Jeremiah 50:13, commentary and pictures

Because of the wrath of the Lord against her sins, Babylon was to be left uninhabited and wholly desolate, so that everyone passing by would be astonished and scorn her calamities. This belongs to the burden against Babylon pronouncing its doom, including who would take it and under what circumstances. It was fulfilled when the city and empire fell together to the Medes and Persians under Cyrus, who entered the walled city by the dried riverbed during its feast-night revelry and slew its king. The desolation was not complete at that first overthrow, but the city gradually decayed and has remained desolate for centuries in heaps and ruins where people do not settle. The prophecy is double, applying typically to literal Babylon and antitypically to modern mystical Babylon, whose final destruction under God's wrath at the end of the world leaves her desolate with all sinners punished.

Meaning and Ancient Fulfillment

Jeremiah 50:13 belongs to the burden or prophecy against Babylon pronouncing its doom and destruction, including predictions of who would take it and the circumstances attending it. The cause of the desolation is the wrath and judgment of the Lord against Babylon for its own sins and character, while He defended His people. Warning of impending judgment with an offer of mercy and healing was given to her, but the warning was ignored and the offer to heal her was rejected.

Because of that wrath Babylon would become uninhabited and wholly desolate, and everyone passing by would be astonished and hiss or scorn at all her plagues and calamities. It was fulfilled when Babylon was taken by the Medes and Persians under Cyrus, who besieged the great walled city and entered it by drying the Euphrates and marching through the open river gates during feast-night revelry, in exact accomplishment of God's word. The city and empire fell together, suddenly while Belshazzar and his lords felt secure after his reign; the city was taken by surprise and its king was killed.

Its sign was a rumor followed a year later by another rumor and then destruction. As Cyrus marched toward Babylon, after losing a sacred horse at the Gyndes River he delayed his advance for a year while his army dug channels, and then came the second rumor and Babylon's destruction. The desolation was not fully realized when the Persians first overthrew the city; the city gradually fell into decay and has remained desolate for many centuries, fulfilling the prophecy literally. Its fulfilled prediction is now seen in buried remains, heaps, and ruins where people do not settle and wild animals dwell, at which passersby are astonished.

Babylon had been used to judge Israel and Judah, but was not exempt from judgment; when its work was complete its power was broken by the Medes and Persians, and Cyrus ordered Israel's return. So the chapter is fulfilled in the history of Israel and Judah, not as a prediction of a future return to Canaan. The chapter stands as a lamenting witness to the persecution associated with pagan Babylon.

Type of Final Babylon

The prophecy is double, applying in its primary and typical sense to literal Babylon and in its emphatic and antitypical sense to modern, mystical, spiritual Babylon. That antitypical Babylon is the great apostate harlot-system ruling over the nations of the earth, and the prophecy does not foretell a rebuilding of the old city on the Euphrates followed by sudden destruction. Unlike the prophecy in Revelation which concerns apostate Babylon alone, this prophecy foretells the fall of the ancient city and empire together, coming suddenly while Belshazzar and his lords felt secure, and through them points to mystical Babylon. The doom pronounced on ancient Babylon is thus a type of the fate of the great mystical Babylon described in Revelation.

Mystic Babylon includes its daughters and embraces all corrupt Christianity, and after she rejected the proclamation that the hour of God's judgment has come, God left her forever by His Spirit and called His people to come out of her, with her destruction immediately following. The chapter sets forth Babylon's character and God's defense of His people, and its condemnation reaches also the religious system that originated in Babylon and was later perpetuated with state support. What is pictured in the wrath that leaves Babylon uninhabited and wholly desolate, so that every passerby is astonished and hisses at all her plagues, portrays the certain final destruction of modern spiritual Babylon and the whole earth at the end of the world. That is fulfilled in the final outpouring of God's wrath that leaves modern Babylon desolate, with all sinners punished in the day of the Lord at the close of this dispensation.

Babylon's ruin also represents the complete failure and destruction of Satan's effort to establish a kingdom opposed to God's kingdom. Its application reaches to the final overthrow of the nations. In that connection it supports that not all beasts and birds will perish at Christ's second coming, but will live and multiply amid the earth's ruins during the thousand years.