Jeremiah 51:33, commentary and pictures

The daughter of Babylon is likened to a threshingfloor to declare that her appointed time of threshing and harvest of judgment in destruction and desolation was near, though the warning was given years beforehand while the city and kingdom were still flourishing. It was fulfilled in the night of Belshazzar's idolatrous feast from the vessels of the temple, when his kingdom was numbered and finished and divided to the Medes and Persians under Cyrus, as the head of gold giving place to the silver kingdom. The Babylon of Jeremiah's day is a type of the great mystical Babylon of the present day, the apostate religious world ruling the nations before Christ's coming and the end of the world. Its overthrow is therefore a picture of the final punishment of the ungodly in the day of the Lord, finding its emphatic fulfillment in the fall of Babylon the great shown in Revelation 18. She could have been healed but refused to be healed, proving that no might or wealth or scheme can save a city or nation that sows within herself the seeds of error and destruction.

Words and Ancient Fulfillment

The daughter of Babylon is likened to a threshing floor to announce that her appointed time to be threshed has come and that in yet a little while the time of her harvest will arrive. The threshing and the harvest picture the near execution of judgment upon her in overthrow, destruction and desolation, her appointed end. The prophecy was uttered many years before the fall as part of the great burden of prophecy against Babylon. It was given while the city and kingdom were flourishing, as a divine message of impending judgment, warning and offered mercy sent when iniquity was full.

The verse foretells the downfall of Babylon as the head of gold, the first kingdom, before the silver Persian empire takes its place in succession onward to the end. That overthrow came when the Medes and Persians under Cyrus captured the city. It came suddenly while Belshazzar and his lords felt secure.

The threshing floor and harvest time came in the night Belshazzar reigned as a weak, dissolute, riotous, idolatrous blasphemer and worshiper of Babylon. He feasted her greatness and drank to gods of gold and of wood and stone from the gold and silver vessels plundered from the temple at Jerusalem. In that night God numbered his kingdom and finished it, weighed him in the balances and found him wanting, and divided his kingdom and gave it to the Medes and Persians. Babylon was taken on every quarter, and the cry went out Babylon is fallen, is fallen.

Babylon was not completely destroyed when the Persians overthrew it, but declined gradually and became desolate. In this way the prophecies in chapters 50 and 51 were fulfilled literally, that she would sink and not rise again into utter desolation. The ruins by the Euphrates stand as evidence that the detailed prophecy of her doom has been fulfilled. In the setting of Jeremiah 51, Babylon's harvest is its appointed destruction as part of God's defense of His people and judgment on the Babylonian system.

Double Prophecy to Final Babylon

The prophecy against Babylon speaks of both the ancient empire and mystical Babylon, for the Babylon of Jeremiah's day is a type of the great mystical Babylon of the present day. It belongs with the prophecies from Jeremiah 46 onward pronouncing doom upon the kingdoms surrounding Israel, and it compares Babylon to a threshing floor to announce that her time of judgment is near. The ancient empire's fall came suddenly while Belshazzar and his lords felt secure.

The destruction of ancient Babylon serves as a picture of the final destruction of modern Babylon. That modern Babylon is the antitypical apostate system that rules over the nations, identified with the divided and spiritually corrupt religious world of the last days before Christ's coming and the end of the world. Her appointed harvest is the arrival of the time of judgment and destruction.

By sudden transition the verse introduces the day of the Lord in which modern Babylon and all sinners shall be punished. Its primary application to ancient Babylon is typical of the final punishment of the ungodly and of formal professors. Its emphatic fulfillment comes in modern Babylon as shown by Revelation 18, which is the fate of Babylon the great prophesied in Revelation.

The declaration that Babylon's time to be threshed had come is applied to the Roman Empire. When its iniquity was full it was crushed by the Germanic tribes. Rome had been Satan's instrument in persecuting the church and a model of Satan's civil and religious rule.

Warning and Moral Lesson

The daughter of Babylon was given a divine message of impending judgment joined with warning and offered mercy when her iniquity was full. That warning was ignored until judgment came, and she was not healed though she could have been healed but refused. Her appointed doom at its set time stands as a lesson for places, cities and people that forget and defy God, whose warnings may go unheeded until judgment comes. The lesson is a call to heed God and repent, applied to San Francisco and to other places.

The same refusal to be healed is the condition of churches that rejected the Advent message and remained in confusion and worldliness. The threshingfloor and harvest came upon her in the night of riotous, idolatrous blasphemy and self-exalting feasting, when the kingdom was numbered and finished, weighed and found wanting, divided and given to another, and the cry went out that Babylon is fallen. That fall was the ripe fruitage of her own sowing. It proves that no human might or scheme or power or wealth can save a city or nation that sows within herself the seeds of error, confusion, destruction and death.