Jeremiah 50:3, commentary and pictures

A northern power was to rise against Babylon and leave its territory empty and uninhabited, with people and animals alike fleeing from it. That overthrow came suddenly when the Medes and Persians under Cyrus took the city while its king feasted in false security, and then unfolded gradually until the once-great capital decayed into complete ruin. Beyond its ancient fulfillment, the same doom portrays the final destruction of antitypical Babylon, the great apostate system with its daughters that rules the nations and must fall like a millstone cast into the sea. It stands as a warning of judgment mingled with mercy that Babylon refused, showing that no human might, scheme, or wealth can save a nation whose self-exaltation sows error and death, while God vindicates His people against their oppressor.

Ancient Babylon's Desolation

A nation coming out of the north would come up against Babylon and make her land desolate, so that none would dwell therein and both man and beast would remove and depart. The desolation was bound up with her idolatry, standing alongside the confounding of Bel and the breaking in pieces of her images. The word came as a warning of impending judgment that also offered mercy, but Babylon would not be healed because she ignored the message, and destruction followed.

It foretold the fall of the Babylonian empire as well as the city, not a rebuilding of old Babylon on the Euphrates River followed by a sudden destruction. Its overthrow came suddenly while Belshazzar and his lords felt secure, on the night of Belshazzar's idolatrous feast when the kingdom was numbered and finished, weighed in the balances and found wanting, and divided and given to the Medes and Persians. Cyrus and the Persian army accomplished the conquest, with messengers crying on every quarter that Babylon is taken and the people crying Babylon is fallen, is fallen. The fall of Babylon to the Persians is the historical fulfillment of this judgment against the northern conqueror's desolating work.

The prophecy gave the sign of two rumors, with destruction following the second. Fulfillment began as Cyrus marched toward Babylon, was delayed by his work on the Gyndes, and resumed the next spring when the second rumor and the destruction followed. The desolation was not completed when the Persians overthrew Babylon, but came ultimately as the city gradually decayed and became utterly desolate. That completed ruin is visibly shown in the ruined site of ancient Babylon as an object-lesson of fulfilled prophecy.

The prophecy is already fulfilled, not a prediction of a future return of Israel and Judah to Canaan. The return occurred after Cyrus's decree, when a remnant from each tribe returned over a period of years, while those who stayed in Babylon became part of the local population. The overthrow is God's judgment on Babylon in which God defends His people against the opposing system. No might or scheme or power or wealth of man can save a city or nation that sows within herself the seeds of error, confusion, destruction and death, but her perverted principles of self-exaltation bring her confusion and destruction.

Type of Final Babylon

Babylon of Jeremiah's time is a type of the great mystical Babylon of Revelation, so the word against ancient Babylon has a double application reaching beyond that city and empire to antitypical Babylon, the great apostate harlot-system ruling over the nations of the earth. The prophecy first sets forth the fate of ancient Babylon and then turns to the day of the Lord, with ancient Babylon's final destruction portraying the destruction of modern Babylon when God brings earthly affairs to their end. Then modern Babylon and all sinners will be punished.

As the daughters of Babylon form part of Babylon itself, so the daughters of mystic Babylon form part of that great Babylon, meaning great Babylon embraces all corrupt Christianity, mother and daughters together. That whole corrupt system will be thrown down like a millstone cast into the mighty deep. The word of devastated land with none dwelling there belongs among prophecies applied to the final overthrow of the nations, yet its picture of desolation does not mean every beast and bird is destroyed. Animals may survive and multiply among earth's ruins during the thousand years between Christ's second coming and the resurrection of the wicked.

It is part of the prophecy concerning Babylon and its doom, describing Babylon's fallen condition and certain destruction. That doom was given the sign of two rumors, with destruction following the second, and its historical fulfillment began as Cyrus marched toward Babylon. A delay caused by his work on the Gyndes intervened before he resumed the march the next spring, when the second rumor and the destruction followed.