, c‘We have not offended,
Because they have sinned against the Lord, dthe habitation of justice,
The Lord, ethe hope of their fathers.’
Go out of the land of the Chaldeans;
And be like the1 rams before the flocks.
An assembly of great nations from the north country,
And they shall array themselves against her;
From there she shall be captured.
Their arrows shall be like those of1 an expert warrior;
bNone shall return in vain.
You destroyers of My heritage,
Because you have grown fat blike a heifer threshing grain,
And you1 bellow like bulls,
She who bore you shall be ashamed.
Behold, the least of the nations shall be a awilderness,
A dry land and a desert.
She shall not be inhabited,
aBut she shall be wholly desolate.
bEveryone who goes by Babylon shall be horrified
And hiss at all her plagues.
All you who bend the bow;
Shoot at her, spare no arrows,
For she has sinned against the Lord.
She has agiven her hand,
Her foundations have fallen,
bHer walls are thrown down;
For cit is the vengeance of the Lord.
Take vengeance on her.
As she has done, so do to her.
And him who handles the sickle at harvest time.
For fear of the oppressing sword
aEveryone shall turn to his own people,
And everyone shall flee to his own land.
bThe lions have driven him away.
First cthe king of Assyria devoured him;
Now at last this dNebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.”
“Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land,
As I have punished the king of aAssyria.
And he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan;
His soul shall be satisfied on Mount Ephraim and Gilead.
a“The iniquity of Israel shall be sought, but there shall be none;
And the sins of Judah, but they shall not be found;
For I will pardon those bwhom I preserve.
And against the inhabitants of aPekod.
1Waste and utterly destroy them,” says the Lord,
“And do baccording to all that I have commanded you.
How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!
You have indeed been atrapped, O Babylon,
And you were not aware;
You have been found and also caught,
Because you have bcontended against the Lord.
And has brought out athe weapons of His indignation;
For this is the work of the Lord God of hosts
In the land of the Chaldeans.
Open her storehouses;
Cast her up as heaps of ruins,
And destroy her utterly;
Let nothing of her be left.
Let them go down to the slaughter.
Woe to them!
For their day has come, the time of btheir punishment.
aDeclares in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God,
The vengeance of His temple.
All you who bend the bow, encamp against it all around;
Let none of them1 escape.
aRepay her according to her work;
According to all she has done, do to her;
bFor she has been proud against the Lord,
Against the Holy One of Israel.
And all her men of war shall be cut off in that day,” says the Lord.
O most haughty one!” says the Lord God of hosts;
“For your day has come,
1The time that I will punish you.
And no one will raise him up;
bI will kindle a fire in his cities,
And it will devour all around him.”
“The children of Israel were oppressed,
Along with the children of Judah;
All who took them captive have held them fast;
They have refused to let them go.
bThe Lord of hosts is His name.
He will thoroughly plead their ccase,
That He may give rest to the land,
And disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.
“Against the inhabitants of Babylon,
And aagainst her princes and bher wise men.
A sword is against her mighty men, and they will be dismayed.
Against their chariots,
And against all athe mixed peoples who are in her midst;
And bthey will become like women.
A sword is against her treasures, and they will be robbed.
| << Jeremiah 50:3 | Jeremiah 50:5 >> |
What Does Jeremiah 50:4 Mean?
Jeremiah 50:4-6
Jeremiah 50:1 begins a two-chapter prophecy of judgment against Babylon. Babylon was the dominant world power in Jeremiah's day, 600 years before Christ.
Clearly, these verses are placed in the time just ahead of us. Is it possible, then, that at least some of the judgments pronounced against Babylon in these two chapters also actually apply to our time? Could what occurred to Babylon when God carried out His threats in the sixth century BC have been only a type of far greater end-time fulfillments against a modern Babylon?
Verse 6 plainly pictures an end-time scenario. The Israelites are even called the "lost sheep" of the house of Israel. It is as if God is saying they have forgotten who they are, and the world does not know their location either. God says they are "turned . . . away on the mountains." Mountains are a biblical symbol of large nations, and hills, of smaller ones. This prophecy foretells Israel's long-term scattering among Gentile peoples worldwide, and so thoroughly accomplished is the scattering that Israel has forgotten she began in Canaan.
Revelation 13, 17, and 18 establish that there are a Beast and a Babylon at the end time. Even as the Beast is literally an amalgamation of many nations with a strong, persecuting, religious component, so also is Babylon a literal nation with a somewhat different religious component and with an attitude that is not as animalistic as the Beast.
Just as the term "beast" shows the spirit of a group of violent, warlike, anti-God nations, the term "Babylon" reveals the source of the spirit of prideful rebellion motivating the Woman, who represents the end-time nation God calls Babylon. This is similar to God using Sodom and Egypt to illustrate Jerusalem in Revelation 11:8.
However, some people want to turn Babylon into a mere religious organization with only mystical and spiritual influence. The original city and nation of Babylon have disappeared into the sands of Iraq because God's judgments against them in Isaiah and Jeremiah were fully carried out.
However, Revelation 17-18 describes the end-time Babylon, the Great Harlot, not as simply a religious organization, not even a system, but as a literal city and nation involved in massive, worldwide craftsmanship, manufacturing, entertainment, and commerce. It is a blockbuster political and economic powerhouse, exercising global influence, over which businessmen weep when it is destroyed. They feel its loss personally, even though they are not literally a part of it, only having done business with it.
If indeed we are in the prophesied end time—and all indications suggest that we are—the only nation on earth today that fits this description as both an economic powerhouse and a great harlot, because of its broken relationship with God, is Israel led by the Joseph tribes of Ephraim (Britain) and Manasseh (America). Israel is still Israel, but it epitomizes the spirit of Babylon at the end time.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Beast and Babylon (Part Ten): Babylon the Great Is a Nation
| << Jeremiah 50:3 | Jeremiah 50:5 >> |
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