Jeremiah 50:32, commentary and pictures

The proud one is Babylon lifted up against the Lord in self-exaltation and refusal to glorify Him, and His sentence is that she shall stumble and fall beyond recovery with none to raise her, while fire kindled in her cities devours all round about her in vengeance, ruin and desolation. The warning was sent to ancient Babylon as a message of impending judgment and offered mercy which she ignored, leaving a record of failure to be healed. It was uttered as a burden foretelling her doom many years before it came, and was fulfilled when she fell suddenly to Cyrus and the Medes and Persians while Belshazzar feasted in security, was slain in the night of revelry, and his kingdom was numbered, weighed, divided and given to another. That overthrow did not finish her desolation at once, for the city afterward gradually declined until the prophecy was literally accomplished. The same prophecy has a double application beyond ancient Babylon to antitypical Babylon, the apostate harlot-system embracing corrupt Christianity, whose final destruction comes when God closes earthly history and punishes the ungodly in the day of the Lord.

Pride Judged and Overthrown

Jeremiah 50:32 belongs to a message of impending judgment, warning, and offered mercy sent to ancient Babylon through Jeremiah. Babylon ignored the warning, and the record of its failure to be healed remains.

The proud one is Babylon in overweening pride against the Lord, exalting self in opposition to God and refusing to glorify Him. This was seen when Belshazzar lifted himself against the Lord of heaven though he knew how Nebuchadnezzar had been deposed and driven from men until he learned that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men. For that pride God is against her, her day has come and the time of His visitation. The chapter portrays Babylon as proud against the Lord and destined for vengeance, ruin, and desolation.

Its judgment is that the proud power will stumble and fall beyond recovery with none to raise or rescue it. Fire kindled in its cities will devour all round about it, consuming the city and its surroundings and the surrounding parts and cities. This belongs to prophecies foretelling Babylon's utter desolation, portraying Babylon's character, God's judgment against it, and God's defense of His people. Its truth stands against her perverted principles while God defends His people, and her fall no one can reverse. This doom on Babylon is part of the doom pronounced on the kingdoms around Israel. It includes testimony about the persecution associated with paganism, identified as the first division of Babylon.

Foretold and Fulfilled Fall

Jeremiah 50:32 belongs to the prophecy and burden foretelling Babylon's destruction and doom. It was uttered many years before the fall, concerning the downfall of the head of gold before the silver empire succeeds it in succession, and its fulfillment is confirmed by the dispassionate testimony of historians who did not know the prophecy and had no design to show its fulfillment. It predicts the fall not merely of the city but of the empire, coming suddenly while Belshazzar and his lords felt secure. It does not predict a rebuilding of old Babylon on the Euphrates River followed by sudden destruction.

The prophecy gave a sign that first a rumor would be heard, and a year later another rumor and destruction would follow. That prediction was fulfilled during Cyrus's march against Babylon, when after a delay of about a year the second rumor came and Babylon was destroyed. Its judgment of the proud stumbling and falling beyond recovery, with fire consuming the city and its surroundings and none to raise or rescue, was fulfilled in Babylon's sudden fall to Cyrus and the Medes and Persians. The Persians entered the city through the lowered Euphrates during a night of revelry, and Belshazzar was slain. Belshazzar was a weak, dissolute, riotous, idolatrous blasphemer who exalted Babylon and her gods of gold and wood and stone, and God numbered his kingdom and finished it, weighed him and found him wanting, divided his kingdom and gave it to the Medes and Persians, and Babylon was taken on every quarter and fallen, because no might or scheme or power or wealth of man can save a city or nation that sows within herself error, confusion, destruction and death and reaps destruction as the fruit of her sowing.

The destruction was not completed when the Persians overthrew Babylon, but came ultimately as the city gradually declined and became desolate, fulfilling the prophecy literally. The prophecies of this chapter concerning Israel and Judah were fulfilled, proving they do not predict a future return of the two kingdoms to Canaan.

Type of Final Babylon

The prophecy does not predict a rebuilding of old Babylon on the Euphrates followed by sudden destruction, but the fall not merely of the city but of the empire, coming suddenly while Belshazzar and his lords felt secure. It has a double application to both ancient Babylon and antitypical Babylon, the great apostate harlot-system ruling over the nations of the earth. Ancient Babylon is a type of modern Babylon, and its record is historical prophecy whose principles are repeated in a different setting. The prophecy in Revelation refers to apostate Babylon alone.

A city includes its daughters, as the daughters of Jerusalem are part of Jerusalem and the daughters of Rabbah are part of Rabbah, so mystic Babylon includes the daughters of mystic Babylon. Great Babylon therefore embraces all corrupt Christianity. When she rejected the announcement that the hour of judgment is come, God left her and called His people to come out of her. Her destruction immediately follows that call.

The judgment on the proud power that stumbles and falls with none to raise it, with fire kindled in its cities devouring all round about, portrays God's judgment on ancient Babylon and also depicts the final destruction of modern Babylon, understood as the confused religious world, when God brings earthly history to its close. That double fulfillment reaches beyond ancient Babylon to modern Babylon and to all sinners punished in the day of the Lord as the final punishment of the ungodly and formal professors. In that final application the prophecy includes the overthrow of all nations. In that overthrow the earth's animals are not all destroyed at Christ's second coming, but survive and multiply amid its ruins during the thousand years before the wicked are resurrected.