Jeremiah 51:34, commentary and pictures

The verse is the cry of God's captive people under Nebuchadnezzar, that he had devoured and crushed them, swallowed them like a monster, stripped them empty of strength and treasured goods, and then cast them aside. Its charge against Babylon is pride and self-exaltation joined with persecution, using the power of the state to enforce false religion, oppress Christ's followers and deny them liberty of conscience. The lament stands within God's sentence of judgment upon Babylon, fulfilled when Cyrus took the city in Belshazzar's night and the kingdom was numbered, weighed and divided to the Medes and Persians, and fulfilled still more fully as the city decayed into lasting desolation whose ruins attest the word. Ancient Babylon was the type of the greater mystical Babylon, so that Jeremiah 50-51 apply typically to the old empire and city and emphatically to the apostate religious power of the last days whose punishment is portrayed in Revelation 18. Its fall therefore warns every city and nation that forgets and defies God, that no might, wealth or scheme of man can save what sows error, confusion and death.

Words and Setting

The verse is the voice of God's people lamenting what Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did to them in conquest and captivity. He devoured and consumed them, crushed them, and swallowed them up like a dragon. He made them an empty vessel, left powerless and emptied, filled his belly with their delicates and treasured goods and possessions, carried them away, and cast them out and aside.

It belongs to the chapter's portrayal of Babylon and its judgment. That chapter sets out Babylon's iniquity and character and God's defense of His people. Babylon's guilt was pride and self-exaltation, shown by Nebuchadnezzar. It was persecution of God's people by uniting religion with state power, as a religious system hostile to Christ that used state power to support religion, suppress Christ's followers, and deny them religious rights, which proves that pagan Babylon persecuted God's people.

The verse stands in Jeremiah's prophecies from chapter 46 onward dealing with the kingdoms surrounding Israel and pronouncing their doom. It forms part of the divine message of judgment, warning, and offered mercy sent through Jeremiah. Babylon ignored the warning and refused the healing God offered. She persisted in sin, so the record declares that she would have been healed but is not healed, and she ultimately fell under God's judgment never to rise again.

Prophecy, Fulfillment, and Warning

Jeremiah 51:34 stands within the great burden of prophecy against Babylon uttered many years before its fall, declaring Babylon's judgment, destruction, doom and desolation. It gives particulars about the downfall of the flourishing kingdom and city while also recording Babylon's crushing and consuming of God's people in their captivity under Nebuchadnezzar, who oppressed them, left them emptied, and carried away their possessions. As part of God's predictions concerning Babylon and its downfall, it foretells the fall of Babylon, the head of gold, before the silver empire takes its place in succession.

That prediction was fulfilled when Cyrus took the city, in Belshazzar's night when God numbered the kingdom and finished it, weighed it in the balances and found it wanting, divided it and gave it to the Medes and Persians, so that Babylon was taken on every quarter and fell. The prophecy did not require Babylon to have been utterly destroyed when the Persians overthrew it, but pointed to its eventual destruction, and the city later fell into decay and became desolate in literal fulfillment. Its ruins by the Euphrates stand as lasting witness and evidence that the prophecy was true, proved by the dispassionate testimony of heathen historians who did not know the prophecy and had no design to show its fulfillment.

The prophecy concerns both the ancient empire, city and fall and, in a larger sense, antitypical mystical Babylon, for ancient Babylon was a type of the great mystical Babylon of Revelation. Jeremiah 50-51 make a sudden transition from type to antitype and have a double fulfillment, applying primarily and typically to ancient Babylon and emphatically in the day of the Lord. In that larger sense it applies to antitypical Babylon, the apostate religious system ruling over the nations, so that in this prophecy concerning Babylon can be read the fate of Babylon the great prophesied in Revelation, when modern mystical Babylon and all sinners shall be punished as portrayed in Revelation 18, fallen under God's judgment never to rise again.

Babylon's doom is a lesson and warning to cities that forget and defy God, and the judgment that came upon Babylon warns modern cities that openly defy Him. The verse shows the fruitage of Babylon's sowing in its conquest and devastation of Jerusalem, where the king of Babylon consumed and crushed the people, took their treasured goods, and cast them aside. Fulfilled in Belshazzar's night, it proves that 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.